Pre-Christmas Updates

Hello Folks,

May I wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year before anything else, and now onto the updates.

I have recently given out my Dice and Decks Gaming Club Secret Santa miniature - which I can now freely reveal as a Widowmaker Marksman for the Warmachine faction; Khador. This was a gift to fellow member, Rob, who was very happy to have the mini in his collection. I started it about a month and a half ago, but was unable to post any updates due to the possibilty of it's now owner realising what it was and who I was buying it for. 
The details I had to go on in terms of paint scheme offered me an interesting challenge, Rob's notes on the form from the challenge detailed a white Khador army as his colour scheme, but I wanted to obey this scheme and introduce the traditional Khador colour of bright red into the miniature. So where could I put the red without it taking interest away from the white that was too serve as the main colour on the model, so before I go any further, here's a couple of pictures that shows the partially finished model, and then the finished product as it was given over:

Three weeks ago.....

Last week...

In the end I decided since Khador is a northern and thus winter-covered area of the background world in Warmachine, I felt a marksman would require a white coat, which was also the biggest area of the model, as camouflage, so I painted this first, and then did the inside of the coat as Games Workshop snakebite leather. The red came into the painting when I decided to paint the armour that covers the Marksman's knees, shoulders, arms and torso. Whilst I left the legs as black motorcycle-style chaps with bleached bone coloured putees. The gun I was very happy with, starting with the boltgun metal that served as the basecoat on the barrel and the over-sized scope on the weapon, I then used devlan mud to darken the metal and shadow the particular components that made the weapon, such as the circular links that kept the barrel attached to the stock. The scope was done with a ultramarines blue basecoat, then I painted the half that was furtest away from the marksman in Ice Blue, before using skull white as a final highlight to make the scope look as though it was glass. All in all, I was very chuffed with the model, and would happily describe it as one of my a) favourites to paint jobs and b) one of my best paint jobs.

Next update, I've been busy, I have now got hold of three sets from the Kingdom of Britannia faction of Dystopian Legions.

I have assembled one rifle section, and the Sky Hussars, and the characters, both musicians are assembled, and one is completely finished, although there are no pictures of the fully finished version, but there are some work-in-progress pics. I have also finished two basic riflemen.

The now finished Musician from before today's progress

Rifleman 1 - without beard

Rifleman 2 - with beard

On Friday (21st Dec) I managed to play my first game, and won on surviving model's points, although the game was slow due to rules and so was not completed. I enjoyed the game, the rules work, and the game cards add a completely new to me tactic into the game.

And I have finished a Vietnam-era US sergeant, who was quite easy to paint, just got the rest of the platoon to do before a game can happen, oh, and find an opposing force...

The Sergeant has got hand-painted chevrons on his arms, but a picture was useless due to the effects of my varnish on the lighting.


I shall update with progress next weekend, as I am free to paint for the latter half of next week. Until then folks.....

Some Recent Updates.

Well, it's been two weeks since I last updated, and so what has happened?

Well, I have been working on a miniature for Dice and Decks "secret santa" style swap. Which I cannot name or provide pictures for until after the 21st of December.
I have however, got pictures of a Sniper for Secrets of the Third Reich that I finished last week, I just need to varnish it and it's completely finished.

Front View

Back View

I used a Forge-World Warhammer 40k Horus Heresy Great Crusade Army list in a game against a fellow Dice and Decks gaming club member and lost, due to 6th Edition's killpoint system, but I did have the joy of deploying my Warhound Titan for the first time since I bought it nearly a year ago. It ended the game with some damage, but did cause mayhem amongst my opponents troops when it did get them, as it spent the first few turns sniping his tanks. He did try assaulting the Titan with his Chaos Lord and a squad of Chaos Marines, but they failed to do anything but hold it still for a turn or so...

The Titan with a squad of Chaos Marines attacking it.

The Chaos Lord tries to strike something important....

On Friday Square Orange Games once again honored Dice and Decks Club with it's presence, and I managed to get my hands on the box-set of Mantic Zombie Marines, which I have built a few of already, and have nearly managed to finish one of them;

One nearly-finished Zombie, ready to terrorise the table-top.

My birthday has passed, and one gift was a Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Brittania Infantry Section, which enabled me to have a proper look at the models for the first time. I am very impressed, the models are closer to 32mm Bushido models than they are 28mm models, and are highly detailed. There are 6 such models in the box, and I am highly anticipating this coming Friday when Square Orange once again visits to provide an order of the Firestorm Armada rulebook and a Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Brittania Starter Set and a set of Kingdom of Brittania Musicians.

The Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Brittania Infantry Section as it comes out of the box.

And for now this concludes my updates, but I imagine by the end of this coming weekend there will be more to post about, such as some 28mm Vietnam US Army Models I have finally got my hands on, but have not unboxed yet. Till next week readers....

Another 2 weeks of Painting updates...

Hello again readers, 
It's been another slow 2 weeks of painting due to other commitments, but here is the progress, which is minor in some cases, and quite decent in others.
So we start with some work on the UH-1 Black Hawk helicopter I'm building to go with a 28mm Force on Force Vietnam collection, as might be obvious, the helicopter is for the US, and more specifically, the US Army.
I've got the main body glued together, along with the main rotor assembly and the tail rotor:

Main body as of last weekend

Tail and rear rotor

The main rotor blades and the assembly for them

The cockpit has also been glued into position, but the chassis barely fits in around the cockpit and interior:

There is a seating bench that fits on the pipe and box shaped part of the rear of the interior. I just need to find where I put it on the painting table.....

The poor fitting bottom of the helicopter

Now we come to this weekend on this project, and I've started doing some painting, I've undercoated the main rotors, the engine for the same rotors, and I've painted the sliding doors that fit on the side of the helicopter's body, and additionally, I've part-painted the front nose of the copter. Finally, I've started attaching the clear plastic that represents the glass parts of the body.

Under-coated rotor blades

Painted nose, shown dry-fitted to the main body of the helicopter

Under-coated engine

Side-view of the helicopter so far

Other projects of the last two weeks, I've actually assembled and started to paint another Armoured Suit for the squad of them I have for my Secrets of the Third Reich British force:

Main coat is done, now for the flag on the left shoulder, and the weapons and metal areas of the suit before attaching the head and varnishing the model. Next to the WIP model is a previously completed suit for comparison.

This coming Friday I have a Warhammer 40k game against a fellow Dice and Decks gaming club member, using Forgeworlds Space Marine Legion army list from the Horus Heresy boo, and I have a surprise involving some alterations on the force organisation chart....
Anyhoo, I've started to add some more yellow to the old Rogue Trader Land Raider, and a Veteran I started a while ago, but some problems have developed with the yellow paint being too low in pigment for an effective coat of paint, but I have some work in progress pictures anyway:

Old Rogue Trader Land Raider being souped up

One veteran, which by chance shows the size when compared to an Empress Miniatures 28mm SAS trooper

I have also done a bit towards my Dystopian Wars Land force, with work on the Landship and a base of small tanks being worked on:

The Landship so far

Very small tanks, which are very big in the fluff, and Dystopian Legions, where a concept render is available to view on Spartan Games, being equivalent to a Warhammer 40k Baneblade in size

Finally, as a end to the update, I have also begun work on one of three Cruisers for my Firestorm Armada Directorate fleet:

Just started on the basecoat

And that's another two weeks of progress, bar some work for Dice and Decks Christmas Miniatures swap, which I'm still unable to share any progress on as of yet, a few more weeks and I hope to show the finished progress once the person it's being painted for receives it.
I shall attempt to update this blog once a week as it used to be on a more regular basis again.
Until next week....

2 weeks worth of Painting updates.

Hello for the second time in as many days...

Painting, what have I been doing over the last 2 weeks?
I've done some work on my Early Imperial Romans, including a Legate on horseback, Aquilifier, and the Praetorian's Centurion - all from Warlord Games range of models:

Legate

The Legate again.

The Aquilifier as of last week.

The Centurion of the Praetorian cohort.

From two weeks ago on my painting table.

Progress on the Aquilifer from this weekend

 And I've assembled another second rank Praetorian:

In 54mm Napoleonic news, I've at long last completely finished the Rifleman I converted from one of my Victrix Peninsular Infantry set:

I'm quite pleased with this one.

Slightly different angle.

And that, rather unfortunately concludes this painting update, until next weekend after I've done some more painting.

Dystopian Legions colour scheme ideas

Hello folks, ahead of tomorrows painting updates and a visit from Dice and Decks regular visitors at Square Orange Games, I'm going to present my ideas for colour schemes for when I finally get my hands on some of the new 28mm Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Britannia miniatures from Spartan Games (All rights to their owners for the pictures used below).
Idea 1
This is taking the original colour scheme ( a take on the Zulu-war british army uniform with metal breastplates and shoulder plates), and altering the tunic and armour colour to a more Sudan-war colour scheme, see here:

Idea 2
This takes the previous idea suggested above, and takes it further by adding the tunic beige/sand colour to the trousers as well. This colour will also be used for the Pith Helmet, as in Sudan and Boer War illustrations. Anyway, here we have the diagram for this:

This blends with my background for my force and the force being collected by another potential player we discussed on Friday.
I am planning on using Vajello Model Colour; Iraqi Sand for the tunic, trousers and pith helmet, with white ammo belts and equipment pouches. Both of these ideas will change the metal armour from plain metal to a brown or tin armour colour, I'm leaning towards a light brown, rather than using Tin Bitz from Citadel/Games Workshop, as I feel this will stand out a little too much compared with the generaly light colours on the rest of the model.
A few weeks and then we'll find out which scheme I finally decide upon.
Until tomorrow's painting update then folks......

Article - Justifying your own background

Right then, here goes nothing. I'm going to try and explain a recent brainwave I've had, and to some it's not going to sound special, and to others it will, and the rest will just get confused by quite likely third option; "I won't succeed in wording it and so it'll confuse you". Anyhoo, here goes:

Background is key to this little hobby of ours, for some it's far more important that it is for others. This is a slightly over the top example.
For example; Person A states his Ultramarines represent the 3rd company of the Chapter, and they are in such and such a sector on such and such a planet on such and such a date fighting this enemy, whilst Person B then reads it and states "No! That's impossible, they are already in such and such an area fighting a different enemy on this date in the background, it's in the codex on page ....".
Well, this is going to be a complete no-brainer I expect, but here's my rather long-winded explanation for how both can be justified in terms of fluff:
You split, and create strains of the in-game world, I'm using 40k in this example as it's quickest to explain and is most likely to be well known, although I had this brainwave when I was writing some fiction for the Kingdom of Britannia force for the upcoming Dystopian Legions game (shameless advertisement there I know). E.g. the in-game world as it stands in it's original form we'll call strain 1, if you stick to it as far as novels and official codices go , it carries on being strain 1. In Person A's background his force is also the same as a force from the official background, sticking with the original example of 3rd Company Ultramarines, well, if in Strain 1 they are in a different planet to where Person A wants, then he can justify this by making Strain 2, it uses all the same places and forces as the official background, but the force isn't in the same place or potentially made up of the same characters or units as the "official" background, this creates a new Strain of background, Strain 2. This can carry on, with more and more strains, and here's a diagram showing the same principle (hopefully in an easier to comprehend way - trying to explain this went into some grey floaty universe on Friday night when I was trying to explain this to some of my friends at a local club):

So, we have a completely seperate in-background universe per person that seperates to fit their own interpretation of the in-game universe and how things work, what's in it and so forth.
This isn't saying steal a companies in-game universe for your own ends, it is merely allowing you to add to it whilst avoiding fluff-lawyers from attacking your ideas.
Hope this has made sense.
Till next time readers, when a picture-full update of this week gone and this week coming's painting progress will be posted (I've gone back to painting Romans for a little bit, as they look a bit sad clogging up the painting desk).....

New Updates of the Week - Warmachine, Dystopian Wars and Napoleonics!

Hello again folks, 
Well, I've been doing bits and bobs in terms of modelling and painting this weekend past.
My Exemplar Cinerators I bought for £7 instead of £26 (Cheers Ebay!), arrived and I've managed to build 4 and start painting 1. Despite believing I was missing a head for the one, I found it and so all models can be finished. Here's a work in progress picture:

The Unit so far

Close-up

The one painted one work in progress so far

In the realms of Dystopian Wars I've glued some more of the tanks to the bases and started painting the Landship, and it's coming along well:

The Landship so far, with the St.Paul's Cathedral styled top HQ section on (leaving these interchangable for turrets and mortars etc).

A  better view of the Landship. I do like the details on these rather small models.

More tanks ready for painting.

And after a long break, I've started doing a bit more to my Napoleonics, both 28 and 54mm tall models, I've removed the crew from the base of the 9 Pounder cannon to make the job of painting easier, and so I've started detailing a crewman, having done the basics on all of them, and I've started finally painting the actual cannon; pictures below:

A crewman so far, now just to recolour the hair, and add the yellow detail to loops and then paint the bandolier.

The cannon, I'm thinking of doing a more basic silvery metal rather than brass now I see how it looks.

In 54mm, I've been painting my rifleman, that I converted from a Victrix Penisular War infantryman. Its an interesting model, as the photos don't show the true extent, but the uniform is a dark green (Ork-hide Shade from Games Workshop), and the trim is black. I did some more work to the rifle, now just the base and a few details and it'll be done.

And that's this week's major updates done folks, hopefully some more finished stuff will be in next week's updates, certainly some progress will be done.
Until next time.....