3mm Napoleonic Portuguese Infantry for Blucher

Hi Folks,

Quite literally, I have a small update today.

Here are a few more brigades of 3mm Napoleonic Portuguese infantry to add to the collection for 'Blucher'. 

These are 3mm Napoleonics from Pico Armor (sourced from Oddzial Osmy out of Poland). The figures are based on 2" x 1.75" MDF bases with a 3mm thickness and rounded corners. The thickness is to allow players to more easily pick them up and the rounded corners is simply because I like the look of them (it gives the finished product kind of a wargaming chit appearance).

The common base size for 'Blucher' calls for a 3" frontage, but I've decided to go with 2" as it allows for very large battles to be played on the 8 x 5 surface which we typically use. To provide a little more perspective, by using this 2" base scale each inch equates to 150 yards, so one square foot on the tabletop is equal to about a square mile in the game. This allows us to better recreate sprawling actions like Wagram or Vitoria on a single tabletop.

Examples of various unit types, left to right: French foot artillery, infantry and heavy cavalry

To my way of thinking, painting these figures requires a fairly minimalist approach, maintaining just a basic level of detail to communicate what the figures are supposed to be.

For the infantry, I base everything up, texture the base and then prime the whole thing black. From there, I drybrush everything a light grey and then start applying over-saturated colours. 

The way I see it is that these figures should simply convey their primary features, first being their national uniform colour, with only a nod to other elements (namely face, hands, trousers, shako and bayonet), otherwise you can easily get drawn into the rabbit-hole of trying to paint fine details which will never be appreciated when seen en mass - in fact I find that too much painted detail can make the figure too 'busy', detracting from conveying the main uniform colour: French should primarily be blue, British red, Austrians white, etc. I think of these bases almost as boardgame chits, perhaps more like three dimensional playing tokens.

Examples of three British infantry brigades moving through a Spanish hill town.

Perceptive readers will have noticed that, since I base and prime everything from the start, I leave out painting the middle ranks or any inward-facing detail. Yes, in this scale I only paint the front of the front rank, the rear of the rear rank and the top of their heads and shoulders. Early on, I discovered that after painting every figure, if found the interior facing detail is completely lost once the strips of figures are based up. It's a complete waste of time and effort. So now I just paint the perimeter of the formations and I find that you can't tell the difference between the 'all-figure-detail' bases and those which are more minimalist . 

The basework is drybrushed two tones of brown with a khaki highlight. I then use a semi-opaque green tinted model railway emulsion to provide a base tone for the light scatter of flock I apply later. I'll often use a brown ink wash to make 'tracks' behind the formations, showing where they have trampled through the terrain. I then paint a mark on the front center which is used in the rules for line-of-sight and movement (here it is red edged with yellow for the Portuguese, but would be blue for the French, white for the Austrians, etc.). Finally, I print off a 3.5mm label to affix it to the rear corner of the base (these are so we can use roster sheets to track all the unit information).

So these five bases should cover the majority of actions where the Portuguese fought with the British in the Peninsula, with perhaps a couple more needed for the climatic action at Vittoria. 

Thanks for dropping in!

The Fellowship of the Ring in Balin's Tomb

Hello Everyone!

Well, anyone who saw my opening entry for the Painting Challenge in December won't be too shocked with this post.

Picking up from my Frodo and Sam, here are the the seven remaining Companions of the Ring-bearer. All of these figures are first-run GW metals, which were a complete joy to work on. 

The eagle-eyed amongst you will see that I swapped out the 'Fellowship Gandalf' for the one from the Balrog box set. The stock Gandalf is a terrific figure, but I preferred the more dynamic pose of the Balrog one for this scene.

When I was doing the finishing touches on the Fellowship set I thought back on the scene set in Balin's Tomb and realized that I could use the same setting to depict another fellowship, that of Ori and his few remaining kinsmen in their final stand against the orcs and Balrog in the fall of Moria. 

These dwarf models are, again, venerable figures from GWs first LotR supplement, 'Shadow and Flame', released in 2003 (I was amazed I still had a few of these squirrelled away in the Lead Shed). I'm typically not a huge Dwarf aficionado, but these models were pretty darn cool, especially the heavily armoured Khazad Guard.

So, there you have it: TWO fellowships, both making their valiant stand in the Chamber of Mazarbul.

Thanks and have a great week folks!

Curt

40K Penitent Engine

Hi Folks!

Just a small past to end the work week. This time out we have a Penitent Engine from the 40K universe.

Taking a dip into the GrimDark, penitent engines are mechanical constructs piloted by super-bad sinners serving penance for some particularly heinous crime (team-killing on Xbox Live, refusing to signal when changing lanes, not picking up after their dogs, nasty things like that). Upon sentencing they are basically grafted into what equates to a dreadnought chassis and then injected with all manner of psychotropic drugs and pain inhibitors. After a quick buff and a shine they are then pointed at the enemy and released. Weee!! Death and destruction ensues. Actually, death in combat is the only way getting out of this gig, but thankfully that usually comes along pretty quickly.  As you can imagine recidivism is markedly low in the Dark Imperium of Mankind....

This model is not an official Penitent Engine (Gasp! I know, a heresy in of itself.), but rather a nicely crafted proxy from the talented folks over at Wargames Exclusive. It's an all resin kit which went together like a breeze. It came with the option of a heavy stubber for the upper pintle weapon, but that seemed a little out of character especially when you can have a huge honkin' flamethrower instead. No contest there.

This should provide some cathartic stompy-burny fun until it's blown into self-righteous scrap. 

Thanks for dropping in and have a great weekend everyone!

Curt

Sisters of Battle Tactical Squad, Immolator and Tribute Figure for Iain

The first 40K army I collected was Sisters of Battle way back in 1997. They were an all-metal range and so quite expensive to create a viable force (though I understand new plastics are now on the horizon). Nonetheless, I slowly amassed a decent sized 'army' and spent many hours painstakingly converting and painting them. 

I had a real soft spot for those gals, even though they almost always got zapped on the tabletop - I think the sculpts are still some of the best GW has produced and they just fit so well with the whole grim-dark 40K backstory.

A few years later, Lady Sarah and I were planning to take our first European vacation together as a married couple. At that time we were poor as church mice and were struggling to save our pennies for the trip. Anyway, some unforeseen expense came up that pretty much ate the piggy bank and threatened to force us to cancel our plans. Well, I did something that I'm sure a few of us have done and that's look at what's in the collection could be let go for fast, ready cash. 

After some hand-wringing I sold my Sisters collection on eBay. I remember they fetched a fairly decent price, which allowed us to have a wonderful couple of weeks loafing around France. While I wouldn't change my decision for the world, I've keenly missed those figures ever since. 

C'est la vie. 

During Challenge VII DavidB posted a wonderful force of Sisters to which I waxed nostalgia for my long-lost collection. IainW commented on the same post, complimenting Dave and saying that he had a box of unpainted Sisters that had been sitting in storage for years - I  quipped that he was a lucky sod.

Well, to my great surprise, this past summer, out of the blue, I received a large parcel from Iain containing not only his Curtgeld, but also a sizeable collection of unpainted Sisters and their attendant options. Yeah, I know, wow. Iain refused to take a penny for them - he said he just wanted to see them painted up. As you can imagine I was pretty humbled by his generosity and so was committed to getting some of them done for this Challenge - and so here we are.

Here is a Tactical Squad with an Immolator APC tagging along as support.

When cleaning up these figures for painting I was considering what colours to go with. While perusing the web I found many very interesting and vibrant schemes, but you know, I have to say that I still prefer the bog classic black and red livery. It just seems to work so nicely with the figures. 

I based the troops on 32mm MDF rounds, with a square base reserved for the Sister Superior (thanks Byron!). I then glopped on some GW texture medium to give the parched ground effect and then coloured and drybrushed to taste.

In order to give the black armour a bit of contrast I did a highlight with P3 Denim and then applied a wash mix of diluted GW Drakenhof Nightshade and Vallejo armour grey wash. 

The Immolator was good fun to put together, but I still find I'm very much hit-and-miss with vehicles, so I'd call this clanker 'functional'.

Finally, as a HUGE THANK YOU to Iain, I painted up another Sister Superior for him to have as a memento of both his minioning this year and as a nod to his very generous gesture. Thanks again, Iain! 

Curt

Casualty/Status Markers (Crows and Stiffs)

Just a small post from me to top off the workweek.

A few years ago Paul posted some fabulous crows from Zombiecide and I knew I had to get a set for myself. I managed to pick up a box on sale this past summer and then duly forgot about them until a few days ago. (Don't you love finding cool stuff in storage that you almost bought again, but caught just in time? It's like an impromptu Christmas.)

So, five bases of creepy crows. You get around 15 bases in the box which seems a little overkill.

Anyway, as you can imagine these were pretty much a doodle to paint-up. I primed them black (gasp!) and then oversprayed them a light grey. I then blasted the batch with a mixture of Drakenhof Nightshade wash and a bit of glaze. As they are fairly light plastic, I glued in some small washers in the bases to give them a bit more stability. Squawk! Done.

What to do with these? Um, well, I thought they'd make great markers to denote when units are routing. You know, 'In flight'. In. Flight. Geddit? <Sigh.> Or maybe to highlight a spot on the table where something especially horrible has occurred. Like where Sylvain has dreamt-up some fabulously clever (read: suicidal) strategy, or where Peter has accidentally dropped/toppled/smashed some miniatures. Sometimes both of these happening at the same time. Sometimes repeatedly over the course of a game. 

Come to think of it I may need some more crows...

Next, we have some casualty markers for my Italian Wars collection. I did a few of these last year and thankfully had a few unused bases waiting in the wings (thanks Byron!). I believe the two flanking ones are from Eureka Miniatures' Colonial Portuguese range, while the center one is from Artizan. Poor chaps.

Thanks for dropping in and have a great weekend everyone!

Curt