Lockdown post 13 - "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"

And so continues the painting table clear out, this guy is part of my desperados for Dead Mans Hand.

I was tempted to do a crazy colorful paint scheme but he looks too much like a badass to wear lots of bright colors.

I quite like the Great Escape minis,  at least for DMH anyways

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Lockdown post 12 - Gaming with the boys

Before you start calling the social distancing police the boys in the title refers to my kids, don't worry we're staying within our bubble here at t'club house. Like many of you, trying to keep the social aspect of our hobby going is quite challenging in these dark days,  however I'm lucky in that my kids share my love of gaming (to a degree). At 9 and 10 the gaming is simplified a little more than normal, and when I tell them that it also counts as school work they get even more interested. 

So the other day we cracked out Cruel Seas, the mechanism is simple and clean although moving the ships is fiddly but we muddled through. Here's a few pics:

We invented the scenario,  "Transport the tank on the tanker". This made good use of the boy's home made tank and my scratch built tanker, at some point I'll write a post about building it. 

The game was such fun that it inspired my eldest to invent his own version - Penguin Wars! I'll share more in another post.

So that's how I'm scratching the gaming itch, anyone got any good stories about theirs?

Lockdown post 11 - Some more Romans

A nice quick one this,  3 more Romans, this time legionnaires.

As stated in my last post they're quite small,  I've based them on good old GW 20mm squares to give them some height.  I'm running low so will have to get some more to stay consistent. 

Once I've enough for SPQR I'll probably start multi basing them for bigger games (if I get that far). Here's the gang so far.

Lockdown post 10 - Warlord Games EIR Centurion, Signifier and Cornicen

That's right, I've returned to ancients and finally finished an early imperial roman command section. 

These are the Warlord Games plastics,  I've quite a bunch of these to do, along with their bulkier auxiliaries and some nice auxiliary cavalry.

They're nice models, a touch on the small size, probably closer to 25mm than 28mm, the regular legionnaires are very samey but that just gives a nice regimented feel to them.

The decal was a tad tricky, with the NZ lockdown I've been unable to get any Microsol shop I'm unsure whether this will hold over time.

I did a coat of gloss before applying then hit it with the good old army painter dull coat afterwards so fingers crossed. 

I wonder how many I can get through before the end of lockdown?

Lockdown post 9 - Kitbashed Space Marine Lieutenant

With the holiday weekend I've missed a few days posts so I'm playing catch up!

Remember I said that GW give hot a while bunch o crap on the space marine sprue, well over the years I've acquired plenty of random bits and so I thought I'd make up my own Space Marine officer type dude.......thing.

I think the main body is a Black Templar,  the arms are from the old WFB Chaos Marauders and the back pack head two Saurus heads.

The head was a simple swap for an Empire Knight,  keeps in theme with the general idea of knights and chivalry don't ya think!

I enjoyed this one so much that I did another,  I'll save that for another time though. 

Lockdown post 8 - Bunch of junk into scenery

I tried to do a bit of casting a couple of weeks ago.  Not that movie actor rubbish but proper casting where you make a mold and then fill it with something liquid that sets hard and eureka, nifty model thingy.  At least that's the theory.  It turns our that casting is really hard, so all credit to you ingenious folks out there who can do it as business,  you'll continue to get my dollar (proper NZD ones and not that funny US stuff ;0) )

Anyway I did a test run and cast up some blocks which turned out ok (my detail pieces were terrible) so I figured waste not want not and asked my youngest son to build me some terrain with it.  10 minutes later and a quick rummage in my train bus box and he'd bashed together this (which I promptly painted,  cos why should he get all the fun).

This will see some use giving my warriors of Gondor to hide when they're getting beaten up by Mordor trolls!

Lockdown post 7 - Numidian Slingers

Does anyone remember Wargames Factory? They shut down some time ago but Warlord games acquired some of their lines (most of the good ones at least! ). Anyway I first picked up their plastic ancients skirmishers about 10 years ago and once again they have languished unloved in a box in my office, however my interest in ancients gaming is being somewhat revived so I figured I'd pull them forward in the painting queue!

I have to say they're not good minis, some of the poses are a trifle forced and like many of the Wargames Factory models you have to suggest texture and depth through painting (don't you just love metal minis where this is never an issue).

Hopefully I'll get these on the tabletop on the not too distant future, I have a whole bunch of early imperial romans to finish so I'll probably delve in to skirmish gaming using SPQR or Mortal Gods before moving on to the heavy weights like Hail Caesar or WAB!

Lockdownpost 6 - Space Marine Razorback

This is a follow on from the Rhino post as I had such fun painting it that I decided to finish my Razorback. For those of you that don't know this is a Rhino with a big gun,  and a Rhino is an APC!

This model received much the same treatment as the Rhino with random bits chosen from my bits box to give it some flavour. I did a little black lining and weathering to give it some character and get the colours to pop a little. 

As you would expect from GW this is a high quality kit although I'm not sure I could justify the NZ price tag (I got this when we lived in the UK). Both Australia and New Zealand appear to be on the receiving end of a GW hobby trade tariff that is unreasonable in comparison to the rest of the world. 

Typically GW charges an additional 66% on top of the already premium price to sell to us antipodeans so I think my continuing foray into the world of 40k will definitely be supplied from the used market.

Lockdown post 5 - Space Marine Rhino

I painted this a while ago but have finally managed to finish the detailing.  I remember when GW released the first rhino kit,  yes I'm that old! And I always really liked it,  yes it was a little small to transport 10 space marines but in terms of ground scale it looked right on the table top.  The majority of the newest GW models are too big for my taste, awesomely detailed but not quite right, although the Rhino isn't too bad and I do like how they've incorporated some of the old models aesthetics into the rhino variants.

I really enjoyed painting this although I'm really not sure about how to use it in the game, the days of the rhino rush are long gone!

I had a good rummage in my bits box to customize it, using parts from various old GW plastics to keep it in theme with my Space Marines, still not sure what theme that is but that's half the fun as I'm painting for the joy at the moment rather than to play!

Lockdown post 4 - Saxon Warlord

One of the nice things about Saga is that your Warlord has to be based on a larger base which gives the opportunity for more of a diorama feel.

This guy is one of Bill Thornhills from his Musketeer Minuatures days, and is characteristic of his clean solid style. I think you can probably still get him from Footsore. Here he is partnered up with a standard bearer to carry his personal dragon standard into battle. 

Warlords in Saga are truly brutal, even Saxon ones! I do have enough minis to field a Saxon Hail Caesar force,  just got to tidy them up a little bit. 

How's your lockdown going,  share you're mini successes through any channel you might have.  Ours is a social hobby so make sure you keep interacting with your circle!

Lockdown post 3 - Gripping Beast Saxons

Many moons ago I played a long forgotten game system called Warhammer Ancient Battles, this being the preferred game at my old club (Pennine Raiders!!!!). We ran a couple of dark ages campaigns and I chose Saxons simply because I'd read the Uhtred books by Bernard Cornwell! 

Well there is somewhere on my blog an account of one of those campaigns, have a dig around and see if you can find it.

Anyway these boys were painted about 10 years ago, and in a bit of a rush at the time so I've tidied them a little,  given some more shadow using army painter shade and black lines with a technical pen and rebased them.

 

The main reason for re-doing these was for a local Saga tourney in May however it's been postponed for obvious reasons so I now get to spend more time on tarting these boys up.

 

Lockdown post 2 - 15mm Jagdpanther

A flames of war plastic Jagdpanther, this has been sitting around being unloved on my painting table for about 2 years.  I don't even play FoW but I do have a copy of Tanks by Battlefront which my kids enjoy so this will probably make its way to the table at some point. 

It wasn't exactly a hard mini to paint, I'm quite happy with how it came out in the end. Maybe I'll use it in 15mm games I'd Battlefront ir Built Action Tank War.