The Leven levy

Finally finished off and varnished all the Leven Miniatures buildings I bought a month or so back. Keep in mind I have other buildings I have owned for longer still waiting my attention. In my defence I have also painted some of these up and will blog these over the coming days amongst other things. I still have 18 Peninsular buildings and a large base tile to paint which will be done as a single batch but I don't expect to get onto these till into the new year as I want to do a good job. Besides I need to talk to Lee on where he expects his British to go regards units etc. This we will do over a game on Wednesday.

 

Four of the European buildings with a 6mm Baccus gun and limber for scale. The house and shops on the left is a plastered exterior so I have tried to give it a bit of a worn look about it. Maybe you will get some good shots of it from the game on Wednesday. I also hope to get better shots of all the buildings on one of Lee's terrain boards to show them off a little better. The building next to this one has a arched section that through painting is supposed to look like it goes all the way through. Braver men than me would cut it out and do a good job too. The third building also looks better from the other side as it is a warehouse with a wooden section jutting out for loading and a middle story double doors. This would go well with the watermill (I think this is the one that does come with a half waterwheel that I did not need to use). Last up is another building you can carve out if you wish. I like this building quite a bit as the roof sections have nice angles to hem and not just a plain rectangular roof, not that we don't need such buildings.

 

Here is a view of the same four from the other side and as you can see plenty of extra detail. Quite a bit of thought goes into these and as it says on the website some buildings would benefit with a little filler at points but honestly you can get away without (just like me).

 

These are the smallest three buildings I bought. A pair of Oast houses for drying or roasting oats (for beer I think). From the picture on Leven's website I thought they would make reasonable peasant huts for Russia,this has not worked out as such but I can still use them. The Church is Russian. I went with a plain wood finish but could as easily gone bright white as I have seen images of this type of rural Russian Church. Again quite small but I think it will work out well as a stand alone building. As all my other Russian buildings are mounted I will do so with this one too. Indeed as I have mentioned before I plan to base most of my buildings in some worm or another.

 

The three buildings I bought with the ECW in mind. The watermill you have already seen so in the for ground we have the village smithy. I know really all stone buildings really should be the same colour as they would not have imported stone into the area if they had stone local and nor would they likely get stone from too different area's but I quote wargamers licence. The smithy is small (as it would be) and I look forward to making a base for this building. I now have about ten painted buildings specific for the ECW and another five or so that can be used outside the UK and time period so I can put together a fair sized town if required. All Lee and I need to do now is paint the figures up. The Church though is rather small and I hope a new larger version will be made. Baccus have a Church that was made by Timecast and talking to them at Castle Donnigton they said they will be adding a fair few to the British range but had no timetable as other things keep being placed ahead of them. A shame but when they will sell more of the other ranges it's hard not to agree.

 

I have to say that I like the Church though. I decided not to go with a stained glass effect as during the ECW many of the windows were smashed and replaced with plain glass. This was done by the more Puritan of Parliaments followers (often laid solely at the feet of Cromwell). Stained Glass was not reintroduced for over one hundred years and Britain now has very few original windows from this era.

 

So my view of Leven Miniatures remains high. In fact from painting them it has risen a notch. I still would like to see them a little larger to be more compatible with Total Battle Miniatures and Timecast but as long as they are not placed adjacent to these you can still mix them up without them looking too out of place. Anyone just going with Leven would have no issues as they look fine away from the others. But again on a large table they would be 100% fine if not mixed. I plan on buying more when I next need to add to what I have and given the release rate I expect that to be sooner not later.

 

 

Well my kids should be happy in the next few days as the Philistine and Giraffes look to be finished fairly soon. A little detail work on the Giraffes and the kilt and head dress on the Philistine. Looks like the Gallacian boys will be finished a little later than I hoped. More positive news is that I have prepped the fifth unit of Chasseurs leaving me with only five Hussar bases to prep and paint. These will be done once the Chasseurs have been painted as they are rather similar. I also assembled seven Japanese WWII figures and primed them along with twelve or fifteen partisans all 28mm. This brings an end to prep work as I have ran out of time and space. I still have so many figures that are either just plain lead or previously started figures (Martin's) that will need a fresh coat of primer. Well I have just about used up one can of white, good job I still have another one in hand.... well I always have the purple.