Gripping Beast Shieldwall

After painting up the little fellows I wanted a bit more larger scale painting and as such went for a bunch of 28's. These are the now unavailable shieldwall set (x4) that Gripping Beast used to sell. I can see why they were removed from sale as the amount of mould lines was painful and in some cases really difficult to remove. Also I had to drill out a number of hands to allow spears to be put in place. However I hope they are re-released as they are nice figures once you have sorted these two problems out.

I plan to sell them just got to decide if I need to sell them as a job lot or four sets and of course the thorny question as to how much?

 I am not sure how well these would go down with the SAGA players as they seem better suited to actual shield wall games than the more spread out skirmish style of play. That did not stop me basing them on 2p's though.

I went for bright again rather than the dour Dark Age look that is favoured by many. Not that I have anything against the dark look it's just that I agree that whilst dies were often not colour fast as today the way they were washed would have limited the die loss and you tended to dress up for battle.

I mixed in simple and more complex shields into the mix. All the figures are lacking in armour so I suspect these would be the less experienced and willing of the men involved and as such were less likely to have the posh shields of their more experienced comrades.

It's a fairly basic paint job with single colour and ink washed but on the light side so the shading is somewhat more natural. I am not such a fan of the high contrast way of shading.

So that's twenty figures, four sets of the shieldwall figures and an extra four general spear men to beef it up a little more. I have also found a further six large shield types that would mix with these well so they will also make it to the paint table, not sure if that will be this month but it's a definite possibility.

So if any one is interested in these send me an email (button near the top on the right) happy to ship at cost anywhere in the world. Now it's back to 6mm Napoleonic's that are so close to finishing.

Naughty Vikings 28mm Foundry

Almost to the end of the Challenge posts, which is handy as I am in the middle of basing up the last of my Romans. So today we have the naked berserker's from Foundry.

I would have liked more poses, though these all look fairly different I have another eight that will cause some repeats. The main issue is that you can't exactly paint the clothes different colours to mask the similar figures LOL.

You would think these would paint up faster than the clothed guys but actually took longer as I had to add more depth to the skin, not able to get away with a wash and touch up.

Time will tell if I can break my son's shieldwall with these guys or will they be beaten back with more than their ego's bruised.

I will leave you with a image of the last 28mm submission to the challenge, I still have a heap of Vikings and such to do and will be adding some to the queue once I have cleared some space. Tomorrow will see a new building in the works from Leven and tonight for me, it's time for the next Napoleonic buildings.

Progress With Saga

As often happens, you get a game in and suddenly your all fired up for more painting for a particular period. Well with my son working hard on his Anglo Danes post game it only seemed right that I would try and match his output.

First I needed to finish off the 12 figure levy unit so added these four slingers to go with my 8 bow troops. These are yet more Black Tree Miniatures and I really enjoyed working on them.

Plenty of detail to work with and poses that worked. I have managed to get a brighter finish to these than the bow troops but I have decided I am going to buy more paints in the near future after taking a close look at Kev's work. He uses a richer pallet than I do and whilst I know brighter paint wont bridge the skills gap it will give me some punch for a few planned models of 2015.

This gent is from the Gripping Beast Plastic Viking Hirdmen boxed set. Cleaned up quickly and went together well. I still have a load of figures from that boxed set and I guess more will be made from it in the future I doubt I will use them all. Maybe my son will get them done?

The shield transfer is from Little Big Man and made for the boxed set. This one tore a little but other than that went OK.

Still Gripping Beast but this time a metal warlord and came in three parts. The arm with the sword the spear and the rest allowing a few options on the exact pose. As he is my warlord he has been put on a large base. I also went bright as he is too stand out on the table well he will do that!

As he is the boss I spent extra time on shading rather than using ink and the quality sculpting certainly made it easy to get a result I was happy with.

I have about 24 more Vikings all prepped and ready for painting and these will find their way onto the table in the next couple of months, probably sooner than later. Also expect another game or two in the coming weeks, well I have to keep the boy happy don't I?  :-)

It's Not All 6mm and They are 50% Off at the Moment

Primed and Ready, including one GBM.

Given all the posts on the Waterloo Project and the Building of the Week you could be forgiven for thinking this is a 6mm Blog. In fact it's nearly been a year since I past painted anything 15mm something that may not get any correction for a fair time yet. However 28mm is getting some love and here is more reinforcements. 

I have enjoyed painting the WWII figures by Black Tree Design but that's all I have painted of theirs to date. I have to confess that the images on their website (grey primed figures) does not bring the figures fully to life and it was down to their half price sale that I grabbed 48 figures half for me and the other half for my son. I have to say the quality of both casting and sculpting is very good. Indeed I am wishing I had the extra funds to buy more at the moment as they have another 50% off sale on all infantry. You just need to join their Premier Membership (Free) and Bob's your Aunt.

Yet to start

So whilst I am busy finishing off my French I will also be doing a few 28's, some Western and more Vikings, all these will be without armour so a lot more colourful than my earlier attempts so something for me to look forward to.

With only a couple of weeks to go until The Worlds I am keen to get some of these done as I will be on the look out for a few extra figures for my Warlords base. All I have got so far from Black Tree will be either Warriors or Levy depending on what I have to offer but I have 12 missile armed, 4 axe and 8 spear, just so I can mix them up some.

Saga 2 Points of Vikings

Whilst I was on my weeks holiday I managed the last few bits on 11 Vikings allowing me to have two points of a warband. My son has 4 points already of Anglo Danes but these are not quite finished, these are going to be finished by me over the next week or so.

The image above includes the test figure I painted earlier in the year. All figures are Gripping Beast Plastics, from the Viking Hirdmen boxed set. I doubt I will paint up all 44 of them as I don't need more than 32 of them for a four point army, though I would more likely use even less than that.

 Six figures carry axes with the other six armed with swords allowing some flexibility as to how they will be used. Whilst the test figure had a lot of time spent on it, these are basic table standard as I expect them not to stand up to the rigours of playing games with my seven year old. Over time I will replace them with metals and will do a better job on them. Indeed I have 24 Blacktree figures on order as unarmoured versions to make up the 4 points. Of course my son also has a further 24 figures also coming, can you see where this is going?

The shields have the Battleflags shield decals that are made to fit these figures shields and after a few mistakes started to work well. I started with trimming them with too much of the clear decal left on. I recommend keeping close to the actual detail, less than 1mm overlap is best.

One figure in each group has a shield with two spears clasped in the shield hand these add a certain something to the group, I guess if I use them with other rules these could be used as minor commanders or such.

The right hand figure is the originally painted figure and looks a lot sharper when you check him against the others but really not so you would notice if just playing a game.

I like the various combinations you can get with the different bodies and arms etc allowing you to have a reasonably mixed force from the box. You also end up with a lot of spare parts for later use or just dumped in that bits box!

So overall I am a lot happier with the plastics than I thought I would be. I have based them on 2p coins which gives them some weight which I hope will be enough to keep them together fr a few games at least. The usual wash on top of a one colour base, in this case Nulan Oil from GW.

Three of these were used Saturday in a roleplaying session, they did not stick round to actually fight the players as they had dispatched the orc's with reasonable ease, well all except the female scout who took a kicking but that was the exception.

So my view on the plastic figures have moved in their favour to an extent. OK I still am not 100% fan but they add a good filler to your armies and can look rather nice. The biggest issue being the making them up but that was actually faster than I expected. I had got these finished except the shields weeks ago but that final stage was just an evening. Makes me wonder why I did not finish them sooner really.