Leven Miniatures Blood Bowl Stadium

 

Mick at Leven asked me to paint a rather large 6mm building for him, no rush he said, take your time.. he said...…

Well I did that right enough. No real excuses other than Mick made it real easy to allow it to slide. Eventually though I finally did get it done and Lee delivered it at Joy of Six (I had to work). It's not yet up on his website but I suspect it's available if you email him.

It's Leven's interpretation of a Fantasy American Football pitch first envisioned by Games Workshop as Blood Bowl. A game I really enjoyed when it came out way back when. I have even been tempted by an old copy I saw at a show, fortunately I managed to resist as I have far to many distractions as it is.

I did not quite get all the pieces to fit right when I built it up because I made the mistake of trying to do the basing at the same time. A real shame as when I dry placed them they fit perfectly together with no gaps at all.

I knew how I wanted it to look right from the off. The main focus was always the roof as I wanted to try and match the roof I painted on a wizards tower for Mick a few years back. Since taking the photo's Mick wanted flags adding to the tower tops, these I did as bright red pennants on pallet paper and attached to brass pins. Unfortunately I did not get round to taking any pictures but I felt they were a nice touch.

Leven Miniatures Soon to be Released Middle East/Egyptian Range

I was give eighteen buildings by Mike to paint at Joy of Six and have recently finally finished them all. As per usual they were good castings to work on and as they are all the same finish batch painted them for a quicker result.

Given the number of buildings I will just do group images in this post and save the individual shots for later.All will work with the current ranges though these are more ancient than the original range/

This collection tends to be a little more complex than the original range with less square buildings. The range includes temples but also more left field items such as a boat yard and even a potters workshop.

You can check out Levens facebook page here for any updates and whilst they are not yet on the site you can contact Mike for ordering information.

Not many suppliers of wargames buildings start a range with such depth, eighteen buildings as an add on for a range is something to shout about and I can't praise Mike enough for such commitment to his projects.

Many of the buildings have courtyards with tiled floors. I did think about painting some of these with lots of colour but decided that would detract from the look Mike was after.

I will certainly be buying some of these buildings for my 6mm Ancient project to mix in with the other buildings I already have. I just need to get a few of the buildings I picked up for me at Joy of Six painted before I do, otherwise I will feel the pangs of guilt. Or not......

Been a Long Time...........

This is either a Led Zep post or at least something Lead related. Well a little bit of lead and a whole lot more resin.

I actually finished painting these buildings weeks ago and had done most of the work on the tiles that they are based on. Then I kind of forgot about it for a week or two. All three buildings are from the Leven Miniatures medieval range. 

I wanted to paint up a larger farm tile that could be used for my ECW army with a view of using it for Napoleonic's without it being too much of a stretch. The farm I had in mind would have a hedge and water filled trench, nothing as grand as a moat but something that would make crossing the hedge somewhat of a problem.

The building in the foreground is MED16 Medieval Town House £2.60 here it represents the original farmhouse that has now been reduced to use by the farmhands whilst the country gentleman farmer now resides in MED12 Medieval Manor House at £3.00. 

The last building on the tile is MED15 Small Medieval Cottage £2.60 but works so very well as a storehouse. I have followed my usual basing system adding some of the Baccus figures from a mix of civilian sets. Can you spot the rather excellent Perfect 6 scenic items? I have added a mix of creates, barrels and sacks to the base to give the look of a working farm. The health & safety boys and girls won't be happy I can tell you.

I added a couple of bunches of rushes to the water to make it a bit more interesting. The water itself is layers of PVA and Army Painter intermixed with brushing's of paint to try and give the appearance of depth. Not a bad result but I am sure it would have come off better with the use of water products,

A better view of some of the Perfect Six scatter terrain. A horse is tethered near the hedge helping itself to a free meal!

The lady of the house stands at the front door looking for a man to boss around, one guy is trying to make himself invisible behind his mattock, I don't care for his chances.

Meanwhile slightly hidden is a poor fellow loading the wagon before gathering the horses ready to head off to the market. If he gets a move on he may get away before the first soldiers descend on the farm.

In all three cases I have painted the buildings at least once, indeed all three examples are on Mikes website. The original MED15 Small Medieval Cottage was done with wooden tiles whilst on my version I have used slate, both styles work well giving it a different look each time.

The hedge is simply Olive Green Bushes from Woodland Scenics glued in place with good old PVA. I am currently well on my way to painting up a whole new range for Leven and hope to have them finished if not blogged by the weekend.

Building of the Week, Another Leven Farm Tile

I'm not sure how many of these I have done now but I have quite a few and all are different. This one is no exception as two of the three buildings are firsts for me.

I was hoping for better weather so I could take the pics outside but poor light and on off rain meant that was never going to be a good idea so inside shots only I am afraid. I tried something a bit different for me and added a second stone colour to the buildings. Whilst I was doing it I really was not too sure and expected a repaint but once finished I was rather happy with the result.

The tile comprises of FAR15 Stone Farmhouse £2.50, FAR20a Farm Outbuilding £2.00 and FAR20d Farm Outbuilding (pigsty) £1.50 and bits from ACC02 Dry Stone Wall set £3.00 all of course from Leven Miniatures. 

It really belongs in a European setting and a little later than my planned use of it but with the added bits I think it can pass for a Napoleonic tile if you push it a bit.

I added a Baccus tumbril to the yard to add a little interest but also some of the Perfect Six Scenic range of scenic items. In this case one of the larger barrels from the set and a couple of the newer releases in a couple of sack clusters.

I am quite pleased with the result, the extra bits really break up the yard area and with the latest releases from Perfect Six I could have added a farmer, his dog and even a horse awaiting the tack to be brought out to be harnessed to the cart. Expect to see a few carts in the future with sacks or stacks of boxes in them. Now please kindly remember to shut that gate.

Building of the Week Leven Miniatures Grain Store

The last of the buildings for our Ancients project that I have in hand is Leven Miniatures MID12 Grain Store retailing at £3.00 though I choose a far less mundane use for this building. Instead it will represent the Government or Religious centre of the region. Having looked at a lot of mostly Persian buildings from a mix of ancient to early gunpowder periods I decided to try and be brave and go bold with the colour. This will after all set it apart from the rest of the buildings.

It's not actually quite as dark as it looks in the photo's with the dark sand colour actually more of a golden yellow. It's by far the bigger of the buildings I have bought from Leven's Middle East range which I am really pleased about.

It's also hard to see the two domes on the rear section of the building on the picture above but it's good to show some of the detail on the inner sections of the building.

I will need to buy a few more buildings to flesh out the settlement and also allow this building to be left out of games where we just need a village rather than an area of greater importance.

Like the other buildings in the range that I have painted this one has a nice texture that shows through the paint and adds to the look of the finished model.

So considering all the buildings of this range I have painted I have to say I have been very pleased with the quality and results. I wanted to keep up with the quick paints to go along with the rest of the project and indeed it has delivered on this.

Having watched a game of Commands & Colors Ancients at Kev's last week I can see us using some of the mechanics from that game used when we finally get to play a game. I have continued to build my forces up and will be looking at the Persians as a second army to start whilst Lee builds his Romans up. I doubt very much we will be ready for a game this year but I expect to get a few games sometime in 2016. That is of course if we don't just get sucked into lots of Napoleonic games.

Building of the Week Frichemont

I did not manage to get a building of the week done last week, so consider this one a double header. Leven Miniatures offer Frichermont Château (NAP10 £7.00) which is the corner building but not the whole set shown here. I hope he does go on to provide the rest of the parts as a set, though I think if you email Mike he will make a set up for you but I don't know the cost.

The only part of the complex that is known is the exterior corner buildings shown at the front of photo above. Leven have done an outstanding job of furnishing the interior facings of this building and it may not be the same as the actual building (which no one knows) it looks like it could be the actual interior work, very impressive indeed.

I am very much indebted to Craig Armstrong, who I copied outrageously, just hope Craig feels I did a good enough job.  I am not sure if Craig came up with the other buildings or it was Mikes Idea but they really work well together. 

Typically farms and château's in this part of Belgium were walled and enclosed. Originally for protection and this of course made them great defensive positions during the battle of Waterloo. So it really made sense for Frichermont to also be fully walled. 

I find the interior detail of the château really charming, gone is the external walls plainness, replaced with flamboyance and that mix of steps is simply a brilliant idea.  Top marks for this building and will go down as one of the best yet released.

I am not sure if the building on the right has been released yet, though the half hidden barn on the left was already in my to do box. It's a great looking barn that I had not paid enough attention to prior to painting this one up.

I wanted to fill out the rear of the tile so used a mix of the new Leven trees to give the look of  a wooded rear section. My plan will be to add a few more stands of trees around these to break down the abrupt end to them. 

I used more of the floor tile images I had found on the web for the courtyard. The sheet was just big enough to cover the footprint. I have other images I will be using on other tiles in future work.

Mike again has done an outstanding job on the detail. Some of the whitewashed walls really cry out for picking out detail such as the small barn next to the large barn. It was much easier to pick out the detail than you would expect as the detail is there, you just need to keep within the lines if you know what I mean.

The two barns next to each other, FAR19 (the big barn) is just £3.00 and has bags of character, the other one I don't think is yet available on it's own so another email to Mike I think LOL.

The farm house also allows for a little distress work, the chimney shows brickwork at a couple of points, points that are realistic. No random detail on these models.

Again more brick detail on the cottage and you know what I am going to say about it's availability..... 

seriously Mike your going to have to release this as a set at some point, it begs for it. I used walls I had at hand but brick walls would be a better match if it is released as well as a gateway as I did not add one to mine, oops.

So there you have it, probably about four hours painting time so quite quick and with it's finish I have just the one farm complex to paint up and another big tick in Project Waterloo's to do list. The last building is quite small with four buildings and a couple of wall sections so should be done either for next week or the week after depending when I get some of Mikes models finished for him.

Plancenoit Church - Building of the Week

This weeks building of the week was a little more involved than a typical single building. Not only was it a focal point in the battle of Waterloo but I have been given instructions by Lee to put it on a hill. Plancenoit was the scene of bitter fighting between the recently defeated Prussians and a mix of Guard and other quality French battalions. The church swapped hands several times as did most of the town. The Prussians showed that losing a battle is not always the same as being defeated as they battled away until Plancenoit was firmly in their hands and the Prussians continued to advance into the French right flank and the rest as they say is history.

So in expectation of another titanic struggle I thought it needed to look presentable. Leven Miniatures have released this building on their site this month so it's a new model (NAP09 £3.50) and is another piece in their excellent Napoleonic range.

The walls are also Leven made, ACC02 Dry Stone Wall Set, actually about one and a third sets to fit round the full base. I have used three of my Warbases, one 3mm thick and the other two 2mm thick. The corners broken off leaving rough edges and the long edges sanded to a slope.

Here the walls are suck in place but the church won't go on till near the end. The actual walls were higher and were more round in shape so I have had to accept a few compromises, none that worry me though.

The usual basing system, though the final touches would only be added once the ground and walls have been painted and the church ready to be glued in place.

I went a lot heavier with the static grass than usual as you would expect almost total grass coverage around the graves. I also added grave stones and floor stones via coffee stirrers though these could be replaced at least in part by metal ones if Perfect Six get them produced in time.

The tree is one of the ones I bought about three months ago and I like the height of the tree to balance the tile. It also helps fill in the rear corner as I did not want equal spread of the graves.

I also added clump foliage to cover some of the worst wall joints but did not want to cover them all and tried to not make them too regular so no pattern built up.

I may yet add a few figures or other furniture to add a bit more interest. The church is to one side of the town so will stand out a bit. We are using about twenty buildings for the town so the church should not stand out on it's own nor disappear into the mass.

One of the models I looked at had greenery creeping up the tower and having success with doing this on a farm tile I thought I would do it again here. Really happy with the result.

So now I have Frichermont and Le Haye to paint up and all the buildings are finished. Frichermont is prepped and ready whilst Le Haye is yet to be made available by Leven. So we are quite close to being ready. Looking at the boards with the various buildings in place, even before all the hills are added really makes the battlefield start to stand out. Really looking forward to showing you images of the boards as they stand and more once they are textured and ready to roll.

Building of the Week - Something Old & Something New

Leven Miniatures will be releasing a range of trees around June/July and I have spruced up a few bases to show them off. The image above is of a new unit just painted as I wanted at least one unit to ytry them for size.

Part of my small town and one of the tallest buildings I own from Leven is the Fachwerkhaus coming in at 55mm in height. The tree trunk is made of fire painted brown and this is also the limbs of the trees. The foliage clumps have been glued to these limbs to good effect and seem to be very well attached.

The trees certainly have a tree like appearance and as far as I know all the pieces available are of this shape and none of the ball and Christmas tree shapes of old.

Four sizes are going to be available 30, 40, 45 and 50mm. The 30mm look great for orchards and we will be adding a fair few to our Waterloo board around Hougoumont, these are the last images shown of the post.

Here you can see the limbs a bit better. Far more realistic than the ones I have of old. Whilst I am not at liberty to reveal the prices they are typically Leven attractive and I expect Leven will be getting a few side orders of tree with building orders.

Anyone remember the farm painting tutorial? Well this tile is now known as Orchard Farm. I had planned to put six trees on the base but could not squeeze the extra two on without getting too close to the house.

Still I think they give the right impression. I am not sure how many we will need but have ordered forty of that one alone so we are sure to have enough and I have plenty of farms that need produce.

We will use the trees as a general mix making use of all sizes with the smallest also being used at the edges of the woods to represent younger trees. Given the pricing you can afford to be generous with your battlefield.

The trees do not come with bases but they are easy enough to knock out. In this case it suits to drill holes into the tile and glue them in place. Other ones will be either glued to pennies or some form of irregular base to hold a few trees.