Prussians Start The Final Lap

I had November off from painting the little guys, not because I needed it off but the mantle of finishing off the Project Waterloo figures became somewhat heavier than in reality it was. So once the 6th landed I was off and running and it sure felt good. I still have a few bits to finish before the figure side of Project Waterloo is put to bed but I am fairly confident they will be done before December is out. That's ahead of schedule by five months, plenty to be happy about.

This is the 1st Silesia Landwehr Regiment and the last part of the infantry I need for the IV Corp. Not that I have painted up all the infantry that makes up the Corp but all I will need for the Waterloo game. At some point in the future I will get round to painting up all the other troops from all four Corps but before then I will be taking a break from painting up any more Prussians though other Napoleonic's will cross the painting table. Mostly Spanish, Polish and French allies but that is next year.

The 1st Silesia had Jagers attached so I got to paint them up in green for a change. The battalions are all Adler whilst the Jagers are Baccus and actually work OK together even though the Baccus are thicker set.

I cut all the Adler from their longer bases so they were not as loosely spaced and this went better than it had done in the past though it does add a little to the time taken and you end up with a little mountain of snips.

Here is the second battalion, again in column, maybe they are out of step as their mounted officer just can not stand to watch them any longer.

The yellow was it's usual challenge but Vallejo Flat Yellow to the rescue. I used a black primer instead of the usual blue I have used for most of the previous units.

Not sure what happened with the 3rd Battalion images which is a shame as it was the only one in line. So what next? I still have two Landwehr cavalry regiments, another regular Lancer regiment and a single limber and that's the lot. Should get them up straight after the bonus round. More 6mm to be blogged here that has already been published in the Challenge but I will drip feed you here ;-)

Warbases Horses

I have finally got round to painting the 28mm Warbases horses that I bought way back and of course they took no time at all to paint up making the delay the more unforgivable. These will allow either the stage coach or the wagon to move in a cowboy game opening up all sorts of possibilities.

These are £2.50 each which I think is a little on the high side but saying this you do get a fair bit of lead and I have to stress that I have not tried comparing them. They go well with the Warbase stage coach so at the end of the day I am not moaning and am happy with the money spent, just not used to 28mm costs I am guessing.

I am fairly sure a set of moving horses are in the pipeline as well as the luggage and crew for the stage coach so I will be getting these as well so you can judge for yourself how the price effects me LOL.

These were painted pre-challenge so do not count towards me score but did get another PLUS off my score board for the lead mountain so got to be good. In fact expect the mountain to sustain a good number of body blows throughout the coming weeks as I rip chunks out of it yep fighting words.

Talking of the challenge I have my first submission in and I have almost finished my second one meaning I will have scored over 100 points in the first week but it is bound to slow down as I have a number of other projects as well as real life to cut into the painting time. However I also have a good number of posts planned so that the next three months will not just be a steady flow of painted figures. Though traffic is down some especially Friday as everyone seemed to be doing painting bingo. Eyes down for a full paint job.

First Saga Tilt AAR

My son has fallen off the painting buzz at the moment, lots of other things going off so I thought it would be good to get in a game to get his interest back, after all it works with me. We just went with what we had painted up so I had three units of Hearthguard (four figs elite) and a depleted levy bow unit of eight instead of twelve. I even had to field my unpainted leader. My son had three Hearthguard and two warrior (eight figure units) and his painted leader. So I was playing with five dice against his seven but with me having read the rules and played other games seemed a fair difference.

My right flank was two units of Hearthguard with the left the third unit. The centre was made up of the levies. I was facing what seemed a hundred figures and he had set them up mostly on the hill I was facing.

The bright green is broken ground so could be fired over but would slow down movement, neither happened. My son had one unit painted up by Gary Amos and Loki all the rest are his own work though I had painted some of the shields for him. 

I started to move towards the warriors on his left flank hoping to beat them with the better quality elites but he saw the move and countered with one of his own Hearthguard, so much for going against a eight year old sheep!

He picked up some of the nuances of the Battleboard and was re-rolling dice and changing others at a fair lick. We were trading blows each losing an odd figure.

I managed to get two units to attack the same opponent one after the other which left him with just the one figure left in the unit. He was to move it into cover behind his warlord at his first opportunity.

Try as I might I was not managing to get rid of any of my sons units I could get them down to one man but he would drop them back out of the direct fight. I have the ability to remove the last three figures that are not Hearthguard so was not able to sweep them up.

My son had made a Hearthguard up of the figures given to him and painted by Gary A and Loki, he was looking at attacking my levies with them but also had a two figure Hearthguard as a possible target as well

The hill was now home to a shattered collection of Ango Dane units he was to move his warlord forward to fight alongside his last full strength Hearthguard and what was left of his warriors but by the time he got into position Loki was on his own and the warriors were quite beaten up.

Loki was a real mean guy though, I threw attack after attack at him and he refused to die saving one wound after another. Finally he went down but by then I had a stack of fatigue and was having to rest just about everyone. The game finally finished with my son's warlord being killed but I was almost out of troops as well by then.

So a close game and we had a lot of fun. Doubtless I did things wrong but overall I think I got most things. We both had a reasonable idea of how the game plays and are eager for another game. It's even got him back to the painting desk as he works on another points worth of troops, Levies this time.

Also played a game of Hail Caesar over at Kev's last Friday night but I forgot to take photo's. Lots of fun and laughs but I will leave it to Kev to do the AAR.

Challenge Day 1-2

Got off to a great start in the Analogue Painting Challenge, the first day saw me on holiday so I started early putting in a couple of hours before going out for the day with Cath. Back early enough to grab another hour and also got plenty of the evening. 

Today not so good, a couple of hours before taking the kids swimming and again after before we went to Nottingham to try out the food stalls etc. When I got back I was busted and had to cancel a game session and just too tired when I came round to do much. Spent half an hour gunking the bases which is what you see above. Sunday morning should see the bases drybrushed, flocked and varnished. Should have the flags on before lunch.

Building of the Week - Leven Farm Tile

With me not wanting to start any figures until tomorrow it has given me the opportunity to start catching up with the buildings I still have awaiting painting. The plan as mentioned is to paint at least 24 during the next three months. I have a bunch of recent(ish) releases by Leven Miniatures that I have yet to paint and as such these are the main targets for the coming months though I will be buying yet more of the other new releases as well.

This was previewed a few days ago but only the buildings and walls were painted. A second session was needed to do the rest. So about two and a half to three hours in total excluding prep work to get this tile painted up including the ground work. Nice and fast which is always a bonus.

I added one of the new trees to the base, something you will see more of as they are so cheap it would be silly not to add another point of interest to the tile. I plan to buy other shapes of trees from the same company next year.

The barn is FAR17 priced at £3 and as all the buildings on this tile was made to complement the two farmhouses FAR13 and FAR15 so you can mix and match these with the FAR20 series to get a real mix of looks over a number of tiles as you will see in the coming months.

FAR20C left and FAR20B right at the rear of the tile and the original FAR13 farmhouse. The two outbuildings are £2 each and £2.50 for the farmhouse. The walls are also by Leven in the accessory section, a full set costing just £3 and you get 4 straights and 4 corner sections. One of the straights has a traditional gate section.

 Typical of Leven the detail is great the structures believable and demands a fairly low level of prep and as mentioned paints up really quickly. This time it was dry brushing whilst the next one I will probably ink to show the difference. 

Viking Bow by Black Tree Miniatures

Finally got round to adding to my Saga force, not quite enough to give me a full unit of levies but I will be painting up four slingers in the coming week or so to go with these eight.

The end ones look to be bent over but it's tricks of the camera as they stand straight but how the work surface is and the angle of the figures makes them look odd.

I like Black Tree, their WWII are some of the best 28mm (not so much a fan of some of the French) and I do like these Vikings. Some have a few nice touches. I have about twenty left to paint in total which are all prepped ready for Friday.

These were actually used the other day, should have an AAR sorted out tomorrow if all goes well. Most of my figures seem to be running around or reaching for arrows, none of them seem to want to shoot anyone, they must have read the rules regards their chances of hitting anything.

Turned out a little darker than originally planned but not disappointed with the result. All part of the black undercoat really. Happiest with the yellow as that's always the bane colour. Vallejo flat yellow in case your interested.

I wanted all eight to be different poses which is why I also bought the four slingers as BT only do eight poses (not that eight is a small number). Some of the figures have simular poses but different heads etc. certainly don't look clones to me.

Very nice flow to the figures and clothing, more time spent on them would really pay dividends though the results of a quick paint works for me as they are to be used mostly for games with my son, though Lee is also building a force up as well so hopefully will see a fair bit of play.

Some of these will also get the odd roleplaying session as NPC's got to get your monies worth after all. Talking of which, they are not expensive figures but at times of the big sales they are probably the best value outside plastics you will get for SAGA figures.

Cleaning wise they are reasonably clean, the odd one needing a bit more work but most needing little work at all. They paint up quickly as well as the brush can flow across the detail, the surface is smooth as brush wear is kept down. I am certainly happy with the experience of painting these guys and looking forward to the next batch during the challenge

Another Tree Post

I am guessing the title kind of says it all. You probably know I bought 20 trees the other week for much-o-cheap-o which arrived last week. Well whilst they looked good for the price which in itself really means thy don't actually look good. I did think I could make them look better and more importantly could do so without too much effort.

So I took said cheap tree and sprayed with er... hairspray and dipped in flock that I used to base my figures with. The result being the two held in my vice. Time taken? About 10 seconds each on average as the vice was tricky to get two in.

Finding a more suitable holding device I got the upgrade down to about 10 seconds a tree. I still have half of them to do so will probably finish them tonight. I have ordered another 40 so I had better get on with it.

Being as I am not painting any figures at the moment I have been busy doing other things this is one of several tiles I am working on for building of the week.

Cath was asking why stop myself painting figures at the moment and I had to explain that I would find myself trying to hurry to finish them before Friday and as such not enjoy it but by painting these buildings which I can put aside and just pick up between bouts of figure painting and enjoy all that I do means I win all ways round. Besides I don't have that much desk time this week anyway.