2019 A Load Of Balls

Not only does this sum up 2019 it's also my last purchase of 2019!! Having painted very little through the year some of my paints have started to come out a little thin so a ball bearing a bottle should help do the trick. 

I crashed out of last years painting challenge almost straight out of the blocks. The reason is the ongoing poor health of Cath. Early last year we were told her condition was very serious and late stage bowel cancer was the chief suspect. Fortunately this was not the case though through the next three months various other life threatening possibilities just kept replacing others that had been countered out. Currently waiting the latest batch of test results as they still can't say what it is. Life continues but much slower. Cath remains in a lot of pain, has replaced none of the weight she lost (over 20% of her weight) but in many other ways has improved. All this has really dented my creative interest but fortunately it has come back though I don't give it nearly as much time as I have prior. 

So a potted history of my 2019 hobby time.

I did get a couple of SYW 15mm French command stands finished for my son and another that still waits on being based. I also started three battalions of infantry. These I have picked back up recently and will be finished in January, 12 months after being started.

Nothing from then till contacted by a mate asking if I would do another diorama for his ASL tournament. I was happy to oblige and it actually got me back into doing some painting after more than eight months of nothing. So a big thanks to Martin for getting me started again. I will blog it sometime soon(ish) This had the added spark of making me want to try my hand at doing dioramas just for fun. I have yet to act on this but the cheques in the post.

The money I made from the dio I spent on a airbrush and compressor which I have only had a minor play with so far but that is one reason to clear the desk of my son's figures. Not sure where I will go with this but I really want to get into this.

Next up was a quick paint for Cath, a figure I bought years ago and was always going to get round to painting. In the end it was rather quick and done. Again try to post later.

The last item of 2019 was a bust for my nephews Christmas present. I never got great pics of this but again this will find it's way onto the blog.

Never quite got round to getting any games in this year, now been a couple of years and that will have had some effect but really have not had the energy to finalise the games that I was going to get in. 

So as you can see the year was mostly balls but were still here so lets see what happens now.

Commisioned Work

A fair few of you will be aware of my hobby crossover into Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) especially the sniper reminders that have popped up on occasion. However it came full circle when a friend asked me if I was prepared to paint up a trophy for a new ASL tournament he and another friend were organising. At first I was resistant having turned down the chance for doing the same for Heroes a few years ago.

However Martin's enthusiasm got me to waver and eventually I went from a bit negative to fully onboard. We actually got the idea from concept to basic positioning fairly quickly. From there it became a case of tinkering as we went.

The setting is somewhere in France 1940 as the Germans tear their way through the allied armies on the way to another blitzkrieg victory. Martin wanted African colonial troops to be depicted and even beat me to finding the Senegalese infantry that Warlord supply as a boxed set. I then added the tank and crew also from Warlord whilst Crusader provided the French ATG and Black Tree Design had the German casualties I wanted.

The rough idea actually changed little once I started to paint the bits up. Above was the photo I sent to Martin for his thoughts. To be fair he more or less left me to my own devices, never saying no but giving encouragement in line with his own preferences.

I had bought extra crew even though it comes with crew. However my plan was to have the tank knocked out so needed to make changes to the crew member bending the arm down and cutting some of the figures side and stomach off to allow him to be draped out of the turret. Not something that would have worked with the plastic figures that were too set in posture.

Crushing the gun was a bit of a challenge as the shield comes in two parts. In the end this was actually a bonus as it allowed me to bend one half out of true but still link the two parts to the barrel and trail.

I commissioned Warbases to supply me with two special sized MDF bases so I could play about and see which would work the best. Given the price I was charged it was a no brainer and even though they had a show literally days away I got the bases so quick I did not have to break stride. I wanted the MDF base so I could do all the basing and not have to worry about making a mess of the wooden plinth it would eventually be fixed to.

I also had to convert the standing and kneeling crew of the ATG which for the most part was a case of cutting bases off and filing one side of the figure down so it could be painted and then pressed down into the basing paint prior to sanding. I also made shells and empty shell cases out of cocktail sticks. I also made a ammo box with a couple of shells in it.

I added a little damage to the tank via a glancing strike on the turret (tap drill scored mark) and a pair of drilled penetrations. The killing shot though was registered to the side of the drivers viewing slit.

I also added some cast aside weapons from a German sprue again Warlord Games, also added other scatter such as a cast aside helmet and the guy who is seen with the LMG near him has a ammo belt around his neck and ammo box beside him. I added Games Workshop Stirland Mud into the areas I had scraped the basing paint marking the path of the tank as well as on the various parts of the tank you would expect mud. Finally adding some gloss varnish into the trail and parts of running gear etc.

The total cost of models etc but not paint came to £95 so added up quite a bit as I went on but overall I was really happy with the effect and would be happy to do more such bases in the future.

Dungeon Saga Heroes

As I continue to paint what grabs me rather than for a set project I decided to paint up the heroes from Dungeon Saga. I will also be doing the bad guys as well. Not to mention the furniture...…….

I have taken the player characters off their stone effect bases and added them to acrylic ones. The bad guys will remain on the original bases. First up is the wizard. I tend to mostly go for bright colours with these guys when I paint one and felt no issue doing so this time round.

The details a bit faint so harder to paint than say a typical metal fantasy figure. However for a game piece it's good enough.

Next up is the barbarian figure. Originally I was not all that struck on him but once I had undercoated and added a white drybrush I started to see the detail better. He is typically overdone with skulls, something that again I am not over keen on miniatures.

You may have spotted the doors and of course the chest, pieces that come with the game but could find use when I finally get time to run another roleplaying session with the kids.

No party can really be called a party without a dwarf! Suitably OTT I got to play with a good mix of metallic paints. 

Again like the others he did not take a great deal of work but of the four he is most defiantly my favourite. 

No decent images came out of the elf unfortunately. I was unable to get a pic from the front that was not blurred.

Group shot to finish off the set. In the background you can see the yellow skeletons that will be the next figures from the game awaiting primer. However I do have other figures already on the go. Hopefully I will get those further down the line during the next week, not that I don't have a few more units awaiting photographing.

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.

Back in Black

Well it's been awhile again. Whilst I have painted some bits and bobs I have slowed down a great deal I suspect mostly down to not getting a game for , well since last year! However I have started to paint up more but mostly it's either a couple of big commissions or it's just stuff I just wanted to paint with little thought of actually needing too.

The first of the commissions has been for Leven Miniatures and that has got me wanting to paint buildings again and the other is a 28mm dio that I may not be able to show off till about the end of November but has been great fun to paint.

What I have painted has been a mix of 6mm and 28mm Fantasy, I am not even doing anything Fantasy at the moment!

Another big negative was not being able to make Joy of Six this year. All work related as my boss was on holiday and I also had other staff off through sickness. Given that Lee and myself had been getting our armies sorted for a rather large Ancient demo game it was a very big downer. Still we now have a whole year to try and actually play the scenario and get a better grip on the rules. Yes I am trying to polish the turd of disappointment.

Right now I have a bunch of 6mm ECW figures on the bench as I recently bought the To The Strongest For King and Parliament offshoot and having played the demo game have high hopes that these rules will in fact reignite what was once my favourite period. Better still if it does then my old 15mm army can be dusted off and brought back out to play.

My blogging won't get back to the hay day, I just don't have the time, dedication or material but I will try and get it back at least to a fairly regular appearance.

Lancashire Games French SYW Heavy Cavalry

Recently finished up a couple of heavy cavalry units for The Boy. These are Lancashire Games French cavalry from their Seven Years War range. Having painted up quite a few of this suppliers figures I do find them really quick to paint. The detail is reasonable and I do miss out a few of the smaller details to speed things up but they still come out looking fine.

We use Black Powder rules which allow you to be creative with your basing. Were not over happy with the army list book for this period but it does supply you with stats for the units but beyond that it really does not help in producing a realistic or balanced army. Indeed the author actually states he is no expert on the period!

This regiment is the Royal Cravate, having looked at a display game that used a larger than standard number of figures we decided to copy them. Light cavalry have twelve figures a regiment, dragoons have fourteen and the heavies sixteen making each cavalry unit average about £7.50 a pop. Of course any units that use most of the other suppliers the cost is somewhat more.

The second regiment is Meustre ds Camp and as usual The Boy picked which units he wanted me to paint. He still has a lot of unpainted cavalry so I will be back to this army again fairly soon. 

The flags are from Cadogan Hobbies who sell on ebay and are very good value for the quality. I have the flags for just about all the cavalry and infantry for Prussia and France and for under £28 and that's hundreds of flags!

The Boy is a bit low on unpainted infantry so will look to pick some more of those once I get a couple more battalions painted. I also bought some Blue Moon command figures for him that will give him another two command stands and allow for a mounted officer on one of his infantry bases. Will have to look for other command figures at some point to further expand his command options.

If you do go down the route of buying Battle Packs from Lancashire Games be aware that most of these packs are just the standard figures, command figures have to be bought on top of these packs, annoying if you don't realise and have to make a second order. However shooting Alan a email to check prior works well as he is quick to respond.

6mm Napoleonic Prussian Artillery

To follow on from the last post on French SYW Artillery I felt I had to go with my latest addition to my Prussian Napoleonic Artillery.

I don't need a massive amount more artillery for my Prussians in total so these are a bit of a tidy up. All four guns and crews are Baccus, the limbers are from Commission Figurines and the horses and riders are Adler. Yes the bits box was raided!

The Adler bits were actually bought ready painted  but were missing some of the limbers (some were used as wrecked ones on bases due to damage) so I broke into a pack of Commission Figurines as I can still use the horses etc without the limbers.

As you would expect these did not take much time to paint up and are now tucked away in a box awaiting future play. Problem is that I have enough for Waterloo which is about as big as my Prussians are likely to get for a long time yet. However my Prussians are not really about painting for a game so much as I have them and want to carry on till I have enough for the whole of 100 days campaign and possibly then look at earlier campaigns, who knows. Whilst it's fun I will continue to paint the odd unit or battery up.

At the moment I have the last of the infantry and cavalry for our game for Joy of Six in a couple of months. The plan is to have them all finished before the end of this month and then sit back and enjoy painting just what I want, expect a right mix of toys.