Pastures New . . . .

Today I finally became a grown up.  Today I picked up the keys to my own house.  Not a pile that I rent and call home.  My own house.

Scary.

This is going to mean that it's going to be really quiet on here for a while.  However I have got absolute permission from Memsahib to convert the loft into a man cave which will hopefully feature a decent gaming table and plenty of display cases.

I'm starting to think that I should have measured the loft properly before agreeing to this!

Memsahib won't let me convert the attached granny flat into my own private pub which is a shame.  Having a man cave will be ace.  There are some conditions attached.  Something about decorating the rest of the house first but I wasn't really listening, I was a bit busy researching tongue and groove loft flooring!

It does look though like the Horns of the Buffalo project will stretch out to more than a year now.  I came close, I am down to the last 17 Zulus and 8 Brits. 

So near and yet so far . . . . . . . . .

Warbases

Unfortunately I ran out of bases for my Zulu project and then found that the supplier that I had been using had dissapeared.  I spoke to Warbases and they have just delivered some excellent quality bases.  Whilst on their website I threw in one of the VBCW terraced buildings as well.  I'm really impressed by the quality.  More to follow soon but the house move is taking over my life and right now I've got to pop out to meet HRH Prince Charles.  It's just one of those weeks!

Last of the Mohicans

Has anybody else seen the latest Warlord Games newsletter?  If so am I the only one to be drooling over their latest aquisition?  I seriously want their new French-Indian wars boxed sets.  Maybe The Last of the Mohicans will be the next project once the Horns of the Buffalo is completed?

I hope that there'll be some plastic miniatures joining the range though as I can't envisage being able to afford to do anything large with an entirely lead range.

Facebook

Modest Miniatures has now launched on Facebook!  However the intention is a little different.  I don't know about you chaps but I find it really frustrating trying to track down that really inspirational paint job that I saw somewhere on a forum or blog all those months ago.  One thing is sure, I won't have added it to my favourites!

Additionally I hope that chaps will share details of upcoming games or shows on the page.  It's not much I know but hopefully it might be a useful resource for at the very least one or two people.  It's only tiny at the moment but if you're a Facebook user please "like" the page so that you can keep up with what people are showing off.

Thanks for your time reading this chaps.  Hopefully I'll see you on Facebook.  Don't worry, I still be rambling along on here!

New header

Good afternoon chaps.  I'm in the process of trying to get through the last 80 Zulus and the last few British Characters which means that I am doing just about everything possible to avoid this as I am now thoroughly, absolutely and completely bored of painting Zulus!  As such I found myself playing around with my header and I came up with the little image as follows.  It's not a patch on anything such as Panzerkaput comes up with but I'm rather pleased with it for an ameteur effort.  Can you guess that I've been watching Jeeves & Wooster this afternoon and planning the art deco style for the house that will hopefully be mine soon.

It would have been better if I'd managed to get the width right!!!

Captain Blackadder & Chums in 28mm

I absolutely love these miniatures, they are some of the nicest in my collection.  I seem to be incapable of remembering who makes them but they paint up a treat.  I think that these will be some of my best paintjobs yet once I finish the missing details.

A retro trip in 20mm part 2

I have hardly published anything for weeks.  I have been stupidly busy with work and life and also my laptop is refusing to work with Blogspot so I've stolen the good memsahibs laptop for a little bit.  Some of you might remember that a few weeks ago I purchased and build a classic Matchbox 3 colour kit of the LRDG.  Well, I'm currently laid up on enforced rest after a rather nasty little health scare.  I'm bored out of my tiny little mind and frustrated as I can't get anything done.  Well apart from painting when the medication allows my head to clear enough.  I've yet to put the decals onto these chaps but I'm rather pleased with the results.  I don't think that the detail is any better than my previous efforts at 15mm but the effect is ok as long as you squint, a bit of a Monet really!  Hopefully I won't allow this to convert me to 20mm although the massive range of kits does make it tempting!  Memsahib rather liked the idea of smaller models until I mentioned that there'd be more of them!

Enough rambling, here they are:

A retro trip into 20mm

A couple of you might remember a reasonably recent conversation on GWP that resulted in my obtaining a retro Matchbox LRDG kit in exchange for a donation to that most deserving charity Help for Heroes.

The kit arrived in good order and in between stupid working hours and trying to buy a house I managed to put it together.  I was personally impressed that I managed to make this ten thousand per cent more neatly than last time (about 25 years ago).  It was rather fiddly.  I am sure that back when I last had a go at this kit I didn't have half the kit that I have now such as sharp side cutters or LED lighting but I think that the main difference was having a decent polystyrene cement with that little fine pipe applicator thingy. 

There were lots of fiddly bits which snapped and ended up causing me no age of bother fixing, however I caught sight of the sprue which gave the copyright on these moulds as being 1979, the plastic was almost so brittle as to have been the first off the production line!  However, I'd love to see another manufacturer that could prove that they could produce such good castings over 30 years ago!

Here's the product before it went out for undercoating.  It rained during drying, damage caused has yet to be assessed.  However hopefully it'll turn out ok.  The biggest challenge yet is working out what colours to use.  Could any of you fine chaps reccomend which Vallejo colours to be used as base colours please?

Project Pandora - Part One

I realise that I haven't posted on here for ages, I've barely had any time for painting as work has been mentally busy and we're trying to buy a house so the odds of getting any painting time or having any money for miniatures are pretty low for at least the next couple of months.  That said, the week before last I did actually finish the Corporation miniatures from Project Pandora.  I have to say that I didn't particularly enjoy painting these and it shows in the paint job.  I have to agree with those that have written about how difficult these guys can be to put together.  Would it be too hard to etch in a letter on each arm to show how they pair up?

I need to make a start on the Veer Myn which are lovely looking miniatures, I just can't make up my mind as to how to attack them!

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Parade

Nothing to do with toy soldiers, more to do with real ones!  I've just got back (yes at gone 1am) from parading down at Windsor in front of Her Majesty.  Quite honestly this was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I am incredibly proud to have been one of the 2,500 Service Personnel parading today.  In the end it was absolutely worth the 4am starts, chaffing, dehydration, sore muscles, hours of uniform prep, questionable food and a total of something like 24 hours spent on coaches; absolutely and completely worth it.

If Facebook is to be believed then I made the cut on TV and I'm going to have to get the cakes in at work next week!  In the meantime I think that I need to consider some Albertine Forces under the command of the then Princess Elizabeth.

Anyway, it's time for a very much needed shower and some even more needed sleep!  Normal rambling about models and painting will resume soon.

What next?

Having just finished another 16 unmarried zulus I am pondering what to do next; looking at the lead/plastic mountain the options are:

64 plastic married zulus plus 2 lead zulus.
6 policemen to finish off the Northumbria Police force.
8 British command figures from Anglo-Zulu war
Blackadder WWI character pack
Assorted Kings of War and Warpath sprues
Assorted Celtic plastics
The Contents of the Project Pandora: Grim Cargo Game.

Yes if you've read this far then you can probably guess what arrived in the post today!  I was really impressed by Dwarf King's Hold and love the look of the Veer-Myn so I found myself unable to resist it at the discount price that Wayland Games were offering!  More details to follow once I've got it painted.  Don't hold your breath though, work is mental at the moment, I'm away next week and every ounce of spare time is getting taken up with the Wife's business.  Well that and typing rambling witterings on here!

Support Iron Sky! An update

I emailed the distributor yesterday to ask why they were only doing a single day release.  I got the following response:

REVOLVER OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON IRON SKY RELEASE 

We recognise the concerns of the makers of IRON SKY and appreciate the support of the fans. We ourselves have been huge supporters of the project since day one, coming on board in 2009. 

We feel this release structure is very much in line with the spirit in which the film was made, being available both on the big and small screen almost simultaneously.

We have seen all of your feedback and contrary to the opinion of a few we are not trying to 'kill' 'bury' or 'dump' the film. Revolver is still in discussion with the exhibitors about extending the cinema run. Come out on the 23rd May, show your support, make IRON SKY day a huge success and lets keep the film playing on the big screen!

 

Not the greatest but I noticed their mention of similar timings for large and small screen release and so had a peek on Amazon.  It turns out that the Blu-Ray and DVD will be released on 28 May 12.  So rather than an 80 mile round trip to a cinema plus the cost of tickets and popcorn I will instead being buying the blu-ray version (that also has a digital copy) and spending the money saved on some lovely shiny new miniatures. 

Anybody know where I can buy 28mm space Nazis? :D

Support Iron Sky!

Following on from the publicity already given to this project by Panzerkaput and Smillie please have a look at the film Iron Sky.  It's got Nazies and Aliens.  If it had zombies as well then it would be too much for the average wargamer to deal with!

The bad news is that the publishers have decided to only release it for one day in the UK and worse still that's a Wednesday!  If you'd like to see this film given a slightly wider release then please follow this link. 



Post 100!!! Even more scenery

I've come to the conclusion that the recent lack of erosion of the lead mountain is not solely due to my complete failure to stop buying miniatures, it is also a result of spending increasing amounts of time on scenery.  Hopefully this will be worth it in the long run.

I recently acquired an American farm house from the hands of the ever so talented Perry brothers.  It went together really easily and painted up in no time.  My original intention was to make this the village green cricket pavillion.  I'm not sure what happened but suffice to say the colour scheme went completely wrong and I've ended up with some sort of Northumbrian holiday home. . . . . . or just a building from the American Civil War!  I might get the North American Store and convert it into a cricket pavillion using the top screen as a score board. . .  . . . . time will tell.

The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Fifteen

I've been rather busy over the last couple of weeks and so not got that much time in the vanishing cabinet.  However, this morning I finally got a couple of hours to finish off a second unit of British Infantry.  They are slightly different to the first batch as I've deliberately kept the helmets more dull as I recently discovered that the bright white helmets of Zulu were complete Hollywood.  Hopefully one day I'll get time to dull the others down, I might see what a drop of sepia wash does before entirely repainting them.

I've stuck with my standard green grass mix for the same reason that I have previously, South Africa is pretty green in January and so the dusty desert look of Zulu is plain wrong!  Plus this gives me the added benefit of being able to use one colour of base texture for all my miniatures.

I only have about 8 British miniatures left to paint, 4 key characters and the command pack from the 2nd unit of British infantry.  All that's left after that is the rest of the married zulus, seemingly thousands of them!  I won't be able to create Rorke's Drift at 1:1 ration, but it will certainly be a rather full table!

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Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Architects of War Scenery

A few weeks ago in a fit of feeling less poor than I am I purchased a pair of the minefield sets and another machine gun nest to add to my slowly growing scenery collection.  They painted up nice and easily and I think that they look alright, I'm steadily growing to love the effect achieved using my Static Grass Applicator.

One thing's for sure, I really can't do freehand signwriting!  When I get round to it I will make a decal to improve these signs somewhat.

More Zombies

I dug out the first batch Wargames Factory zombies that I'd painted a fair while back and based them up to match the new ones.  Two things are definite, firstly my painting skills have improved since I did the first batch and secondly, the original heads that come from the wargames factory aren't a patch on those from Mantics!

I wouldn't want to run into this lot though!

Private Pooch

The other day I was trawling around the web instead of actually getting the lead mountain reduced and came across this pack from Warmacre Games.  The picture wasn't that promising but I really liked the idea of a patrol dog & handler for my 1938 collection.  The pack was down to £2 + £1 delivery so I thought what the heck.

It seems that this is yet another miniature company who isn't showing their products off to the best as it looked a lot better when it arrived than on the website.  There was a slight miscast on one of the dog's legs but that only took a few moments with the green stuff to fix; the face and hands are brilliantly sculpted and cast well but the sleeves and front of the tunic are not so good.  I might well try some of their other miniatures in the future, especially considering how quick the delivery was!

Zombies!

In a fit of procrastinating over delving back into the Zulu horde I found a pack of Wargames Factory Zombies at the back of the vanishing cabinet.  I had previously built another pack of these and been rather dissapointed with them, largely because of the rather poorly sculpted heads/faces.  So this time, whilst a little bit tipsy I decided to try to improve them using various heads and a few other pieces that I had lying around.  The bulk of the pieces are left over from various Mantic Zombies that I've built, painted and subsequently sold on.  It's left me a lot happier with the miniatures, even if I have stuffed up some of the necks!  I decided to use a more dried out looking grass than normal for the bases.  I'm not entirely sure why the zombie apocalypse would cause all the grass to die, I think it is more that I am getting a little bored of my standard mix!  Anyway I wouldn't want to run into these guys on a dark night.  Or a bright day come to think of it!

The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Fourteen

I realise that this particular piece wasn't present at Rorkes Drift but there were a pair of them at the Battle of Isandlwana and it is theoretically possible that one might have escaped back to Jim's place.  Also, I'd like to think that I might get to eventually play something other than Rorke's Drift.  Oh and I think that this is a lovely set that is made that bit better by the marvellous base from 4Ground.  I realise that you can get this set for 10% less from other places but I quite like the 4Ground idea where it comes at the RRP but with a specific base.

If I had to find fault it would be that the figures end up a little too far away from the gun itself but they're fine for gaming purposes.  I'm reasonably pleased with how these guys turned out.  Anybody who's seen my BUF forces for 1938 VBCW will know that I struggle with black uniforms.  The Sergeant's stripes were a little fiddly for me, I struggle to paint straight lines like this freehand so ended up using Baal Red wash to attempt to capitalise on the detail.  Anyway, here's the biggest gun of the Anglo Zulu War that I've painted yet.

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Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Who let the dogs out? And why are they so darned shiny?

I've been having a bloomin nightmare recently with my matt spray varnish.  It is proving to be anything but matt.  This is shown off really well by my latest canine additions. 

They're not new, I found them in a random box of old lead in the garage with the remnants of an old paint job on them.  I think that they're from the Lord of the Rings range by Games Workshop, something to do with the Shire if I recall correctly.

I reckon that these will make a fun addition to my VBCW collection, either for use by dog handlers or as a GM controlled inject to liven up the game a little.

Down Boy!

I'm sure, well I hope, that I'm not the only one that sees a beautiful miniature and buys it with out really thinking about how it will be employed or whether I can actually afford it.  This chap is rather lovely and is from the Wulfen SS set by Warlord.  I'm still working on Frau Growler who is just not looking right yet.  I had various plans to spend ages on the Werewolf but after an intense 15 minutes I realised that it was looking alright and I'd probably only make a mess of it if I spent longer on it.  Anyway, enough rambling, I'd not like to run into this chap on a dark night.

Scottish Republic Mounted Infantry

The Scottish Republic Infantry are rapidly approaching 3 sections and a small platoon HQ.  However I got wondering what cavalry I could use so posted a little thread on GWP.  Mick A had some Reiver mounted Scots that he no longer needed so he sold them to me at a most agreeable price.  They arrived yesterday and I've spent more time than I should have done in the vanishing cabinet this weekend.  It means that I haven't got any of the garden chores done that I meant to.  However, it does mean that I have another unit of cavalry or mounted infantry completed!  I just wish that my current can of Army Painter Anti Shine Varnish actually did it's job rather than adding shine!

Scottish Republic Infantry

A while ago I was lucky enough to pick up a job lot of Musketeer Miniatures at a complete bargain price.  In among this lot were a load of the Black & Tan miniatures,  they're lovely miniatures and I think that they've turned into a fairly reasonable representation of troops from the Scottish Republic in 1938 VBCW.

Next thing is to plan the rest of the force.  I'm thinking of adding a couple more sections of infantry, possibly the Highlanders from Musketeer.  There'll be cavalry, not sure where from though.  Probably either Renegade or Reiver.  I need to come up with some vehicles or other units.  No ideas yet though.

Blimp by Tobsen 77

Recently the Gentleman's Wargames Parlour had a thread about monowheel vehicles in which somebody reccomended the products of Tobsen 77.  I would credit the person who reccomended this great manufacturer but sadly GWP seems to be down again today.  I rather liked the Monowheel but positivly loved the Blimp and impulsivly ordered one with the Driver figure too.  It arrived from Germany about 3 days later, brilliantly packed.  There was a small amount of flash etc to be removed but very little and the quality of the resin casting was excellent.  The propellor delivered was slightly different from the one on the picture on the website but I actually prefer the one that I got as it has a more home made look that supports the idea of this being built by a gifted ameteur in his garage for deployment by the LDV. 

Anyway, painting was an utter joy after very easy assembly although I was realy dissapointed as my undercoat spray went grainy as you can see in the close up; I really hate it when that happens, it's almost as annoying as when the varnish goes cloudy.  I used a slightly larger base than the supplied flying base as I wanted to add a little more stability on the battlefield.  I really enjoyed painting this piece today and I'm really pleased with the results.  I don't know why it looks so shiny in the photos as it's been coated with army painter matt varnish, but I think that it still looks nice.

Walls by 4Ground - Part 2

Well it's taken bloomin ages but I have finally nearly finished my walls by 4Ground.  I am really rather pleased with the results.  I've added some little puddles to some of them but here are a few images of the finished items.

Yes, I went completely to town with the Army Painter and Woodland Scenics items!

Just to give you an idea of scale here's something from the AZW and something from VBCW:

I'd definitly reccomend these items, they take a fair bit of work to finish but the results are rather pleasing IMHO.

Walls by 4Ground - Part 1

The Gentlemen's Wargames Parlour

Is it just me or is there a problem on the site at the moment?  I haven't been able to get on there all day and it's worrying me as I keep getting lots done instead of whiling the hours musing the benefits of powering a tank with coal and various other topics that are more important to me than cutting the lawn or cleaning out the fish tanks.

Even more Northumbrian Police

Border Reiver was nearly 6 months ago and yet I still hadn't got round to finishing off the miniatures that I got on that day.  However Mr Panzerkaput then added an entry to his blog that described his recent visit to Reiver Castings.  This great feature made me feel a little guilty that I was getting excited about new releases from Reiver when I still had 11 cavalry sitting on my desk, undercoated but going nowhere.  I then also remembered that I had some of Musketeer's excellent RIC figures waiting to be painted as well.  At this point there was no further problem deciding what to do on Saturday evening!  So here's the newly extended Police force from my 1938 VBCW collection.  I will be adding 4 more Constables with rifles when I make my next Musketeer or Artizan order so that the force will be 4 sections of 10 infantry, 10 cavalry, mounted sharpshooter and the command group.  I'm on the lookout for a suitable vehicle or two but simply haven't found anything that I like yet.  I've deliberatly stayed clear of any automatic weapons; it's rifles and pistols only for my Police.  I love the fact that our Police are not armed and feel that they would be unlikely to tool themselves up with heavy weaponry, I see them still relying on truncheons and handcuffs whenever possible.

Enough rambling, here they are.  Oh and no I didn't do "on duty bands" as after many many attempts I simply couldn't get them to look right.