Minions

I've been fairly quiet for a few months as a result of a combination of a couple of months away at Staff College and being madly busy preparing for the arrival of my first child.  However a few weeks ago I saw these rather brilliant miniatures from the Red Star Coven which I got through the Dice Bag Lady.  They're sold under the banner of "Stunty Henchmen" which I presume to be a way of avoiding licensing issues etc.  However I chose the paint them up as Minions from Despicable me.  As soon as they arrived I was really impressed by the quality of both the sculpt and the casting, hardly any clean up was required which is rather unusual for resin in my experience.

They're a complete nightmare for me to paint, I struggle with large flat areas and in 30 years of painting I have yet to find a really strong yellow paint.  I wanted the colours to be bright so started with a white undercoat, well actually I started with about 2 hours searching for my white spray as I'd not used it in years! 

I thought that the cartoon nature of these miniatures would represent a little bit of a change from the rather somber colours of Saga and various other projects that I've had on the go in recent months.  I'm reasonably happy with the results all things considered.  Unfortunately I'm still waiting for their proper bases to arrive.  I've ordered some industrial scenic resin bases that I think will add to the miniatures by setting the scene more into the underground lair.  Until then they're stuck on standard slot bases.

All up a rather fun Saturday evening whilst Memsahib is away at her Mothers.

Saga Vikings

I recently gave into the temptation that had been growing for years and bought a load of bits and pieces to delve into Saga.  As a start I picked up the rather brilliant 6pt Viking Starter Warband with the rulebook for an excellent value £45 at Salute 2015 from the Dice Bag Lady.  Yes, that's an entire army for a wargame for £23 - Incredible value!  Oh and there's a couple of heroes at the end who are metal miniatures that are not included but they're very nice!  Finally that unusually long spear is going to become a standard, just as soon as the decals arrive in the post.

 

 



Zombicide Season 3 - Part 1

The French Indian War / American War of Independence project has dipped out in interest in comparison to the massive number of miniatures that came as a result of backing the Zombicide Season 3 Kickstarter project.  It felt like forever from pledging to delivery but I've had a pleasant afternoon churning out the first few of many, many miniatures.  Obviously there are none of the cast of the Big Bang Theory here, neither is Gordon Ramsay in there either!

 

 

 



AWI Colonial Militia by Wargames Factory

Here you have the relatively recently released Colonial Militia by Wargames Factory.  There's 30 28mm chaps in the pack with enough poses and options to give a really good mix that has a real militia feel, i.e. it's not too regimented and slightly chaotic.  I have to confess to having rushed the painting a little as I was excited by the arrival of my Zombicide Season 3 Kickstarter package.  However, in order to finish my AWI project I'll have to add some more militia.  There aren't that many options available in hard plastic but these are pretty good, far better than some of Wargames Factory's older products!

 







Terminator Hunter Killer

I have to confess to being rather exciting about the upcoming release from River Horse ......... Terminator Genisys, the miniatures game.  The thoroughly talented Alessio Cavatore is at the helm so it promises to be good.  There's a Facebook page too if you're looking for more info, chat or just gossip.

Whilst getting excited I had a rummage through the foothills of my lead and plastic mountain and found a Hunter Killer model from Pegasus Hobbies.  It went together like a dream, the instructions were pretty good and the parts fitted together beautifully.  It was really very easy to remove the parts without too much need for filing etc which was a refreshing change after some other kits that I've tried recently.  I'm not too happy with the paint job (messy dusty drybrushing), it was harder than I expected and the first large "vehicle" that I've tried in ages.  I hope that it will fit in nicely with the miniatures in the game, if not then it was a fun day of modelling and painting.  Hopefully I'll make a better job of the miniatures that come with the game when it's released........ assuming that I've ever finished the Zombicide 3 lot that is heading to me in the next few days of course!

 

Blockhouse & Palisade for French Indian War

I think that this might actually be the fastest that I've ever gone from ordering some MDF scenery to having it finished!  It's certainly very quick to paint.  I assembled it a few weeks ago and undercoated then got the blockhouse and all the Palisades painted in a little more than a morning.

 

 The blockhouse is from 4Ground and the Palisades are from Warbases.  Warbases do make a blockhouse but I didn't fancy it for one reason or another and so opted for the 4Ground one.

The 4Ground Blockhouse comes pre-painted.  My paint job isn't as good as this and many might ask why I promptly re-painted a pre-painted model.  Put simply I wanted the blockhouse to match/compliment the palisades.

There is a distinct difference in levels of detail between the 4Ground and Warbases products but then there is a corresponding difference in price too!  It's a shame that there's no detail of boarding or similar on the walkways.  Given more time I would have reached for the balsa and added it but wouldn't this have rather defeated the object of buying MDF scenery in the first place?  I spent a while considering adding some sort of texture but decided against it in the end.  Unless I was to build the palisades into say a polystyrene base to represent earthworks then this would probably look worse than they currently do.  This would allow me to get rid of the ramps which are by far the weakest part of this range with no detail at all to be seen.

I guess that the palisades represent excellent and affordable gaming scenery but they are in a different class to the higher cost 4Ground product.  All that said, I've now got a fairly flexible "fort" that will hopefully provide for everything from small skirmishes to the most that my 6x4 table can hold!

AWI Continental Infantry 2

Memsahib was working last night so I got a bit more painting done than normal.  As such I finished the AWI Continental Infantry from the Perry Brothers.

 

These are nice miniatures, well sculpted & easily assembled.  They are rather uniform in pose but lots of nice subtle differences between the uniforms which fit nicely with the historical image of the Continental infantry being a little more rag tag than the British Infantry.  I've got some of the Wargames Factory Continental Infantry on order.  Hopefully I'll find some time in the coming weeks to get them done.  They look like they have a greater variety of poses than the Perry's but to be honest they don't look quite as well posed. 

 

The very sharp among you will notice that the hats are not right on these chaps, I was too far down the line when I realised my mistake.  Never mind, I'll pay more attention next time!


 

AWI Continental Infantry

A rather busy weekend with not very much being achieved on the paint station.  I've finished the Command, 15 men and 4 rifled musketeers of the Perry AWI Continental infantry set apart from varnishing and finishing off the bases.  Unfortunately it's absolutely tipping it down outside so far too humid for any spray varnishing.  This will have to wait a couple of weeks until I've got time to finish them off. 

 

I've got another 15 chaps to go but I have to say that again I've been rather impressed by the quality.  The detail is really good.  The poses aren't the greatest but they went together well enough.  I like the mix of 4 rifles and the standard infantry. 

Once the other fifteen chaps are done, all that will be left is a blockhouse from 4Ground and a ton of palisades from Warbases.  Then I might be able to make a start on my randomly purchased Terminator Hunter Killer..... unless that gets started first that is!

Space Hulk

What can I say?  GW decided to sell the "limited" edition Space Hulk again.  I wanted it.  I bought it.  I really enjoyed painting it.  I still haven't managed to play a game yet.......

Oh and in case any avid readers haven't already guessed, yes I am clearing through lots of photos of paint jobs I've done over the last year or so since I was last blogging regularly.

 

In Her Majesty's Name - Part 2

Back to part one.

 

A selection of the range from In Her Majesty's Name that I painted around a year ago and only just got round to sharing!