I bought these chaps a few weeks ago from Artizan Designs. They are absolutely lovely miniatures to work with, they come with hardly any flash or mould lines and they were really enjoyable to paint. The big debate is whether or not they can be used alongside my other Policemen from Reiver Castings as they are actually more like 25mm rather than 28mm. Also the quality of the sculpt and casting is not as good on the Reiver miniatures but then they cost less than half as much so it's not surprising. Anyway, enough rambling, here come the fuzz!
Just in case you were wondering how distinct the difference was between the Artizan and Reiver miniatures . . . . . . here it is although I must say that the photo makes it look a little worse than it really is (plus I hadn't finished painting the Artizan one when I took this photo.
Well, I finally got round to playing Dreadfleet last night. A couple of friends came over. The girls watched Bridesmaids and we played Dreadfleet. Well, I say played. . . . . .
None of us had found the time to read the rules so a lot of time was spent working them out; concurrently a lot of wine was drunk. After a couple of hours floundering we were getting into the mechanism. It's not a bad game, the scenarios seem good. It's certainly not a simple game to play and at points can seem a little over complicated but I reckon that will go away with more games. It is a great looking game though.
One thing is for sure. Wine and wargames are a dangerous combination judging by the state of everybody's heads this morning!
I can't remember when I picked these guys up but they have proven to be really lovely miniatures and persuaded me to order several more packs from the Thrilling Tales range that Partizan offer. They are very well sculpted and cast and I think that they've painted up rather well without much effort.
The other miniatures that I have from Artizan have now been prepped and undercoated and are awaiting the attention of my brushes. There are a couple of section of Police from the Long Arm of the Law range as well as a couple of packs from their Very Private Army Range.
No military operation is likely to succeed without effective communications and as I was already ordering the British Casualties pack from Great War Miniatures I decided to add these guys too. I decided that the chap with the binos would be more suited to being a Royal Artillery Forward Observation or similar rather than another scaleyback.
I realised a little while ago that I didn't have any models to represent casualties. I secured the civilian stretcher bearers from a chap on the Gentlemens Wargames Parlour. They were nicely painted but didn't really fit in with the style of the rest of my miniatures so I popped a quick lick of fresh paint over them. The rest are from the Great War Miniatures pack of British Casualties. They're lovely sculpts but a complete pain to texture the bases on the chaps on the ground. I removed the rifle from one of the chaps. Not sure why I did that, it might have been miscast or something but my memory fails me.
It seems like forever since I last wrote anything on here. I've been running around all over the place, working like a man possessed and getting no time for painting. I finally had some time over this weekend so the brushes came out to finally finish another section of the rather fine Early War British Infantry from BEF Miniatures that is now owned by Warlord. I love these models, I think that they are some of the best sculpts available.
Back to Dreadfleet - Part 1
As well as all of those rather fine looking ships, the Dreadfleet box includes all the scenery and accessories that you need to play the game. It's all well made and easy put together. The only downside I think is that they've gone totally overboard with the skulls; but hey, that's what is to be expected from Games Workshop!
Some of the islands:
Giant turtle skeleton:
Cogs and auxilliaries:
Accessories (I'm rather pleased how these turned out):
Sea monster:
Dragon:
Sea monster (not so happy with this one):
Another sea monster:
Scenic scatter items:
And finally the trophies:
Overall it was quite a nice break from the sobre colour schemes of the 1930s that have dominated the last few months. It was rather fun to break out the bright colours for a change. I'm looking forward to seeing how this game plays though. It looks good, I hope it plays as well as it looks!
It seems like forever since I painted anything historical or alternative historical as what little painting time I have had has gone on painting up Dreadfleet. Hopefully I'll give the game a go at some point in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here are the ships - I'm reasonably happy with the paint jobs, it was quite refreshing to be able to go bright on the colours rather than feeling obliged to stick to the rather sombre pallette of the 1930s:
The Bloody Reaver:
The Heldenhammer:
The Flaming Scimitar:
The Shadewraith:
The Swordfish:
The Curse of Zandri:
Grimnir's Thunder:
The Black Kraken:
The Seadrake:
Skabrus:
Sorry I've been so quiet recently. By way of explanation I was fortunate enough to have a copy of Dreadfleet come into my possession. This has mean that there has been a very noticeable break in my VBCW output. However, I am half way through the last ship of Dreadfleet. Photos will follow soon. Then it will be back to 1938!
Well, it's taken me an absolute age to get round to painting this vehicle. I'm reasonably pleased with the results, it should be pretty fun to play with - incredible straight line speed and the turning circle of an oil tanker me thinks!
I can't remember where this chap came from, I think it was a limited edition from Warlord. I just love how characterful this chap is.
Every hunt needs a fox. I need a camera with a better macro!
