Dixon Miniatures Nasty Types with Explosives!

These chaps arrived earlier this week and were too good to resist.  I just couldn't leave them until I'd finished the steam tanks from Ironclad.  These chaps will definitly be added to the Ashington Coal Collective in the near future and no doubt will be setting all sorts of nasty IEDs or booby traps for the Royalists of Northumberland in the near future.

STEAM TANKS

Took delivery of a couple of steam tanks from Ironclad miniatures today.  Very little flash to be removed and they went together really really well.  I've spray undercoated them, no mould release chemical issues which is great as I always get too excited about new miniatures and forget to rinse them off before glueing them together!  I've given them a base coat of cavalry brown mixed with german grey which I'll build up to plain cavalry brown in order to give a red oxide effect.

Hopefully I'll get chance over the next few evenings to finish these chaps off and give my communists a suitably silly coal powered bit of armour.

Friday 12 Aug 11.

A little update.

Well I didn't manage to get these guys finished this week as planned as I was distracted by some shiny bits of metal from Musketeer miniatures and Dixon Miniatures (pics to follow in another post).  However, I have had time to undercoat and then base coat them.  I'm not sure about the colour but hope that it will work out once I've washed with thinned black and then highlighted up through cavalry brown.  I'm then hoping to come up with some sort of rust effect around the rivets etc but that will be a new level of detail for me instead of the normal dusting of Tamiya weathering effects!

Anyway, here are the tanks, I'm really impressed by the quality of casting etc from Ironclad miniatures and will almost definitly be buying other things from them in the future.

The tank:

The armoured car:



Scary Scarecrows

These are the wonderful scarecrows from the Woodbine Design Company by Gripping Beast.  I've added the crazy farmer who I think may be from the Wargames Foundry.

Mantic Dwarf Command

Some of the metal Dwarf command pack from Mantics.  Lovely really solid and detailed sculpts.

Mantic Wight

A metal wight by Mantic.  I don't think that they do much in the way of metal anymore as they're moving over to plastic resin.  At least they didn't feel the need to instantly double their prices like one other manufacturer did!

Cirencester

This chap was the special miniature for Albanach 2011 back in about February time.  I really like this miniature.  He's really appropriate for the Army of the Severn Valley or similar but that didn't stop me from having fun painting him.

Focke Achgelis FA 223E - A most frustrating kit!

Well the weather has been foul here this weekend and the miniatures that I was hoping would arrive on Friday or Saturday didn't so I've been able to have a weekend of basing up miniatures and building this 1:48 Focke Achgelis FA 223E that I found in my cupboard.  It has been a really frustrating build and quite frankly looks like it's been assembled by a child as there's glue marks everywhere.  I was trying to use poly cement but for some reason it wouldn't work on this plastic so I changed to super glue and in the end had to start using cyano acrylate accelerator.  These photos were taken about 5 seconds before I dropped the kit.  It's now in pieces on the desk.

I think that this could add some real character to my British Militia/LDV who will have an assortment of crazy vehicles.  That will only happen though if it stays in one piece for more than 30 seconds!

Universal Carrier

I don't know why but I've always had a thing for the Universal Carrier or as it's commonly known, the Bren Carrier.

This example is from the Warlord Bolt Action range.  It's missing a piece above the Bren that broke when I was building it.  Shame really.  However Warlord have got a platoon deal on for a section of 3 carriers at the moment.  3 of them for £33.  Not bad at all!

Vickers Light Tank Mk VI

This is the Vickers Light Tank Mk VI from BEF Miniatures.  I really like this model.  I don't know why.  I look forward to getting the chance to see how it does on the battlefield.

Morris CS9 LAC

I got this vehicle a while back from BEF Miniatures.  It's armed with a rather potent (for the day) combination of a Bren and a Boys anti tank rifle.

Renegade Great War Infantry

Here's an assortment of infantry by Renegade that I picked up as a complete steal on Ebay.  They're quite a bit bigger than some other manufacturers but not so large as to look wrong.  Hey, let's remember that peope come in different sizes!

Renegade Great War Mortar Section

Can anybody guess that I've had a basing session today?  Anyway, here's a section of 2 medium/heavy mortar base plates that could either be used to blast seven shades out of an opposing Bosch trench or equally 20 years later be used to blast 7 shades out of well, anybody who opposed the firing unit!

Light Mortar Team

I don't know why but I've always liked light mortars ever since the first time that I saw one at Sandhurst.  Here's a light mortar team from my slowly growing 50th Northumbrian Division collection.

18 pdr gun & crew

I have to confess to being rather undecided as to the role of artillery in 1938 VBCW.  On the one side I believe that it would have been used in reality as the British psyche had not really accepted the role of collaterall damage in war.  On the other side, it can lead in gaming terms to an arms race that rather detracts from the game itself.  Perhaps this is why I've spent 10 hours today building a massive twin rotor Focke Achgelis FA 223E-0 that only has a single LMG for its defence and actually doesn't really have that after an unfortunate dropping incident earlier that has resulted in the LMG now bouncing around inside the cockpit.

However, back onto the subject, what was it?  Oh yes, here's my 18pdr which could be used to add some serious whallop to one or another of my factions.

British Tommies on bikes

This section is a mixture of Foundry and Warlord Bolt Action miniatures.  As well as being perfect for most things WWII they are particularly suited to 1938 VCBW as troops turn to bicycles to get around as fuel supplies dry up.  Mind you, we mustn't forget that after Dunkirk we had whole battalions on bicycles and towards the end of WWII the Germans stole virtually every bike in Holland (and that's a lot of bikes) in order to maintain some degree of battlefield mobility.

Home Guard Heroes

I think these miniatures are from the Wargames Foundry and aside from being a little pricey are really lovely miniatures that really capture the spirit of the characters from the TV series.  Please let me know what you think.

They don't like it up 'em!  LCpl Jones about to stick it to a fuzzy wuzzy:

Sgt Wilson as ever appealling for everybody to see reason:

Captain (self appointed) Mainwaring a brilliantly cast and played part that really winds up every proffessional officer as he typifies everything bad about the ameteur officer!

Private Pike - who gave him an SMG?  I mean really!

Pte Godfrey - a contientious objecter and yet recipient of the Military Medal.  The episode where the rest of the platoon learn that he is a hero is a lesson to us all about prejudice.

I personally think that these are some of the best sculpted miniatures on the market and so worth the extra few quid that they cost in comparison to mainstream sculpts.  I certainly got my money's worth painting them!  Oh and re-watching most of the series for inspiration!



50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division using BEF Miniatures

BEF Miniatures is a great supplier as I think that anybody who has seen his products will agree.  I've just finally managed to get my hands on some 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division decals similar to those included in the Warlord Games late war plastic British Infantry set.  I would have liked to have got a set or two of the Warlord ones but several emails asking if they would sell them individually went unanswered and I ended up ordering them in from the US!

Anyway, here's a few shots of the first couple of sections.