The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Five

Not much of an update.  A reasonably succesful evening during which I was able to catch up on the ironing and knock out another ten married Zulus.  However, from every tiny acorn etc

Wish that my leave wasn't over and I didn't have to go back to work in the morning :(

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The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Four

Well the "opus" continues to prove to be of almost Biblical proportions!

I have spent much more of this period of leave doing things other than painting than I planned to.  It does mean that I sit here on my final day of leave a lot less stressed than I was a few days ago.  However, it also means that the project is taking a lot longer than originally planned. 

Over the last couple of days I have painted one Induna for the unmarried Zulus that I finished last week.  He actually has the wrong shield pattern as I only read up on the significance of shield colour for Zulu regiments last night.  As such he will eventually be the Induna for the 2nd unmarried Zulu regiment that I will be making and painting as soon as I get to them!  I've also nearly finished the first ten married zulus.  The first ten of forty that is!

I got home the other day to a card from the postie that they're holding a parcel for me.  I hope that this will finally be the bases that I ordered a few weeks ago as these chaps really need basing.  Anyway, here they are:

Induna:

Married Zulus:

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The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Three

Plenty of time has passed since my last post; sadly very little of this has been free time for me.  However, I have finally got the first 16 unmarried Zulus almost to painting completion.  I am waiting for the bases that I forgot to order to arrive which allow me to finish them properly.  However it would seem that the presence of the Zulu's or indeed their cattle has persuaded the British to form a square on their final redoubt!  (I have to add that the camera has been very kind on me and that the British Infantry look a sight better than they do in real life.  Who knows, maybe I've finally worked out how to use my camera after only 5-7 years!

Form a square!

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The Horns of the Buffalo - Part Two

In between roasting Donald Duck and Bambi the rather fine venison fillet provider I've not had much time for painting today.  However, I have now almost finished 10 British Infantry and the first 8 Zulus.  As well as the forty married Zulus in the boxed set I have recently received a box of unmarried Zulus.  This was then topped up again today by another unmarried Zulu regiment courtesy of my darling wife.  So that means that I have most of the scenery and just over 10% of my Anglo-Zulu war miniatures painted.  Still to go are:

• Both buildings
• The MDF wagon
• The water wagon
• The cattle
• Dead horse
• Terrier
• All the metal miniatures (8 Brits plus 2 Zulus)
• 10 more plastic British Infantry
• 40 plastic married zulus
• 56 more unmarried zulus.

This project might well last beyond this stint of leave!  I'd like to carry on painting now but I think that the results might be even worse than those shown below as the Champagne was opened at ten this morning - hic!

Anyway, they're almost finished, the Zulus need some attention from the washes etc as I wasn't as neat as I like, particularly on the "skirts" and I need to add leopard spots to some of the "bandanas".  However, I'm hoping that these messes won't show up too much as part of a horde of over a 100 Zulus!  Only problem is that I forgot to order bases so I've got to wait for them to turn up.  I'm looking at 4 zulus each on 50x50x2mm MDF bases.  I love Renadra bases but they'd cost too much for this many.  Any thoughts as to how these would work, especially with the Black Powder rules?

However, most importantly, Merry Christmas to you all and thank you for following my blog!  Hopefully I'll finally learn how to paint in 2012!

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The Horns of the Buffalo - Part One

It seems that man-flu increases my productivity. Please excuse the rather unsavoury carpet of my quarter but this lot is too large to fit into my normal photo studio thingy. He is the product of the last 30 hours (of which about 12 were spent sleeping and 4-5 hours on online research), they are painted, gloss varnished (for durability) then matt varnished, the flock and static grass are still to go but I haven't gone through the box yet to find something that suits both South African January and 1938!

Mealie bags and boxes - could represent an improvised barricade in most markets, factories or docks.

Bagged up wagon, not the best angle, please be assured, it is a lovely piece of scenery:

Better view of the wagon:

Dry stone walls, perfect for Blighty!

Renadra bell tent that comes as part of the set but they don't get credit (their customer service is A1 BTW):

This set is causing me storage problems though. This is the upper part of my painting station at the moment!

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A break from 1938 VBCW

Gentlemen, I am pleased, even delighted to report that yesterday I took delivery of a rather large parcel from some chaps in Nottingham.  This will mean that apart from finishing off some defences/objectives I won't be painting any 1938 minis for a while.  However, instead I will be painting Zulus, thousands of them!  Well, ok 40-60 Zulus plus some British infantry and some lovely lovely scenery.  If only I actually had some leave over Christmas to get things started rather than loads of time at work :(

The Belgian Detective

Here's a little chap that I found at the back of the painting cabinet.  I'm rather pleased with him.  I have no idea how to fit him into 1938 VBCW other than as a random civilian but if nothing else he'll look nice in the display cabinet!

Overlord Improvised Armour Conversion Kit

Back at Border Reiver 2011 I picked up one of the Improvised Armour conversion kits by Overlord that Solways crafts and miniatures offer for sale.  I put it together and part painted then didn't get round to doing anything with it for months.  There's a theme developing here today isn't there?!  Anyway in a moment of cheesy madness I decided that this would be Jack Jone's van.  I'm hoping that the decals aren't so bad that people can't draw the link.  I can't remember which type of Lledo vehicle the kit is designed for but it's certainly achieved a rough and ready improvised look on the Model T ford van that I used here.  This vehicle will either deploy as part of the Longhoughton Defence Volunteers or as part of the Ashington Coal Collective.  Probably the earlier rather than the latter.

BUF Adler Armoured Bathtub

This is a German Adler Armoured car from BEF Miniatures (now part of Warlord Games) that I picked up a while back, built, part painted and then never got round to finishing.  Well this afternoon I finally got round to printing off the decals to finish things.  The kit is exactly the same as the original except that I swapped the heads out for ones that I had in my bits box.

I wasted a small fortune in smudged decal paper until I remembered to adjust the paper type.  They're far from the best decals that I've ever made but they're getting better, I just need to use a better graphics app in order to be able to print at the level of detail that I want.  Anyway, here it is, far from the best that I've produced in a while.

The World's Smallest Wargame?

I've been clearing through the painting cabinet today and come across a couple of oddities whilst doing so.  This would appear to be the smallest wargame in the world.  I've not seen a smaller game - have you?

Yes that is a 1p piece!

Zulus

"The Sentries report Zulus to the South West . . . . . thousands of them"

An immortal line from one of the greatest films ever.  The big question is - has anybody seen the new miniatures from Warlord Games and Empress Miniatures in the flesh?  This set is seriously tempting but I need to know about the quality of the miniatures before committing to spend this much on them!

Some Very British Civil War Characters

These are 3 characters that I recently purchased from Artizan Designs.  I think that they are really fabulous models.  Really well sculpted and cast - a complete joy to paint.  I bet that you can guess which one is my favourite!

I'm thinking about forming a new faction for 1938 VBCW of brigands hiding in the Cheviots and subsisting their life by raiding the local countryside in the same way that the original Reivers used to.

More Northumbrian Police

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.

Dreadfleet - Part 3

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!

Artizan Designs Maquis - also perfect for 1938 VBCW

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.

Field Communications

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.

The Casualties of War

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.