Painting Tartan

I know Inhave been extremely quiet for about 3 months (ouch!). I have not been idle, but frankly except for a hiking trip to Scotland I have been stuck in Germany. And the weather has been appalling. Either very wet or very cold, but never good enough to spry on some varnish. So there is a backlog that I need to show to you now that things have gone better. It has actually been like early summer for a week now. So what is up first?

Some Wolfbane Commandos for Warzone. I wanted each an every one of them to be an idividual, so I chose to paint part of their attire in a tartan pattern. I will later paint squads to go with them, so far these have been my test pieces.

Why test pieces? Well as we all know, painting tartan patterns can be a huge pain in the behind. But late last year I stumbled over a new range of paints from Humbrol. They are Emanel paints, which I have not used in well over a decade due to the fumes, I decided to give them a try anyway. They need some getting used to. First of all you need to let the pots rest for at least a week and not shake or stirr them before use (apparently the nano-particles need that time to settle into pattern). And you need to apply it all in one broad stroke. That needs a couple of attempts to get used to. But once you do, the results are great. I found it works best with a. Road dry brushing brush with long bristles (so you can really load the brush). So far they only have 4 patterns, but Imguess once this makes the rounds they are sure going to expand!

Anyway this is it for today. More to come over the next few days. Until then, I wish you a very happy start into this month! 😚

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Happy New Year

Usually I know well in advance what I want to write for this message, but this year I am writing this last-minute. It has been a very strange year. On a personal front it has been good. My self employment had not been going well last year, so I was happy to find a new job in March, even though it meant less time for my hobbies and this blog. But on the other hand this year felt like it was constantly kicking us in the private parts. No matter what kind of music, movies or art you like, each of us will have lost at least one artist that we liked if not a dozen. There was the Brexit vote, there was the US election. And there has been a huge rise in fascism around the western world. So should I really look back at 2016 as something positive? And then I came across this meme on Facebook yesterday and for me it put things into perspective.

 

So in this sense… 2016 might not have been great, but lets just hope, that things do not get worse. Most of us can still call ourselves lucky!

In this sense, I wish you and your families all a very safe and healthy 2017 and lets hope it all gets better!

 

Merry Christmas

Merry ChristmasWell… I will keep things short today. In that sense a very merry Christmas to you and the people close to you. Hope that you have quiet and above all healthy holiday, wherever you are and whatever you believe in! 

And do not fear… Santa is on his way!

[picture courtesy of the Royal Air Force]

 

French vehicles in 28mm anyone?

Some of you might remember, that the other year, I was pointing you to a Kickstarter for Hungarian WWII tanks. Well I have to say that one went quite well, and I personally was very pleased with the return. Everything was in the expected time window and the quality was superb. So that sure was a Kickstarter I did not mind backing.

Now the Mad Bob Miniatures is back with their next Kickstarter, and it is looking just as good. This time it is mostly about French vehicles, but not the standard fare, that you can easily get from Warlord games or the like, but rather those that are missing to give you a good historical force.

What I find most interesting though (as I am not looking at building a 1940 French army) are some of the stretch goals. These feature some vehicles that will be quite useful for the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy (7.5 cm Pak 40 auf Somua MCG and Geschützwagen 39H(f) with both the 7,5 PaK and 10,5 Howitzer) as well as vehicles that are useful for the minor powers or early war Germans (Panzer 38H 735(f), Hotchkiss H39, ACG-1 / AMC-35). So if some of these ring your bell, pay the Kickstarter a visit.

By the way… at the time of writing, the pledges are already just shy of 3800 GBP, so some of the strechgoals shown, have already been unlocked.

 

Merry Christmas

Well… I will keep things short today. In that sense a very merry Christmas to you and the people close to you. Hope that you have quiet and above all healthy holiday, wherever you are and whatever you believe in!

 

SAGA, Flemish Mercenaries

After the preparations for the Battle of Berlin game were done, I felt it was time to paint some minis for SAGA. The German Grand Melee has really re-kindled my interest in SAGA, so I am planning to paint up a few new Warbands for it. I already have Normans, Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Spanish to paint, but before I get started on those, it was time for some Swords for Hire.
I had bought these Flemish Mercinaries about two years ago. The big problem with these guys was, that their rules could not be found in any of the SAGA books, but only in their packages. So I kind of bought these unseen. So after buying them, I found they did not fit my Vikings too well. So they were just stored away. When I prepared for this years Grand Melee, I felt they would fit my Byzantines. So I cleaned the minis up and primed them. Only then did I realise, that Byzantines are not allowed Swords for Hire. But since they were already cleaned up, they made a natural choice for the first minis to get back into SAGA. Plus they should fit into some of the other Warbands and will be useful for both Dark Ages and Christian Crescent & Cross Warbands, since the rules for (Flemish) Mercinaries are similar in both.

Not much to tell about the paintjob or minis. The bugler was a but of a letdown, with lots of flash on the mini, which required a lot of cutting and sculpting. All the rest was straight forward paintjobs. The shields are all hand painted. I decided to only add some dirt to them, but no battledamage. Never liked the looks of damaged shields too much, so that was it. The colours for the shields were kept in yellows and blacks. Not too sure if those were already the Flemish colours during the dark ages, but I felt it was fitting. Some for the Flemish Lion. I kept that one deliberately simple, to make sure it fits in with medival  theme of SAGA. 

Hope you enjoy them!

Flemish Mercenaries

Flemish Mercenaries

Flemish Mercenaries

 

Crisis 2015 Antwerp picture report

As some may have noticed, this blog went to complete silence the past 6 weeks or so. The reason is simple… I wanted to make sure I finished all the terrain and minis for our game at Crisis in Antwerp yesterday. At that point I decided, that even the time needed to write a blogpost might have been too much. But it paid off since everything was ready in due time. But before I start catching up (once more this year), here is the annual picture report from Crisis showing the games hosted there! Hope you enjoy it! (I will try to comment where I know what it was.)

Up first the mandatory aerial reconnaissance of the first hall. The view is a big more restricted this year, so it does not give you the whole vista… sorry!

28mm Quatre Bras

28mm Fantasy

15mm American Civil War

Flames of War North Africa

15mm World War II

15mm World War One

28mm Waterloo

Again 28mm Quatre Bras

25mm Ancients (I think Carthage vs. Rome)

Flames of War Eastern Front

Monte Casino in 28mm

Which worked out fine with the forced perspective of the Casino ridge.

Bastogne in 28mm (IIRC hosted by the Bastonge Museeum)

28mm World War II (Chain of Command)

Grand tactical Waterloo (with a very friendly Napoleon)

Boxer Rebellion in 28mm

Lützen 1632 in 28mm

Wacht am Rhein preview demo for Battlegroup in 20mm

D-Day

Bolt Action

Great Northern War

Kings of War

Frostgrave Demo

Freebooters Fate demo

Nine Years War (Alde Garde)

54mm Plancenoit (Durham Wargames Group)

Ancients Naval

Invasion of Russia

Mexico (Crush the Kaiser)

German invasion of the Netherlands 1940

Plancenoit 1815 in 28mm (THS)

I think this was another Lützen in 25mm

Dust demo (Tactica Hamburg)

Operation Longcloth, Birma 1943

And last but not least, a first picture of our Battlegroup “Fall of the Reich” demo game. Fear not… there will be many more pictures to show in the coming days!

 

A very Merry Christmas

Well, as you all know, it is Christmastime again. And I really hope this reaches all of you and your families healthy and in good spirits!

As you all know, I always try spice these posts up a little and here is this years:

 

For sale

Just a short heads up, that I have made a massive update to the For Sale subsection of this blog.

as usual everything is 25mm to 28mm. There has been a huge update to the terrain section, as well as miniatures, including complete collections for WWI Germans and Brits, Medival English and Scots, vast amounts of ACW minis and lots of Hirst Arts molds. So I hope there is something for everyone.

And two more things… I know it is close to X-Mas. So for some this might be a great opportunity to get some gifts, for others the might just be the wrong time. If you fall into the later category, let me know and I will reserve you the stuff you want till January or in some cases February. Please just note… for reserved items over a value of 100 Euro total I reserve the right to ask for a non-refundable 10% deposit if I do not know you personally or have never dealt with you before.

Also… I am thinking about selling my painted ACW collection and my Warhammer 40K Tau. I just simply was not in the mood to take photos today. If you are interested, drop me a line and we can arrange something!

Tau XV 25 suit with burst cannon

Tau Pathfinder Team #1

 

 

 

Crisis 2014 picture report

Well Crisis 2014 is over and I wanted to share some photos of all the games at the show. All without comments this year… time is a bit short this weekend! Hope you enjoy them anyway!