From The Painting Table #14 - This Month I have Been Painting.......

All sorts of random things really, none of the stuff belongs to specific projects or armies/warbands that needed work, I just fancied pulling a few models I liked the look of out of the pile and painting them up.

 

First up is this pack of 'Hollywood heroes' made my warlord games for the anglo-zulu war of 1879.  Of course based on the main characters from the awesome film 'Zulu', now I don't normally hold with minis of bona fide historical personalities being given a Hollywood makeover, but Zulu is such a fantastic movie I'm willing to make an exception in this case.  In case you needed telling from left to right we have; Private Henry Hook, Lt John Chard, Lt Gonville Bromhead & Colour-Sergeant Bourne.

 

 

I've also painted a selection of what would have been termed 'Imperial agents' back in the day (like 20 years ago I know) for warhammer 40K, after painting them I did think they would make a nice little inquisitorial warband, I might have to dig out the old rouge trader inquisitor I have in my collection and give him a lick of paint too.

 

 

This is a classic Adeptus Arbite armed with a bolt gun, rather than their characteristic shotguns.  I've been trying to get hold of a full squad of these at a reasonable price for ages, but have failed miserably, seems I'm not the only one who likes them.  I'm not sure what it is about them either, they are old and very flat posed, and technically not very good models, but something about them still screams cool to me.

 

I'm rather proud of how this callidus assassin came out, I think one of my better paint jobs.  Vindicare and callidus are my two favourite assassin temples, who doesn't love polymorphine.

 

An Imperial Guard colonel here, painted to match the rest of my Imperial Guard detatchment.  Although it started as an allied contingent I've managed to acquire enough Imperial Guard for them to form a small army on their own now, if only I could face up to painting another 50 or so guardsmen.

 

And finally for the Imperials this Inquisitorial scribe.

 

Some more classic citadel now, this time for warhammer fantasy in the shape of these 3 classic Norse miniatures.  These were spares I had when I picked up a whole lot of classic Norse minis for a Mordheim warband, these didn't find a place in that warband, but again I just really like the models and they've found their place on the shelf.

 

 

 

And finally another random Airfix kit that I bought, this time a British Bofors 40mm gun and tractor from WW2 in 1:76 scale.  I like these little airfix kits with more than one element too them, it makes for an interesting build and looks good on the shelf.  The tractor was a slightly more challenging build than I was expecting as well.  I've painted this one for action in northern Europe after D-Day, not for north Africa as it is on the box, just because I prefer it in green!

Warlord Games 28mm Anglo-Zulu War Plastics

A little while ago Warlord games were doing a half price sale on single plastic frames from several of their ranges and I couldn't help but pick up a few bargains. I ended up ordering a total of 5 sprues each with 4 figs on for £2 each plus £2 postage, which works out at £12 for 20 miniatures, which I was rather pleased with.

I went for a sample of the Anglo-Zulu war range and ordered 2 sprues of British infantry, one sprue of Natal Native Contingement, one sprue of married Zulu's and one sprue of unmarried Zulu's.

British Infantry

Natal Native Contingent

Married Zulus

Unmarried Zulus

Now I'm not planning on collecting armies for the Anglo-Zulu war at this scale as I already have an extensive collection in 1:72 scale for the conflict, I've bought these with the aim of doing some pulp skirmish adventures along with the Darkest Africa adventurers that I bought from foundry last year.  This was going to be a project I was going to try and write rules with from scratch, but amazon also had a sale recently which allowed me to pick up 'In Her Majesty's Name' (ospreys Victorian sci-fi rules) digitally for around a pound, so I will probably now be basing the project around these.

Wargames Illustrated 322 - The Great War for Flames of War

I stopped doing a monthly look at the wargaming magazines I was buying a while ago, I can't really remember why even, but like many things it slipped by the wayside, but this month I'm bringing it back as a one off to look at issue 322 of Wargames Illustrated.  This is because I was really impressed with it and wanted to recommend it to my readers, especially those with an interest in gaming WWI.

The big news this issue is the release of battlefront's Great War Flames of War supplement and the magazine come with a 36 page booklet which provides all the rules for playing this new version of flames of war.  This means of course that the main magazine also has some articles around the background of this supplement with a look at some of the myths of gaming WWI and a look at great war tanks, which lets be honest are of course the main attraction when gaming in 15mm scale.  What I've always liked about wargames illustrated is that although they are promoting the latest flames of war release there is always plenty of other varied content as well.

The magazine also features a couple of Napoleonic articles, the first a fascinating overview of the Polish armies of the era, the second a look at one groups take on the battle of Quatre Bras.  Some eye-candy is provided courtesy on the salute 2014 painting competition.  The other stand out articles were on the history of the Russo-Japanese war and it's implication for WWI and a look at the new 'The Crescent and the Cross' which is the expansion of the 'Saga' gaming world into the era of the crusades.  I haven't played any Saga, but it's something that I've been keeping my eye on for a while, maybe one day.

The booklet that comes with the magazine takes the familiar flames of war rules (which you will still need a copy of) and gives them a new twist.  It starts with a brief overview of the great war and then moves onto all the special rules for fighting in this era and for using the great landships.  There are then late war lists for the British and the Germans and finally three scenarios to play.  This supplement is of course for the western front in Belgium and France from 1916 onwards, I'm hoping the French with their FT-17's will get added at some point as well.

I haven't decided if I will be buying a flames of war WWI army yet, but I have to admit that I'm very tempted.  the other option that I'm considering is using the rules in the booklet, but using all the 1:72 scale figures and tanks that I already have lying around.  Only time will tell, but I do want to do some WWI gaming over in the near future and I now have a ruleset that I could make a start with.

From The Painting Table #13

I've had two quiet months in a row now on the blog, and although it wasn't planned I often find gaming and painting takes a back seat in the summer as my life fills up with other things.  This time the main culprit is the fact that I bought a second hand Xbox 360 which came with Skyrim, and I've got a little bit addicted to it, couple this with holidays, family stuff and a new role at work and I've found it difficult to find much spare time.  All this aside I have painted a few bits over the last month or so...

First up we have this addition to the Eldar army for 40K, a squad of wraithblades, great models, not so sure about the rules, a mere one attack seems to limit their potential.  I tried a bit of an experiment with the energy shields and gave them a coat of gloss varnish , I think it works.

This is a bit of a random LOTR figure I dug out from the pile, mainly because I wanted a Legolas for my Hobbit collection, but didn't want to pay the price of the new one, this one does the job nicely.

Next we have one of the new dwarf Gyrobombers for my warhammer fantasy dwarf army.  It's not a bad piece at all but I was a bit disappointed when the new Dwarf book came out that the dwarves didn't get one of the really big impressive kits that absolutely every other release seems to come with at the moment, where's my dirigible GW?  having had that little moan overall I'm pleased with the new book, nothing radically changed, but lots of little tweaks that make the army that little bit more competitive and also fun to play with.

This is what I really want!

The Gyrobomber was a pain to paint with lots of intertwining runic decoration, and another big thing for me was that this was the first time I'd seem a new style GW flying base with round attacher.  You wouldn't believe how happy I was when I first saw this piece of plastic tumble out of the box!

The joy this piece of plastic bought me is indescribable

Finally we have the last two mercenaries that came with my first deadzone package, the forge father woman Freya and the psychotic Judwan assassin Wrath.  They're probably the worst models out of the set, which is why I left them till last.  The second package from the deadzone kickstarter is due soon and I'm definitely looking forward to it.