From The Painting Table #18

Another mix of recently painted minis for me to showcase today.  I've not had a greatly productive year so far on the painting front if I'm honest, I'm getting a few bits and bobs done, like those shown below, but no projects getting completed or even that many actual units (although there is one of those below), on the plus side I'm still getting a lot of games in, I suppose you can't have everything.......

Starting today with these Masai villagers from wargames foundry.  These were an xmas present from my sister (along with some Masai warriors) and are a welcome addition to my growing 'Darkest Africa' collection.

This is an interesting mini, from the dawn of Warhammer 40K, a 'Sensei'.  These are the immortal sons or descendents of the Emperor and are invisible to physic powers, the Inquisition naturally see them as a threat.  

An actual unit with gaming purposes now, 10 Nurgle Plaguebearers, which will see use in Warhammer fantasy, Warhammer Quest and potentially KIngs of War.  I'm always apprehensive of painting daemons, especially the skin ones, but I think these came out OK in the end, they still look a little to clean though and not disgusting enough.

 Below are a couple more plague spreaders, but this time for the Skaven.

 

Finally we have this 'Lizard Sorcerer' from the old Darkworld boardgame.  He's not the greatest mini but is being added to my Warhammer Quest collection to act as a stand in for a Liche.

From The Painting Table #16

Another showcase of my latest eclectic selection of painted minis for today.  December was inevitably a busy month and I really didn't achieve much on the painting front at all, but what I did manage to do somehow was play a lot of Warhammer Quest....

Which leads me nicely to this chap, who is of course a classic citadel Chaos Warrior who has had a repaint and a dedicated Warhammer Quest style base rather than my normal green flock.  The party also contains a pit fighter, a wizard and a warrior priest.  Both the pit fighter and wizard have dedicated Warhammer Quest minis already so expect to see a warrior priest in the near future.

Next we have some additions to my Darkest Africa collection courtesy of Foundry, on the top a couple of British NCO's from their Boer War range and on the bottom an explorer both on and off a donkey.

 

Staying with Foundry somewhat randomly we have here two ancient Greek Hoplites, why? I really don't know except that I fancied painting them.

 

The last Hobbit movie was an enjoyable movie if admittedly not a masterpiece like the Lord of the Rings movies were, and it gave me the urge to paint a few more middle earth bits starting with this Tauriel.  I was quite pleased with the result until I photographed it and now the hair is looking way to bright so I will have to try and tone it down a bit somehow.

 



Not going far from Tauriel at all we have these wood elf archers from GW Lord of the Rings range, but who would of course happily work fighting along side Tauriel and Legolas in a Hobbit game.

Now to the first finished minis from my second wave Deadzone kickstarter package.  I started with a few Enforcers, which for some reason I really enjoy painting, from left to right we have an enforcer captain, Sgt Howlett and an enforcer with fusion gun.

 

Finally we have these two plague corrupted enforcers.  I've a veritable mountain of Deadzone stuff still to paint and of course I am eagerly awaiting the imminent arrival of wave 3.

From The Painting Table #15

A few more random bits and pieces have been finished, which I present below;

 

First this rogue trader era Imperial Army standard bearer for use with my Imperial Guard Astra Militarum army.  This guy came without his right arm, I searched fruitlessly for an appropriate spare Cadian arm, that would have worked better, but had to settle for this Catachan one in the end.

 

 These are Ver-Mym from Mantic's warpath universe, although these ones came with the project Pandora game.  They're clearly space skaven, and are at the higher end of Mantic's variable sculpting range.  These have been painted to match the plague marines in my warhammer 40k chaos space marine army as they have a dual role as a squad of chaos cultists as well.

 

 

A few askaris from foundry's darkest Africa range to go with my as yet uncompleted explorers project.

 

 

This was an odd elf that got sent to me with an order of historical stiff from wargames foundry.  I like the general style of the fig, but can't say that I really approve of the gratuitous exposed breasts.  It just seems silly and pointless.

 

 

And finally these three Eldar jetbikes for 40K.  These are very old minis, and frankly not very good, but they will see action as a vital tactical part of the Eldar forces.

 

Belgians In The Congo

Todays minis are an addition to my ever growing collection of colonial figures from late 19th century Africa.  Two packs from Wargames Foundry's darkest Africa Belgians range, a pack of officers ad NCO's and a pack of Askaris for them to lead.  As with all my other minis from this era I plan to run some pulp adventures or possibly dino hunting games at some point, these Belgians will provide a third European faction (along with adventurers and the British Army) to contend for the spoils.

Officer Types

NCO Types (I think the guy on the right looks like John Hurt!)

Askari's

Some great characterful minis here I think, but now time to get a bit serious;  Obviously these models are for games loosely based on the historical period 'the scramble for Africa'.  What got me to thinking was the title of the pack of officers; 'Darstardly Belgian Officers', which seemed a bit harsh on all Belgians and rather stereotypical (although I cast no doubt on the fact that many atrocities were committed in the Congo Free State under the rule of Leopold II of Belgium).  I couldn't help but then wonder if any sort of colonial gaming was somehow glorifying colonialism and was in its way a bit racist.  I'm a white Englishman and I'm just after a bit of fun in a pseudo-real world of exploration and adventure, trying to recreate something like the adventure stories of Haggard or Kipling on the table, but I can't help but start to wonder how a 'Darkest Africa' game would look to a African and what they would make of our little bit of harmless fun.

I'm not sure what the answer is, I'm not entirely sure that there's even a problem, thoughts anyone?

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.

Hunters, Explorers and Adventurers - Part 2

Somewhat later than anticipated we have my second bunch of explorers that I plan to take dinosaur hunting.

Starting with these 4 from North Star games.  These are the first models I've got from Northstar, pretty good on the whole, nice detail and character, but there was a lot of flash.

and then these which are from foundry like the last lot.

You'll notice a Renaissance captain looking slightly out of place on the right, foundry have started giving away a free model with orders (a fantastic policy) and this was Julys free model, jolly nice he is too.

Hunters, Explorers and Adventurers - Part 1

The latest additions to my collection are these models from Foundry's Darkest Africa range.

Starting off with a pack called 'Clean limbed British officers and adventurers' which is a brilliant title, and has some fantastic models, and even includes an Allan Quartermain (middle left) who's one of my favourite characters.

This next pack is called 'eccentric explorers', which is actually a group of historical explorers of Africa.  from left to right, Sir Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke, Dr Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, Sir Samuel Baker, and the German Carl peters.  Another great set, with some of the key characters of the Victorian era in Africa.

And finally 'big game hunt' which includes a German hunter, some native helpers and a lion to hunt. 

And what are these for? Well the idea is to go hunting, but hunting for dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties!  In the deepest African jungle in the year 1890, some mysterious creatures have been spotted and the race is on to bring back specimens to the great Museums in London and around Europe.  Not entirely sure on rules yet, will be homebrew of some sort, and we plan to have a bit of fun with this.