Tauran cavalry

Think I've been neglecting the S&S side recently - this lot had been undercoated for ages - finally decided to do something about them.

 

I need another unit of horse archers to go with them then start on some infantry.

Meanwhile I have also undercoated a unit of Hykran horse archers. Never know how to paint them so it should be interesting. What army they'll appear in is anybodies guess at the moment.

A retro landing party

 

Continuing with my repurposed retro ship's crew I've made a landing party.

Command group - the leader in the middle, security NCO on her right and shuttle pilot on her left.

And the squaddies. Must do something with the eyes. Or probably not.

You can never have too many hoplites...

Still got a lot more hoplites to get out of my system.

This lot being more of my late hoplites.

New toy

Foam cutter for various purposes...

Haven't tried it yet so that should be interesting.

Initially got some 20mm polystyrene sheets as terrain bases. Going to be fun painting them without dissolving them :)

And also some 5mm foamboard to see if it's any use for making buildings or walls. Think I'm looking forward to trying to etch stonework on the surfaces...

This is the main reason for the 20mm polystyrene - see if I can add terrain around it. Currently, I have to have a big step...

Demons and Winged Demons

 

Garrison demons and winged demons - my original intention was to make a load of these as the basis of an element based army but this tranche seem to have been stuck in limbo until I just finished them off.

The heavy dry brushing technique is meant to suggest molten lava - red on top with darker undertones. Not sure how effective it is.

I haven't based them because I'm still not sure how many (if any) will make it into a field army or if they'll just be kept for skirmish/pulp games. However, the intention is to produce a lot more anyway so... 

Having a slight shed tidy

 As I've been doing a lot of pulp things recently, things have been getting a bit untidy...

So I've sprayed the Weston boxes front and updated what's in them - just for the pulp stuff, haven't considered the rest.

Means the table has been a bit messy while I've been sorting...

But I thinks it's starting to get better...

Greek heavy cavalry

This lot had been sitting around undercoated for ages, so it seemed reasonable to get round to painting them.

Usual paint job, though I have gone back to black outline on things like reins - haven't been doing that recently.

I've also kept up the plain basing rather than on a textured background. Much easier to do...

As an aside/update - I've mentioned that I put in a trial order from Black Tree on the 6th, 10 days ago. Haven't heard anything back from them yet, so couple of days ago sent ant an email 'Is there an ETA for these?' - so far no reply. Normally I wouldn't have done this, it's just that this is a test order and I admit I'm testing them to a degree so...

Next, PE4 Conversions.

 

PE4 is another useful Persian as far as conversions go. The original Sp/Bw/Sh armed figure is at the front.

The shieldless ones throwing javelins or firing bows make good Bactrians when in mixed units.

Remove the bowcase and give the figure a sparabara make up useful Hd units for either Achaemenids or Sassanians.

Three more shield variations give a useful range of light infantry or allied troops.

Some PEC4 conversions

 

One of the reasons I like older Old School figures is that they are generally easier to convert into other figures. If the original Garrison range had been super detailed there's no way I would have converted as many figures as I have. 

The front figure is the original PEC4 with spear, shield and bow in case. My initial wish was for shieldless cavalry. Firstly, javelin armed, secondly bow armed. Useful for later Persian cavalry. Strangely, I did do a shieldless  javelin/bow armed figure to act as Bactrians; for some reason never made it into a production mould. For Bactrians, I simply use a mix of the javelin armed and bow armed cavalry.

Give the bow armed figure a cloak and it became a Caspian or Paricanian. With these four figures I can effectively field/represent any combination of Persian light cavalry.

Of course, bend the left foot forward and stick it on a base... Front figure I use as Kardaka - don't know why I didn't do a version without the bowcase, for my purposes not worried. 

Meanwhile the cloaked figure acts as a Caspian, both have other uses though - gives me a couple of decent variations.

So that's 6 simple conversions of the basic PEC4 with others possible. All of them are more useful than the original figure!

The Scythians

The Scythians are one of those armies I feel I should be a bit bigger...

Most of the units date back to 2015, including the sparabara unit. Back then I did paint stripes on trousers. Look carefully and you'll see a few of the Warrior Persian Wars Range.

This unit is much more recent and are technically Sarmations. They're not really conversions - as far as I know the rider was never issued, I made them 1 piece figures to make casting easier.

I did a couple of different figures for this army, both unarmoured and armoured, but only got round to making one unit.

For some reason I haven't done much with the bowcases. The Scythians have a couple of variations, but I also use an unaltered Gallic archer - paint alone gives a reasonable result.

At some time I really must make an effort to upgrade this to make a full army. I have got a number of other conversions available for use including javelinmen.

Some Sparabara units.

 It occurred to me that I've lots of sparabara units but they're not well represented as unit photos. So I thought I'd put some of them together. One disclaimer - I like the violin shaped shield rather than the actual spara - put it down to artistic licence. 

The original Garrison Immortal fronts this unit. Not a figure I really like because the spear is very weak and tends to snap where it leaves the shelter of the shield.

Most of my spara units are 3 three bases though some are 6. I've also got a few single element units.

A unit of Persians. I should probably do a couple more of these...

And the first of the 2 robed Mede units.

A six element unit of the original Persian archer. I should do more 6 element units.

 

I'm not sure about this unit - it's a lot brighter than the others and looks a little out of place.

My universal archer figure - probably the most useful conversion I ever made! 

Side on view to show off some of the tunic coloours. These are a right mix - like the red/white spara unit the design of some are a bit anachronistic, the frontal stripe design more suited to an Alexandrian based tunic. Still, they look good and help with the irregular look.

Time for a break

From painting all the pulp figures anyway.

Just  finished paintng and retouching this group, including some of the latest Scottish arrivals. I'm thinking I've done enough of them for now, need to go on to something else. Although that probably just means Daleks and Sontarans.

Interesting ones in the buch are these. No idea what they are meant to be but I started thinkingwild things from the forest or something. Green and brown clothes plus red hair just seemed right.

A Cyberman army

 

Nice and easy, undercoated grey, painted over with natural steel, base olive green then gloss varnish over the lot.I've now got the 3 x 16 man units I said at the beginning was my target, plus a few spares.

Now I'm in a bit of a quandry. It would be nice to have some 'specials' - cyber leaders, emperor daleks, perhaps a few of other races, etc. That means, really, Black Tree Designs.  The problem with Black Tree Designs is their reputation...  For example this.  And this.   Problems seem to go way back... So my dilemma. Do I risk an order, or do I give it a miss?

Update on this - decided to put in an order and see what happens. I'll let you know when (if?) it arrives...

A test Movellan

 

From 'Destiny of the Daleks' Just added a gun and a power pack to Admins Retro AR Range figure AR04, Bridge crew, I'll need to do a better job on the gun for future attempts! Overall, a very simple conversion that could be useful - I'll be going through my figures to see if there are any other possible conversion candidates lying around. The description of the Movellans as 'The Movellans outwardly resembled humans of various ethnicities and genders.'   will be used by me to be a bit more imaginative re skin colour - in fact, given the possible use of, say, red, blue, green etc, as skin colours could prove very useful.