Roman auxiliary RE14B Unit

 

Ran out of paint for the bases so basing the figures will have to wait until the new paint arrives...

I don't have any specifically Auxiliary command figures so just picked out an officer and standard bearer that seemed reasonable.

At the moment I'm painting a couple of cavalry units and some LI in wolfskins.

Newhaven park update

 

The basic model of Newhaven Park is finished with a few touches still to add. I keep thinking some of these tiles are a bit too bright for Newhaven.

I've still got a playground to paint and other items are subject to change, but it's mostly there. I'm calling it Peabody Park - on the one hand, it's a Lovecraftian name, on the other hand it's reminiscent of the name 'Peasholme', a park in Scarborough. Peasholme Park has a definite wargames link... 'Naval Warefare Battle The park is home to the oldest continuously simulated battle in the country - a unique miniature sea battle named 'The Naval Warfare'. Taking place July and August each year this popular event has been a unique family holiday tradition since 1927' Seen it a couple of times - spectacular and well worth the visit.

We usually spend a few days in Brighton every year - it's easy to get to and we like it. This year we stayed in an apartment next to the Royal Pavilion. The Pavilion has a cafe called The Pavilion Garden Cafe - which gave me the idea to put one in Peabody Park. The model itself virtually built itself - I got some thin card, tried fittied some balsa into the structure, then realised I just about finished making the thing! So I painted it up and finished it. Easy to make, gives me a good template for things like fairground/circus/Christmas Fair stalls etc. The other groundkeeper's shed isn't glued in - it's higher than the height of the wall finials so would make stacking difficult for storage. That shed is one I already had lying around and just repurposed.

Gates are an issue. I would have liked using decorative gates for all of the entrances but they aren't cheap! So I used ones I had as part of bought wall set ups and just used plain balsa for others - I did the same with the church and cemetary.

This finishes the original plan but I'll be doing a lot more. I like the idea of  set boards and the use of balsa walls, so expect to do a lot more of this kind of thing in future. Next 'project' probably needs to be the waterfront area.

Roads, playgrounds and tombstones

Had a couple of deliveries today...

Roads in the past have just been bought piece by piece. For this 20mm layout I thought 'let's do enough in one go'. Bought from War Worlds Gaming.

Meanwhile, some accessories... tombstones, a funeral party and children's playground. Buildings may be cheap, but the accessories side is creeping up! Tombstones and playground being below the level of the wall finials will be glued down. By Langley.

Church and graveyard base

 

Still a few finishing touches to add - bought some plastic stuff I didn't like so I've ordered some 1/76th scale gravestones from Langley. 

This is how I expect to use the set up. Those squares represent 3' square paving stones in 20mm. 

Alternative way round, but prefer the previous one.

Of course. once finished I naturally start thinking 'could I have done it better'. That pavement is 12' wide. If I had made it 6' wide this layout would have been practical and I could have made the graveyard bigger. To be fair though I think I still prefer the original.

I admit I really like these bases. Cheapish, easy to make and gives a nice modular system. Light and sort of stackable - suspect might cause baldy patches on the finials though... Park next, then might see about using the system for  housing developments...

The Night Flier plus a few problems

A made up monster, though there is a Steven King story about a serial killer called the Night Flier. It's seen here next to a 20mm figure.

 

It's a bit like a cross between a flying ant and a bat...

Haven't decided on it's characteristics yet, but not one of the good guys

Meanwhile, sad problems with some of the previous models I made. They are going very sticky and starting to deteriorate.

Apart from cracking paint the materials seem to be softening as well.

On this one the base has softened and the figure is falling over!

I'm guessing that the problem is that they weren't cured right through but just surface hardened. Possibly the plasticisers are seeping through causing the problems. I assume I just didn't leave them to cure long enough or it was a bad batch of polymer!

Persian horse archer PEC12

 

Continuing with my 'really need to paint some Persians' urge...

I have far too many of this figure than I could possibly need but really, what else could I do?

It's simply PEC4 with new arms and, well, arms. It's a nice figure and one of the few Persian cavalry conversions that I've given a code to - PEC12.

Purely for information, the cavalry conversions I've given a code to are:

PEC7 Army standard bearer

PEC8 Cavalry standard bearer

PEC9 Guard/Immortal cavalryman

PEC10 Persian robed cavalryman

PEC11 Mede robed cavalryman (no mould of this yet!)

PEC12 Persian horse archer 

PEC13 Persian horse archer, cloaked  

Steven's prehistoric project complete...

 'Hi Dad,

It has been ages since my last update, again. However, I have ‘finished’ the prehistoric project, at least for now (yes, there are still some things unpainted, and some things I would like but don’t yet have). However, my WW2 Germans are calling for attention again.

Since my last update I painted some cavemen ( Figure 1 ), hunting dogs ( Figure 2 ) and flame-bearers   ( Figure 3 ) by Irregular Miniatures. The latter only came in a single pose (a surprise coming from Irregular), so I did a few minor conversions adding furs, beards etc, and even made one of them into a female ( Figure 4 ). To go with them, I made some flame markers from cotton wool and painted them using the airbrush ( Figure 5 ). The flame markers have more general use, of course.

I spent a lot of time on some essentially scratch-built models. Firstly, I did a jub-jub bird (from a scenario in the Palaeo Diet rules) based on a 25mm Pendraken duck modified and painted to look a bit like a golden pheasant ( Figure 6 ).

I also scratch-built a pair of huts using the modelling putty you gave me, following a very usefulguide online, here. It was also fun putting a few extra details on the bases such as the firepit and a pile of mammoth tusks. I based the (previously posted) Baueda orc house too whilst I was at it ( Figure 7 ).

As an army review ( Figure 8 ) of sorts, I think it all comes to:

 18 cavemen (Khurasan) 

 Six converted Libyan archers (Khurasan)

 10 hominids (Khurasan)

 10 cavemen (Irregular)

 Seven flame-bearers (Irregular)

 Eight hunting dogs (Irregular)

 10 flame markers (scratch-built)

 Three large herbivores: mammoth, rhinoceros and hippo (toys, possibly Mojo)

 Three sabretooth tigers (Khurasan)

 One cave bear (Khurasan)

 10 small herbivores each of: horses, deer and goats (Pendraken)

 Three rabbits (Pendraken)

 Twelve 10mm wolves (Copplestone)

 Two 15mm giant wolves (Demonworld)

 Three animal lairs (Copplestone)

 One stone circle (Copplestone)

 One jub-jub bird (Pendraken)

 One hut (Baueda)

 Two huts (scratch-built)

So that is a total of 131 items. Given this was supposed to be a little side project, I may have gotten sucked in a bit too much.

Figure 1 Irregular Miniatures cavemen.

Figure 2 Hunting dogs. I tried to paint some of them as sort of transitional from wolf to dog.

Figure 3 Flame-bearers. The original is third from left; the rest have had some sort of conversion. I painted a reddish glow from the flame on their face and chest area, although it isn’t very clear in the photos.

Figure 4 The converted female. In addition to the obvious, I trimmed slivers off her limbs and body to try and give her a more feminine body type.

Figure 5 Fire markers made from cotton wool, airbrushed with white, then yellow, orange, red, and finally black to hopefully give a reasonable fire effect.

Figure 6 Jub-jub bird. The base was scratch built - the tree stump was green stuff over a wire skeleton, and I added a few other bits to the base to make a mini diorama. Spot the rabbit and the cotton wool spider web.

Figure 7 Stone-age huts. The middle one is from the Baueda, the other two were scratch built from putty, as were the items around the huts. I tried to make the fire look like proper fire.

Figure 8 Everything all together. It does look quite good, I think.

Latest Persian light cavalry plus a Review

 

Originally this was  going to be a post on the unit I just finished... then sort of extended things a bit. With the exception of the officers and standard bearers they are all PEC2, Cavalryman with spear and bow in case, unarmoured or conversions of PEC2.

The first lot are ones loosely based on the style of dress shown in 'The Persian Army 560-330BC' by Nick Sekunda and Simon Chew. For convenience I think of them as 'Persian National Army'.

The rest include some of the original figures plus others just representing generic Persians and Bactrians.

So this is the unit I've just painted. Sometimes, I just have to paint Persians. For some reason I didn't do standard bearers for this unit (or the unit of horse archers I'm currently painting).

The strange thing is neither this figure or the horse archer were ever intended to 'production' figures... and it shows with these. The right hand is about as crude as I've ever done... definitely for my use only!

Back to casting

 

Including first try out of the new ECW moulds - look OK. Meanwhile, for myself I've cast some Persian light cavalry. Think I was starting to get slight withdrawal symptoms over not doing any Greeks or Persians for a while...

20mm Police station compound

 

Probably could have made it a bit bigger but it serves it's purpose. This type of wall is about to be produced in much larger numbers! Different gate types and sizes may be an issue eventually.

The good thing about these is how easy they are to make. The actual wall pieces are simply balsa  cut to size while the ball finials were 'sourcing map 100pcs PP Plastic Bearing Balls 7mm Solid Plastic Balls, Precision Bearing Ball, Red' - found on Amazon, lots of other sizes available, £6.39 for 100!

20mm Arkham House Diner

 

My blog output has really slowed recently... though to be fair I spent a bit of time sorting this one.

The Arkham House Diner is a bit different to the 28mm Sarissa  version plus it's got it's own compound.

Basically a box with a lot of windows, seems to work quite well.

Pretty basic design, large seated area at front with big windows, that back window represents where the toilets are.

For future compounds/walls I'm trying simplifying it so that the ball shaped sculpture is directly on the base.

Looks like it should work.

One reason for the delay in putting this out is because I spent a lot of time looking at the ground area - this one (painted on mdf) took a lot of time and I'm not convinced it's any better than the much simplified/sprayed sand coloured slabs!

Assyrian v Philistine DBA

 As usual when Steven is home for a few days we fitted in a game...

Steven liked the idea of using my Lamming Assyrians. Lamming chariots are two horse so he used my tinplate chariots instead. Also, no hordes in my Lamming army so a couple of elements from the Minifigs 'S' Range did that job.

I must have been in a strange mood... I decided to use 'S' Range Philistines instead of Egyptians.

I put a few ox carts on the base line for show. Must repaint this lot some time (well, three of them.)

Set up. I set up first and Steven moved first. I held my chariots back.

The reason I held them back because I intended to split the army - my right flank a bit defensive against his chariots, left as an assault force. The idea was that the chariots would be able to act as an outflanking force in the centre!

Sadly, made a couple of mistakes. Took my right flank too far forward so Steven managed an uphill advantage, didn't open the gap wide enough, and didn't get in contact with his right flank quick enough!

I also forgot that it's an instant kill with knights against spears. Throwing ones and twos didn't help - Steven threw three's and above! He got four kills on contact and game over!

Anyway, I won the last game, so don't really mind him winning this one.

I tell lies you know...