Current Painting Table

Seriously, it must be the change in weather.

Here's what's currently in my painting queue:

I'm rather pleased with how the horses are coming along. I'm using this tutorial from Ken of All the Kings Men Toy Soldiers and despite being written for 54s, it works quite well on the 1/72 figures. These figures are Zvezda mounts for Russian Dragoons.

I am trying something new with this batch of Swedes (the guys in blue and yellow) - a white base coat for one (which I hate), and blacklining after the fact, rather than leaving a gap between colors (can't do that with a white base coat). After this group is finished, I will be focusing more on dragoons for both sides. And not just because i really like painting the horsies.

The Soviet riflemen may not look it, but they are primed; I use PVA. This has been my method of choice for most of this year for the big figures - so far, it seems to work. I will follow this up with a second coat of PVA once the figures are finished.

The buildings are birdhouses from Jo-ann's and Michael's that will be pressed into service for my 54mm games. The cabins, with a little work, will serve on the Eastern Front, primarily.

Another fantasy figure? (well several, if you count the rodents of unusual size)

What can I say, Song of Blades and Heroes is rather enjoyable and it's a great motivator for painting up some of my Bones minis. I have to say, they really don't take primer well at all, and still feel tacky a week later. A base coat of black acrylic seems to resolve that issue, however.

Oh, yeah. This guy., Skeletor, the Wraith Lord!! 

Paint Table Saturday - I have no idea what number this is.

It's been some time since I've done one of these.

Although I have been painting, it's just rarely on a Saturday. 

Tonight, I  primed the 1/32 WWII figs in the back 2 rows. I cheated and included the Great Northern War Swedes I started last night. Shhhh! Don't tell!

I haven't done white primer in ages, but I thought, what the heck? Mostly, I was inspired by the painting tutorials over on All the King's Men..

For the Swedes, I'm totally changing my painting approach to follow along with the tutorial at ATKM that I linked above - although, I'm not doing washes I mean the order of what gets painted first. That explains why they are ghosts still (normally I painted like they are getting dressed). These 12 figures represent the 4th battalion to be painted. I really need to get some artillery and cavalry done after this.

I won't be changing the painting approach to the 1/32 guys, since I block paint with no black lines. The WWII figs are the first I've ever run through the dishwasher prior to priming. They feel VERY different than when i hand scrub and soak them in detergent and it's for the better. There are definitely little or no oils or mold release left on them when they finish the regular cycle. 

These 8 figs will allow me to field three 7-figure units for the US and Germany. That equates to a 21-figure platoon (three 7-figure squads, sans HQ), or, for the bigger games (like Blitzkrieg Commander,say), a company of three 7-figure platoons (1-figure platoon HQ, 3 x 2-figure squads). 

I think, for this scale, 7 figures looks right for a section in a platoon sized game, and I already play 1/72 with 7-figure platoons for a company sized game and think that looks fine. I might try to paint up a 30+ figure platoon in 1/32, but I'd probably have to reserve using that many figures for the living room floor.

Paint Table Saturday #4

After stumbling on a blog that gave some ideas about painting 1/72 fast, I decided to give it a whirl - it is definitely faster than I've been doing, but at the sacrifice of my beloved black lining. I am already planning to go back and add the line after, as it won't add that much time. Unless i totally botch it!

Here are 6 Swedish infantry from Zvezda for the Great Northern War after an hour of painting - they started out as black primer.

Like I said, definitely faster than I've been doing them. Another hour and they will be done.

And here are some 1/32 Germans I am working on to complete phase 1 of my WWII collection (the flame thrower was something I found in a box of primed items, so I decided to finish him too):

I believe the flamer thrower is Matchbox, while the officer and SMG are both Airfix.

Paint Table Saturday (#2): Late Again

I didn't actually DO any painting on Saturday, although I did take this photo of what's on my table and awaiting cleanup/prep:

Zvezda Dragoons of Peter I

I plan to complete the two riders and horses on the right before the end of February, but we'll see.

On Friday night, I finished up the six Swedish infantry that were in the background last week: 

Zvezda Swedish infantry of Charles XII

FYI, my definition of "finished" does not include basing!

Paint Table Saturday (just a day late)

So there's this community on over on G+ where people share what's on their painting table on Saturdays. 

I painted last night but then forgot to take a picture, so without further ado, here's what's on my painting table:

Most of my painting time last night was spent on the officer's sash - so frustrating! But he's done now.

I also slopped yellow paint on the Swedes in the background, and today I took a brief moment to touch up the three left-most of those figures - mostly adding the black lining for the yellow. They "just" need their coats, pistols, pikes, ammo pouch, straps, belts, and hat lace.

You may have noticed the primer flaking on the Russians. Don't even get me started on that.

The Swedes are Coming!

These took forever, despite the rather simple color scheme. My colors (particularly the shade of yellow) might not match everyone's conception, but I based my paint selection on a number of sources, illustrations and photographs of actual uniforms (which have undoubtedly faded quite a bit over time). 

Most of the regular Swedish infantry regiments wore blue coats with yellow facings by the 1700s. I will probably paint all of mine this way:

One issue I had was the blue coat over the the black base - it was very dark. I painted white over the coat, and then blue, and the result was marginally better. From a time perspective, it adds substantial time per figure and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. 

The next 6, I'll do without the white and see what the result is with multiple coats of blue.

Great Northern War Phase 2: Swedish Infantry

On Friday, a copy of Terry Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming arrived. It took about 30 seconds of skimming through and glancing at the pictures to become inspired, especially by his focus on 20mm plastics.

So, with that bit of momentum to carry me into Saturday evening and today, I started getting my Zvezda Swedes ready for painting.

The figures are very clean and despite my hack job freeing them from their sprues, they needed little other than a clean up of the bases, from my perspective. 

Others may want to go around looking for mold lines and such. I have done that, but usually at great peril to the figures - not to mention it's time consuming, mind numbing and completely deflates any bubble of enthusiasm I may have for the entire painting task.

This time, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

And here they arrayed for priming:

 

 This represents two boxes of figures, 43 per box. 

Notice the paltry number of pikes - odd, considering Zvezda is a Russian company, and they should know better. Of course, their Russian set suffered the same disproportion. 

They also inexplicably give you nine of the marching pose per box. Most everything else is in 6s, which works great for my 12 figure units. Nine, not so much.

Combining the pikes with the marching pose, however, does give me two 12 figure units, with 25% pikes per unit. That works for me, although the remainder of the unit will be pike free for the time being.

Unlike the Russians, who still need their officers and standards painted, I'll be priming these by hand and painting them in small batches and including the officers early on. I intend to mix cavalry and artillery for both sides in between the completion of every 2 units, with the intent of being able to field very small engagements, with 1/2 size units (6 figures) using some variation of Bob Cordery's various grid-based rules, or using as 1:1 for various skirmish rules for 18th century.

Great Northern War Russian Infantry Complete! (sort of)

Last night, I finished the Semenovski unit and that completes the infantry - sans basing, officers and the 6 grenadiers that I have. Here are some mediocre pictures of them (I really ought to work on my photography a bit):

 This represents two boxes of Zvezda's Infantry of Peter the Great. You'll no doubt notice a paltry number of pikes for an army that continued to use them longer than their European counterparts. By the way, the Swedish box has the same issue.

So, for now my units will be very unhistorical without any pikes at all - save one unit that will be made of 50% pikes, also unhistorical.

I'm torn on picking up some Irregular Miniatures 25mm pikes (the Irregular Minis seem to play nice with Zvezda), the Strelets box with tons of pikes (although the figures look chunky compared to Zvezda), or buy more Zvezda boxes.

 For now, I'm not worrying about it - I'll wait (so I tell myself) until I figure out whether or not it bothers me in an actual game. Which, given that I have the same number of Swedes to paint, plus horse and gun for both sides, won't be for some time yet.

WWII Germans and Rainbow-Brite?

Where I work, this time of year is chaos, and it lasts until mid-July. Consequently, I've had virtually no time to game this week. 

Neither The Ever Expanding Dungeon (Labyrinth Lord) or the Mission on Mithril (Classic Traveller) saw any progress. Even Zorkon had to stay out of Stone Hell (Labyrinth Lord) this week, although that was thanks to Young Lord Shadowmoss. The only time I had, I ran Session 4 of my USR Wastelands game, and frankly, I feel rather "meh" about the session.

But, don't cry for me, Argentina!

Normally, I ride my skateboard on my lunch break (I'm 41 going on 17), but the weather has been working against me on that front. Ordinarily, this would bum me out, but, on the positive, it has meant that lunch has become my hobby time.

In the past, I've run some *very quick* dungeon crawls on my lunch breaks (using USR and Risus, and they were quick because I TPK'd so quickly), as well as broken out some wargames. This week, it's been painting.

I'm not sure what possessed me to start painting my 1/32 WWII figures when there are piles of other figures in the queue ahead of them. But, what a pleasant change of pace it is to not need to wear my magnifying goggles to paint!

The Blue M&M says "Hey, how YOU doin'?"

They aren't quite finished but they do paint a good deal faster than the smaller figures, I find. It's far easier to avoid painting over previously painted areas than it is with the smaller scales, so touch-ups are minimized. I'm still only shooting for "wargame standard" and I have no intent on doing anything fancy here, in spite of the fact that the folds in the uniforms beg for some highlighting/shading.

The book they are standing on, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough has me fired up to finish my guard unit for the GNW Russians, the Semenovski  Regiment aka The Rainbow-Brites of Imperial Russia:

Seriously.

Apparently the person in charge of their color scheme was a 4 year old. Despite, their ugliness, I'm inclined to finish the whole unit this way - solely because I love the light blue coat.

Kievski Regiment aka Proof I Still Paint Minis

Well, they aren't my best work, but they look OK from a "wargame distance" (although, in the picture below, I see some spots I will touch up) - 1 AoR/AtKM battalion of Kievski Regiment:

The red is Privateer Press Khador Red, the yellow is Ceramcoat Pale Yellow.

I have one more 12 figure unit to paint, which will be a guard unit, and then 2 companies of grenadiers.

Officers and standards will wait until I get some Swedes painted up.

Some New Recruits

My last post generated a good amount of discussion, thought and inspiration - the results of which I hope to put into play this week sometime.

I still need to write up my thoughts about JF's 9Qs for solo rpgs as well, but in the meantime, I got in some painting last night. I moved the next unit of Great Northern War Russian infantry one step closer to completion and when they are complete, I'll be over half-way done with the infantry, not counting officers.

And more troops arrived today:

1/72 Plastic goodies!

The dragoons bring my me up to two boxes for the Russians (at one mounted and one dismounted unit per box, I'm not likely to build up a large number of them). The US Marines were purchased primarily for the MGs and the mortars to supplement my existing force and replace some of the paper flats (I love my paper flats, but the Marines have given a good account of themselves and I thought they could use a reward). The remainder will be painted, eventually.

This recent burst of crass consumerism is the result of my efforts to turn some of my Christmas gift money into gaming fun.

With a little effort, I was able to stretch those dollars pretty far - I've got two boxes of Swedish dragoons on the way, that I picked up for a great deal ($9.98 a box and free shipping!), as well as a copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics (eBay for just $30 delivered) and SkirmishCampaigns' Red Guards at Kursk (found used via AbeBooks, at 40% off of retail).

In addition, I put in some on the Tunnels & Trolls kickstarter. I swore off Kickstarter just a few weeks ago - two of the three projects I supported seem to have disappeared -  but it's hard not to believe that Flying Buffalo and Ken St. Andre and crew will deliver.

I still have a little  gift money left, and with my birthday not too far away, I'm contemplating what to put it towards. I'm considering one or more of the following:

• Charles Grant's The War Game - in fair to good condition it turns up for around $40 pretty frequently
• Two Hour Wargames Nuts!2.0 Supplements - Peiper at the Gate, The Big Hurt or Stalingrad: Heroes All
• The Purple Worm Graveyard, possibly with the How to Host a Dungeon game as well
• Pat Condray's Wargaming the Age of Marlborough.
• GA PA:Age of Marlborough and Great Northern Wars
• 1/32 heavy weapons infantry for Germany and either US or Russia
• 1/32 WWII armor - CTS vehicles, though a limited range, are reasonably priced, or I could buy a 1/35 model kit, or perhaps 1 piece of 21st Century / FoV armor if I do some shopping around.
• 1/285 GHQ WWII Germans and Russians infantry and support - I can't explain this, it's just one of those wild ideas that gripped my brain after I saw some painted German infantry in this scale.
• 1/1200 ACW Ironclads (completely out of left field I know)

There's clearly no rush and I have ample projects to occupy my brain for some time, but I thought I'd throw the ideas up there in case anyone has strong recommendations or warnings about anything I'm considering.

Newest GNW Russian Unit

Last night, I finished the first unit of Russian infantry suitable for use as Byelgorodski or Astrakhanski regiments:

The usual blurry photo apologies apply!

I'm not totally happy with my painting of the facing on the coats, but at a wargaming distance, they look fine.

The figures are 1/72 Zvezda.

As a side note, this puts me 2/3s of the way to completing my December goals. Next up is to update the card-based dungeon generator with some changes for room dimensions, and then make it into a PDF. 

October Wrap-up and Looking To November

Happy Halloween! 

I hesitate to call it a treat, but here for your viewing pleasure (?) the results of my October painting:

Two Brigade Games G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. 15mm figures:

The completed 15mm Khurasan Salamen archers and shaman (1 of them fell behind the table before this photo was taken. Rest assured, he's painted):

And finally, two units of GNW Russians suitable for use as Pskovski (Osprey), Smolenski (Osprey), and Belgorodski (Condray). This is also the color scheme I think of for this period, but of course, I'm probably a victim of marketing, as it's the color scheme used on the Zvezda box:

Basing won' be done until all the units are complete. That's just my preference.

I also managed to get in a few wargames and even advanced my Tunnels & Trolls warrior, "Crazy" Joe (cut me some slack, he was like the tenth character I  sent through the The Blood War of Saxon adventure and by then, I had run out of name ideas!) to 2nd level.You'd think I'd bump up his DEX of 5 to 6, but I decided instead to bump his strength from 12 to 14.

For November:

• Finish reading A Wizard of Earthsea
• Paint one 12-figure unit GNW (red facings, leather breeches) 
• Play another T&T solitaire using "Crazy" Joe or a wargame
• Design and play a complete game from start to finish, and blog about the experience,for NaGa DeMon

Painting Progress! + Loot Left on My Doorstep!

First up, a unit of Great Northern War Russians - they aren't done yet, but that's why the post title says "progress" and not "finished.":

I'm rather happy with how they are turning out. The green may or may not be too light - either way I like it. It's Americana Forest Green. It's a little thin and, of course, I thinned it more before I realized that, so it's almost a glaze over the black undercoat. I'll go back and hit the green with an even thinner second coat  tonight, when I finish the muskets as there are some spots where the black shows through a little too much.

And these were in my mailbox (and on my doorstep, two different packages):

Is it me, or does Volley & Bayonet look like an Evel Knievel related product

Although I've been through B2 as a player many times, I've never run it. I've never played or run B1. I'm looking forward to running both for my local rpg meetup group in 2013, as I try to spread a little Old School love in the Atlanta area. I'll probably use Labyrinth Lord rather than B/X properly speaking, just because it's probably easier to get LL.  If not, then maybe Basic Fantasy, The Searchers of the Unknown or even Microlite OSS.

Why Volley & Bayonet? Because there's an article in an issue of MWAN that details using it for the GNW (and I have a PDF cooy). Sadly that's all the justification it takes!