Three down, three to go…
Ichziah is a firm believer in the Orcish Deity, Sentinal. He always carries the book of holy words with him. His major problem is with the demon drink. No alcohol is safe when Tunge is around.
In game terms Tunge is a magic user.
Of all six figures he is my least favourite, I can’t honestly say why.
By heck it is round to Friday again.
Braving winds and heavy rain I fought my way to the shed to locate something forgotten…. it wasn’t hard they were sitting in full view on the mini shelves I made out of scrap wood from the builders yard in Lerwick.
I remember really enjoying painting these chaps. They are for Science versus Pluck, not the main forces as they are in 10mm. These chaps are there for if things get tricky and a player is forced to resort to hand to hand.
The idea is that the player faces a random number of attackers who are trying their best to fill said player full of holes. The various sergeants and other ranks are there to help out depending on what their personalities their character has. A beloved officer will have a rescue force, a hated Officer will find very quickly if he is spear proof as the other ranks look the other way.
The rules themselves are somewhat Kriekspeil in their design. The players are all against an umpire or two who operate the terrain and the enemies. It is definitely not a case of I go, you go. Turns vary in length from hours to minutes and indeed in my campaign I am organising (well I started yonks ago) the allied forces begin the campaign in Blighty…they will need to organise forces to relieve Khartoum but from the Red Sea port of Suakim. One day I might actually get to run it. I have played a couple of games and the rules worked well.
So onto the forgotten forces…
British officers and other ranks:
Hussars and an intrepid reporter for the Illustrated Gazette
Some of the gentlemen whose aim is to fill the above full of holes…
There are also a pile of camel mounted ansar seen in the first photograph (not to mention a pile of undercoated infantry).
Because I am a wargamer, whilst looking at these photos I realise that there are some gaps.. naval brigade, a Gardner gun if for no other reason that it can jam after firing seventy rounds… Mounted officers, civilians etc….
All of the above models are Peter Pig 15mm miniatures. I toyed with the idea of going for Perry 28mm’s but decided to keep the scale smaller.
We as we are mentioning the Sudan war of 1885…
“The sand of the desert is sodden red,
Red with the wreck of a square that broke;
The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England’s far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of the schoolboy rallies the ranks,
“Play up! play up! and play the game!”
To be fair the square didn’t break, it opened up and let the enemy in, and it was a Gardner that jammed, not a Gatling…but now I am being a pedant….
Dahn was finished this evening. He has, in the past lost the barrel of his rifle. I added another from a GW plastic empire sprue.
He is an elderly Orc from the hills of Albion. There is probably no better shot in the whole army. He has been known to drop enemy troops at miraculous ranges or through the tiniest gaps. He knows how to get the best out of his Bakur rifle. Keeping everything covered in best brown paper when not in use.
Although his accuracy and skill is beyond compare he will often be heard uttering the phrase ‘can’t see the face, can’t kill the elf’ although not as fast as his comrades he more than makes up for it in his shooting abilities.
Tomorrow evening another member of the rifles (or as they are more correctly named ‘The 105th Loyal Sharpshooters’) will get finished off. Not sure which one yet, but I have four to choose from.
First of the Chosen Orcs finished. Instead of doing a bit on them all I have decided to do one at a time.
I decided to do Bok Arris first as he was the furthest behind of the six rifleorcs.
Arris is an unusual Orc from the ranks in that he can read and write as well as speak several languages including Elvish.
He is a firm believer in Democracy, something that makes him troublesome for most officers.
Tomorrow I will choose another hero at random….
As I decided to listen to this then in respect for John Tams (who played Hagman in Sharpe) tomorrow I think I will have to do Private Hagsmun, an old poacher from the hills of Albion. The ‘best shot’ in the army.
As you might guess…. Not men at all, but elite Orcs of the 105th rifles…
Did a bit of tidying up but as I was so cold I called it an early night.
This set was my first ever Flintloque figures, I picked them up at a convention, York I think. I took them home and got them painted pretty quickly and really liked them… a few more purchases and then no one else was interested. I hung onto them for an age, but then the vast majority went the journey in a bring and buy.
Scroll forwards a lot of years and look what is back on my table. I think I have beaten my original levels of miniatures… back then there wasn’t the range that there is now.
So anyway above we have…
Captain Reckhardt Sharke
Sergeant Padrig Harpy
Private Hagsmun
Private Arris
Private Tunge
Young Private Purkinnz
In the set came nine Ferach… (French Elves). Some of them below, they were finished a year ago!
My good mate Wiggy got me back into these. I have three of these boxed sets, I bought one, he bought me one for Christmas and then I got a pile of stuff off eBay and that had a box in too.
I can use any amount of Ferach but the heroes of the 105th can’t really be used more than once.
Hopefully tomorrow night I will be warmer than tonight (the joys of living in an ancient house) and I will get a pile more done on the orcs.
I managed to crack on tonight and get him done.
As with most things he looks better in real life.
He was a great mini to paint, I do like the Civilians in the Flintloque range. My intention is to get them all, his wife Lady Anna is definitely high on my list if I can find her.
So far I have the Trolkin civilians, Valon as well as the dwarf civilians. Elf ladies and males, most of the Orc civilians, various priests and the odd one or two I have forgotten..
A couple more images of Sir Willorcby…
The basing materials is from Luke’s APS. I decided to give it a bash and I am pleased with it. It does what it says on the tin… PVA then dunk or sprinkle the base with the contents and voila all done and dusted. I went for the Patchy Plains, but I think I may get some of the other base ready pots for the various different theatres…
Tomorrow I may Crack on with the heroes of the rifles…
I got a smidge more done tonight…
Sir Willorcby is one of a pair, now no longer available… sadly lady Anna didn’t arrive with him as he came from eBay.
I am still on the hunt for the good lady, but she hasn’t appeared yet.
Regarding his Lordship…. he has a strange appendage that may be a belt buckle or perhaps a strange necktie… I will contact Alternative Armies to see if they can remember.
A speedy paint job tonight
This young lady came free with my Alternative Armies order. I ordered bits and bobs to finish my 15mm HOTT army and she was in the box. Part of this month’s Azazel’s community challenge was to paint heroes.
So she is my heroine (or anti heroine) for the dark Tzar…
As she is a ghost, she was probably the easiest mini I have ever painted… light white undercoat, a couple of thin coats of white to try and keep the grey tint.
This was followed by a watered down green wash. When dry I used a red wash on the petals and a green wash on the stems.
A quick base of Patchy plains and voila…all done.
I used Greenstuff to reach from the base edge to the top of the mini base which was quite high.
I also made a start on this fine fellow
And after him….
This lot:
Well Friday is here again and there are more troops that haven’t seen the light of day for who knows how long…
These are some of my troops for my Lion Rampant army. I know the shield was pretty much gone by Agincourt but I reckon these chaps found some and put them to good use. These Perry boxes are really good value as there was enough in the box for a whole army (only some are shown here). I also ordered some French, these however never got finished…
My idea was to mix and match and get a bit of flexibility… sadly Perry’s plastics didn’t have the necessary plastic cavalry so I had to use 15th century mounted troops. The good news is that I recently heard that they are coming out sometime in the not too distant future.
Finally for tonight. My Bidowers for both Dragon and Lion Rampant.
I found these GW minis fitted quite nicely (a bit larger) with the historical troops.
Next week I will see what else I can find in the boxes in the cupboard….
Azazel does a great community challenge each month. The idea is to get people painting. November’s challenge was something mechanical. Not something I would normally bother with, but in all honesty, as it was a challenge I decided to give it a go. I had a mooch about for anything mechanical. The options I found were:
6mm road wars vehicles
10mm Gatling gun and crew
15mm Flames of War Vehicles and tanks
20mm Dark Future Vehicles
I decided on the latter:
They went from the bare plastic to something I am rather pleased with.
Rather than going for all four vehicles I decided to just do two cars and two bikes as well as drivers and a couple of operatives in their body armour to act as the dismounted drivers.
There were some issues with the builds and painting for that matter one regarding painting… I am rubbish at edge highlighting and then my original green on the renegade was too close to the khaki of the main body, it really got lost. this was solved by simply painting over it in a dark green.
For the look of the thing, all of the dashboards and engines were painted too. I don’t normally undercoat black, but it was what I had a rattle can of so I went with it.
The build issues weren’t hard to overcome, it just meant a bit of thought had to go into things.
Firstly each car has 5 pre-drilled holes (actually 7 for the Interceptor) some of these should have been filled prior to painting, but I forgot.
I added various bits and bobs from either greenstuff or some extras from a world war 2 tank sprue in my bits box.
The drivers proved to be problematic in that they just fitted into the Marauder and just didn’t fit into the Interceptor, I didn’t actually realise this until I came to glue the body to the chassis. Much swearing ensued… at least I know for next time… no doubt I will forget and do exactly the same as this time!
There were a whole host of weapon sprues available but I kept it to two forward facing guns for the Marauder and then three for the Interceptor (one in a turret).
I was lucky to be given some spare waterslide transfers for the interceptor, one had hornet on it which is appropriate as I had decided to paint Yellow and Black onto the rear of the car. The Marauder transfer came from an ancient GW Brettonian sheet of shield designs.
So how do I feel it went…
I am pleased to get them to where they are, I probably (or definitely) spent more time on these than I would normally. I would like to think it was because I was wanting to try and improve and not because it was a ‘challenge’… I know I thinned the paint a lot more and put lots of layers on (something I wouldn’t normally do with vehicles). Adding all the extras is something new too. I deliberately went out and bought extra bits and bobs, jerry cans and oil drums etc, not to mention drivers and people on foot. Maybe I was enthused by how well I thought they were looking!
When I will get to paint the other two cars and bikes is anyone’s guess, but my mate and I both have the ‘Atomic Highway’ Roleplay game so maybe they will get painted up for that. Either that or get booted onto eBay to help fund the 3D printer pot.
My December’s challenge is going to be a pile of 28mm Heroes from my Flintloque stash.
I started on the Ghoul officer, but have nearly finished him before December…
Luckily I have plenty more to keep me going…. one day I might get to finish my Mongols.
Bogenwald 