Painting update

It's been a while since I had a post solely for the painting that I've done, so here is a photoshoot of some of the most recent.

Austrian Osnabruck-Lorraine regiment. These guys served in Italy and then in Spain.

Thanks to Aly of Aly's toy soldiers I found a copy of the flags for this regiment on the Fighting Talk forum. Also on there was uniform information and I quickly repainted the neckerchiefs red rather than white.

Next up, some Afghans for my 54mm North West Frontier toy soldier project. Painted in traditional toy soldier style with  gloss varnish, these guys are one of the two periods helping scratch my toy soldier itch. Figures are Armies in Plastic.

Opposition for the Pathans - Bengal Lancers! One of my all-time favourite corps. Eventually there will be 8 in the unit.

Helping out the Imperial cause - Sikhs! 

Pictured together, the idea is that these guys will be in half sized units for The Sword and The Flame

The other toy soldier project - the Great War. I've been painting up a few more of these chaps too.

Back to 28mm and here is my second unit of Roman Legionaries. I've played a test game of War and Conquest, and I really like it. WaC will now be my go-to ruleset.

To oppose the Romans here are some Companion cavalry that I painted up for Craig. I'm hoping to have his ancients completed by the end of the year.

I've been beavering away on terrain for the North West frontier as well, but more on that later.
I'm very excited that Ian Kay at Irregular Miniatures has completed sculpting Heavy Machine Guns for the Great War in 54mm, so as soon as they arrive I will have them painted and posted up here.

Nate

Barbarian warband

I haven't painted anything for my Song of Broken Legions game so far this year. Nor have I played any battles. But I've had these beautiful Celtos figures sitting around for ages now, and before I finish Craig's next wave of stormtroopers I thought I'd get them finished.

The full warband

The hero (reminds of Slaine), and a battlemaiden wearing next to nothing.

Druid and chap with a magic spear.

A couple of champions.

Some expendables with spears.

Some more expendables, but this time with a bit of armour and shields.

These are perfect to face a Roman expedition into the heart of druid territory in order to recover some mystical object or other. I'll try and get a game with them soon.

In other news, The Perry Zulu Wars figures have proved too tempting for me to resist. I'm putting together a couple of forces for the Men Who Would Be Kings rules, and here are a couple of test elements that I've done so far.

All the black on the figures are actually German grey washed with a black wash.

The skin colour is chocolate brown with army painter dark tone ink wash and then highlighted with chocolate brown.

I went with the blue facings of the 13th Light Infantry, rather than the usual green of the 24th. I'm looking more at Woods' column to base my forces on.

I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out to far.

I'm going to add some Natal Naval Contingent and the Natal Carbineers (because of their cool spikey helmets) to the Brits. I still need to get one more box of Zulus so I've got 6 units.

We played a game at John's a couple of weeks back as well. The first Team Yankee game since our little tournament in April. My Soviets went up against the Brits and John's yanks took on my West Germans commanded by Paul. Both of my armies lost, which just shows how crap I am when it comes to the meta of any game. I hate list building and just tend to take what I like. Mike has a habit of hiding for most of the game, and I need to learn to be a bit more patient. My natural inclination is always to move forward, but in the open the Russian tanks don't last long.

The only picture I took shows my hinds doing damage, but not fast enough for my army to survive.

I've currently got some stormtroopers and ACW heavy artillery on the painting tray. There's 2 weeks of holiday coming up and I'd like to try and use it to get all of Craig's Star Wars legion and my 15mm ACW completed.

Nate

The sand of the desert

Lion Rampant author Dan Mersey is working on another ruleset to be published by Osprey for the Colonial era entitled The Men Who Would Be Kings. Being a self-confessed fan-boy of his work, I had been planning to collect forces for the North West Frontier so that I could have some armies ready to go by next year when they are published. I purchased one unit of Artizan British infantry (12 figures) as a beginning. I figured I would use this as my first experiment with the triad recommendations from the Painting Wargames Figures book.

Loading his faithful Martini-Henry

A rear view

And a side shot showing the offending helmet flash.

The colours for the uniform were Russian Uniform WWII, highlight mixed with tan yellow, second highlight with more tan yellow, third highlight with Iraqi Sand added. All white is light grey with white over the top. Flesh is Light Brown, mixed with Sunny Skintone for first highlight, Sunny Skintone for second highlight and Sunny Skintone mixed with white for final highlight. Rifle is Hull Red with the grain painted in Mahogany Brown. Mess tin and metal on rifles are gunmetal grey washed in a black wash.

I'm really happy with how he came out. I've discovered that the helmet flash shouldn't be there for the Second Afghan War or the Sudan campaigns, so I've cut and filed it off the other figures. This chap won't be part of the army, just an experiment.

I've also decided that rather than NW frontier, I'm going to concentrate on the Sudan instead. The reason is that I'm quite taken with the idea of using the Perry figures range and I want some camels! Also, the main enemy come in plastic, which makes them a cheaper proposition than all metal Afghans! 

My plan for the British force is to have an infantry unit in Indian pattern uniform (the Artizan unit that I have), a unit of Sikhs, a unit of Highlanders in grey, a Naval Brigade Gardner gun, a unit of Bengal Lancers and a unit of the camel Corps. Three boxes of plastic Ansar and a couple of units of cavalry and camels will make up the Mahdist forces. I may even add in a unit of Naval Brigade for a bit of blue. There is no historical OOB that matches this, but I'm not particularly perturbed by that.

I'll start to accumulate more of the necessary figures next month. In the meantime, I just made an impulse buy:

Will Austria-Hungary finally win?

I played the first edition of Axis and Allies a lot, and when I saw that local on-line shop Mighty Ape had reduced the  price for this it was a no-brainer. Time to host a board games night methinks!

Nate