Shameless plug in order to win free stuff

One Lover Ray Rousell has decided to give back to the community that has given him so much (quite literally) in order to celebrate his 500th post. There's a pile of goodies on offer, so get in on the action at his blog.
But don't win anything I'm eyeing up please.

Nate

Scoobies and Boobies

First, a warning that the bottom of this post may not be suitable for work or for the prudish.
Now on to the pictures of the last dozen figures in the commission I've been working through. First up, the Scooby gang go all post-apocalyptic (well, not all - there was no Great Dane to paint):

Fred and Daphne.

Shaggy and Velma. Jinkies - look at that zombie for me to chainsaw up!

I'm not sure what this figure is. I went with angry street urchin or disgruntled orphan:

'What attitude?!'

I'm sure I've taught her at some stage.

Some great fantasy types up next:

'Chainmail bikini my ass! It's full plate or nothing!'

Now a Greek lady who is not planning on spending her entire life indoors working a loom. Let's hear it for the gyna-liberation movement:

She better watch out - she'll get a tan and then no-one will want to marry her!

I gave her an owl on her shield because surely any Greek Woman warrior worth her salt would be a devotee of Athena?

And finally some young ladies even less clad than the afore-shown hot hoplite:

'Has anybody seen who stole my clothes?'

So there we have it, another three dozen figures completed. But not to totally abandon my own (multiple) projects, I also painted up a couple of characters for Eagle Rampant:

Tribune Lucius Claudius Voracius about to claim the spoils of war somewhere in Gaul.

Still a little hazy after the early morning wake-up for the dawn ANZAC service today. A very impressive number of people attended today, more than I have ever seen there. I took my eldest daughter along too. In times to come she will be able to say that she was there, and I think that is important as she comes to realise the full gravity of the day.

Nate

French and Indian Wars

These are the latest commission for Geoff and I'm really happy how they came out.

First up, a Redoubt Enterprises canoe with two Indian warriors paddling it.

These are followed with some Blue Moon Manufacturing 28mm French.

These were really nice figures to paint and an interesting point is that the bases pictured are actually the bases the figures are cast with. It makes them nice and hefty. One issue though. I don't like it when sculptors try to sculpt eyes with pupils. It actually makes them harder to paint.

"'Allo, 'allo, 'allo - I feel much more vivid now me old son"

After looking at the photos of the police in the last post I felt that they looked a bit flat. They were three tone but the base colour was too close to black. So I added a pale blue highlight to all the figures and I think they are much more 'alive' now. Above are three of them.

On this commission I have some zombie apocalypse Scooby gangers and some scantily clad (or unclad) females left to do. I'll be into those tomorrow as tonight is Game of Thrones night!

Nate

I'm not dead yet...

Almost a month since my last post, but never fear, I am alive. I just seem to have been very busy. That has included a little bit of wargaming stuff as well, so here is an update on that front.
First of all, Eagle Rampant is alive and progressing. I'm looking at submitting it as an article to my wargames magazine of choice, so I'll let you know if that gets off the ground. In order to make sure that the atmosphere is right for this project, I've been looking at using the school holidays to ensure I have some nice scenery available. Here are the results:

Seen from above, the Roman garrison fort in occupied Gaul.

First up is a scratch-built Roman fort. Many bamboo skewers died for this monstrosity. Luckily the palisades were built by Dan about six years ago, I just finally got around to mounting them to MDF, painting them, making the gate and the interior buildings.

Roman legionaries manning the ramparts of the fort.

A nice shot of the fort which unfortunately doesn't have the backdrop in it, but nicely shows up the carefully measured angles of the skewers in the palisade.

Not to be outdone, the Gauls also need somewhere to live:

Defending his home from Rome.

I ordered three resin roundhouses from Caliver Books' Battlefield Buildings range. These are big solid hunks of resin that paint up really well and are only $13 NZ pesos each for the most expensive. I still need to build the stockade for the Gallic village (more doomed skewers), but this will probably be next school holidays now.

At the same time I haven't had much time for figure painting, but am working my way through some commissions for Geoff. Here are the first dozen:

Coppers on the move

Coppers ready for anything

More coppers

Finally - something that isn't dark blue! Two detectives and a member of the Women's auxiliary police force.

Finally, let me join the chorus of fans who are hailing the release of the new Star Wars trailer. I am also very, very excited.

Not to mention Age of Ultron and Antman coming out very soon. It is a good time to be a nerd.

Nathan

Armies of the War of the Triple Alliance 1864-70

The mailman had a very pleasant surprise for me today. The newly released Osprey Men at Arms on the Great Paraguayan War. If you have managed to keep up with my anarchic list of projects in the last month you may have spotted that this is well-advanced on my to do list. I have accumulated a good 90% of the figures that I need, and hope to have acquired the rest in the next couple of months.

The appeal of this conflict is hard to explain. It starts while the North American Civil War is raging, but that conflict leaves me a bit cold for some reason I can't explain. It reaches its height in 1866, the year of Koniggratz - a campaign I have much more interest in but which is a huge conflict of massed armies. It sputters out with the death of the dictator Solano in 1870 - the year that the Franco-Prussian War breaks out - another of the conflicts that I find of particular interest. Yet this little known dust up in South America is the one that has captured my imagination. Why?

I studied a paper in Latin American history at University, and I think it was here that I first read a snippet about this war. The 70% death rate amongst the Paraguayan population was probably the first thing that caught my attention. Following on from that Military History Magazine had an article on the Battle of Tuyuti. For some reason I was hooked. Add into the mix the gauchos from the Empire of Brazil (yes, it used to be ruled by an Emperor), the 'mad' dictator of Paraguay, Solano Lopez, and the stoic Paraguayan infantryman in his kilt, and the mix is there for an enthralling period in history.

There isn't a huge amount of information on this war out there in English. I have Terry Hooker's book produced by Foundry which is very good, but I was really looking forward to it getting the Osprey treatment. I'm pleased to say that I'm not disappointed.

Gabriele Esposito has written an excellent introduction to the war. It is in the style of my favourite MAA books, where the war as a whole is given coverage and then details of the armies are gone into. There is an introdution, an outline of the road to war and then a chronology of the war. A little more depth is given for the campaigns of the war year by year with some good maps and an order of battle for First Tuyuti. This is followed by information on the organisation of the Paraguayan, Brazilian, Argentinian and Uruguayan armies. As an introduction to the war it does its job well, however details of uniforms are left to the plate commentaries and is quite thin. I wish that the book had been an Elite rather than a Men at Arms, as I think that the additional space could easily have been filled up with additional information on uniforms in particular. Having said that, there are black and white line drawings throughout the book with descriptions of uniform colours that supplement the plates.

On the subject of the plates I have to say that I am really impressed. I'm one of those that hasn't always found Giuseppe Rava's art easy on the eye, particularly in regards to ancient subjects. I think he has excelled himself in this book, the plates are absolutely stunning.

On balance I'd say that this book is a must if you have even a passing interest in the era or you just want to find out a little more about something you know nothing about. I think there are missed opportunities by making it a Men at Arms rather than a larger Elite title, but that doesn't mean that what is there is not worth purchasing. It is certainly making me contemplate bringing forward my 15mm War of the Triple Alliance project.

Nate

A bit more progress with Eagle Rampant

With marking 55 assessments and finishing off Geoff's commissions not much has been done on Eagle Rampant since my first playtest. However, last week I managed to finish off my first 2 units, one of Roman Legionaries and one of Upgraded Gallic Warriors.

Legionaries in their 2 deep line in order to claim their drilled bonus.

Typically disorganised Gauls

I'm hoping to get through a solo playtest of a couple of scenarios I've put together this weekend. Joining me in working on Eagle Rampant is Mike from the Single Base Wargames Blog. He is doing Early Imperial Romans, but we are planning on collaborating with playtests and the creation of unit stats. The header picture is his work.

Nate

Giveaway winners

I assigned each entry a number, including the pimpings on other blogs. My daughter rolled the d20 and the cat acted as scrutineer (and had fun knocking the dice around afterwards) - and we have our winners:

'I really don't care one way or the other - will you just feed me?'

First number rolled was a 4, which was Ray! Yes his luck is unbelievable! His first choice was the Franco-Prussian War rules.

Second number out was a 6, which was Rodger. His first choice was the painted Sigurd and Thrudella.

Third number out was 4 again, but that had gone, so the next roll was - 4! Ray, what dice gods are you praying to? But then a 10 came up, which is Tim Knight. His first choice was gone, but his second choice was the first issue of Practical Wargamer.

Congratulations guys, and thanks to everyone who took part. Since the giveaway we've welcomed another 9 followers and crept tantalising close to that 50,000 hits mark.

If the winners can e-mail me at my hotmail dot com account - Natholeon is the first part @ that address - and I'll get your goodies off to you.

Cheers

Nate