Baa-rely making progress

With half an eye on winter and the likelihood of a certain annual painting challenge, the last few weeks have been characterised by clearing the painting table and starting to prepare miniatures. And happily Curt is up to it once again and the Fifth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has been announced. I look forward to my fourth opportunity to contribute my winter output to the community.

It has been by no means productive few weeks though, hence why I've been a bit quiet. Not helped by a week without internet access, meaning I'm very behind on the blogs and haven't commented on many. But I have managed an uptick on the gaming front - three games of Chain of Command in as many weeks. Definitely my rules of choice - plenty of opponents available including Bob locally and always give a great game in a reasonable timeframe. Bob and I just started playing through the first TFL campaign supplement '29, let's go!'. I can really recommend this pick up and play campaign for the 'price of a pint'. 

Anyway, onto the lead output. Prepare yourself to be amazed. First to be dusted down has been a herd of sheep. Yup, two packs of Soay sheep from Warbases. Now Soay sheep are a bit niche, if I'm honest. A bit more Dark Ages, not an era I'm playing much. So the search was on to find a horned sheep of more Mediterranean/African origin. 

Et voila:

Image credit Wikipedia

A Barbary (or should that be Baa-bary?!) sheep, native to North Africa, but also native to the Sudan and introduced elsewhere. A sandy-brown colour, darkening with age, with a slightly lighter underbelly and a darker line along the back. 

And here are my versions:

Bit of an unusual method on these: I'd sprayed them white, which is unusual for me, so layered up washes from off-white through to mid and dark browns to make use of the sculpted texture. I like the effect. 

A few other odds and sods also finished, including some scatter terrain of furniture and trade goods as well as this chap, from an Artizan Designs grab bag and vaguely intended for a nee'r do'well for a Pulp Alley Cthulu mythos game that never really got off the ground.

As for the prep work, I've now a German infantry platoon and support options to face off against the US that have recently hit the table. Now, to start painting them now or save them a month? I'm undecided. Of course now the US been blooded in their first games, they will naturally need a little bolstering...

Basing the Phyllion Way 2 - Custom Sabot Trays

I recently wrote up how I do my basing, but I've also been working away on some customs sabot trays. I've previously just bought Warbases sabot trays to vase my uhits up , as they are well priced and do the job perfectly well. But they don't do any 'mob trays' of a standard, square size. No doubt hey could do me some custom me ones, but inspired by a Captain Blood's fine work over on LAF, I thought I could make my own up.


Captain Blood's test piece - image used without permission from his post on Lead Adventure Forum

Despite following such a tough act , I think mine came out rather well:

To save me cutting the core bases, I turned back to Warbases and the largest size of their round cornered bases. For the holes, I turned to Jimbibbly of LAF (fine proprietor of Oshiro Modelterrain). He was only too happy to cut me some custom Perspex holes. Until I told him I wanted 120. But like a trooper, he delivered me these:

Then a flash of inspiration - My Mahdists are all bases on 2ps, many* of which are magnetic. With great foresight, I had also pilfered the spare 'save the date' fridge magnets that we sent out for my wedding last year. Magnetised trays it would be!



Cut to size:

Then just superglue the Perspex rings on: 10 to a base in as random a formation as I could make with the space. The white bits are off cuts of card, just to make the filler less thick on larger areas.

After that I just followed the same process as for basing my troops, starting with wood filler to smooth it all out.

Then slather with pva and sprinkle sand, allow to dry and repeat. To avoid the warping the thinner wooden bases warping as the pva dries, I clipped two back to back while drying - theory being the force on each should be pretty much the same so neither should wrap significantly. It seems to work (at other times I use the 'pile of books on too' technique - usually the wife's cookbooks!)

Coming along nicely

The first batch of nine after a good coating of scenic cement.


I'll explain the blank ones later. 

I've still got to paint them up, but I've run out of may 'terraining' emulsion colour of choice. They are perfectly useable for now.

All told, these took no longer than the work I already did on improving the standard Warbases sabots trays - sanding off the harsh edges, pva and sand, paint them up and flock/tuft. They are to my own specification, look a little less obtrusive being just a single layer of mdf and are magnetised to boot! Not a bad for few evenings of work over the World Cup, if I do say so myself. 

*only 2 pence pieces from the early 90s onwards are magnetic. It turns out a fair of my Mahdists are actually based on older ones - ah well! 

Sudan Stocktake: The British

Like many of you, the summer has been playing havoc with hobby time, with the current football World Cup having me assembling minis in front of the choice games on TV. No bad thing really, I can do with a break every so often. I've been particularly enjoying building up some Perry Afrikakorps plastics, a lovely lovely boxed set that go together so well. I've also just finished a fairly sizeable project that have been cluttering the painting table for months - more to show on that once I've taken the camera out later in the week.

So, after a short interlude from this series to paint up a few more odds and ends, I can bring you Her Majesty's forces. The field force assembles:

The Artillery Park - screw gun and rocket trough

King's Royal Rifle Corps and Indian Infantry

The Naval brigade, Gardner gun and Royal Marine Light Infantry

The cavalry wing: 10th Hussars and Mounted Infantry

Miscellaneous civilians and hangers on. 

Not a bad force all in all - really pleased with how each and every unit has come out so far, these have definitely been some of my best painting for years. There are just two things I really must finish off: a third Command stand and a vignette of standing horses for the Mounted Infantry. The command stand is on the painting table now. Both being small bits, they should be done in no time (relatively), so I'm comfortable picking one of the next club nights to take it all up to Wyvern and put a game of Black Powder on. All this work and I'll finally get get it all out, full painted and based. Yay!

Of course, the lead mountain isn't empty: in the box to be assembled are another unit of British Infantry and one of Highlanders and a 7lb artillery piece. Oh, and I shouldn't forget the steamer - I've fun plans for that.

Plenty to be getting on with, though I might take a break from the Sudan soon to attend to some other projects. 

This week, I have not been idle

Well, actually, I have been fairly idle all told, but I have managed to make some progress over the past week, despite the heat. It definitely feels like the weather for terraining rather than fiddly painting. 

Having a slightly milder Saturday, with all of my errands out of the way early, what better thing to do than paint a load of movement trays? And voila, Warbases' finest:



So you can see how they look filled, some stealthy Beja marksmen, my favourite Mahdist unit so far.



And the steadfast King's Royal Rifle Corps.





Much better. I did spend a little extra time sanding down the sharp edges on each of them before texturing the tops, which I think removes some of the harshness.

While I've god a good stack done in one session, I will need a load of custom-cut tray for my Mahdists and a few more cavalry trays to fit the growing collection. Looks like I'll have to find another spare Saturday in a few months!