Trundling on...slowly!

Hello, hello, yes I'm still here. The summer is winding down - though the UK is experiencing an Indian summer of course - and autumn and winter loom. Does that mean more painting on the horizon? Hopefully.

Still, I've had the brushes and tools up and down. And off the painting table is a start on support weapons for the Spanish civil war. First up, an army Chaucat light machine gun.



Two prone minis in plain green uniforms? Yup, nothing too taxing.

The gunner is wearing the Spanish gorillo cap. I've piped it in green instead of the typical red to denote the unit as either light infantry or mountain infantry. I went this way with my general aim being to collect forces suitable for the Northern front. I used the blanket rolls to break up the endless green, and avoided a grey-green painted helmet for the same reason.

I've a couple of packs of infantry to join these two at some point, once I've finished off the beret'd Requetes!

Also, as the troops have started hitting the table up at the club, it was time to finish off some markers that I'd made up for Chain of Command. Four more large explosions taking me to eight to lay out barrages. And 40 or so 'pin' markers to give a cinematic impression of incoming fire. This idea shamelessly taken from the esteemed Mr Curt Campbell of Analogue Hobbies:
http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pin-markers-and-28mm-early-war.html

Not all pictured obviously. You'll have seen the unfazed Requetes before! 

I think the smaller markers work better, the taller ones, I realised later, being about waist height on a mini: probably a bit much. No doubt I'll need more in future and focus on making more little ones. 

In other news, those fine upstanding gentlemen Evan and Millsy are having a seventh - yes, seventh - blogiversary giveaway. There's some fine and very 'on trend' prizes on offer, so check it out:

http://canisterandgrape.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/happy-7th-amnesiaversary-or-remember.html

May Painting Progress

Happy Sunday everybody. It's been a while since I posted but I'm happy to report further progress on the Sudan project. It'll be very tight to get everything done, but I'm comfortable I can put a game without everything: some bits are just icing (or even the cherry on top). 

First up, a bunch more Sudanese Bazingers. This is the Perry command pack. Painted as before - two different colours on the robes, and a fairly motley collection of other equipment. 

Here they are with the rest painted during AHPC V. A bit command-heavy, but a decent sized unit for me. 

I've also done up some casualty/shock markers, using the ubiquitous dice frames. I wanted to do more but have run out of frames, so need a restock. I've a couple of Britsh ones on the paint table now. 

Two are actually converted as the Perry's Sudan range only has Beja tribesman casualties, simple head swaps to replace the distinctive Beja hairdo. You may see that the ones falling in action at the back also have some bullet impacts on the base to add to the dramatic effect - using Curt's simple but effective method.

That's most of the minis I want to get done, but I'm well behind on the terrain. Happily it's a bank holiday weekend here, an opportunity to make some progress, starting with smashing up some rather large bits of cork bark that I picked up. For those of you wondering about the SCW project that I had been making decent progress on, that's still on ice. I've a small batch mostly finished that I may well wrap up if the fancy takes me, but the bulk of it is on hold until next month. 

Now for Something a Little Different: 15mm WWII

Are you sick of deserts yet? Yes, a brief interlude to normal service here as I've spent the last couple of weeks ploughing through a WWII platoon for Chain of Command.

I settled on US paras, finding a Flames of War box of Greatcoated paras at a ridiculous price on eBay - something like £8 with postage.

They were prepped months ago in time for the challenge last winter but the sat, undercoated and based on my painting table for months.  I undercoated them Army Painter Leather brown, serving as the colour of the greatcoats, intending to pick out details in the appropriate colour then given them a good wash of strong tone ink and a few highlights. Every so often I'd pick them up and start to pick out the details, but with 15mm being an unfamiliar scale I too often found that I'd just shove them away with barely any progress and return to the mound of  28mm minis. But I've had so much fun playing Chain of Command up at Wyvern Wargamers that i was gripped by the enthusiasm of pushing through and getting them finished.

This is the core US Parachute infantry platoon, assembled according to the CoC list:



Two infantry squads of junior leader, an M191A4 MG with three crew and a rifle squad of eight riflemen. While I've multi-based on FoW medium bases, junior leaders are mounted on UK pennies. They are well-led with two senior leaders, mounted on UK 2ps.

The platoon comes well supported with a 60mm mortar squad and a bazooka team. 

They are Elite, with 6 Command dice and are Aggressive troops - both very handy. They lack numbers though with just two squads (albeit of a fair size at 12 men), so will need to be carefully used. For elite troops, their platoon rating (which will help determine what support elements are available to an opponent) is surprisingly low at +1.

As I'm using multi-basing, I've made up some combined shock and casualty markers using Minibits dice holders.

Naturally, having a selection of support elements will come in handy. With a few small add-on purchases I've added two sniper teams, a Forward Observer and a third squad, this time of regular infantry with a BAR. This gives me a fair choice from lists three and four.

I think the third squad may be the basic 'go to' option as bulking out the platoon will come in very handy to have enough troops to seize and hold objectives.

And finally, armoured support. I settled on an M8 Greyhound armoured car. I had a lot of fun painting it, inspired by a recent trip to Bovington Tank Museum (where I took a few too many photos of tanks). I'm unfamiliar with painting vehicles, but enjoyed trying some weathering with sponge, powders and a gooey mud-paste, though that doesn't come out so well in these photos.

The markings are water slide transfers, I've not used these for years but found some appropriately sized ones that I think were meant for a 1:72 scale half track.

This is perhaps a first for me - an entire project done in one fell swoop! Here's hoping I can get them on to the table soon. With one project finished, might this open up enough space in the painting queue for another...?

Not all About the Challenge

While 90% of the time I've been slaving away at the Sudan project for the Challenge, I have had chance to finish some odds and sods that won't score. 

First up is this little Pulp Alley 'Plot Point', an adventurer's camp complete with map and supplies:

Also, some game marker explosions, the traditional wire frame with clump foliage hot glue gunned on. A doddle to make, if time consuming. Then a healthy dose of black spray and dusting if wits finished them off. The first can of white spray that I picked up was running out so fave a spluttered, splodgy effect. Followed with a lighter dusting from a new can, I think they actually came out rather nicely, though it was a close run thing! 

The craters are resin from Warlord Games and go rather nicely if I do say so myself. 

I did submit these to Curt but they were deemed to be 'terrain' and so ineligible for points - pah!

Finally, I finished his lady in 1920s dress that I had in mind for a damsel in distress in some Lovecraftisn Pulp. I had already started her and set her aside on challenge start so she is also ineligible. 

I think I applied the window and newton brush on varnish too early and it seems to have misted in the recesses and given her a grubby sheen that is quite irritating, though doesn't really come out in the photos. A bit odd, I'll have to have a go at tidying her up

I have just sent in my 'favourite character' bonus offering, drawing on some of my favourite books. But I've been slacking and have missed my regular entry alongside it. I've some 10th Hussars for the Sudan on the table and crawling along, but a fair way from completion. After that, I'm going to have to out some series effort into my final bonus round entry, going off piste for me and doing a vignette. Any guesses what the subject might be?

And now for something slightly different

After the loveliness, some grislyness.

I previously used tiny dice to mark combat damage, which did the job but weren't very evocative so knocked up these wound markers, inspired by Anatoli and Curt's efforts. Simply 22mm round clear plastic counters from em4 with your choice of red blood. I tried out Tamiya clear red, which is very shiny, opaque and bright, but gives a good icky colour if you add some chestnut or black ink. I mixed up a few different colours in layers.

After initial tries, I realised that both less is more and more is more: they look much better with less coverage on the counter, but to get the best effect I blobbed the paint on thickly, rather than brushing it carefully - the bristles left streaks due to the thickness of the paint.

They are quite shiny, but that doesn't seem to have come out in the photo.

On an entirely unrelated note, Ian at The Blog With No Name is having a series of giveaways at the moment, well worth swinging by.