Pyrates!

 Two 28mm female ones, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, from Bad Squiddo;

The treasure chests are resin ones I've had for years, also from Bad Squiddo and are a great match for these two famous female pirates, Anne Bonny on the left and Mary Read on the right.

I've had these on the painting table for ages, half-finished but languishing becalmed in the Doldrums, but now I've finally finished them off.

You will note that I have given them rather dark skin, this is a deliberate attempt to make them look sunburnt and hardened by salty waves and high winds (in Jamaica). 

The backdrop is a Jon Hodgson one. 

I am reasonably pleased with how they look, but blown up to the original size of the photo, I can see all soerts of things I could have done better. Still, on the table, I'm sure that they'll look fine. I just need some more pirates to accompany them on their adventures on the Spanish Main.

The annual LBWS Tabletop Sale is rapidly approaching.

Yes, once again, it is almost time for the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society's Tabletop Sale.

The format is the same as in previous years, i.e. it is essentially an indoor car boot sale for wargamers.

Please note that all tables for the event have now been sold and therefore it is a bumper year for sellers and buyers alike. Demand has been so high from sellers for tables that I have had to open up an extra small room to fit everyone in!

I'm sure that this means more bargains and things you never knew you wanted until you saw them this year.

So, if you are in and around Bristol, come down and spend your cash.

If you want to stick around afterwards, there will be space for gaming too.

 

61st Foot - my final few things

Some people may remember my 28mm Sharp Practice British Peninsular War force using the 61st Foot, the South Gloucestershires. These are the final 15 figures I planned to complete and a mere 4 years late, they are done.

Above are my final six skirmishers from the Light company, with a sergeant on the right. As previously, I have tried to make them look somewhat bedraggled and battle-worn, mainly by varying the colour of their trousers.

Below are an Ensign for the force and a drummer for the Light Bobs, I already have a drummer for the Centre Company chaps and finally, two Deployment Point markers, one for the centre company troops and another for the Light Bobs.

I like to give my Leader figures names, so the Light Company sergeant is Sgt. John Redcliffe and the Ensign is Thomas Barton-Hill. Anyway, I have now finally completed my force for Sharp Practice and hope to get a chance to deploy it at some point in the future. It now consists of four groups of 8 line foot and another four of six skirmishing light infantry, plus a fair number of leaders and support choices.

The backdrop is from a Jon Hodgson book, as per normal and the figures are from the Victrix Flank Company set.

Back to my Averland project

I sort of lost interest in this project for a while, but I'm getting back into it again. I've completed three Command stands which will act as Heroes for Midgard.

The flags used for the first two groups were downloaded from a Warhammer Fantasy Wiki site and reduced in size to suit 28mm figures. I have a couple more standard bearers embedded in two of my infantry groups using flags from the same source.

The figures are all Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors, which are perfect for this project because I have made two groups of Rondeleros (Sword and Buckler troops), two with long spears and one each with handguns, crossbows, halberds and greatswords. All pretty much standard for a Warhammer Fantasy Empire army. 

I was going to paint them all as Averland troops with yellow and black "uniforms" but I decided that I would widen the colour palette with red, blue and white, although I have incorporated black in a couple of cases.If I had to justify this, which I don't, I'd say that they were Tilean mercenary crossbowmen or troops from the personal retinue of some Averland magnate. Frankly, who cares? It just adds a bit of colour. I've decided that I will finish each group of eight figures before moving on to the next, so I get results more quickly.

Once all the infantry are done, I have 24 mounted figures to do. Twelve will be in full armour and the rest will be light horse. The armoured box contains the option of pistols, so I'll definitely do a unit of six pistoleers but will probably use lances and shields for the other 18, although I have been thinking about doing six mounted crossbowmen, assuming I can use spare crossbow arms on the light mounted bodies. We shall see.

So, I'm reasonably OK with how these have turned out. Not my best work but fine for a big army on the tabletop, where they will easily pass the 1 metre rule.

Apart from Mingard, these would also work well for Sword and Spear Fantasy in 28mm.

The backdrop is from a Jon Hodgson backdrop book.
 

Lots of buildings - click the picture and scroll down

 Well, I've finally finished these off, all ten of them. Scroll down to see the lot;

All of these buildings are in 15mm scale and are resin casts from Hovels. The mounted figures are for scale and are officers from the Lurkio Nine Years' War range, now sold by Gripping Beast.

I am pretty happy with these. I think that they'll be good for everything from the late-17th century right up to WW2. Some clearly suit the Netherlands/Belgium more than elsewhere and a few really need to be used together to make up an urban setting, but others might be OK for Normandy (at a pinch). In any case, I think that these models have a certain charm that you don't get from MDF buildings and I deliberately set out to paint them in a kind of impressionistic way rather than going for a totally realistic appearance.

The backdrop is, once again from a Jon Hodgson Handiwork Games book.

Lots of resin scenic pieces.

And there are quite a few, all 28mm scale pieces. Scroll down to see them all. The first one is from Bad Squiddo, the priest is just for scale);

The rest are all from Fenris Games. Once again, figures are just for scale;

The photo above features that almost-famous archaeologist Prof. Idaho Smith, who is also in the next picture, wondering why that strange altar appears to be glowing green in the centre.

I love this next one. It is a triangular obelisk covered in inscriptions in three unknown languages, like a kind of Eldritch Horror Rosetta Stone. It is probably best not to try and read any of the texts out loud.

This next one includes a bit of scenic scratch-building to put the strange stone head into context;

So, I am really pleased with all of these. I've had them for quite a while and I wanted to get them painted up. I've still got some more stuff to paint with MORE TENTACLES!

The backdrops are, as usual from the excellent series of books by Jon Hodgson at Handiwork Games.

Hopefully, these will get some use in pulp games and for various eldritch horror purposes.

A Big Dragon

 This is from Dungeons and Lasers. I bought the kit ages ago from Annie at Bad Squiddo.

It's taken me a long time to paint this because I didn't want to mess it up. The kit is called Durkar the Sovereign Serpent. It isn't a difficult kit to assemble but you do have to take care that all the parts fit together. I ended up using some liquid Green Stuff to cover a couple of the joints. It's wingspan is 23cm and it stands 12cm tall.

I undercoated it initially in Army Painter Brainmatter Beige and then did another spray from behind/above in AP Greenskin. After that, it was all about softening the rather raw green primer with Army Painter Warpaints Army Green and then washes of Citadel Mortarion Grime and Agrax Earthshade, followed by a lot of drybrushing with progressively lighter shades of green and a couple of stone and bone shades on the underside of the wings and body. The mouth was done with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh and a wash of diluted red paint.

The base has a moulded dungeon floor with piles of coins and treasure. I glued it onto a larger MDF base for added stability and built up the edge with aquarium crushed shell ballast and lots of PVA glue. Then I painted it to bring out the treasure etc, washed it in Peat Brown drawing ink and added flock and Gamer's Grass tufts.

I'm pretty happy with the way the dragon has turned out. A bit of a scary project at first, but after a lot of thinking and planning, it has become a pretty good piece. The backdrop is from one of the excellent Jon Hodgson Handiwork Games books.

Not sure what I'll use it for, though.