Tieflings

 Yes, Tieflings. Six of them in total. Scroll down to see them all. These ones are from Bad Squiddo.

I decided that a bold colour palette was the way to go for these lovely figures. Above we have a Fighter of some sort, possibly even a Paladin and a spellcaster with a grimoire under her arm and a mystical McGuffin in her hand, maybe a Warlock or Wizard.

Next are two more Fighters. I decided to tie all the more martial Tieflings together with the colour of their clothes, making them kind of swaggering and dandified swashbucklers. The one on the right has some kind of small pet creature on her wrist.

The last two seem to be rather useful additions to any band of dungeon adventurers; another spellcaster and a rogue. I will say that these two are my favourites of the six. I could see the spellcaster working as a Druid, Sorcerer or a Wizard and the Rogue speaks for herself. I mean, everyone likes a sneaky thief with assassin-type skills, surely?

The backdrops are, as usual from Jon Hodgson's terrific books available from Bad Squiddo or Handiwork Games.

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.

A warrior Queen and her comitatus

There are six figures in all. First of all, the Queen herself and her trusted councillor, a wizard.

Next, the four members of her comitatus. First, two trusted bodyguards;

and finally, her Champion and her Herald;

These are all 28mm metal Oathmark Humans from North Star. I really like these metal leaders and champions. They have a solid and businesslike feel to them and are nice to paint. There are several more sets of these metal figures,  mostly on foot but also some mounted ones, all of them holding lots of possibilities for use in many settings, including D&D and Frostgrave. 

These ones are very heavily-armoured, with mail and long leather jerkins with sewn-on metal plates which I've chosen to paint in bronze rather than iron, because I think it gives them a rather "barbarian kingdom" feel to them. They definitely look like serious business rather than flowers of chivalry, which I think suits a lot of small scale fantasy games.
 

Some more fantasy adventurers

 These have all been made from the North Star Frostgrave Soldiers II box;

Above are three figures who could be a Fighter, A Wizard and a Ranger, although I did gave a D&D Sorcerer in mind when I assembled the figure with the spear and lantern.

Below are a Rogue/Thief, a Cleric or maybe another Fighter  and a Fighter or Barbarian.

Of course, these could be used for all manner of different rulesets, so they are quite versatile as to their roles. They could even fit into a Frostgrave warband quite happily.

The backdrop is a, by now standard John Hodgson one.

I am reasonably happy with these, but I think that the Cleric is possibly the one I like least. I'm not sure if I'll keep them. I might put them up for sale at the club's annual Tabletop Sale in May.

Another addition to my Roman auxilia

 I've had this guy around for a while but I only finished him yesterday.

He is a mounted vexillarius based upon the mounted centurion figure from the Victrix Roman generals set with a head and animal skin cloak from the Early Imperial  Auxilia set's command sprue and an army from the Early Imperial cavalry set. The SPQR vexilla transfer is from one of the LBMS Late Roman transfer sets. The backdrop is another Jon Hodgson one.

I think that he's come out OK and I'll probably use him in my planned Principate Roman auxiliary army for Midgard and other things too, maybe Infamy, Infamy if people I know start playing those rules again.

Back to the 18th century and a return to my imagi-nations

It is quite a long time since I painted any troops for Syldavia and Borduria, but I've been painting Grenadiers. First, two groups of grenadiers for the Freikorps Schtroumpf;

A couple of groups of grenadiers had been in my plans for a very long time, a decade in fact, but I'd not done anything about them until now. I'd always planned for them to have the white and blue Schtroumpf uniform colours, but with red facings. The figures are from Essex Miniatures and are actually Prussian Von Schony grenadiers. I've added in an officer, NCO and Drummer. The drummer in the front group is there for colour, but is treated as a man with a musket for Sharp Practice purposes.

Next are two groups of Syldavian grenadiers, once again from Essex Miniatures' SYW Austrian range;

As I already have one group of 8 grenadiers from the Istow Regiment, I decided to paint two groups from other regiments, so I could have a Combined Grenadier formation for Sharp Practice. The front group  with green facings is from the Lippzshutt regiment and the group behind with black facings is from the Motörkopf regiment. Again, I have added a couple of officers, a drummer, an NCO and an ensign with a standard, showing the famous Black Pelican of Syldavia.

These chaps will be getting their tabletop debuts at Winter Wonderlard VI at BIG in Bristol on SAturday 7th February.

Bob Weir - his Long Strange Trip is over.

This isn't a gaming post. It is to commemorate Bob Weir, founder member of the Grateful Dead, who has died, aged 78.

The Grateful Dead have been a constant fixture in my life for as long as I've been listening to music as a teenager. Now, all the original band members, apart from drummer Bill Kreutzmann have left us. All we have left is the remarkable body of music that they created over three decades of recording and touring.

Bobby was theoretically the rhythm guitarist and second main singer, but he was a very unorthodox rhythm player. He didn't just play the chords and keep things together. He went off and did all sorts of stuff behind the melody, riffing and weaving in and around what Phil and Jerry were doing. You couldn't imagine the Dead with no Bobby.

Apart from his work with the Dead, Bob made three solo records, notably the 1972 release, Ace, which was a Grateful Dead album in all but name. It contained music that would become regular pieces of the live GD set for the rest of the band's existence.

Here is the band in 1970, in a photo taken by Herb Greene for Billboard.

Ron McKernan, a.k.a. Pigpen (second left) was the first to go, in 1973, followed by Jerry Garcia (front) in 1995 and Phil Lesh (far right) in 2024. Various keyboards players have passed away between 1970 and today, They were Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick, along with Dead songwriters Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow. plus vocalist Donna Godchaux, who died in November last year. Now Bobby (centre behind Jerry) is gone. The only people left alive in that picture are the Rhythm Devils Bill Kreutzmann (far left) and Mickey Hart (second right), the second drummer who joined the band in 1967. 

It is hard to explain what this actually means to me. The music has been so important in my life that it is something that is a part of me, but the Dead also represented something outside the music. They were a huge symbol of a way of being and doing that influenced millions of people, including me. The fact that they existed made the world a better place. That world seems to be disappearing before our eyes, and not just because we don't have Bob Weir and the rest of them any more. "The Music Never Stopped", as written by Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow for the Blues For Allah album kind of sums things up. The version in the link about is a live one, though.

So, Bob Weir (16/10/1947-10/01/2026) RIP.

More Gothic Horror......

 ... from Bad Squiddo. First up, The Count and Countess (with her little dog);

Two respected (OK, feared) members of the local community, The Count and Countess turn up at all the best parties and are always sophisticated and erudite company with magnetic and compelling personalities. People often find it hard to refuse them anything and no one has anything bad to say about them, nor about the three young ladies who often accompany them on their travels around the region. It is assumed that they have a private chapel in their castle, because no one has ever seen them in church. 

OK, witches often have a bad reputation, but this is mostly just gossip and bad publicity. You shouldn't believe everything you might read in nasty muck-raking books like the Malleus Maleficarum, after all that Heinrich Kramer was just a misogynistic old nuisance who couldn't get a girlfriend. Anyway, these two witches are most definitely not bad people. In fact, they are conscientious and public-spirited young women  who have dedicated themselves to the business of Pest Control across the Carpathians and beyond. If your town or village has a blood-sucking problem, just get the Bürgermeister to get in touch with Mr Rupert Giles, Miss Summers' agent and business manager. The Misses Summers and Rosenberg will soon sort out your problems. Trust me, the problem will disappear like magic in a puff of smoke.

First post of 2026 - odd happenings in the old graveyard

I've had these Gothic Horror figures from Bad Squiddo on the painting table for a while. First, three young women;

 Clearly, they have decided to take an evening stroll, but why on earth have they chosen the old ruined graveyard? Haven't they heard the rumours about this place?

Next, the kind of people who usually hang around the old graveyard at night;

Who are these women? There is something clearly abnormal happening here. Why do we only ever see them at night? Why is it that few of those who see them are ever heard of again, and those who do escape end up babbling insanely about "Vampire Acolytes" preying on the innocent and foolish.

The scatter items are things I've had for ages and the backdrop is by Jon Hodgson at Handiwork games.

I've two more Vampires and a couple of other figures to photograph and I'll post them soon.