Bloody miniatures Looters and Ranters

My next four figures from Bloody Miniatures are two staples of the ECW (and other 17th century wars). First two looters;

There are actually four figures in the Looters set, but I am using the other two for something else. I've gone back to a green uniform and buff coat colour scheme that I've used on other figures previously, so they will fit in nicely.

The next two are from a set BM calls The Militant Tendency, but once again, I have other plans for the remaining two figures. I've chosen to call them Ranters after the English anti-Church and anti-State sectarians of the Commonwealth period. The Ranters denied the authority of churches, of scripture, of the current ministry and of services, instead calling on men to listen to the divine within them. (thanks, Wikipedia). I'm not intending to use them as Ranters, just as nice characterful additions to whatever forces I put together.

With the guy on the right, brandishing his bible I've gone with the green uniform again. The one on the left could quite easily be an officer urging his troops forward into the attack.

As ever, these are a joy to paint and I really cannot praise the qiality of both sculpts and casts highly enough.

Finally, I'm getting back to painting my Bloody Miniatures backlog

I am a huge fan of Bloody Miniatures small, but growing range of 17th century characters. I've already completed their first two sets of figures and now I am working on the third and fourth sets. Here are the first four;

As you can see these are four dismounted cuirassiers in their distinctive three-quarter armour. I think that these are terrific figures and I've painted them to be four troopers from a single regiment. I've given them "blackened" armour, because a) I like the look of it and b) it seems to have been a pretty common thing in the 17th century, supposedly to rustproof the steel plate. I chose blue sashes and red breeches because I think that the colours really help set off the armour nicely.

I've based them up with some Gamer's Grass tufts and my usual mix of grassy flock.

It is about a year since I last painted any of these lovely figures and it has been really enjoyable getting back to them. I've got another 28 to complete and them I will be up to date with all the ones I've bought. There is another set of 16 figures available on the Bloody Miniatures website. They are all Scots, lovely figures again, but I'm very worried about painting all that plaid! I will probably buy them, though. I'll just have to work on my painting technique. After that, there is another set in the pipeline which I really want to get my hands on. You can see them here.

Fifteen more Xenos Rampant figures completed

And these fifteen will be the last ones for a while. I need a change from sci fi so I can paint something different.

These were made using the 15 Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago plastic crew bodies I had left with Stargrave weapons and a few Stargrave headswaps.

I was originally going to paint them up as warriors from some kind of hot and sandy planet but I changed my mind because I wanted to paint something more colourful. Their baggy trousers suggested French 19th century Zouaves, so I went with a colour palette that would give them a Zouaves or Turcos/ Tirailleurs Algériens sort of vibe.

I'm not sure what they will end up being used as in gaming terms. Maybe they could be Xenos Rampant Light Infantry or even just Militia Rabble? I think they look to nice to be a Rabble, so perhaps they could be Pirates or Raiders of some kind, classed as Lights but with some buffing up.

Anyway, I like how they have turned out, so that is really all that matters.

Twenty Planetary Defence Force troops for Xenos Rampant

These 20 figures are all based on the Stargrave Mercenaries plastic box. I split them into four fire teams;

The first two fire teams will make one Increased Size squad and the next two will be another one.

Although I've given these a standard colour scheme, because they are supposed to be regular troops, you can see that they aren't all identically equipped. They have a variety of helmet types and also different styles of body armour. I think that this gives the impression of a kind of second division force, equipped as Heavy Infantry, but lacking the most up to date equipment.

I think that for Xenos Rampant I will use these as squads of 10 troopers but not give them refinements like Heavy Weapons or Armour Piercing ammunition. Therefore, they will be tough troops but lacking the punch of their better equipped equivalents in the front line units that can be deployed anywhere a threat emerges.

I am now getting quite close to finishing off all the plastic Stargrave figures I've stuck together, but I still have the Crew I and Crew II sets to work on at some point in the future. These are definitely not military types but will still be useful as some of the lesser troop classes in the Xenos Rampant rules.

Two more squads of troops for Xenos Rampant

These two squads are based on the Stargrave plastic Mercenaries II box with a few Crew II bodies added in;

Both sets are made up of female bodies and a huge variety of female heads, although I'm not sure that you could tell the difference between a bulbous blue female alien head and a male one. That doesn't really matter, though because with so much variety available, you'll easily end up with a force of troops that doesn't look much like anyone else's.

I think that in Xenos Rampant terms, both of these squads would best be used as Light Infantry, with the second one maybe being more suited to an Assault Doctrine role, perhaps with the Close Quarters Doctrine too. They could also be used as Militia Rabble if you just needs  couple of speed bumps on the table.

Having played a few games of XR now, it seems to me that Light Infantry need some very careful thought to really get much use out of them. They are pretty fragile and you really cannot get them involved in a firefight with Heavies or Elites, well not unless you can get them into heavy cover and keep them in a defensive role. The only other way is to try and get them to flank enemy Heavies who are already engaged with your own Heavies. If you spend points to improve their ability to survive, you'll end up with fewer points to spend on actual tough guys.

Of course, as everyone knows, getting nice-looking toys on the table is more important than winning. Isn't it?

If you suffer from arachnophobia ..................

 ........................ look away now! Lots and lots of spiders.

These are Wargames Atlantic's giant spiders with the sci fi add-ons of face visors, big guns and robotic legs (well, not all the legs). To give some idea of their size, they are based on 4cm circular MDF bases. I shall definitely be using these as Greater Xenomorphs for Xenos Rampant and they could also be used in lots of other settings.

In addition to the 12 giant spiders that are in the set, you also get 12 smaller spiders on the sprues. I've painted 10 of them to use as a Swarm in Xenos Rampant but they could obviously pop up anywhere.

I used some spare 3cm circular plastic bases which I didn't use when I made up 10 Space Marines recently. Waste not, want not, I say. These don't have any weapons, well apart from their teeth and poison stings.

I decided on a brown palette for all the spiders because I wanted them to look like an alien menace from a semi-arid environment. They were undercoated in Army Painter Leather Brown spray primer, drybrushed with Vallejo Orange Brown and then the little details were painted in. I gave the giant ones bronze weapons with green on the biological-looking parts, and I used red on the eyepieces of their face masks. The ones with visible eyes had them painted black, the same as on the smaller arachnids. Finally, they were given a wash of Winsor & Newton Peat Brown drawing ink.

All the tufts on the bases are from Gamer's Grass.

Two Bad Squiddo resin historical figures - Jeanne de Clisson and Mata Hari

I've had these two for absolutely ages, but I only got round to washing and cleaning them up when I started work on the North Star resin Necromancer and Apprentice in early March.   

First, Jeanne de Clisson, both front and back. Her white coif doesn't show up well in the first picture;

Jeanne de Clisson was born in the Vendée in 1300. She was a member of the noble Montaigu de Belleville family. She married four times, but it is her third marriage to Olivier IV de Clisson that led to her fame. Olivier was executed by the French King Philippe VI, le Fortuné. As a result, she took up arms against the French Crown. She sold off the Clisson lands and raised a force to fight French forces in Brittany. She later took to the sea as an English privateer with a fleet of three ships, attacking French vessels and killing the crews.

I've chosen to paint her in green because I like the colour and I didn't want to just do another standard Jeanne de Clisson figure. In green, she becomes a more flexible figure for all kinds of gaming.

Mata Hari, born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in 1876, is best known for having been executed as a German spy in 1917. She is portrayed as an archetypal femme fatale but her life was really terribly sad. Her marriage to Rudolf MacLeod, a Dutch officer serving in the Far East was a miserable thing. He was a brutal alcoholic infected with syphilis, which he passed on to his wife. Both their children were born with the disease, from which both of them later died. After divorcing MacLeod in 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, becoming an artist's model and exotic dancer. She claimed to be a Javanese Hindu princess and became the mistress of a prominent French industrialist, Émile Guimet who was a devotée of Oriental Art. Mata Hari was a promiscuous woman and ended up as a courtesan rather than a performer. As a Dutch citizen, Mata Hari was able to cross borders freely during the war, the Netherlands being neutral, and she was recruited by the French Deuxième Bureau as an agent. She was charged with getting close to senior German military figures and she may, or may not have become a double agent.

In any case, the French government had her arrested, tried and executed as a German spy, although there doesn't appear to have been much in the way of evidence.

I've chosen to paint Mata Hari as a kind of generic femme fatale figure, who could quite easily be a Temptress in fantasy games, a seductive priestess, a mystic or something else.

I am pretty pleased with how she has come out, although I think that I could have done better with her face. I will have to do a spot of touching-up to improve that. I've stuck to green again but with lilac as a foil. Even her hair is lilac, which I think gives her an otherworldly feel.