The Boys in Blue!

Next installment of my pulpy painting progress........

One Police Sergeant in flat cap along with his Constables in Custodian helmets shortly to be defending Law and Order against beings more terrifying than the usual drunks, thieves, burglars and bank robbers!

Though simple figures to paint getting the right shade of dark blue was difficult. They appear a lot bluer in the photos than real life.

I doubt I will ever need all nine for a scenario but with a combination of revolvers, rifles and unharmed/truncheon they give me some options on weaponry they will bring to each game.

I have now ordered the Detective Inspector and Detective Sergeant from Artizan Designs to lead their uniformed colleagues along with some other characters for the P.O.E.T.s faction.

 I may paint on the Sergeants chevrons on his upper arms at some point.

I am also currently waiting for this gorgeous Church I ordered at Salute from 4Ground to arrive:

Not cheap but having seen it in the flesh on one of the display tables at Salute I couldn't resist. This will be the centerpiece for my first themed table.

Hopefully another post soon..... maybe a review of the Church........


T.

The Cult of the Unspeakable Nether Tentacle

 As promised some cultists........

These purple robed/green hooded minions are from the Cult of the Unspeakable Nether Tentacle (aka C.U.N.T.s) who along with various guesting Lovecraftian beings will be one of the four sides I plan to paint up for my Strange Aeons/Pulp .45 Adventures games.

In these pictures the unfortunate Miss Marbles appears to have been captured and awaits sacrifice as part of some foul ceremony to summon an horrific creature from another insanity inducing dimension! (or is she their leader...............?)

Already on the painting table are some officers of the law ready to thwart their evil machinations. All these miniatures are from Artizan Designs excellent pulp range which I will be using to build four teams to commence a narrative campaign. The Cult of the Unspeakable Nether Tentacle will be the evil team focusing on arcane powers and summoning cyclopean creatures from other dimensions while a rival team will consist of an evil genius, his assistants and his various deadly inventions. 

On the side of Law and Order will be a Detective Inspector, his faithful Detective Sergeant who has been given the assignment by Scotland Yard to investigate strange goings on across the land and utilize what ever local resources he can commandeer. Along with them in a more covert capacity will be a rag tag collection of eccentrics, investigators, secret agents, war heroes and academics brought together to form a Ministry of Defense; Paranormal and Occult Extermination Team (aka P.O.E.T.s).

I will be painting these along side my Punic Wars project and have already started painting the first units for the Carthaginians.

So stay tuned for the next post.

T.

The Legion Marches!

Though the blog has fallen silent since April I have been a busy bee behind the scenes and progress has been made on two of the four projects I set out in the last post. The first is my completed 300 point Punic Wars Roman Army for Impetus:

The Army arrayed for battle

The Roman Legion Close up

Numidian cavalry with Roman Cavalry in support on the right flank

Italian allied Infantry and Cavalry on left flank

Hastati with Gladii drawn

 

Triarii

The Generals

 

Skirmishing Velites

Roman Cavalry

 

 

Italian Allied cavalry

 

Italian allied infantry

 

 

Numidian cavalry plus unfortunate Gaul

With the Romans completed I have ordered 300 points of Carthaginians which came this week and plan to get started with the Libyan infantry which will hopefully appear on the blog shortly.  I also have a second Legion prepped and ready to paint that will bring my Roman army up to the standard 500 point Impetus army. With J painting some Carthaginians as well we will hopefully have enough for a 500 point game soonish.

All miniatures are by Baccus 6mm. Bases are 80mm x 30/40/60mm and are the premium laser cut ones from Warbases. Grass tufts from Tajima1 Miniatures.

Along with more frequent posts I am hoping to give the blog a revamp. Any suggestions on how to make the design more pleasing to the eye are most welcome.

Watch this space for my next post..............................Cultists!

T.

Return of the blogger

It's been over 4 years since I last posted on this blog. In that time life has changed significantly (all positive!) and made time for painting and wargaming very limited. Many board games have been played but not many little metal soldiers have seen action but now I hope the hiatus is over!

So what can you expect from this humble blogger..........

• Punic wars with Impetus rules in 6mm - both Joey and myself are big fans of the Impetus rules and plan to make good use of the big bases with lots of 6 mils from baccus. I have already completed the bulk of the Romans (see below for pics) and Joey has already commenced work on the Carthaginian opposition. This is our priority project at the moment.

• Samurai Skirmish with Ronin rules and Perry Miniatures - I have lots of lead for this but nothing painted as yet. Joey will be painting up a Korean Buntai for this. This will be the second priority to Impetus but with the small number of miniatures needed shouldn't take long for two playable sides to be assembled.

• Napoleonics 1809 Danube campaign with General de Brigade and 6mm Adlers miniatures -This is the project I initially started the blog for and the one closest to completion as I have almost completed a division a side for the French and Austrians. Just need to get some cavalry done and some more artillery and skirmishers. Once we have Impetus armies up and running I will likely return to concentrating on this much loved project.

• Pulp/Lovecraftian Horror skirmish game with Strange Aeons/.45 Adventure rules and various 28mm figures - This project is the most ill defined at the moment. I have plans to do a story campaign set on some god forsaken isle off the west coast of Scotland, sort of the Wickerman meets Innsmouth. 

And now for some pictures.....

Roman Legion consisting of 2 units of Hastati and 2 of Príncipe with a unit of Triarii and 3 units of Velites.

Roman Cavalry 

Miss Marbles from Artizan Designs soon to face Eldritch Horrors.

T.

A quick update

This will be just a quick post to show off something I painted recently that I'm really pleased with. Below are some pictures of a recently completed (um ... completed today) miniature from the Perry Brothers' Agincourt to Orleans range. Before I started on it I decided that I wanted to try and paint it to a higher standard than usual. I was aware of other painters using wet palettes before but had never got round to making one myself and so for this mini I decided to stop being a lazy git and get round to it. I have to say it made a huge to difference to the standard of painting, and also the painting speed. It was very satisfying being able to get a 28mm miniature to a standard I was happy with and if you have never got round to using a wet palette before I definitely recommend it! I haven't decided what I'll use the mini for yet (I have five more in the unit to paint)- possibly the beginnings of an Impetus army? My 15mm projects have taken the back seat for the moment as I've become reacquainted with 28mm.
On a different note I just discovered the Broadsword Adventures ruleset (you can download a demo here). I've been looking for a generic, miniatures-based RPG-style ruleset for a while now and came across this whilst reading about the .45 Adventure pulp rules which Tom has. Both are made by Rattrap Productions and both have excellent reviews and so I may be tempted to pick up a copy at Salute 2010.
Anyway, pictures... The highlights and shading are a bit more pronounced than these pictures would have you believe.



























J

French cavalry, beware

Painting has been as slow as ever round these parts but I thought I would write a post about my progress anyway. Here are the first three archers for the English Hundred Years War army I am working on. Bar one Italian light halberdier (shown in an earlier post) they are the first 15mm miniatures I have ever painted. The miniatures in brown and red still need the odd highlight before they're properly finished and, annoyingly, I need to buy a couple more paints to do this.
I used Medieval European Armies by Terence Wise and The Armies of Crécy and Poitiers by Christopher Rothero (both from Osprey) as reference points and I am going to try and keep the colours I use quite autumnal. If anyone has any pointers with regards painting HYW colour schemes or heraldry then please do leave a comment as they would be very much appreciated!






J

The Eagle's Claw completed

So, finally, here is The Eagle's Claw in all their fully painted glory!






Record: P3 W0 D1 L2 F3 A7 Pts1 GD-4
They've been close to complete for quite a long while now. It has been one of those things where because they were basically finished I decided it was worth focusing on other things but never actually got round to completing the project ... until now. There was a slight delay when it came to applying transfers. I tried to apply them to the players' curved shoulder pads but, try as I might, I just couldn't get them to sit so I had to scrape them all off again with a craft knife. Anyway, here they are finished and ready for the field.

J

More miniatures

Over the weekend I decided to order the bulk of an English 1330-1415 Hundred Years War army for Basic Impetus and I was surprised to find that it had been delivered on Monday morning. Unfortunately I was not in so this morning I went down to the post office to collect the box. I opened it up as soon as I got it home...










What a beautiful sight! The miniatures are all Corvus Belli and they were ordered from Vexillia Limited. I will continue to flog off the bulk of my Games Workshop stuff on eBay and will focus on this project. Also, in other hobby news, my Blood Bowl team (The Eagle's Claw) is now complete and so I will put up some pics soon.

J