Another day and more painting on the brits

So here we are, bank holiday Monday and I had to work :-(.  I was looking forward to a whole day of painting to get the lions share of the work on this chunk of Brits done.  Still, with the help of some daylight bulbs I got more done than I thought I would.



First job was to base coat all the areas that are going to be white.  This is one of my favourite early stages, as the white contrast helps reveal what the model will finally be like.  A long way to go yet though.  

The next stage was to base coat the leggings grey.  A few minis have extra gaiters, these will be picked out in a different colour at a later stage.














The last stage for one evening was to use dark ink to shade the areas basecoated this evening.  This will add some nice contrast, and allow me to highlight the areas up later in the week

Red Jackets Done!

Well, sorry to get your hopes up, but I meant that literally.  I have shaded and highlighted the Jackets on the Brits today.  I realised I don't like painting red anymore lol.  After the AWI is finished, it may be a long wait before I do the Napoleonic Brits.  I may paint some Rifles for use in SDS, as I think I can cope with dark green lol.   May expand it to a rifles force for use in Muskets and Tomahawks, for some of the TV style skirmishes.  Will see how that goes, but lets finish this project first lol.

Anyway, this morning I shaded the second lot of brits.  It was then house tidy time unfortunately.  I made sure to get them all inked before, so when I got some time afterwards they would be dry and ready to go lol.

I have ordered some movement trays for round bases, so I can move the units around easier (after the last game it became apparent this may be useful, especially for the larger units).  I have ordered some from Sarissa Precision and some from Sally 4th, so I can see which ones I like the most.  Then I will get some for each unit, and a few odd ones in case of emergency as it were.  Both do them in many sizes, but Sally 4th have irregularly shaped ones for skirmish troops as well.  I have ordered a few of these to give them a go as well.

After the afternoon of tidying the house, it was time to build up some red highlights.  By the end of this I was almost red blind.  It is like snow blindness, only everything takes on a strange red hue.  I wanna paint WW2 camo lol.  These bright colours are tricksy.


As you can see, these models will make up another block of men, this time they will be 36 Line Infantry (possibly with 'Elite' tag points allowing).  I have also used models from my spare command frame to build a few more officers.  I noticed from a few games that these are very useful in M&T, the +1 Reaction and the ability to give extra actions with the 'Forward Boys' card is really good (having been on the receiving end of a lucky card streak giving regulars 5 actions in a row (which were fire, reload, fire, reload,fire!)  I am never going to underestimate that lol).

Reviews

Hi,

    This is a new adventure for me, in that it is my first review of a game/miniature/product that I am posting on this blog.  I will accept (constructive) criticism, as I would very much like to improve in any aspect of the hobby if I can.

These reviews will not necessarily come out regularly, but will come out whenever I get the time (I am busy in the real world lol).  I may branch into video reviews and guides (I am still working on getting a suitable hobby area in my new house, which is a little problematic)

I have recently purchased several new games, so as I try them out, I will write a few of my ideas about them here, and possibly include a battle report or two as well, as above, with videos to follow when I get things just right in the gaming room so I can actually film lol.

I will welcome any suggestions for reviews, and not all the reviews will be for new games, as some may just be new to us, or games I want to share.

Enjoy

More Brits

So on with the next part of painting the Brits.  I have at this point realised I bought FAR to much for Muskets & Tomahawks (Worked out to be 1200+ points of British, oops) .  This does however allow me to run big multiplayer battles, so not too bad there.  This is the next stage to be done.  As you can see they are all assembled and spray based red.

The second wave consists of:-

36 Elite Line Infantry
2 Officers

and when it is done, will leave me with the Dragoons, Dragoon Officer, Mounted Officer, Queens Own Rangers, Ranger Officer, and a 6 Pounder Artillerypiece to go ;-)  These are mostly Perry Miniatures, with the exception of the artillery and mounted officer which are from the Warlord Games box set.

As you can see, I have made use of the beautiful (if rare) sunny day to spray these blighters ASAP lol.

They will be inked then batch painted as before over the next several days. and more pics will be uploaded at the end of each painting session (or probably the day after in work, truth be told!)

Once this section of Brits are done it is back to the rebellious Continental forces.  I have 24 Continental infantry, 10 Light Infantry, a bunch of Militia and Riflemen and a Cannon.  So not too much more to paint lol.  After all that is done, I will probably make an Indian force as well, just for some variety as it can be added to both the Brits and the Continentals.  A friend of mine is painting a 400 point Continental force (Line Infantry, Officers and some Minutemen I think) and 400 points of Hessians (Grenadiers, Jaeger, and an officer or two I think), so we should be set for some large club games, and a variety of smaller games as well.  Looking at the Sharp Practice v2 ruleset as well for bigger games, as we haven't tried a really large Muskets and Tomahawks yet.

A Scenic Interlude

before I move on to the next chunk of British troops, I took a brief pause to paint the excellent "Ramshackle Barn" from Renedra.  This is a nice characterful plastic kit with some nice detail bits.  I quickly built and painted it in no time this evening while the wife was pottering in the garden.  When I get some mounting board I will base it and put the extra detail bits on the base.  A very nice kit, only downside is no ease of using the inside. A drawback if you are the sort of gamer that uses that, but I intend on getting some 4Ground buildings for that, this is just scatter.

Continental Infantry Continued

Welcome back.  I had a painting binge over the weekend, and Have got the continentals done up to the basing stage.  Here are the WIP photos I took.

The first stage was to add some colour to the blue.  As I am painting them based on one of the regiments in the Perry Miniatures Guide leaflet included with the box, the contrast colour would be red.  During this stage, the waistcoats and trim were painted red and shaded.  This was quite dark, but I was hopeful it would be rectified during the highlighting process







The red was highlighted up, making it a lot brighter and improving the contrast a lot.  The legs were then painted some neutral brown colours, to represent the clothes worn by these provincial troops.
















Some shading/highlighting applied to the legs, and the white trim painted.  Starting to look a lot more like continental troops now












Troops finished and waiting for basing.  I have ordered some movement trays from Sally 4th to move the groups around.  Next job is the next block of brits and some terrain.

Continental Infantry

As with the Brits, I intend to work through this part of the project by production-line painting.  The first stage will be assembly, followed by a sprayed base coat.  After assembling these guys, it seems a little more daunting than the Brits.  This is probably due to the increase number of models; this time I am painting almost 50 men.  Also, there is an increased number of colours to be painted on these.  My chosen colour scheme for the first batch at least will be blue with red trim/waistcoats, and natural coloured legging/gaitres.  Only time will tell if this is too ambitious.

After assembling all the minis yesterday (I forgot to take a pic sorry), I have now sprayed them blue ready for the painting to begin.

The first stage of painting, and the easiest to carry out was to shade the blue.  I used Army Painter "Blue Shade" to do this.

After the shading was dry, I highlighted back up to add some depth to the blue.  This is definitely the place to stop for one evening, as I am tired, and my wife wants to watch Game of Thrones (Ah, what would we do without DVR lol).

The Next step will be to start adding colour to break up the blue.

American War of Independence Project

So here we are, my first of the new style hobby projects.  I will post better pictures in the gallery when they are all done.

The plan used is to batch paint in stages.  It may work, or it may not, who knows at this stage.  The first task is to acquire some minis.  This was achieved by purchasing some Perry minis from those nice chaps at Firestorm Games.  Armed with my first purchases (a box of Brits and 2 boxes of Continental Infantry) I started the project.  The plan was to do a 400 point force for each faction before going back and expanding both of these up to 600 points.  The first to be assembled was the British.

On assembly I spotted the error in my plan.  I had forgot the Perry Miniatures box contained 36 Infantry and 2 Casualty models.  This meant that I was a model down (Requiring 36+ Officer).  This was quickly rectified as the Perrys allow for individual frames to be ordered, so an extra command frame was bought.

Then on to the assembly...



So here are the British troops all assembled and eager to be painted.  3 Units of 12 Light Infantry, and an Officer to lead them.

Things were looking good, as it took an evening to prep and assemble them.  The plan was to then Spray them the next day, and try to do one or two areas of colour each night.  For example, get the red jackets done, then the flesh and muskets and so on.  This plan worked quite well, as it allowed the models to be painted in quite an efficient manner.  Hopefully it will work well when I get to the continental troops as well (the observant will have noticed from the tenses used that I have actually completed (mostly) the British at this point.  I was going to add to this post after every stage, but I was too eager to get the painting done.




Stage 2 and 3.  Firstly a red spray.  When this was dry, ink was applied to shade the red, and areas to be painted darker (hat and gun) were based in black.  Stage 3 was then to highlight the red up to a nice smart red that the King would be proud of.


The next stage was to base all the areas that are to be painted white in a light grey.  It was at this stage that the models started to look like "proper British" soldiers.  Sorry for the rubbish casts on the pictures, the lighting in the room is quite terrible, and my wife had taken the painting lights.


Some white detailing has now been applied, and the dark blue trim on the jackets.  Really starting to look the part now.

My excitement for the project at this point was greatly increased.  I thought at first that painting them would be a chore (I am not used to painting such bright colours over so many models), but it proved me wrong, and I had already started looking towards my next purchases at this point.  However, due to a promise to my wife to finish painting task before starting another I remained determined and carried on with the project (I was going to get a stack of Dragoons from the Perrys, they will be got, as a reward when I complete the Continentals).  I have ordered a stack of basing materials (tufts, shrubs etc.) but will probably get both the starter forces done then have a basing binge.



The (mostly)finished Brits.  As mentioned, the bases still need doing.  The flags really bring out the unit, and I love the red-coat vibe.  I want to add some Napoleonics to my schedule now ;-)

Time to start the Continental force, I will post again when they are done (or maybe if I get the time in work, I will post as the project progresses).

When both are done, I will try to get some of the terrain from Renedra painted and put up a Video.  

Back after a long break

Hi,

   After a long break, which I believe is justified as it was brought on by the following situations in real life:

1. Writing up PhD Thesis
2. Attending a conference in Munich to present work
3. Preparing for PhD Viva Examination
4. Moving house over the start of the new year
5. Graduating from my PhD
6. Getting a new job.

All of these have greatly reduced my hobby time over the past few months.  However, we are gearing up to bring new content and videos as soon as we can.

Adding to the current content, we hope to include battle reports for the following games:

• Muskets and Tomahawks
• Force on Force
• Songs of Drums and Shakos/Tomahawks
• Saga
• This is not a test
• Frostgrave
• Black Ops
• Lion Rampant
• Warmaster Ancients

We are also looking into getting into Napoleonic gaming, if we can find a rule-set we like.  At the moment, we are looking at Blucher in 6mm, and or Age of Eagles in 15mm.  We also have Sharp Practice to read through.

We have enthusiastically planned several hobby projects that I hope to have time to go into here, provided my real-life workload doesn't prevent this.  We have planned projects for the above games, which will hopefully be painted with WIP posts here, followed by gaming.  We feel we played too much of certain games, and didn't diversify, therefore leading to us getting a little bit burned out.  By cycling gaming projects we hope to avoid this.

The first project that I have started are a pair of forces for Muskets and Tomahawks.  I plan on doing a British and a continental force, so this can be used for gaming ASAP. I will post details on that shortly.  This project falls under our new outlook on wargames.  Before, we have sought to have insane collections of one particular army/faction.  This is good, but we think we have stumbled on a better way of doing things, at least for us.  As it is often the case that one ore more of us gets over excited about a game/period/scale, it sometimes makes it awkward to get others as enthusiastic.  This leads to delays, and projects not being completed.  It is our goal now to make sure that we have at least two armies in each pet project before we expand.  This means that as I am planning muskets and Tomahawks, I will ensure I have at least 2 basic armies, so others in the group can play the game before going insane and buying everything I can find for one force.  If people want to get their own forces, then this is a bonus.  Likewise, one of our group, Ceri, wants to do a couple of asymmetrical style Vietnam scenarios, or a campaign (probably using Force on Force).  He will collect both sides for this campaign, with others jumping on if they want.  In this way, if one (or more) of us have an exciting project, then we can all benefit from joining in, without the need for multiple redundant collections.  If the period/system is popular, extra players joining in enables larger battles to be fought.  It sounds complcated, but it works out much more cost efficient (I have sooooooo many Iron Hands (10k of HQ choices alone) that I will never be able to field them all without buying a basketball court to play on lol, if I had bought both sides from a campaign (a Forgeworld book for example) I would have spent less, and probably got more use out of them.  To clarify the plan a little (I am busy typing this whilst drinking a coffee and working at the same time, very confusing) here is the current penciled in schedule for my projects (order may change lol)

• American War of Independece/Revolutionary war
• Aim to get 400 point of British troops and the same for the Continental Army
• Starting Forces consist of: 
• 36 Light infantry plus Officer for the Crown
• 32 Provincial Troops, 14 Light Infantry, 2 Officers for the revolutionaries
• These forces will be expanded on (Britain will probably get a little more expansion) by the addition of cannon, mounted troops, Indians, more infantry, and whatever else takes my fancy.
• Warmaster Ancients
• two 1,000 point armies from Magister Militum for the Crusades
• WW2 (Either force on force, Chain of Command, or Bolt Action)
• About a platoon level of Early War 20mm French and German
• Black Ops
• A Counter Terrorist Team, some sort of criminal element, and a piece of terrain to fight over.

Obviously this plan may change (especially as I have to crowbar painting a Frostgrave warband for a game next week into there lol.