And another 'catching up' update....

I remembered that in the last post I had forgotten about more 20mm's: 2 squads worth of Soviet Motor rifles in the classic brown uniforms, and another 2 squads in NBC gear, and 5 downed US aircrew....So yes, I've been a bit busy/productive during my absence. I also found a few pictures from back in the summer that shows some of my completed/WiP work :)

Assorted WinterApoc conversions

Saga stuff! we, actually, not for Saga.... but it's a good saying none the less! Mainly rebases, although all the ghostly celts and tree spirits where new paint jobs

Assorted 20mm Cold War bits and some newly painted 'Arthurians'

Slightly blurry Athrurians and some rivers which I had forgotten about doing...!

Most of the dark ages types are still pretty much like this, but the 20mm's in the back ground have all been done...

A long time...

I was slightly amazed to see my last post was in February... I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realise it had been that long. As you have probably guessed, life and a slight frustration with blogging have kept me away. at one point I wasn't getting much hobby time, so what there was ended up being focused on actually painting figures as opposed to talking about painting figures... so to speak.

 What have I done since February - um... its hard to think actually. There would have been more Scavenge Skirmish Survive/WinterApoc figures, the momentum for which lasted until May or so*; after that I touched up my Arthurians (although I keep calling them Arthurians, I actually have very few Romano-British, instead all the focus tends to be on Migration era Germanics...) and rebased all the HoTT multibases individually before it drifted nito a slightly fantasised 'Sword and sorcery' type setting and then back to history. The net result is a shelf full of preped and/or converted Britons, Germans & Picts waiting forlornly for paint, as well as a few more bits in the display case. The new Gripping Beast plastic dark age warriors are great, and it's possible to tailor them for use in allsorts of armies by using the separate Westwind heads and a few new shields - the bulk of my box have become Romano-British Soldiers and levy. Since about August, I've moved back to 20mm moderns and finished off all the Infantry for my 2nd platoon of Soviet motor rifles, 3 BMPs, 1 BRDM, a couple of bits of scenery, a squad of DDR 'Fighting group of the Working class' militia, the rest of the platoon of British Paras, assembled a fair few plastic kits (mainly British) and started picking up bits so that I can go 'Twilight 2000' with most of the stuff. I should be picking up a pile of bits to round off most of the 'FOF:CWGH' scenarios at Warfare....

On the painting bench at the moment are (alas, no pictures as I didn't think about doing this until just now): 5 almost finished WinterApoc survivors, a handful of 1/2 done Romano-Britisth soldiers (as in Semi-uniform types), about the same number of generic dark age civilians and British Levy, a Platoon + support assets of 20mm East German NVA (which are getting most of the love and only need boots wepaons and skin finishing), 10x T-72's awaiting their tracks, DShK machine guns and logs painted, a T-62 in a similar state to the T-72's, and a handful of 20mm militia/partisans which just need the wood on their rifles and the final skin highlight before basing.

I've spent a bit of time looking longingly at my 40mm figures, but I'm not sure I have the time/energy combination at the moment to do them the justice they deserve. I am tempted to do Chernarus in 20mm at some point, as I'll already have a shed load of militia types ready to go....    My interest was sparked by Colonel Bills having some 40mm moderns in stock, but as they are asking ~£10 for 4 figures, I'm passing for now (that can get me 16 20mm figures!). Next on the painting list should be a platoon of 20mm DRA, which are already base coated and should allow me to take my Soviets to Afghanistan to do battle with Johns Mujahadeen.

*at which point the weather was heating up and I lost my vision of a bleak desolated cold wasteland

Painting Super Update (28mm) - WinterApoc figures & markers

Please forgive the lack of commentry on these - but as you can see, there are a lot of them! The first couple of pictures are assorted markers and scatter scenery; then a block of all my survivors thus far (as well as a few feral dogs and escapee wolves) - the majority are conversions, but a few of them are stock. Figures from Offensive, Brigade, Killer B, Foundry, TAG, Hasslefree, Hetzerdog, Dixon, Acheson design, BTD, Tiger, SMM, Megaminis, MoFo & Urban Beat. Dogs by Tiger & Brittania. Wolves by WestWind & Alternative Armies

 The cultists I've shown before, but for the sake of completeness I thought I'd show them with their new bases... 

WiP Update (28mm) - WinterApoc

Another mega update - this time with some more up-to-date WiP stuff....

Figures that are just at the start of the conversion process (Foundry, Brittania, TAG, Redoubt, SMM)

A few more that are edging closer to completion... (Offensive, Tiger, Killer B, TAG, Foundry & Brigade)

And a couple more from the paint desk (SMM, LAM, Hasslefree & Foundry)...

WiP Update (28mm) - Winter Apoc Survivors

I just discovered this lurking in the drafts section - most of these figures are either finished or close to being so, but as the tedious process of getting all the photos in has already been done, I thought I'd share it anyway! lol The snowy scenery has since been axed....

The long quiet....

I'm aware things have all gone quiet over last month or so - sorry about that. All sorts of things seem to be conspiring to slow down blog posts - I've based, then rebased my various WinterApoc (yup, finally found a name for the project!) survivors, finished writing my second year report (boring real world stuff), Emma (my Fiancée) has had pretty bad back problems recently which has served to keep me out f the hobby room (her usual computer chair has been found to be very uncomfortable) ; I've been play-testing a new set of rules (Scavenge, Skirmish, Survive); but perhaps most importantly, I've been posting most of my work up on forums (Post Apoc Wargames, LAF & The Guild*) and after submitting it all up on there, I'm not normally in the mood for the re-formatting etc required to get it up on here...

*As part of their 2013 project challenge 

That said, I'm going to try to catch up in the next couple of days, and will do my best to stay on top of things as they go... Until then; here's a playtest battle report for those that fancy some Post-apocalypse action:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Post_Apoc_Wargames/topic/5070836/1/#new

Mortal Engines Wargames Musings

The more I think about making a playable game out of the Mortal Engines books the closer I come to 3 effective methods:

I) City on City - tiny scale cities, each about the size of a 1/72nd tank (maybe with big cities up to the size of a 1/35th scale tank) scooting around eating each other, with airships etc out of scale (well, seeing as they are larger, what with being closer to the viewers eye) but present for landings and what not. In terms of game play, it'd be rather like a land version of a Space-ship battle game like Full thrust... infact, FT might not be too bad an idea for a rules set. This is very definitely limited to the later books, as there are actually moving cities. I guess something similar could be achieved with land barges and traction fortresses, maybe evening making them vaguely inter-compatible by doing so in say in 3mm or 6mm. Certainly some of the Epic Ork models would work well.

II) Skirmish 'Gang' warfare inside a city - Effectively Necromunda or combat zone, involving various 'gang' size warbands skirmishing in a multi-level diesel-punk industrial setting. There are quite a few suitable figures out, and games would be along the lines of the Engineers guild try to storm London Museum, or a small band of anti-tractionist terrorists battling with say the crew of a pirate suburb. It could also work for the early period stuff - A small group of London Trained Bandsmen skirmishing with Movement warriors in the outskirts of London, or what have you. No vehicles or suchlike used, with the focus very much on each individual figure.

The final option (III) is really  limited to the Early period (pre-traction) stuff, which is the 'massed battle' game. Although there are possibilities for Battle Mammoths, Campavans, traction bunkers and the like in 28mm, unless one is using a particularly large board, they cannot be used in any real numbers; and certainly for the likes of traction fortresses are really relegated to the role of mobile scenery. To actually be able to deal with a reasonable number (say a few warmachines and a platoon or two of infantry) will require a smaller scale - around 10-15mm. Ruleswise, maybe GASLIGHT, or a varient...

Udate (28mm) - Painted 'cold apocalypse' survivor convesions and a few more WiPs

So here's the latest update on my cold/winter British Apocalypse (yeah - I'm still working on a snappy name). I've actually done quite a bit of work since I took these pictures, but updated pictures will be along in their due course...

Here are the figures I showed last time in paint. I've tried to keep to a muted pallet, but make them look like anyone you might pass in the street or any outfits that you might buy from an out-doors store. The guy in the black hooded jacket has since got some red fingerless gloves, a) to make him look a bit warmer and b) to break up the drab colour scheme some more. I'm a bit stuck on how to do bases on these guys, and I'm knocking up a couple of dummy runs on blank penny-washers to try to work out what looks best...

These folks have changed a fair bit, but this was the state of conversion a while ago. From the left: TAG Criminal, Hasslefree, TAG African Militia,TAG African Militia, TAG Tunnel Rat, Dixon Resistance Fighter. Since then, far left & right have been finished and are actually in paint, whilst the others are all only awaiting minor details (bag straps, etc). The grey paint is for improved contrast (I find it hard to work out quite how things will look in just the green)

Here is the 'quiver' I eventually settled on - I was going to try to sculpt it open, with bolts sticking out... but my sculpting isn't quite up to that yet, so closed it is.

Objective markers - the two bags I sculpted in paint, along with a couple of jerry cans and a mystery crate....!

Painting update (20mm) - Paras, Motor Rifles & Partizans...

Apologies for the non-scenic pictures, but the table was still laid up for christmas and I didn't want to disrupt it...! 

Here are the latest 20mm offerings...

More NATO partisans - with a  couple of Eastern Europeans mixed in. Currently hitting about the half way point, although Santa did bring a pile of WW2 resistance fighters who will mainly be heading to Poland (and potentially Yugoslavia) 

Soviet Motor Rifles, including a AGS grenade launcher - still more (21, of which 4 have yet to be purchased) to do before I finish the 2nd platoon...

British Paras - 10 left to (hopefully) finish off the platoon, assuming my initial calculations were correct...!

The first of my unarmed civilians/refugees - quite a few more to come as they are a fairly prominent feature in many of the FoF scenarios...