Seb came across on Saturday and helped me get some more nomad figures prepped. Add in some painting time and things are coming along quite nicely. All things going to plan I should have the nomads finished long before the display game at Reveillie (!)
Which is good, as my brain is wandering about the setting we started building, coming up with all sorts of ideas... The heavily armed trade caravans of the Neu-Hanseatic League, wandering London Engineers seeking lost archeotech, scavengers, savage tribes, giant subterranean worms (tremors style), landships, mutated dwellers in long lost catacombes, the list keeps going on. From my perspective, I can see masses of scope for steampunkish post-apocalypse adventures, with heavy hints of Mortal Engines but with everything from Indiana Jones (archetechologist being chased through a ruined sewer system by misshapen troglodytes) to Beowulf (a nomad tribes camp is being plagued by a monster of prodigious capabilities and a wandering hero is in town to help) via His Dark Materials Trilogy (there's got to be space for a mercenary Texan aeronaut!?). And heavns know what Seb will come up with... (although he has already confessed to being heavily influenced by Darwins World)
Anyway, enough waffle. On to the WiPs!
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| From L: A scav/archeotechologist, nomad warrior, Carn Ikea Torsson, a selection of pack mules and part of a hunting dog. The building in the background will be the 'traders hut' in the display game... Yes, it does have a sofa and a washing machine outside it. No... I don't know why either! |
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| From L; Hunting dogs, light cannon 1 (Warlord Frame gun), light cannon 2 (Boot Hill 'come take it' gun), 2 part-converted Warlord gun crew (ECW Scots -> Northern Nomads) & a part built cart as scatter for the village in the display game. The gun crewman hunched over will be getting a slung shield and will have some GSing done on his coat. The chap leaning forward with the fuse needs some work done on his trousers, and may well get a belt... |
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| Assorted part painted Northern Nomads (Note: angry northern lady!) |
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| More assorted part painted nomads.... |
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| Close-up of Carn Ikea Torsson, my commander for the display game (Ancestral shotgun for the win!) |
Just finished weathering a 1:50th Solido BRDM and a 1:43rd 'Russian Diecast' Moskovitch....
From the left: HLBS, HLBS, GI, HLBS, GI Conversion, HLBS. Just a quick note to say that I have finally finished my PhD thesis, and that it has been submitted, so I will hopefully be back to getting hobbying done soon
Until a proper update, here are some views of the paint station, a few WiPs and some figures in need of basing...
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| Hairy Germanics - in this case Franks. Figures by Foundry, Citadel, & Eureka |
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| Yet more Hairy Germanics - Early Saxons. Figures by Gripping Beast, Foundry & Musketeer |
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| Picts - All the figures are Black Tree Designs |
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| (Post) Romano-British skirmishers. Figures are Gripping Beast plastics with West Wind heads & Gripping Beast metals, |
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| Otherworld warriors (Ghostly Celts). Figures by Foundry, Renegade, & North Star |
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| (Post) Romano-British Soldiers (Bucellarii - Private retainers and warlords soldiers) - Figures by Gripping Beast |
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| (Post) Romano-British Warriors (Committatus) - Figures by West Wind, Eureka, Crusader & Gripping Beast |
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| Dark Age civilians - Figures by Foundry & Black Tree Design |
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| (Post) Romano-British 'Militia' (Combrogi) - Figures are Gripping Beast Metals, Artizan Designs, Gripping Beast Plastics with West Wind Heads & Foundry |
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| Mid-era (600-700s) Saxons. Figures by Black Tree Design, Foundry & Eureka |
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| Early Germans. Figures by Warlord Games & Foundry |
Probably the last painting update from me for a while - although I have stuff on the paint desk making progress, I don't think that they will be finished before packing overtakes them!
Something of a odd collection this time - more 40mm moderns, including a couple of conversions (head swap on uzi guy and adding the cossack hat) and some test pieces to check that I can get away with just a paint conversion to 'shift' the African milita figures to eastern Europe. I think they look good - a bit more ragged than some of the others, but I can atleast use them as bandits. The wattle fences are Rendera - I did the entire packs worth, but decided that too many pics would just get dull!
The werewolf is a Reaper bones model. My first, and I must admit that I am generally impressed. Once I've got a few more they can be set loose on a Arthurian village... ('The wolves are running master Kay!' - perhaps not quite the sort of wolves they meant in The Box of Delights, but they'll do! )
The little people are my take on the Alfar, although they owe more to the Brownies from Willow than Tolkien's elves. They are, literal, little savages - with bronze and stone weapons ( fey folk not liking iron), animal (rabbit? Squirrel?) furs and green clothing (from Scandinavian folklore, along with the pale skin tone and dark hair). The painting isn't my best, but I fully intend to field them enmass as per the 'action shot', where hopefully the limitations in painting won't show so much. The blood stains on the weapons were to add a touch of savagery to the figures, and I envisaged some sort of sacrifice and dipping weapons in its blood to empower them. Ib game each stand will get multiple low strength attacks, and I will use the chittering horde rule so that additional bases can support as if they had spears (to represent them swarming all over people). The chap with the owl is a shaman, and the single warrior with the downed germanic a hero of some sort. Figures are all 15mms - a mix of Mick Yarrow prehistorics and unknown celts and zulus. I'm planning to do a fair few more of these...
There is a collection of hairy germanics of varying flavours. I have too many of these chaps, unless I plan on gaming something like Mons Badonicus or Dyrham in 1:1 ratios. And there are more to paint. (Put it this way - Cerdic began conquering what would become Wessex with 2-3 ships worth of men. Depending on the size of the ships, that could be anywhere between about 80 and about 240 warriors. I've got somewhere around 200). The eventual plan is to be able to form two mid period armies, to game the various wars between Christian and Pagan saxon kingdoms. And maybe a separate force of Frankish mercenaries.
The Romano-Britons are segregated by shield designs based on their ability. The levy have plain whitish shields (there's a vague reference in the Gododin to white washed shields, as I've probably said before) whilst professional warriors and retainers have shield designs. All the red and white shields in this batch belong to a semi uniform group (matching tunics) which I envisaged as the guards from a Civitate eager to cling to its roman lineage, and trying to hark back to the Legions of old (heavily inspired by Tudric of Gwents troops in the Bernard Cornwell Warlord trilogy). The rest just have a mix of designs in assorted colours. The bulk of the 'uniformed' troops are GB plastic dark age warriors with metal Westwind heads...
Just a random assortment of stuff I've had floating around on my desk. We've got to move next month, so I'm trying to get random oddments finished so that they don't just get packed down and possibly never see the light of day again. We're only likely to be at the new place for 6 months, so we aren't planning on doing much unpacking - I should have somewhere to paint, and the dining table to play on, but I imagine most of my excess stuff will stay packed. Not sure what to keep out yet - leaning towards the arthurians as it could do with some more progress and the paint schemes aren't too complicated. Plus I very seldom need reference books for details. The 20mms do call, but I can churn them out pretty quickly so I will have to keep lots out to keep me going. I don't think I'll have the spare capacity to do the 40mms what with settling in, finishing my thesis, getting viva'd and then starting a post doc and Christmas... Maybe the Kung Fu stuff - but I don't think there is enough there to keep me going. Anyway. Enough wittering! The 20mm vehicles are both from Liberation Miniatures, and are a Praga AAA truck and an MTLB. The triad gangsters are a mix of Northstar, OOP Chinatown and Sgt. Mjr. Minis. The deamon is also Northstar, and shown next to a part painted Arthurian Militaman. Although it's a dead ringer for the deamon from Big Trouble In Little China, I'm half tempted to use it for my Dark Age sagas... I also am still undecided on how to do the basing for the kung fu figures, so excuse the primer :-)
The final piece is a figure I've wanted for years - the Glockroach! He's posing with a cybersamurai who will also be for a Fistfull of Kung Fu...
