Another Odd Assortment

I just can’t seem to get focused on any one project and go with it. Here’s what I’ve managed to finish up over the last few weeks…

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Our  first Mutants and Death Ray Guns game got me briefly motivated to paint up a few old Grenadier post-apocalyptic figures…

I need more “survivors” that AREN’T armed with guns!

I also finished reading Fear and Faith and started reading Kooky Teenage Monster Hunters which briefly motivated me to finish up this Hasslefree Miniatures knock off of Willow.

(I haven’t finished reading Kooky Teenage Monster Hunters as I was distracted by the arrival of Ted Rall’s new book…)

I am thinking I would like to run a few horror games for Halloween.

On that spooky Halloween theme… a Reaper Bones cheap and easy bat swarm.

More Reaper Bones – FIRE!

A few Black Tree Design Ancient Greeks (because that’s what the kids and I are reading about in our survey of world history… Hopefully there will be more of these over the next two months or so…).

Battle Honors Great War British infantryman because… y’know… 100^th anniversary and all that.... (and the Lead Adventure Great War Painting Club) 

Brigade Games Great War Indian Infantryman. Ditto.

Great War Miniatures Great War French cavalry officer.

I have at least been getting in some boardgaming lately – a LOT of boardgaming!

WE finished up reading about ancient Mesopotamia for the time being with a chapeter on NebuchadnezzarII and the hanging gardens he built for his Persian wife Amytis, so we busted out Hanging Gardens.

I also read Shadow Over Innsmouth with the kids – so we busted out Innsmouth Escape - which I’ve had for a few years but was waiting for the stars to be right to play…. (I asked Amanda and the kids to do their best Deep One impression for the photo – Amanda kind of really nailed the Innsmouth look there… almost worries me a little…).

I also recently picked up Cthuhu: Hastur La Vista Baby. The game is set in Kingsport, so I’m trying to think of which Lovecraft tales were set there that I could read with the kids before we crack this one… Any ideas?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Ugh… who knows… at the rate I’m painitng it will be a couple weeks before I post any freshly painted figures… perhaps there will be a game report in the meantime. 

Odds and Ends – Samurai, Eldar, Great War, Modern Civilians

Here are an odd assortment of items I’ve been working on over the last week or so… There are a few other items I’ve finished up (members of the various Ronin Buntai), but I thought I’d leave them for when I have entire Buntai finished.

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Three Geeks – from Reaper Miniatures

An old Rogue Trader era Eldar Guardian from Games Workshop. He is © and ™ Games Workshop (though technically I believe it was Citadel Miniatures at the time) and painted by myself and posted here entirely without their permission.

At some point I thought I’d run an Only War or Rogue Trader campaign for the kids and I thought it’d be fun to have a recurring band of Eldar that pop into situations sometimes thwarting them, other times aiding them, always acting on their own bewildering agendas which will likely make no sense to the players at the time, but may be hinted as later in the campaign. 

A later Great War French Poilu from FG MiniZ/Forgotten Glorious.

A while back they’d offered to send a free sample to anyone who asked. The have 1806 Prussians and some American Civil War miniatures – which I’m not particularly interested in – but they also have 1917 French – and the Great War IS something I’m interested in, so I asked for a sample from that line, and the miniature above it what they sent me. Now, I have no other Late War French… so there wasn’t any really need to paint this straight away, but I figured if they were nice enough to send along a mini, I thought I’d paint it up and show it off for them.



a few Ashigaru from Old Glory

This is another batch of Black Hat Miniatures peasants - so I now have 15 of them!

Three more Peasants from The Assault Group - though the one with the sword looks less like a peasant to me and more like a down-on-his-luck ronin. These as with the Black Hat Peasants above will be going in my Peasant Buntai.

Two Perry Miniatures Samurai for my Ikko-Ikki Buntai.

The banners are Ikko-Ikki banner that I found illustrations of in the Osprey book on Warrior Monks.

(I didn't manage to fit the entire slogan on the one...)

The remaining Ashigaru archers from the Perry Miniatures pack I used to convert three of to Monk Archers - these will also be adding to the ranks of the Ikko-Ikki Buntai!

Finally a Monto Gashira Bannerman for the Ikko-Ikki Buntai.(also from Perry Miniatures ) - the slogan is the same as on the back of the samurai - again I couldn't fit the entire slogan on it. It's supposed to say "He who advances is sure of heaven, but he who retreats will go to hell" - hopefully I got at least half of it on there. It would be terrible if it only said "He who advances is sure of..." - that would seem rather... uncertain...? Actually my calligraphy is probably unreadable to anyone who actually understands Japanese... probably looks like "Bit the wax tadpole" or something...

It was like Xmas around here today! Three parcels arrived in the mail (well... four actually... but only three are relevant to this blog...).



The first was this mysterious package...



GO Stones! (which may or may not ever be used for playing go... but WILL be used for playing Ronin!) 

The other two packages that arrived were orders from Perry Miniatures (containing a few additional Ashigaru for my assorted Bushi Buntai... and... something else) and The Assault Group (with the rest of the Sohei for Sohei Buntai #2)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

1914 French in 40mm

My friend John has been modeling stuff in 40mm lately. First for his Great (imaginary) European War of 1850, and more recently for the 1914 battles of the Great War. When I was over there last game, I brought home some of the 1914 French to try painting for him. 

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1914 French in 40mm sculpted and cast by my John Bertolini. They aren’t properly based yet as we haven’t figured out a basing system for the 1914 stuff. It’ll probably be six bases of three – as with the 1850 stuff.

John’s also done 1914 Germans and Russians and probably Austrians and other Balkan armies…. But not the British…? That’s okay, because I’m working on my own (though I haven’t made any more progress since the last post).

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Um… Still in renovation limbo with the added excitement of outlaws visiting this coming week… productivity may drop further… or possibly increase… (if I end up spending a lot of time hiding in the basement!?)

Maybe I’ll try and get that last unit of my own 28mm 1914 French done…?

Or get cracking on my 40mm 1914 British!

More Great War French

Back to the Great War stuff. Actually I’d started these guys a few weeks ago…. Then production fell off for a bit… but the other night I decided I should finish them off before entirely losing focus and starting anything else.

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A Second unit of regular French infantry from Great War Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

STILL More Frenchmen (but in a different scale!). 

Great War 1914 French Infantry (Part One)

The first of three French Infantry units I have to paint….

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These are from Great War Miniatures. I really like the poses and detail that go into these.

Usually I call these units “battalions” I have three such units making a regiment. It might be nice to some day get another three to fill out a brigade… of course, if you have a brigade you might as well do another and be able to field a whole damned division…

There is no end.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Production has slowed somewhat this week and will continue to be slow over the next week. Now that I’ve got these done, it’d be nice to finish up the other two, but I don’t know if my attention span can last that long at the moment. 

Great War French St. Étienne Machine-Gun Teams

I have been working on some British officers… and still am… but I kind of got distracted by these… and finished them up while watching the last two episodes of Game of Thrones season two last night.

With this lot I have officially painted 100 more 28mm foot than I have acquired so far this year! Huzzah!  (though I still need to catch up on vehicles and mounted troops…)! No more painting deficits and it’s time to bring down that painting debt! I should really do a big stock taking like the one I did a few years back - just to see where things are at… It will, however, probably prove… embarrassing!

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Two Great War French St. Étienne machine-gun teams from Great War Miniatures.



Really quite a nice little kit.

I also have three French 1914 infantry units from GWM and a unit of Dragoons to fix up and paint.

Oh and I have that unit of Chasseurs à Cheval that I painted up last summer.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Those British Officers… or maybe a unit of 1914 French… or Martians… or… something else completely different. 

French Officers

I started on the last of the French Foreign Legionnaires the other night and happened to finish up these last night.

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The one on the right is from Artizan Designs’ Pulp Adventure line, the fellow on the left is from Crusader Miniatures Wild West line – from a pack called “foreigners” which included gunslinging scotsman (third picture) and a Russian Cuirassier (second picture) - I assumed this third fellow in the pack was supposed to be French – though he could easily be an American Civil War officer – I figured the pack name of “foreigners” meant they were NOT American… 

Oh bother! I just noticed some paint got scraped off the Crusader miniature’s holster!? How the heck did THAT happen!? Bah! I’m posting it anyway and I’ll fix it later…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As mentioned the last of the French Foreign Legion (that I have) will be next up. Then I have some Great War German infantry lined up to go next – along with some WW2 Canadians and some… er… ELVES!?

Great War French Chasseurs à Cheval Complete

…for now… as I mentioned in the previous post, I will at some point need (“need”… that’s a funny word for it, huh?) to pick up a few more to finish this and a second unit. Part of me wants to just order them straight away and finish them off… the slightly more sensible side (slightly…) thinks I should wait for their next 5-for-4 sale and pick up a couple regiments of French Infantry while I’m at it!?

Aye-yi-yi…

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The figures are from Renegade Miniatures.

For a more detailed discussion of these figures see the previous post.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Harpies. No really, they’re done and I’m just finishing up the base details. So they’ll be next.

Then…? Hmmm…. Hard to say… So much stuff already on deck, but I’ve been having fun doing these horsies the last week… I might have to do a few more! Boers? ALH? Early Great War Brtish? Zulu War British? Martians on Gashants? 

Great War French Chasseurs à Cheval

Here is a sample of the Great War French Chasseurs à Cheval unit I am working on…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

The figure is from Renegade Miniatures.

The figures are sold as “Dragoons”. I’m no expert on French cavalry or anything, but most of the pictures I can find of French Dragoons all seem to shown wearing helmets. This shako (is it a shako? Or a tall kepi…?) looks more like what is pictured in illustrations of the Chasseurs à Cheval…. So that’s what I’m calling these guys.

I got a boxed set that I originally thought might have 12 in it, but turned out to only have 9… I do like to have cavalry units of 10… luckily this can be rectified by ordering another regiment of 8 plus a command blister of 3 – voilà – TWO units of ten… Of course, what I’m going to do with TWO units of Chasseurs à Cheval when I have no other French units… or early was Germans to oppose them… but it all makes sense in my own bizarre little world.

I’m not totally excited about the Renegade horses – they’re monstrously heavy beasties that are supported on two spindly little legs – if you look at the pictures on the Renegade site and compare them to mine, you will notice that I’ve bent the front and rear extended legs in. – I’ve done this so I can attached them to the base as well to give the model  two more points of contact in hopes that they won’t break. I have some British cavalry as well and a few of them have been broken (and repaired) and I haven’t even getten to adding their lances and painting them!?

The other little complaint I have about the horse is that their case with swords in the scabbard attached to the saddle… unfortunately everyone (with the exception of the trumpeter) has their sword drawn. I’ve noticed the painted ones on the web site have just been painted as they are (perhaps the French carried a spare as they were so poorly manufactuered?). No one else would probably notice this sort of detail, but I did… and it would bug me… So I had to carve off the hilts on all the guys with swords drawn (which, as stated, is most of them…).

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The rest of them… I should have the rest of the unit finished up tonight and I’ll post them tomorrow…