ECW - Musketeer in Blue

 I painted ONE musketeer.... 

Solitary Musketeer (in blue)

This was done as part of the absurd rebasing project... I needed ONE musketeer to fill up a unit... 

The entire force. 

That's about 30 points worth of stuff (taken at their standard point value - no upgrades or downgrades) which should be plenty to start the campaign. 

For this Blue force I have another unit of shot and pike to do and a unit of Horse that I half finished. 

Still have to finish up rebasing the Red and Green English forces and at least one of the Scots Government forces. The second Scots Government force is all on washers... but they're all DONE, so those could probably wait! 

Stay tuned, later today I'll probably be posting my December Games report, and a look back at 2022, and a look ahead with Plans for 2023... 

ECW - Scots Royalist Cavalry

I guess I could have waited another day and posted these all together with the rest of the Highland Company. I went ahead and did those, knowing that I may not get to this guy before being distracted by other things... Also, I really have enough to do TWO forces/companies of Scots Royalists. One of just Highlanders, and another of just Irish mercenaries. This unit would likely be the command for the latter. 

the Commander! This is the one mini I needed to finish up to complete this until I'm not entirely sure where I got it from. I feel like since this was in the drawer with the rest of the Irish Brigade that this model was meant to be the Marquis de Montrose.

(I googled it, this is in fact James Graham, The Marquis of Montrose, from Warlord Games' Pike & Shotte/ECW line)  

So this, then, is the Commander of my Irish company with a couple of his bodyguards. The rest were, until last week, still on 60mmx60mm DBA?HotT style bases, all have been rebased to wooden discs. I did the rest of the unit on slightly smaller bases - as that is what MOST of the ECW cavalry has been based on... But Jimmy's horse's legs were rather to spread out to easily fit on a similar base, so I went one side up. The lack of uniformity within the unit DOES kind of bug me a bit... but Jim's a rather important personage, so... I let it go... 

I'll likely classify them as Gallopers. Do I make them aggressive? No cost upgrade to give them the Wild Charge rule and increase their Attack value to 3+!?

Could be some time before I get to finishing up the rest of the Irish done, however... 

Legends of the Five Rings - Oni No Akuma

 Another Oni from the Legends of the Five Rings Clan War Miniatures. 

Oni No Akuma - or Akuma no Oni, as I see it written in some places 

This one is a bit bigger than the Kamu No Oni I did last month. Shown here for scale...

And here are some unfortunate Phoenix Clan warriors facing the three large Oni! (Also for scale!) 

Oni No Akuma is apparently an Oni Lord and one of the most powerful creatures of the Shadowlands? So I'm going to go ahead and call it a Greater Warbeast, Single Model Unit. That's 6 points, I could give it FEAR to make it 8...? I guess I have to wait and see what other units end up being in this force!? I know I have boxes with two other types of greater Oni, which could all pretty much end up being THE SAME - they could ALL end up being Greater Warbeasts, Reduced model units... where would the fun be in that...?

I guess I don't really need to worry about it until I get a few more units DONE. I guess it does help to figure these things out in advance, then I have a better idea of WHICH units would be best to paint up first... 

In the end I could end up with TWO Shadowlands forces - on of just Oni, another of just Goblins! 

Though I do have a couple units of both hovering in boxes around my workbench, I have a feeling it may be some time before I get to them... Interests have shifted... I'm on to other things. 

If I COULD find those boxes of other Oni - I would probably get them done, because they'd be relatively easy to do and could potentially finish up another force. 

I may also try to finish up Yogo Junzo and his entourage/bodyguard - as a unit to LEAD the Oni. 

Great War - British Tanks

Repainted some tanks that have been sitting in a box for over a decade. I had this idea of doing A little campaign of seven to ten battles based on the Last 100 Days of the Great War using Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames. I've had the rules for ages and wanted to try them out. I've had the tanks even longer... I

 figured I'd paint them up as the first battle of the campaign would be Amiens and tanks featured fairly prominently in that battle, if I recall... the 4th Tank Brigade - with its 140+ MkV tanks were in support of the Canadian Corps. 

I have no idea if these are MkV tanks... I can't be bothered to figure out the differences... It's a British tank in the Great War, they all look pretty much alike... 

Two British tanks of the Great War - I don't know the Mk (I do know they are "male" and "female" varieties - a breeding pair!). I don't know the manufacturer of the models. 

Tanks supported by infantry (for scale). 

Yes, if you look close there are parts that are broken or missing. I COULD have tried manufacturing some... but that seemed like too much work for something that's probably going to see action in one game and then go back in a drawer never to be used again... and when I have SO MANY OTHER THINGS I'd also like to be painting that MIGHT get used... potentially could be used... 

Never say "never", I guess, though. If ever I DO think I'll get to using these on a slightly more regular basis... I'll fix them up a bit better! For now, they are DONE! 

ECW - Highlanders

 Could probably be passed off as highlanders from 17-18th century - showing up in either English Civil War forces OR Jacobite rebellion forces... 

It's English Civil War that I've been thinking of most, lately, so... I'm calling them English Civil War highlanders. 

Seven newly painted Highlanders. I think most are from Old Glory...? The archers in the back might be Warlord Games...? 

Iv'e actually been on multiple massive rebasing sprees lately - 40K figures being rebased from metal washer to proper-sized plastic bases, and a mix of historical and fantasy minis being rebased from washers or multi-figure DBA/HOTT bases to individual plastic bases or wooden discs. 

The ECW stuff is going onto wooden discs - and organized into units of 6 or 12 for The Pikeman's Lament.  

I'm trying to get SIX (or seven!?) different forces completed. Scotts lowland/government, Scotts Highland and four English companies (in red, green, blue, and orange uniforms, respectively). The Scottish lowlanders could easily be TWO forces, I have so many of them!? 

the Highland Company, so far... 

• 1x Forlorn Hope (6), Aggressive (in the middle there, the Laird and his closest pals)
• 4x Clansmen (12) 
• 2x Commanded Shot (The Skirmishers up front) 

This adds up to 22 points, and a standard force is 24, so I could upgrade one of the commanded shot to "veteran" for two more points to make it 24... Maybe the ones with bows....? 

There they all are again... 

I did the bow-armed figures on slightly larger bases to put a bit more space between miniatures - to show they are skirmishers - even when in base-to-base contact. The other unit of Commanded shot are on the "standard infantry size" because I though they were part of a larger unit that hasn't been finished yet... upon recounting, I have enough OTHER shot to make three full units, and these are extras... At some point, when I get to painting the others, I'll do six of them on the larger bases - to make clear that they are different from the surrounding units of shot. 

I have loads more to do... Enough that it could be two separate forces. I Highland company and an Irish company (both of which fought together under Montrose). 

I have a unit or Irish shot and a unit of Irish pile that are also painted, but are still on washers. I have two MORE units of each to finish up and that would make 24 points right there - for an Irish mercenary force. 

I have one unit of horse - probably Gallopers - that are on the workbench having recently been rebased (they were on DBA-style multi-figure bases). Most were full painted, but I'm touching up two of them and a sixth mounted figure is being painted to finish off the unit. I could conceivably downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot to Raw units and add in the unit of horse and make them elite...? OR just down grade four of the Irish units and add a regular unit of horse... OR downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot units and add the Mounted unit AND a unit of commanded shot...? I have enough Irish to do that! 

I also have enough Clansmen to do 2-3 more units of them.. If I had SIX units of Clansmen, the one unit of bow-armed commander "shot", and the Forlorn Hope - that would also be 24 points... I guess I should get working on those last two units of Clansmen! It would be nice to have one more drawer that is FULL of COMPLETELY PAINTED miniatures... 

Now.. WHY am I suddenly working on English Civil War units, suddenly, you may wonder...? and WHY SIX different forces!? I've been thinking about campaigns again and organizing something loosely based on the old, old GW Mighty Empires game... involving a number of minor nobles in a remote part of England (on the border with Scotland). For centuries they have been rivals and fought over who controlled this pasture or that village... None of them necessarily have any strong allegiance to king OR parliament and when they hear the call aren't particularly motivated to send troops - especially when the chaotic situation may mean their neighbours would use their absence as an excuse to take back or take over lands they figure is THEIRS... 

When and HOW will I run this campaign? No idea. Ideally sometime next year. Likely I will run it online - with the players doing the diplomacy via email and submitting moves for their armies once a week (or, every other week?). If an conflict takes place, I play out the battles here and post the results with game reports of the battles and we start all over again...

It may or may not happen... I have a LOT of English that will need to be finished up to be ready... mind you... If I was okay with NOT having the English forces all being in a uniform colours, I could probably use the mix of what I DO have finished to start any time... 

Hmmmmm... 

Watch for details in the new year. 

Terrain Bitz

 I've had a handful of wee terrain bits on my workbench for a few weeks. Thought they'd be fun and easy to knock off... But there were also an HUNGREG OTHER THINGS that I ALSO thought would be fun and easy to knock off. I started working a bit quicker when the prospect of playing Hellboy: the Boardgame popped up... but I didn't quite get these done in time... 

I'm pretty sure the furniture bits came with the Hellboy game (I went ALL IN and there was an option to get furniture upgrades from Mantic Games- to use instead of counters) and the stump was from the last Reaper Bones we kickstarted. 

Hopefully we'll be playing Hellboy again before another two years pass! 

40K - CADIA STANDS!!!

 Or... so they say... 

This past month I've started a massive re-basing project in anticipation of the new Warhammer 40,000 (9th Edition) Astra Militarum Codex. I thought it would be released hot on the heals of the new Cadia Stands box set... and I'd be posting this, the first of the forces to be rebased, with its new Organization all spelled out... but this has not been the case. Despite the box set being released - with the SPECIAL EDITION of the new Guard Codex... the regular codex has NOT been released yet nor shall it be for at least another two weeks!? 

The entire force, so far, re-based. 

This is all the old Cadian/Generic metal Guard figures I have painted so far - which is MOST of them. There have been some changes to the way the Guard is organized in the new edition - it looks like Platoon Commanders are now a headquarters option and are part of a Command Squad  - as they were in (almost) all previous editions! (Unfortunately i STARTED this rebasing BEFORE I learned that and I based all the commanders on 32mm bases - as in 8th they were independant character models and I've started basing all such on the slightly larger bases... bah... not changing it now!)

Once the codex is out I'll break down the new organization and post better pics of each unit... 

I have a handful of other items to add to this force - a small squad of Kasrkins, extra elements for Command squads (the standard bearer), Primaris Psyker, etc. (the Tallarn are for Kill Teams). HOpefully I'll have these done by the time the Codex is released so I can include them in a Complete Force post. 

I also have Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, Colour Sergeant Kell, and Commissar Yarrick models, I got in a lot of Guard a year or so ago, which I thought I might get around to painting up for use with these guys - for "historical" battles...? Defending Cadia from the Black Legion, and such. Apparently all of these characters have been dropped from the new codex! 

The plan is to rebase all of the Tallarn and Guaiacan Commandoes onto plastic bases as well (as I'd been doing with the Aeldari earlier this year).

I have been up to other hobby business - MORE re-basing (of... OTHER things) - but more on that (and what I'm PLANNING for them!?) in another post...