Clankity-Clankity-CLANK!

Well productivity in Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Land has slowed significantly. I’ve been pretty busy with… well… other stuff.

I did manage to trade away the Great War stuff and did a bit of work on the 28mm WW2 Russians. The last of them are very nearly finished – hopefully polish them off next week. I did finish the KV-1:

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This is an Army Group North Miniautres KV-1. Nice model. I think I’d like to pick up some more of their stuff at some point! At some point I may paint some numbers on the side of the turrets, and/or some slogan in cyrillic....

Grey Wolves

I’ve been doing a lot of sculpting lately – more on that later, in another post – but last night I banged out a couple new WW2 Germans…

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These are the “Grey Wolves” from Artizan Designs. As with all Artizan figures they were lovely to paint. I was inspired to paint them up as I had started watching Das Boot earlier in the week. I have three more crewmen – but I’m not sure exactly how to paint them as they don’t match ANY of the German naval uniforms in the sole reference I have on naval uniforms of World War Two…. I’m not saying they aren’t correct – I’d hardly call the book exhaustive (It’s a small book and it covers the uniforms and insignia of 15 different nations!). So perhaps I’ll have to get back to watching Das Boot for some inspiration!

Then I'm going to have to build them a U-Boat!

Sculpting Update

A little more work on the New Masters…

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My 20mm Canadian Infantrymen circa 1986. The advancing chap on the left is more or less complete. I had started a standing/firing figure a while back at the same time but have neglected him for a bit. I still have to do some work on his helmet and add all his webbing kit… but that went pretty quickly on the first one so he should be good to go pretty soon…

I guess I better order myself some new rubber…


Same guys from the back.


The British SYW fusilier. Added a sword and started on some belt and coat details. I’m not sure about the positioning of the sword… but I don’t think I really have much choice. This doll was originally slated to be the British officer – but I’ve messed up my original fusilier good so I decided to bring this guy up as the fusilier and I’ll do some carving off of the old fusilier and make him into the officer… does this make any sense to anyone but me…? I'm sorry, it's late I really should be sleeping....


The French Militiaman. I have twice lengthened his capot and am now satisfied with it. Threw some details on the doll that will likely be covered and lost by the time I’m finished the arms and musket… ah well.. I’ll know they were there.


Other side of the militiaman – needs some work on those cuffs… otherwise I’m quite happy with this one.


Another doll that was slated for something else… this was to be a British light infantryman – I anguished so long about the arrangement of the kit I would put on him and WHICH HAT I would use… that I abandoned the whole thing for the moment and started to turn him into a highlander! (Again I lay part of the blame on Fitz-Badger and his highlanders…).


Back side of a French soldier form the Companies Franches de la Marine. I was working on the sword and bayonet sheath today. Sword still need some work. Again I’m not so hot on the positioning of this sword either… we shall see…


Front side of French soldier.


… and the 1850’s 40mm Highlander got his kilt finally… not looking forward to trying a feather bonnet…

Back to Sculpting

After a brief (or… not so brief…) hiatus I finally got back to work on my New Masters.

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


The two on the left of the picture are French Troupes de la Marine and a Canadien habitant militia. I did a bit of caving on the English figures, and added belts to a couple – nothing significant enough to include in the picture. It’s too bad it’s not a better picture – I’m really happy with some of the details I put on the Militiaman.

The little guy is a 20mm 1980’s Canadian infantryman – and he’s more or less DONE! (Guess I better order some new rubber!) I’ll probably add a rifle sling yet. I can’t decide if I should do a second riflemen… and SMG… and GPMG… On one had this guy wasn’t all that hard, on the other… I am a lazy bastard….

The big shiny guy is a doll my friend John made for some mid-late 19th century 40mm toy soldier-ish figures. He gave me a couple and asked me to do the British. I’ve carvd some of the unnecessary bits off and have applied the hose tops for a HIGHLANDER!! I’ve been feeling the itch to model some kilts again since I started following Fitz-Badger’s work on his own lovely jocks on The Soweiter League Blog

As you can see I’ve been experimenting with “brown stuff”. I think I like it a bit better than the “green stuff”. I think I might try and order in some ProCreate to give that a try. Conveniently it is carried by Military Miniatures USA - one of the distributors my Friendly Local Game Store deals with!

Last of the Blood Bowl/Mordheim Gobbos

These are the last of a team of Goblins and Orcs a friend of mine gave to me to convert into a Mordheim warband and paint for him. The story idea was that they were a Blood Bowl team doing some treasure hunting in the off-season – rather clever of him, I thought. It’s been a LOT of fun. One of these days I’ll have to bust out the crew of the Red Snapper and beat them down…

It’s been a long time in the making. I had enough done for him to field them in the Hero’s Gambit 2004 Tournament. Finished off a few more for 2005 – but he forgot the rest of the team at home in Calgary…. These have since been sitting at the flanks of my painting table gathering dust. It feels good now to finally get these off the painting table. Though I seem to recall there was a limit to the number of goblins you can have in a warband (2 per Orc?) and he may now be over… have to keep my eyes open for some more Blood Bowl Orcies.

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


The goblins are all actual Games Workshop Blood Bowl figures, but the orc is from some other company for some other game… I can’t remember… (Mage Knight…?) I found it in a bargain bin for $1 and thought it would be a perfect coach or trainer for the team.

YARRRRRRR!!!

Well I still haven’t got much cycling in since the family got back, but I have been adjusting my sleep pattern. I’ve been going to bed at ten or eleven instead of midnight… or one… or two! My hope is that once I get caught up on some sleep and start getting to bed at nine or ten I’ll be able to get up at five and go for an hour or so ride out valley road before Amanda and the kiddies wake up…

So things have slowed down a bit here. But I am at least a bit more well rested… and happier… and I did finish up a few pirates last night:

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These are Old Glory pirates I think one is from the Pirate Captains pack, the rest are from the Pirates with knives pack… Hopefully the players in my Savage Worlds: Pirates of the Spanish Main game will be hiring these lads on Saturday (the players have just acquired their own ship! – I guess I’ll be needing to make them a new ship too!)

15mm Great War figures for Trade

Next up on the trading block: some 15mm Great War figures …

I’ve had some success getting rid of most of my 15mm stuff so my friend John has asked me to help trade away some of his 15mm Great War figures. I’m throwing in a few of my own because I’m never going to use them….

If these are of interest to you see below for what John or I might be interested in for trade. We are interested in trading these, not selling them. Every wargamer out there has a box of shame - full of unpainted lead, rashly bought on a whim because it seemed like a good idea at the time – so go find those unwanted never-going-to-be-painted figures and see if there’s something you might want to trade for these…

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


This is John’s Stuff:
126x Minifigs Early War Germans in Pickelhaube advancing
58x Minifigs Early War French in Kepi advancing
7x Minifigs Late War French in helmet advancing
1x Minifigs French 75mm Field Gun and crew
10x Minifigs French Command
10x Peter Pig French Command
124x Minifigs Russians advancing
149x Minifigs Austrians advancing


These are mine:
16x Minifigs Late War Highlanders Advancing
5x Minifigs Late War Highlander Command
8x Peter Pig Highlanders in Glengarry
2x Minifigs Early War Highlanders in Glengarry
3x Minifigs Early War Highland Command in Glengarry


Here are a few of the Highlanders and Germans I’ve painted. I’ve mostly included this to show how nicely they paint up – I’m not actually all that keen to include them in the trade as I rather like how these turned out. I’d throw them in if anyone really wanted them though, to “sweeten the pot” – because it’s not like I’m ever going to have a use for them…

As I said most of this belongs to my friend John, with the noted exceptions above. He’s a little more selective about what he’d be willing to trade for. Generally anything 25mm or larger would be considered. More specifically he’s got 25mm Tricorne stuff (War of the Spanish Succession), 25mm Great War, and 30mm Scruby Napoleonics. Every so often he makes noises about getting into ACW or ancients (Romans of Greeks) – so if you had any of those in 25mm he might be interested.

I’m slightly less selective. If you had something I might be interested in maybe I could make the trade and then just paint some stuff for John in trade for his stuff…Here’s what I’d mostly be interested in:

20mm

WW2 – I mostly need equipment for British/Canadians and Germans, maybe Italians or Russians. I could probably be talked into other things that I don’t have any of if you had enough of it for an entire force (or a good start to one)

Vietnam – I’ve got piles of American infantry, but I could always use some Australians, boats, tanks, mortars, guns and other equipment…

Modern – My focus is sort of mid to late 80’s British, Russian, Canadians, French and Americans – I also have Afghans, forces for Lebanon in the 1980’s, Africans, and Argentines. If there was something else you had that was cool I could maybe be talked into it.

28mm

Early-mid 18th Century - Seven Years War, Pirates, etc. – This is my main focus right now. I’m mostly interested in the British and French in North America – but could easily be persuaded into taking pretty much anything with a tricorne hat (or a mitre cap for that matter!)!! I’d also be down with some more pirates…

Dark Ages – Vikings, Saxons, Normans, etc, etc.

Other Ancients… maybe…

ECW – I got a PILE of this in trade fro my DBA armies so it’s not high on my priority list (unless they were Scotts/Irish – Royalist or Covenanters!).

Victoriana – colonials, VSF, Victorian horror….

WW1/RCW – Anything really…

WW2 – (see what I mean about multiple scales…?) I have some British Commandos and Paras, a handful of Russians, and some Germans and some North African stuff (DAK, more commandos/LRDG-types, French Foreign Legion)… so, whatever… Anything for Europe/North Africa I’d be interested in…. Not so much the Far East… (then again I’ve always wanted to do something around the Canadians in Hong Kong….).

Vietnam – I have lots… whatever…

Modern….

Fantasy… Sci-fi… Zombie/horror… (you can never have too many zombies…. well okay maybe you can…).

Board Games?!

Take a look at the Wishlist….

If you’re at all interested and got something good to trade post a comment with your email address – I won’t actually PUBLISH the comment…. It’s just a way of letting me know how to get in touch with you without having to publish my email address on this blog….