More Legions of the White Hand

Saruman had taken a drubbing in recent games, and so I felt I needed to give the sort of numerical advantage he sought to overthrow Rohan.  To this end I rooted out all the odd spare figures I had laying around plus a few very cheap eBay lots and sent them off to get painted by Fernando Enterprises.  One of the eBay lots was a sprue of 12 Dunlendings (link) as these would add another troop type.

Well, they all came back from Sri Lanka while I was tarting up the Uruk Hai as reported in the last post.  But with some minimal retouching and bas texturing / painting they joined the Uruks from the previous post to make an imposing reinforcement for the Army of Orthanc.

Added to my existing units, they bring Saruman's forces up to:

 

103 Orcs (aka Goblins)

47 Uruk Hai

12 Dunlendings

8 Wargs (unridden)

7 Warg Riders

2 Trolls

The Orcs were painted by Fernando to match previous batches and required no touching up at all.  The Dunlendings needed a little bit more but nothing a quick spot of paint wouldn't fix.  On the subject of fixing I had to mend two of the Dunlendings' weapons.  I can't fault Fernando for this as the figures were superbly packaged, and any blame is down to Games Workshop for the incredibly spindly weapons on these figures.  Anyway, I was very pleased with the Dunlendings and they deserve their own photo to show off the brushwork.

Also included in the batch of figures were five odd Riders Rohan figures I put together from spare bits and broken figures.  These were painted to by Fernando to match the previous batch they did for me.

These figures are a very good match to the earlier batch but did require a little bit more tidying up.  I think that's because these are less detailed sculpts than the Dunlendings and Fernando's painters do better when there's a clear feature to paint rather than one that requires a bit of interpretation.  I added and hand-painted the flag myself.  I'm rather pleased with it as the horse is clearly influenced by the White Horse at Uffington.  Hiding in the back of the above photo is a spare horse I decided to use as a casualty marker, complete with embedded arrow.

These, combined with my existing figures, give me a total of 20 mounted Rohirrim.

Caveat, on Fernando painting: I also sent some small batches of Blue Moon Miniatures 15mm US Cavalry ...

... and Plains Indians with a view to starting a new project.  

I was not pleased with the photos sent back, and in the end, Fernando said they had done all they could to fulfil my requests for changes and returned the figures at no charge.  While it was very reasonable to not charge me for these figures, I was surprised that some of the changes, like painting the moccasins a brown leather colour rather than black was considered too technically challenging.  

It seems that 15mm castings might not be their strength, especially fairly rough castings like Blue Moon.  OTOH their handling of the Dunlendings suggest that 

any modern range of 28mm plastic figures will be well worth it.

WiP Packed Away

 Just for once it seems a quick job, turned out to be just that - a quick job.

The small batch of 13 painted Uruk Hai that I bought of eBay (see previous post) to quickly retouch to boost Saruman's forces is complete.

After the drubbings Saruman received in the last couple of games he needs something like this to put some fear into eth hearts of men.

 And if this isn't enough, I've also finished touching up the batch of painted figures from Fernando Enterprises that arrived while I was working on these.  They will provide an even bigger uplift to the Army of Orthanc but that will have await another post.

All Coated Up and Ready to Go

The mojo seems to have returned with the good weather, as I have finally finished off the latest, long drawn out, WiP batch, the 121ème régiment d'infanterie with a supporting unit of voltigeur skirmishers, and all overseen by Général de Division Jean-Marie-Pierre-François Lepaige Dorsenne.

So, after going through their paces in the field, a quick trip to the local photographic studio was called for.

Where's the Mojo Gone?

When I started this batch, I thought it would be a quick job as the greatcoats would be so easy to paint.  

But what it's shown me is that the bit that I find both tedious and time-consuming, is not the uniforms, but the backpacks and all their straps.  

I really thought these figures would be complete by now; it's been nearly a month since this post (Link).  OTOH, taking this photo the other day, seems to have stirred me into action and they are now making much better progress.  They're still going to take a bit of time to get completed but I do feel I'm getting there now.

Meanwhile back in the cabin, a.k.a. HizHut, the table has been left untouched since the 'Blitz on Villeroux' Chain of Command game ...

... as I have no games planned until the refight of this game next week.

May the Mojo be with you. 

21st Panzer Ready to Roll

It was only when writing the last post that I realised I had completed the 20mm vehicles for future Chain of Command (CoC) games that I had featured in earlier Work in Progress (WiP) posts and just put them away in the cabin without posting.

So, time to dig them out and show what the finished articles look like.

The lead vehicle in an old MMS metal kit only included in the picture for comparison with the resin and white metal vehicles from Early War Miniatures (EWM).  The others are described in turn below:

UNIC P107 U 304(F) troop carriers 

These are 'built' straight from the EWM 'kits' with a resin body and white metal wheels, tracked running gear and MG42 mount.  The figures are also those supplied with the vehicle, albeit I only used 6 of the 8 seated infantrymen provided.  The camouflage scheme is taken from a WW2 photograph of this vehicle and gives them (IMO) a lot of character.  

One slight niggle is that the gun shield on the MG42 mount on the P107 was different but I decided to let that pass. 

The driver and commander have been glued into the front seats as shown below alongside the 150mm self-propelled gun.

The seated infantrymen in the back can be removed, as they are all attached by their feet to a false floor as described in a previous post (Becker's Specials - Build Complete-ish).

Sdkfz 135/1 150 SPG LS(f), 150mm self-propelled gun

This was also pretty much built straight from the 'kit', also with a resin body, and white metal gun mounting and recoil spade.  The few minor changes also were also discussed in the earlier post.  

The camouflage scheme for this vehicle was taken from this book which I had treated myself to; it's jam-packed with beautiful artwork.

The gun crew in this vehicle can be removed as they are also fixed to a false floor, the shell cases around their feet, as planned in the earlier post, making the joints more robust.

Pak40 Somua MCG S307(f) Panzerjäger

This vehicle was the real inspiration for the whole batch as it's in the Too Fat Lardies 'Kampfgruppe von Luck' pint-sized campaign and Hans Hoeller's memoirs 'D-Day Tank Hunter'.  Its camouflage scheme was also taken from the book mentioned above but slightly tweaked to match that in the photos of Hans Hoeller's book.  As this was an ambitious kit-bash of the EWM P107 kit I shall indulge myself with a flurry of captioned photos.

Left side

Right side

Front

Rear

Close-up of fighting compartment

Close-up of scratch-built tools

It's not perfect, but I'm still pretty pleased with this effort, and it deserved the up-market crew from AB Figures (actually a Flak crew) who are secured by magnets in the figures and the seats.  The biggest error is the retention of the seating down either side of the fighting compartment.  This was error in reading the plans I used but fixing it would've undone much of the work put in and I doubted the structural integrity of the resin body would survive their removal so I decided to leave it as is.

Odds and Ents

In parallel with preparing some plastic Lord of the Rings (LotR) figures to send off for painting by Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka, I had been working on a few LotR odds and ends from eBay.

The Ent, Treebeard, was purchased assembled but unpainted, so I can claim this one, at least, to be all my own work.

The dead figure, is one of a larger batch I bought painted from eBay.  While nicely painted, I felt the grey scheme made them look more like stone than the ethereal figures in the film who had a definite greenish tinge.  So, as a trial, I gave one a couple of coats of dry-brushing[1] and re-did the basing to match the other figures in my collection; the photo shows the test figure and one as purchased.

The troll however, is just a re-touch.  I did mean to paint him/her/it(?) to match my existing troll who is much paler (based on the appearance in the film of the cave-troll encountered in Moria).  But ... I really thought the darker paint job was nicer, so I re-attached the arm that had come loose in the post and re-touched the paint job which had also suffered.

So, what next?  Well, I'm hoping to try and kit bash an Early Wars Miniatures UNIC P107 U 304(F) troop carrier into a 7.5cm Pak 40 Somua MCG S307(f) inspired by the fantastic memoir 'D-Day tank Hunter' by Hans Hoeller (who took the photo below).

A quick comparison of the kit against a drawing of the desired article shows that only the weapon, radiator grill and running gear don't need fabricating from scratch.  So, it's quite possible this may be a conversion too far and something else will end up taking its place on the work bench.

We'll just have to try it and see ...

Notes:

[1.]  The first cost was a mix of Army Painter Malignant Green and Vallejo Yellow Green, and the second a mix of Vallejo Yellow Green and Vallejo White.  Yes, Gasp, Shock, Horror - I used acrylics and not enamels, maybe old dogs can learn a trick or two.

[2.]  The original base texturing was, to be honest, nicer than my method, but my incipient OCD wouldn't allow them to be different to all the others.

Dunlendings - new(?) style GW figures

So just a quick post to get 2026 under way.  The festive season has seen all my gaming, modelling and painting come to pretty much a dead-stop, but I have just managed to start getting some plastic figures prepped to send off for painting to Fernando Enterprises.

Most will be more Lord of the Rings (LotR) figures as recent games has shown the Legions of Saruman somewhat overmatched.  As I like my evil types to rely on quantity rather than quality this lot will include quite a few more orcs/goblins and for a bit of variety some Dunlendings (aka Wildmen of Dunland from GW).  When I started putting the latter together, I was surprised by the new style GW plastics, these now being multi-part figures with many fragile parts as shown by the example below.

As can be seen, the body comes in two parts, a front and back, with the latter also having the back of the head - the rest of the head, really just the face, is separate.  Each arm and leg is separate, as are the hands in many cases.  The hands just butt up to the wrists (there is no socket joint) and are fiddly to glue on and leave me worrying over how sturdy they will be.  That said body parts and limbs go together really well, they have no male-female sockets but interlock so well they are not needed.

The down-side of these individualised interlocking figure parts (each figure in the 12-figure set is unique) means that swapping parts is not feasible without a lot of remodelling.

The next problem was the prevalence of figures carrying torches and bows, four of each - I'm okay with a couple of torches but I didn't want any bow-armed figures.  The archers come with a sword in a hand as shown above, but these are in a right hand leaving the issue of the bow in the left.  

Anyway, to cut a long story short, after lots of fiddling I managed to the following.

Overall, I think they look pretty good, with the possible exception of the figure on the right, at the back, an archer in a shooting pose that didn't offer much scope for an easy fix.  Also, shown in the above is the abandonment of slotta-bases, the figures are now attached by glueing the soles of their feet directly to the base!  I never liked slotta-bases but this does not seem like an improvement, not helped by the fact that most of the figures only have one foot on the ground.

I now have to finish prepping some goblins and a few other trial figures before sending them off for painting.  Then I have a few more Tolkien figures - I enjoy painting the odd figure but not whole units of these.

One Man and His Dog meet the Magnificent Seven

I've finally completed the batch of ECW commanders so, here they are with my shepherd who has now been joined by his dog - it's meant to be a Border Collie.

Well maybe they're not all that magnificent, but even the original seven had a few make-weights; I mean who remembers Harry Luck?  But here's a who's who of these guys.

But I guess not everyone is satisfied.

As my rules use card activation of commanders, and all the troops under their command, I've also made the necessary cards.

For those that are interested, all the figures are by Hinchliffe, except the Warbases dog.  Byron, Wentworth, Fielding and Heselrige have all had head swaps; Byron also had a new right hand with pistol added.  Byron was painted to match this portrait by William Dobson, complete with a patch on his left cheek to cover the scar from a wound received on the 30th December 1642 when his quarters in Burford were beaten up by Parliamentarian Horse and Dragoons from Sudeley.

All that then remained was to make up their cards for the activation system in my rules mash-up.

And as it's now only two sleeps to Christmas, may I wish all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Your Carriage Awaits

In the sidelines of the last two posts some of the currnet WiP batch have been completed.  These comprise the ECW Newcastle's coach command vignette, a retouching of Lord George Digby and a shepherd (his sheep are old figures).  

I am pleased with how the coach vignette turned out, with Newcastle alighting to speak to a Whitecoat officer while his servants take the horses away to care for them.  Clearly it's too late in the day to start a battle.

Pleased enough to do a quick light-box session.

The figures and horses are all Hinchliffe, and the Coach is by Minifigs - the paints are all Humbrol enamels.  

I have since ordered some luggage to place on the platform behind the passenger compartment but that can be easily painted and added later.