Old-School Ancients Top-Up Complete

I managed a bit of a push last week and today I finished off the last of the figures needed to bring some very old, old-school, units up to strength i.e., enough to occupy a 6" grid square.  In this case it was a couple of units of Successor pike.  I only had 16 in each unit plus 11 spare painted figures (5 of one unit and 6 of the other) so I needed another 21 to bring the two units up to 32 figures each.

And here they are, with the newly painted-to-match figures based up with the painted spares.

I am rather pleased with how difficult it is to tell the new from the old.  The best way to tell is to look at the hands grasping the pikes, if both hands completely enclose the pike, then it's a newly painted figure (I like to make the figures' weapons really secure).

Posed together with the old based-up figures, they make much better-looking units - bigger is always better with pike blocks. 

If anyone is interested the older bases are on the outer flank of each block.  I had trouble sorting them when taking the photos but finally realised I just needed to look underneath; the older bases have white steel paper underneath whereas those just based have black ferro-sheet.

Old-School Ancients - limping along

Still not at my best but managed to make myself base up the figures I had painted before.  This time it's more mounted figures:

An extra base of Hincliffe Companions with shield (plus a head-swap from the Macedonian Pikeman in the same range).  The new base is on the right in the photos.

An extra base of Persian (Cappadocians?) extra-heavy cavalry; the new base is again on the right and easily identified by the 'leader' figure (a Hinchliffe Belisarius figure with a head-swap from another Persian cavalryman).

And finally, the camels.  I had a bit of a senior moment here as looking at the DBM rules for troop types I saw there was no light camelry type so I intended to make them all ordinary Camelry.  Then, after painting enough figures (3) to bring the numbers up to be enough for four 3-figure bases, I found light, scouting, camels are actually listed under Light Horse...     D'oh!

What's more, I forgot when basing them to put them at angles that allowed the heads, which project beyond the base, of a second rank to go between the camels of a front rank.  I guess that's what comes of doing it when under the weather but I doubt they'll be in more than one rank very often and certainly it won't matter if fighting on a grid which was the main reason for this whole topping up exercise (see the earlier post). 

As I thought I was going to have to re-base all my camels I had removed them from their bases, so in the photos, the newer figures are mixed in with some of the old so I've marked them with arrows.

As with the Persian cavalry I added a leader figure - a Palmyran Heavy Camelman with some additional, green-stuff, hair.

PS: My shielded Companions already had a leader figure which is why they didn't get one added in this batch.

New Roads to Nowhere

For the last couple of days, I have been painting my new latex roads from Early War Miniatures (EWM).  These were a joint birthday present from my family who all chipped in as I wanted to make sure I would have more than enough for any future Chain of Command (CoC) game.

This was my first serious use of acrylic paints as I figured they would be less likely to flake off than my usual enamels.  And overall, I think they look pretty good, albeit the grass bank could've done with being a little less green to blend in with my fleece mats (from Tiny Wargames) - see below...

...and a slightly better close up.

The road sections consist of: 10x long straights; 2x long curves; 4x short straights; 10x short curves; 4x T-junctions; 2x Y-junctions; and, 2x crossroads.  With long sections about 12" in length, short straights and Y-junctions 6", and the rest 4", this makes approximately 18 feet of road, much of which can be seen below...

...and from the other side.

One thing that did become apparent when laying out the roads for a photo shoot, is that the sections are not designed to fit on a grid.  This means closed loops will need to use a symmetric arrangement of sections - annoying but unlikely to be required on a 6'x4' CoC layout.

LotR Fernando Touch Up Complete

Just a quick post to celebrate completing touching up my Lord of the Rings figures that I got painted by Fernando Enterprises.

First is Faramir and his Ithilien Rangers; Faramir needed more work than his men, which was slightly annoying as I paid for Super Showcase standard for him.

Then some more good-guys in the shape of some Rohirrim foot warriors.

And finally, some more opposition in the shape of Uruk Hai.  These didn't seem to be up to the standard of others so quite a bit of extra shading was applied.  Also, to make then a bit more visually interesting I added shields (3D printed from eBay) as only two of the original figures had them.

So, these guys should hopefully be taking the table soon for a game of Dragon Rampant.

***************ADDENDUM***************

As commented by someone on TMP it was a bit silly to show the retouched figures without photos of them as received from the painters.  As I didn't take any before retouching, the following photos are some of those provided by Fernando Enterprises for approval before sending them back; they are not high resolution but they didn't provide anything bigger (I did ask).

First some of the goblins - these were IMO the best painted of the different figures and I did nothing to them apart from the bases.

Likewise, the Warg riders (mounted on Ral Partha wolves) which also, IMO, needed no retouching.

By comparison the Uruk Hai were a bit disappointing (I added shields to these) ...

... especially the faces on the archers where not covered by helmets (some of these got small shields added).

The Ithilien rangers as finally received were pretty good and only had minimal retouching e.g. sword hilts which were painted brass all over and to the faces that where seen were pretty crude.

On the subject of faces, the initial sample photos (see next photo) had the eyes painted white with dots, which I requested them to change (as well as brightening up the green used for cloaks etc.).

And pretty much the same again for the Rohirrim on foot.

The mounted Rohirrim were quite heavily reworked by Fernando after I requested more work but and as re-worked were pretty good (almost nothing done to these apart from repair to a figure that lost an arm - the only damage in transit).

So, onto the Super Showcase personalities, and Faramir - with white eyes. 

I requested some rework which produced this.

I still didn't like his face so that was heavily retouched - faces seems to be a major weakness and I retouched them on all but the goblins but luckily most were obscured by helmets so didn't require much.  

And finally, Eomer in the first photo sent for approval.

This photo almost had me give up, but I requested a complete repaint of the horse and some more colourful equipment for Eomer who looked pretty dull for the heir apparent to the throne.  And the next photo received was a dramatic improvement. 

So, the lesson I have drawn from all this is that Fernando can be a bit hit and miss with their painting but are very willing to make changes or rework figures if you are not satisfied, so if not satisfied say why and ask for changes.  Obviously, it can be quite onerous explaining exactly what you want changed, but in my experience it is well worth the effort as they do their best to please.  

One final point, the figures look better in the hand than they do in the photos - I was pleasantly surprised when they arrived how much better they looked.  Of course, some of this is down to viewing them with the naked eye and not through a powerful camera lens.

Robin Hood vs Little John

This was a small diversion from my next job, repairing, magnetic basing and tidying up some figures I had painted professionally (probably a future post).  So, before diving into what is a less than satisfying task, I indulged my nostalgia demon and tried to reproduce the painting style of Gilder et al on some figures from the Hinchliffe / Calder Craft Robin Hood range.

As this was a painting trial, I just did three personality figures, namely Robin, Little John and Marian.  These were cleaned up and Little John had his quarterstaff shortened to a more reasonable length; other than this the figures were not messed about with.

Marion is the weakest figure, suffering from overly short legs and overlong arms, the latter a classic Hinchliffe failing, that make her anatomy a look off.  

However, I think her face is well sculpted managing to look more feminine than many female castings.

This Robin is one of three Robin figures in the range, this one obviously intended for the river crossing contest with Little John.

The other Robin figures have him either blowing his own trumpet or 'disguised' as a 'hooded man', presumably to compete for the silver arrow.

Little John also looks like he's intended to scrap with Robin, the other John in the range is simply standing with quarterstaff and pointing.  This figure has an overly long quarterstaff; so long it would be both hard to wield and give him an unfair advantage over Robin so I trimmed it back.

Painting these figures was fun, but I was constantly surprised how big a contrast was needed for the 'Gilderesque' style shading.  Several times I toned down the contrast only to find that once the enamel paint dried the contrast was not strong enough.

These Figures Mean Trouble

My 25mm Hinchliffe collection usually fights using my rule set, a mash-up of bits from Victory Without Quarter (VWQ) and Command and Colours (C&C).

One of the VWQ elements I've shamelessly copied is the addition of random events which can affect how units and commanders behave.  Because it can be hard remembering which units have been affected and how, I decided to make up some markers.

Firstly, my preacher who fires up a unit's morale.  He's clearly a puritan but has to serve both sides as I haven't made a high church Anglican for my royalists yet.

He was a fairly simple modification from Hinchliffe's rather dodgy[1] royalist pikeman   as can be seen here with the unpainted preacher alongside an unmodified casting.

Another event sees a unit's powder supplies affected through incompetence, in this case standing the powder barrel in a puddle with obvious consequences for the unit's firepower.

When all these random effects get too much, there's always another which sees a unit weakened as some decide they have a pressing appointment elsewhere.

Notes.

[1.]  By 'dodgy' I'm referring to his appearance; a common pikeman sporting long hair; a Van Dyke beard; wearing a sash (scarf); and, a broad-brimmed hat decorated with ostrich feathers is a rather outdated (Victorian?) idea of how the armies looked. 

Fusilier Chasseurs of the Guard

These are the latest to emerge from my glacial painting process for a quick photo shoot.  Firstly some 'studio shots'.

The command strip, as Hinton Hunt (HH) never did standard bearers or drummers in greatcoats these two had them added with solder, followed by much filing.

Then the men.  These are a mix of original HH "FN/6 Voltigeur 1807/12 in plumed shakos (marching)" and recasts.  The large plumes, and the opportunity to paint the greatcoats blue, inspired me to paint them as Fusilier Chasseurs of the Imperial (Middle) Guard.  In this photo I meant one of the 4-figure bases to show the rear view but didn't notice their reluctance to show their backs.

The only changes to the rank and file were to repair about half of the bayonets, beef up the plumes a bit, and paint eagles instead of lozenge shaped cap badges and eagles as opposed to bugles on the cartridge boxes.  The latter required the badges to be filed down a bit so the bugle device was not proud.

And then all together...

...all twenty eight of them!

My foot units are all usually 24-strong but these are 28-strong, using every figure I had.  I did this because wielding a soldering iron entails some risk, so I was expecting some losses, but all went well so I thought I'd paint them all up.

And so, into the field: in line...

...in square...

...under Cambronne's command...

...and finally.

=============ADDENDUM=============

Spotted I had left something unpainted!  No prizes for spotting it - here's the finished article.

"Merde!" It's Cambronne AGAIN!

After my last post, a friend told me I had opted for the wrong colours on Cambronne's sash as, being a maréchal de camp, he should have a gold and blue sash not gold and red.  So, as my incipient OCD would not let that go, I have repainted his sash, and this time I think I've made a better job of it.  Yay!

At the same time a slight error was pointed out in the accompanying Young Guard Voltigeurs so they were also corrected.  The change is rather small and I'll leave it to the viewer to see if they can spot it.