Dragooned into Shape

With things flowing well I decided to stick with the current 're-visiting' theme and reorganise my Hinchliffe ECW dragoon units, Wardlawe's[1] and Washington's[2].  For some time I have wanted more than one unit a side and felt that the number of mounted figures tied up in these units is wasteful.  When dismounted, I represent my dragoon units with three bases of figures, two forming a firing line and one representing the horse-holders, thus ...

       Washington's    &       Wardlawe's          

... and when mounted they are each represented by twelve mounted figures.

    Wardlawe's      &     Washington's

As these units tend to spend most, if not all, of their time dismounted it seems wasteful to use so many mounted figures in this way, and on four bases as they only occupy three when dismounted.

The solution I came up with, was to reduce the mounted representation to just two bases of mounted figures but use them with same horse-holder base used with the two dismounted bases.  Furthermore, I decided I would have only one guidon per unit, and that would be with a mounted figure on the horse-holder base.  This would require some re-basing so into the paddling pool they went to soften up the PVA and sand basing.

This was watched, with some trepidation, by those elements of the units that did not require re-basing from the safety of a nearby window sill.

This all went pretty smoothly apart the need to replace the reins of the horses from Washington's horse-holder base as they broke when being de-based.   

So, here's the new-look Wardlawe's and Washington's, dismounted ...

 Wardlawe's       &    Washington's

... and mounted.

Wardlawe's     &    Washington's

I rather like the end-result.  The extra mounted figure on the horse-holder base makes the horses more prominent in the dismounted unit, and it blends in fairly well as part of the unit when mounted.

To complete each new unit using the surplus mounted figures, I have to paint: ten dismounted figures; a mounted ensign with guidon; a mounted dragoon, and a horse-holder with two horses.  Additionally, there will be some re-touching of the figures taken from the old units to give them different coat colours and their new regimental guidons.

The identities of the two new units will be revealed in a future post.

Notes:

[1.]  A Parliamentarian regiment of dragoons of the Earl of Essex’s army under Col. James Wardlawe, later reduced to an independent troop, commanded by Capt. George Dundas', and later by Capt. Jeremiah Abercromby (source: wiki.bcw-project.org.uk).

[2.]  A Royalist regiment of dragoons, originally under Col. James Ussher, and later Sir Henry Washington; also known as Prince Maurice’s Regiment of Dragoons.  It fought as part of the Oxford Army, and at Marston Moor, then converted to a foot regiment in the garrison of Worcester (source: wiki.bcw-project.org.uk).

Last of the Rings

The speed with which I finished off the figures in my last post left me feeling up for more quick retouching.  To this end I dug out two lots of Warhammer Lord of the Rings (LotR) figures I'd been intending to re-touch for some time.

First, the 'Dead' that I bought painted off eBay (for less than the cost of the basic figures) but wanted the paint job modified from a 'stone grey' to an 'ethereal green' and the basing changed to match the other figures in my collection.  I did an earlier trial 'touch-up' in an earlier post (Link) so this was a fairly quick bit of dry-brushing and re-basing on this bunch of 21 figures.

En-masse they look good, but up close the basic nature of the paint-job is more apparent.

Second, I had a unit of 12 Rangers of Ithilien painted by Fernando Enterprises.

While I like the green used for their cloaks, it is the same as that used on all my Rohirrim figures and I wanted to differentiate them.  To this end I re-painted the cloaks in more muted colours, better suited for Rangers seeking to blend into the woods.

While they make a coherent looking unit, I did them in two groups of 6, one lot with paler 'greyer' cloaks as Rangers of the North (Dunedain) ...

... and one lot in darker green/brown cloaks as Rangers of Ithilien.

This gives me some flexibility with these figures as they could all be used as the same troop type / unit, but they can also separated into two smaller units that can be distinguished visually.

Apart from a few metal personality figures, this effectively completes my LotR collection ...  

...  for now?

More Legions of the White Hand

Saruman had taken a drubbing in recent games, and so I felt I needed to give him the sort of numerical advantage that 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 reported in the last post.  But I managed to quickly do the required minimal retouching and basing (texturing and painting) for them to join 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, except the tips of their spears were painted red so I redid these with  gunmetal (but that was dead easy and very quick).  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 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 based on a design I foud online.  I'm rather pleased with it, especially the horse, which 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 (the latter also had broken off so was replaced by another provided by a friend at my local club).

These, combined with my existing figures, give me a total of 20 mounted Rohirrim, more than enough for a skirmish.

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 turn out rather well.

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.