4 more

Here are the next 4 Apache. Again they are "Wargames Foundry" 28mm. I won't repeat what I have said previously about them. Obviously I like them or I would not still be buying and painting them. I have 4 more to do and then with those complete I will do a group shot.

At that stage I will get my first look to see if they all go together. It is not that I have deliberately thought to do this, just the way it has worked out. Paint 4 put them away paint the next 4 and put them away. Still I am confident they will all work as a single "Warband" as all the skin tones have come from the same combination of paint colours. Little differences in skin tone are to be expected in real life and the clothing should also look more random. But we will both have to wait and see!


Now for something completely different........!

At the beginning of the year I talked about the projects I thought I might like to work on this year. I am not saying it has been a disaster so far, but it has been "unfocused" . As I am slowly pulling myself out of a painting rut, and as I am no longer working up the shed on the terrain for Broadside it is perhaps time that I concentrate on one of the smaller projects. To that End, if the weather is OK< I intend to start working on some 1/300th scale cold war era wargames. Given that I have two forces (Hermanschultzkommando and Soviet Airborne Desant) I am not thinking of this as a new project, but rather the continuation of one from about 30 years ago! I will of course have to repaint and re-base them all, but no initial financial outlay. I even have all the materials for the terrain up the shed. While I am not sure of the rules I will use, I have a wide choice of rules, everything from "Challenger II" by Bruce Rea Taylor to "Force on Force" by Ambush Alley Games. That I think is the current stumbling block deciding on the rules I want and the complexity of the game. Mostly it will depend on what the club want, and that is usually a surprise to me. Anyway forget the rules for now and I'll stat to make the first 2 foot square board over the weekend.


That's it for now folks. I should post again on Monday probably with a game AAR from what ever I end up playing at the club on Sunday.

Cheers Clint

A few Apaches More

 The paint brush called and I answered. I am really surprised that I have managed to get anything done, post BROADSIDE and with overtime every week day. Anyway enough of that here are 4 more 28mm Apaches from Foundry, These were purchased before Broadside and I am happy to add them to the Wild west apaches in 28mm. (I still have 8 more to paint which I got on eBay on the night after the show...... It is some kind of madness.

I have talked previously about both the lack of traditional weapons and the lack of knives in their belts so Now that I have mentioned it again I feel I can move on. They are all well sculpted and cast as we have come to expect from foundry. They also produce quite a variety of figures so as long as your warband is reasonably small you need not keep repeating the posses which adds to diversity and variety. I have a couple of repeats here but I am not overly worried as they are painted differently and wearing different coloured clothing so it will not be apparent straight away.

When I get the next 8 done I shall do a group shot. At this time though It will not look very impressive. It really does need a few more bodies to bulk them out.

Sunday is a club day and I know there is a choice of game for me so I will just play it by ear and fit in where I can. So expect the normal club AAR on Monday. Until then take care paint figures roll dice and have fun. All the best Clint.

Post Script: Thanks for pushing the hit count over 30, 000.

A Fistfull of Fudge.

 Yeehaw! Yesterday I managed to finish 4 more Foundry Apache Indians as part of my continuing Wild West Endeavours. I say "continuing" as it has been slowly growing for about 10 years but with some very long gaps in-between (up to 5 year gaps). Anyway a few extras to take from the unpainted pile and shuffle over to the very crowded Western Wargames Box.

Anyway these four are armed with a mix of traditional and contemporary weapons some, like the cavalry sabre, have obviously come from a different source than the normal gun dealers. Again the figures have a lack of knifes, only one has a sheathed knife visible. I would imagine a knife would be a very common but I could not be certain historically and anyway figures are representational and not literal.

While I have no immediate use for these figures I will continue to add to both them and the Wild West genre intermittently. I do enjoy this period for skirmish games and a few more Indian options is never a bad thing.

I have even pre-ordered some Western figures from some traders coming to Broadside.


 Talking of BROADSIDE, I have made some home made chocolate fudge for the show. As you can see to the right. With the intention of gifting it to a few traders and some bloggers. There is a blend of 3 different chocolates in the mix. Not including the chocolate drops and chocolate covered raisins I have used for topping/decoration. Any bloggers who manage to get some should be aware that "Free Food has no calories" but that excess use of this fudge will shrink your clothes!

That's todays blog post, next one will be Friday. Due to the Show on Sunday when I would be due to blog again there will be a hiccup in my schedule over the weekend. I am sure It will get back to normal quickly after that. SO until Friday, have fun, take care and see you again on Friday.

Cheers Clint

Buildings BROADSIDE and Cake.!

This is a 15mm building from Tim at Frontline that I bought from him at the club on Sunday. It is part of his adobe range that he made for himself for his own Sudan game. Which currently retails at £4.95 unpainted. I did want to get some more buildings from him but at this time he is still building up his show stock and this was the only one he had spare at the time. With Broadside a mere 3 weeks away and knowing I can buy from him at any time I think it was wise not to let me have any more. I shall pick some more up later in the year. Quite a nice building and while it does have any number of uses I got this one to bulk out my AK 47 Republic terrain.

 AK Republic, by Peter Pig games has fallen out of fashion at the club of late and while 5 or 6 of us still retain armies we just have not played it for about 3 years. So also getting this building was an attempt to get myself back into the mood for playing it again.


Only time will tell if that plan will work, and if the worst comes to the worst I will have a piece of terrain for my slow cook Apache wargame idea so not all wasted no matter what happens. Overall a very quick paint job mostly done with washes and dirty paint water. I wanted it to look really dirty and uncared for and I think I have achieved that with very little effort at all. If I had the space I could paint up loads all at once, but they take a while to dry with all the water involved so I had best not! Just in case you are wondering about the foliage it was all free, a mixture of aquarium plants and "Butchers Parsley" that used to line the freezer/chiller cupboards in shops but is now out of fashion but great for trees should you come across any.

The Bad news for me today, is that another 2 club members have got their shift patterns and can't support the club at Broadside. This means as a club we would only have two members willing/able to come along. Obviously this is not ideal so I may have to cancel our clubs attendance. I can't say I am over the moon about it, but there really is not a lot I can do. I'll let you know as time goes on. But needless to say I don't feel like doing any more work on the Blood Bilge and Iron Balls  boards until I know for sure if we will be going. If we are not going I will recycle the boards into other projects, waste not want not!

And finally Peter (The Art Therapist in training) at work is leaving tomorrow for another placement so I have made a cake for him on his last day. It's Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate, with fresh cream filling that has also been flavoured with chocolate,  so I am not expecting it to last too long, so best to show a photo today than leave it until later when it all "evaporates!" A number of the Nurses and even Psychologists and Psychiatrists tell me that free food has no calories and that it will not interfere with any diets! Yeah Right!!!

That's it for today, I was hoping to show my first WSS figures, but they went wrong yesterday and I am on the re-paint! So until Friday and my next blog post take care and have fun. All the best Clint.

Apache Cheif.

Due to my nephew and the painting of space orks I have only finished 1 figure this week. This is a Black Scorpion Apache chief. A very nice sculpt with a lot of detail. I am not totally sold on the historical accuracy of the figure but I'm not going to worry about it over much as it is such a nice sculpt. It's things like the necklace the boots etc. that make me doubt the realism. Small things I know but sometimes I just get very picky.  He clearly covers a double barrelled shotgun which should give any adversaries second thoughts. Again no visible knives or daggers but the long coat could easily conceal them and pretty much any other weapon smaller than a gatling gun.  Painting wise it really was a joy to paint, despite the fact that I mucked up the eyes.  For the colours I have mostly limited myself to the colours and tones that I feel a tribal culture could create. Even the blue I could dye myself using Brazil Wood and a good mordent. Given that Brazil is named after this wood it is possible that it could have been traded through central America although I have no evidence to support that fact. Or the material could have been dyed by white men and traded for furs. Either way the colour would have been rare if it existed at all. I don't need to justify the colour choice any further than that as all the other colours and tones are very natural earthy hues. Not much more I can really say about the figure, except this was my first Black Scorpion figure and having painted it I would be happy to get some more either of this range or maybe to try another.... Fantasy pirates look great and I anticipate would be tremendous fun to paint even if I have no use for them.

Anyway I have finally worked out how to crop pictures on windows 8 which is why these are both in focus and bright enough to see. Which makes a change for me, but now I have no excuses at least from now on.

Other news: I am clearly visible on Google Earth should you have my address. I am talking to the window cleaner. I have painted the front of the house since the picture was taken so it looks a little better. I only mention it as I was told Thursday after my last blog post. It seems strange that I am now an extra in the worlds largest game of "Where's Wally!"

Club tomorrow so no doubt something club related on Monday when I post again. Until then enjoy the upturn in the weather have some fun but not too much and I'll catch you all later. Take care folks.

Happy Easter

Without kids all the holidays kind of sneak up on me and this Easter is no exception. I did manage to buy myself an Easter egg though so It's not a bad thing. Actually out of all the holidays we have in the year Easter is possibly my favourite.

But you did not check here to read about my thoughts of Easter. As you can see a few more 28mm Apache warriors from Foundry. Only one with a bow but he also has a revolver in a holster so it's not like he's shunning white skin weapons. The other three are all rifle armed, 2 Winchesters and one breech loader. Painted in the same way as the other 4 from two days ago. To be honest I started all of them at the same time but only finished 4 at a time. I have stuck to the same palette as last time so they all should look compatible. I have one more 28mm Apache to do, so expect another one soon. (different manufacturer though). I might pick up a few more at Salute in a few weeks but if not that will be the extent of them for now. There is not too much on my Salute shopping list at present so anything is possible. This is because I want to get a few existing projects moved forward rather than starting something new. Therefore expect the time between now and Salute to be me working on existing things and rounding armies out. This is for 2 reasons, 1) because I really do need to get things finished that are half started. and 2) because I want to start the War of Spanish Succession but to be honest I am a little daunted to start. This reluctance is well set in my mind but I will overcome it in time. However for the next few weeks a little tidying up and finishing off is in order.

It's a bit rambling today, which shows how much my thoughts are all over the place. I shall post of the blog on Tuesday and with luck will have my act together. Thanks for reading todays waffle, hope you have a wonderful holiday and that the weather improves for you where ever you are.

Until Tuesday, take care and try to get something painted! Best Wishes Clint

28mm Apaches

I wanted a break from my usual painting so I went back to the old lead pile and dragged out some old Foundry 28mm Apaches. When I went to the box containing my un-painted lead I had no strong idea what I was going to select this time, I wanted something fairly self contained so I could do them start to finish and add them to an existing set of figures that I already had. For that reason these appealed. I have a reasonable range of 28mm wild west figures mostly used for gunfight type games but very few Indians so I'm quite happy to round out their numbers a little.
I did not find any plains Indians on foot, although I did find some on horses. I did find a few Apache Indians. As you can see they are all rifle armed but a couple also carry pistols in holsters as well. The rifles are a mixture of Winchesters carbines and breach loading rifles, I like the mixture on these irregular foot.There are a couple of knife sheaths as well, but I am surprised that not every figure carries one. I would imagine that a knife might be more use in day to day activities than a long arm or pistol, but there's not a huge amount I can do about that with regard to these figures. If I could sculpt (I can't very well) I would have added some more knives. It's probably just the selection of figures in this batch. I have deliberately added some bright colours to their clothes as I did not want them to look all the same or in some kind of uniform. They have been quite a tonic and have shaken of some of my painting lethargy which was the reason for selecting something a little different. As such I have undercoated 4 more and will start them this afternoon.

UPDATE:
All the components for the 1/2400th scale fishing village have now arrived (on Thursday) so I should be able to proceed on that project in this coming week. Should it turn out how I anticipate I can see everything being finished for the Broadside show game in 2 weeks time.

That's it for now, have a good Easter Break and I'll do my next blog post on Sunday. All the best Clint.

A couple more Apache Stands.

I am for now coming to the end of my double shifts But I have found out our secretary will be reassigned to another department which is a real blow as she is so good at her job.
On a wargames note time has been short but I have managed to add a few more stands to the Apache game I started last year. Only another 3 mounted stands and 4 foot stands, so not such a huge amount but "every little helps" or so I am told. Regular readers will know these are 15mm figures from Frie Korp. I have added a few woodland Indians to the foot as I had them as samples a few years ago and they can mix in with little effort as they are the same manufacturer. Still a long way to go before I get this project onto the table, and then I have to determine an opponent for them. US Cavalry is the most obvious opponent, but my current thinking is Mexicans just for a contrast and for something a little different. If they were armed differently and without horses I could have pitted Spanish against them as another option, but as I want this to be a "Colonial" era game US Cavalry or Mexicans are the only real options.

Given that my double shifts should (crosses fingers) be coming to an end I plan to go back to posting on this blog every other day once again. Therefore my next post should be on Thursday. Thanks for reading. I hope life is treating you well all the best Clint.

Progress report.

Well I am not sure what's happened, but I can't upload pictures from my computer to this blog at the moment. I am sure there will be a way but it will probly take me a while to work it out.  But until I do I will just give you a non visual progress report.

Circus: \I have re-attached everything that fell off and am now waiting for the glue to dry before carrying on with the next stage. I hope to have a couple of pics of that when I work out how to post them.

Caen Campaign: We should be playing the first real games on Sunday. At present I am making some more bocage for the tabletop. (about another 20 feet's worth.) This should be ready to go by Sunday as I am at the stage where I will be doing the grass borders.

Apaches: I have also painted up a few more stands of Apaches for the project I started late last year. Still a huge amount to get done, but if I manage to do some every so often I will not notice the pile shrinking.

Well that's what I have been doing, but without photo evidence you'll just have to take my word for it.

All the best, and Hope to speak soon and with pics Clint

Post Script: If the pic below coms out I have Semi solved the problem. (Now just to check)



Apaches (2)

Not so much to share today, but here are 4 stands of Apaches on foot. I am still learning how to paint them, getting the colours and shades right. It takes me a little while to get comfortable painting new armies, I am just not the kind of painter who can start a new army and feel comfortable painting them straight off the bat. I just need time to settle in to it. I will be painting up more Apache Indians before too long partly to keep my hand in so I don't forget the colours I use and partly to chip away at the project.

I am currently batch painting the German Askaris by It Miniatures and will try to get them finished to show on Friday's Blog. I am not a huge fan of batch painting as I get bored very easily. Call it a character flaw by all means but the repetition just seems to make it feel like work to me. That said I do want to get them finished so I am willing to put up with the process.

The "Caen Campaign" is slowly progressing, at a planning level. I had a chat with Kev one of the club members yesterday. I don't think I gave too much away, but have lent him the rules to read so I hope to have a few players with at least the basics of the rules.

That's it for today thanks for reading next blog post on Friday. All the best Clint.

The Indians are coming!

I Know, I know. Yes all right I know! I get it. I said I was not gonna post again til Sunday but today's Friday and I'm sticking something new on the Blog. Anyway about 8 or 9 months ago I ran a poll asking what my readers thought I should start as my next project. The most popular result was 15mm Sci Fi, which I have started, almost got one whole force painted based and ready to go, I have even started the second, (rival) force but have bogged down as I contemplate alien camouflage patterns. However the second favourite on the poll was 15mm Wild West! I have always seen this as a big battle game rather than a skirmish gunfight. I did look at both plains Indians and desert tribes. I settled on the Apache nations as one side as I simply had not seen a game with Apaches and had seen a couple with Sioux. Also as I wanted more of a Hollywood feel, my name is Clint after all, I see the Apaches more as an ambush force rather than a game where you put all your troops on the table at the start of the battle. For me this game will fit under the colonial wargames umbrella. Mostly when we think of Colonial wargames we think Sudan, Zululand, Boxer Rebellion etc. There are many more of course but as they don't have any blockbuster films associated with them we do tend to forget them. The Wild West and Indian wars also fall into the colonial (Victorian) era and have a huge wealth of films, both good and bad, tied to them not of course to forget the plethora of TV series.

SO I finally managed to paint my first 2 bases of mounted Apaches. The figures are LKM/QRF (http://www.quickreactionforce.co.uk/) look in the Frie Korps section on the web site. These figures were the best Apache Indian figure I could find and easily obtain. I actually picked them up at the BROADSIDE show this year the trader tends to carry about 4 packs to each show, so I bought them out. I like these figures, they are very characterful and fit the feel of a tribal nation. Of particular note is the figure hanging on the horses neck and firing a pistol while using the horse for cover. They did have some flash from casting, but they cleaned up easily and without too much effort. I shall be getting more. Some are armed with Pistols others with Rifles. Most if you look carefully have a knife in the belt as well. I feel they are well sculpted and a they come with a variety of poses in a pack it adds to the variegated feel of the fugues.

Obviously I have a long way to go with this project, having just completed 2 bases. I do however think that I shall enjoy getting them done. These 4 figures were my trial figures to see how they painted and most importantly what they would look like finished. Overall I like the setting, the figures and the background and am a big fan of Western films. I will talk about the rules I intend to use another time, but as this is just the very start of the project there is a long way to go.

 

Next post will be Sunday, (Yes I know I have said that before). Until then take care and paint a few figures roll a few dice and have some fun. All the best Clint