Colonial era Sudanese (part 3)

Yep here are the last of the colonial Sudanese I have painted for Matt. The officers and the standard carriers. And yes a group shot at the end of all 24 of them.

You will of course have noticed that the officers have different uniform. They also have lighter skin tones. The officers are Egyptian and not Sudanese which accounts for the difference (just as they would have been in this period).

The flag  carriers are on the other hand Sudanese. Matt supplied the flags. As mentioned before he tends to have a lot of flags in any army as it makes them more colourful. I of course have no idea what the flags mean or represent, or even if they are the correct way up. But they look right to my uneducated eye so I will go with it.

That's it for today. Most likely WW2 next time, but no guarantees.

Thanks for looking, all the best Clint

This time Next week......

I will be at the BROADSIDE show.

This year seems less well advertised than previous years probably because a different team are in charge.  Clearly they need time to find their feet.

There are a number of changes (small changes) this year. Firstly Dave the new organiser likes more sci fi and fantasy and card games so the traders have started to reflect that.  There is a dedicated Magic card area. While that does not appeal to me I am sure it will appeal to others. The mix of traders is quite good, but not spectacular and some of the old favourites are not in attendance. A mix up every so often is a good thing as it delivers diversity and a new outlook. Unconfirmed but I hear through the grapevine that some were not approached which is a shame and as stated that is only a rumour. (I have not talked to the companies or the organisers so I may be speaking out of turn. If I am I apologise to all concerned.)

I was due to be sent a FINAL show layout yesterday morning, but it never arrived, as a consequence I cannot show the layout of the hall or where I intend to be MOST of the day.

However I will be at the 15mm Colonial game next to Posties Rejects and the Gravesend Gamers guild. Or if you prefer the furthest game from the entrance. The closest traders being Warlord games and Morpheus entertainment (Whom I have yet to meet) .

I have already sent for some show orders (small orders nothing to get excited about) and we will be using the Men who would be Kings rules.

So if you go to the show. please pop by and say hallow. I do bite, but only when paid sufficiently! Mostly I am open to a chat, and can be approached with little danger.

All the best Clint

Sudanese troops (Part 2)

Just famished these BEFORE the weekend. I have a planned post for Sunday. It does not involve Sudanese colonial troops.

Firstly 6 more infantry this time loading. Hold your horses I will do a group shot when the last figure is painted.. Still another batch to do. Again these are 28mm Foundry and while they are all in similar poses there is sufficient variation.  Some have their right hand on the gun others in the ammunition pouch and again some have different tassel position on their hats.

Painted for Matt and will represent Sudanese troops of the colonial period.

And finally 2 musicians. 1 with a drum and one with a cornet. I did find out that the Sudanese regiments used a variety of colours on their drums. Red being the most common and then red and green, then yellow, then white and red and then white and then Blue! But as I wanted a different colour and not red I chose the blue. I nearly went yellow but as yellow is hard to paint I was happy with the blue.

Again I could have a choice of silver brass or painted drum rims. I settled on silver. Brass just looked wrong and painted very wrong!

At the end of the day it is for a game so if I am wrong let us be honest no one has died, so it is not a big deal.

I have 4 more to paint and I anticipate them being finished early next week.

So Until Sunday take care have fun and if possible enjoy yourself.

Colonial Sudanese. (Part 1)

With the weather good and it being nice and light in the morning I have made good progress.

I started these 12 Sunday night.
As I am sure you realise they are Sudanese infantry of the colonial period or Victorian if you prefer. I believe the figures are Wargames foundry and are 28mm in size.

2 different main poses today, marching and firing. But a couple of variations in each pose. Little things that are not noticed at first. Things like the tassel being in a different place. So if you thought they were all the same 2 poses you are forgiven.

Yes they are painted for Matt and will fit into his colonial armies. I painted the white trousers cream instead of grey as I feel it best suits the desert and the grey contrasts more. As always there are more to do.

Another 10 are currently in prep and they will be undercoated today as well, giving me a fresh start tomorrow.

The last pic shows them all together (so far) and is at this stage as close as I can get to a group shot.

I will do another group shot next time and when I finish the flag bearers as well I will show all 24 figures. But for now just 12 finished.

IT WW2 Volkstrum 20mm

And just for a change here are some 20mm Volkstrum (Late war German home guard). I painted theses for Tim at the wargames club who has purchased the moulds etc. of the WW2 IT Miniatures range.

Here is a link to his web site and where they can be bought.  (Click this link to travel to web site )

At the end of the war Germany was short of troops. As such it recruited from the old, the young and the less than fit. Additionally it did not always supply the Volkstum with full uniforms.  Some were supplied and at other locations some uniforms were not. Tim asked me to have these mostly in civvies clothes and also on urban city bases. Consiquently a lot of brown and greys resulted.

These figures would also make very good partisans or even useful for the Jewish revolt in Warsaw.  In fact that strikes me as a very good game idea loads and loads of close terrain and maybe even a captured Hetzer!

The molds are old and the sculpts show it. Not in the casting I have honestly had worse from GW or foundry, but in the 2 dimensionality of the sculpts.  Which is to say that while there is nothing much wrong with the sculpts they are by no means as anatomically correct as current sculpts.

So if you are looking for Volkstrum or partisans or want to do the Jewish revolt. These may well be the figures for you.


The armbands can of course be repainted to represent a different faction. No point having German armbands if playing another faction so the simple swap of colour and you are good to go.

The WW2 IT MINIATURES figure range is quite large. and figures can be ordered seperatly which does allow for quite a variation of troops so perhaps if you have a look you might find what you are looking for.

Having never seen a game of the Jewish revolt and also KNOWING that Tim looks at my blog it is perhaps a show game for the future. I shall just leave the idea open and see if he comes back to me.

That is it for today thanks for looking and with any luck the thunderstorms did not keep you awake all last night.

Just a final note.

I had a game of Shako at the club yesterday and was completely out played. So well done Matt and I am NEVER playing Shako ever again.... JK

Matt played well and soundly beat me. I have no excuses but I will complain about it for ever more

Nice one mate.

Or I won and was brilliant, the most awesome tabletop general ever. (MY nose may be growing as I type this but it is true none the less.)

I will let you decide which is the correct story. Hee hee.

Catch you all later Clint

Progress (2 steps back)

At the moment it if 2 steps back for one step forward. However this will change very soon. Since yesterday I have (working in an unventilated garage) given each hex tile an undercoat. This should get them all to the same colour. (Fingers crossed we will see how it dries)!!

Yes there are issues. I had to paint over the existing flock which has left some bumps. Also as I had previously varnished some Wadis they are some what smooth. But at least they are all now the same colour. And Being the same colour is an excellent place to start. The Previous version (shown on the right) was a mix of colours. Now as you can see it is all one colour. This means that I am able to make some more tiles as well and they will fit in perfectly.

The next stage will take a while so no more quick updates.
I have to purchase enough flock in desert colours to add sufficient vegetation everywhere. While this WILL be time consuming I am not even tempted to do any work on it until at least 2 weeks.

That is it for today. Thanks for looking

All the best Clint

I am inspired

Yes this is a LONG term project bought back to life. NOT a new project but 25-30 years old!

Yes that long ago I started planning and working on this project, now It has finally got the go ahead... yes it could have gone faster.

1/200th or 10mm wargaming western desert.

Most of my old stuff in Skytrex and I do not think is still even produced. Let me know if It still is. I may well place an order. Not that I want much at all.

What I like about the Western Desert in WW2 is many fold. Firstly no single side had all the advantages. There was no big heavy tanks and as everyone used anything they could get their hands on no side can claim equipment superiority.  As see to the right a British tank being used by the Germans. Captured  use of trucks was of course far more common with a typical convoy having British, Italian and German trucks no matter the owners nationality.

In the next few weeks/months I will be re-making my desert boards I purchased the paint this morning! Here  is a pic of what it is currently like. I know not everyone like hex boards but they should work very well for the PBI rules I intend to use. As you can see several different sand colours were originally used as one "tester" pot ran out I switched to another. But instead I have purchased a 2.5 litre pot and intend to create them all in the same shade of desert.

This inspiration has come from several sources and the strong desire to actually finish this project.

I have raked out some of my OLD (Very old) figures and while the Infantry are just no good several of the vehicles are.

I have 1 0r 2 Companies of British 8th army infantry ready to start as well as Lee's Honeys, Valantines and a number of German vehicles as well. So while I will inevitably do some updates at least you know what I am working on when all is quiet!

Bengal Lancers (2)

Yes I have finished the Bengal lancers shown 2 posts ago. These had less wobbly legs and as a consequence have remained upright. (The others have been adjusted and now also stand upright as you will see in the last photo.)

5 more lancers with their distinctive turbans.  These were easier to paint as I have now gotten into the swing of it. Just in time to finish... such is life. No complaints that is just the  way life goes sometimes.


 One figure is a musician with a bugle while the other 4 are lancers. I was unsure what colour to do the lanyard/cording on the bugle but settled on blue in the end to match the turbans. If you know other wise PLEASE let me know so I can change it.

I gave Matt the choice of all brown horses and he selected a variety of colours. Some Regiments in history like the "Scott's Greys" were known to have horses of a set colour. Other regiments used whatever they could find. But even if Matt had said just one colour there would still be a variety of tone/colours and markings which would make each one different.

I am not unhappy with a variety of horse colours as it does allow for greater diversity. As you can see I have used a wide variety of colours from palomino to a dark grey. I have mostly stuck to various browns though as you can see in the last picture.

A tiny bit of tidying up still to do. But they are finished for the most part.

That is it for today. all the best and another post in a few days.

All the best Clint

Mommy iz a Sombie too!

 Well I was gonna go to a car boot sale today but I am not going so here is a Sombie instead!

The figure is 28mm by mantic part of the Walking Dead game. As I showed an older gentleman last time here is a younger lady.

I went for pink jogging/Yoga trousers and a light green top. Not spending so much time in a gym I am not convinced these are the colours a young lady would pick to work out in. The Pink trousers I get and the lime green contrasts nicely and that is why I selected it. They are more likely I think to be in another pink top. But too much pink people is just not good.

I do realise I only have 3 figures painted for this at present, but It is getting done. I promise to do more as soon as I get the chance and the painting table gets a little bit clearer.

So just another zombie. No big lots of historical figures or any Bengal lancers or any WW2 stuff. Although they are all on the painting table as I type this.  With luck something finished either today or tomorrow night.

That's it for now have a good Sunday.

All the best Clint

Bengal Lancers (1)

There will be a second Bengal lancer post. BUT they are not even undercoated yet so I can't show them.

Here however are the first 5. 4 lancers and an officer.

Firstly forgive the angles of some of the horse. The legs are thin and bend VERY easily. As such they are both hard to keep straight on the base and hard to transport and store. So just assume they are upright.

The second Pic is just the lancers. Again the lances are separate castings and are flimsy so they also bend a lot. The figures Are Foundry 28mm and are of course for Matt and his colonial collection. As mentioned above I have another 5 to do (yes there will be a group shot) which should make a full or at least a nearly full unit.

For colours I went for those shown on the Airfix model kit. If they are wrong and you know better PLEASE get in touch. Needless to say at the scale the turbans were not so easy to paint, but I did have fun painting them. Not sure I got them exactly right but at least they are close so that is good enough for me.

I am informed by Matt that there will need to be about 100 more Burpas painted before a game. So erhm... gulp! That will take some time. But that a game is planned for the future.
 
 Overall I did find them a paint to paint well not paint exactly but at least a pain to assemble. But now they are done I am quite happy with the result.

next up (hopefully on Sunday) there should be a zombie. But for now here are some Bengal lancers for all the historical among you.

All the best Clint

Grandad iz a Sombie

yes I Know I spelt it wrong. here Is my latest Zombie. Part of the Walking dead game by Mantic.

One of the things I did Like about the Walking dead is the Zombie Child in the first episode. I would like to see more (NO NOT A ZOMBIE CARL). So in that vein I was delighted that the Mantic game has a mix of both male and female and old on not so old.  Therefore I painted this zombie up to be one of the old ones. Killed in the first few days.

Not played the walking dead game yet but I have plans in a couple of weeks, I really do need to get them all painted up pretty soon.

Also shown is a pic from the back. Plenty of gorge/blood and guts. Maybe his own maybe that of other people. His cardigan was repainted as I did try it in a pale green and then mucked it up. I am just being honest!

All the figures in the Mantic game are hard plastic and I have yet to see one repeated. So I am very pleased with them as it stands. I already have players asking to play Darrel Or Marl or Neagan or The Governor bus as I have yet to purchase them I don't see it happening for a while.

Anyway I apologise for not posting on Monday, Time just got away from me. I still have a lot on the painting table in a multitude of scales (10mm, 15mm, 20mm and 28mm). So I have no idea what will be next.

Until then all the best and take care Clint

Burpas again.

Well this batch of burpas are now finished.
Matt has already seen the pics and is happy so all is OK at my end.  Partly I am sure because they are either all Artizan or Foundry figures and they sit together quite nicely. Of the two I prefer Artizan to paint but not by very much at all.

Starting with a group shot that show them all together  I think the colours work as a whole unit. rag tag enough and yet also a uniformity at the same time..

 We have a cannon and crew, 4 crew in all. While there are all 4 in the first picture in close up one (with ramrod) is behind the others. I did offer Matt the choice of natural colours on the gun or a bright decorated design.  Clearly he chose the natural colours But I think a bright decorated design would also have fitted but be harder to paint from my point of view. His choice entirely and I am happy with his choice.

Lastly we have 3 extra figures to complete this batch of figures.

Not much more to say except. Have a goiod weekend.

All the best Clint