25mm Old Glory Medieval - Revolting Peasants - Part 1 - Monks

 I've had these for years to be victims of evil dwarves, greenskins, undead, or whatever; I had previously written off Medievals in this scale. However, the new Barons' War stuff has really captured my attention. I've all the packs from Wargames Atlantic, many from Victrix, and a representative amount from the official Barons' War line in metal, sculpted by Paul Hicks. While I await the new King John's Sourcebook, I elected to take on another long-term project I may never finish. Five bags, roughly 30 figures each, of armed peasants filled with the requisite amount of ressentiment, defining a project quite appropriate for our current age. 

And as with everything else, I thought I could whip these out quick - not a lot of gear, hardly any straps, extra weapons, etc. But they took longer than I thought, as usual. I really am incorrigible. Nonetheless, where I could, I've snuck away to begin prepping the rest of the roughly 150 figures in this collection. The first pack: Leaders, Agitators, and Mad Monks is primed, zenithaled, and in progress on the desk, crowding out a large unit of Warlord Napoleonic British. 

I thought I'd divide the 12 monks into two groups - this is the first half, being a kind of generic, but common order found in England during this period. I was going to paint the other six as either Jesuits in black robes or maybe even Franciscans, but despite them all being "monks," they seem to be of different orders. If they are to practice tonsure, shouldn't they all be this way? What about the culty-looking chap with the processional cross? I think I'll do the others in the most appropriate colors for the sculpt. Some clearly seem to be of the Dark Ages, whereas others seem more suited to the 14th and 15th centuries. You'll see more of this as the project unfolds. 

The other thing: to give myself some flexibility, I'll be doing these in the 3, 2, 1 basing style. All basic sculpts that are ones of a kind will get individual bases. If there are variants of a basic sculpt, one will be done individually, and the rest will be paired off on a base with similarly acting miniatures. Finally, there will be some made up for three-man bases to make moving them around easier, plus they will be tightly arranged vignettes to represent a mob. The individual models can be used anywhere, even Baron's War, Pillage, or victims or a lynch mob in a medieval witch hunt game.

Here's how they began - black primed, then drybrushed with white. Doing 2-3 layers over black to get solid coverage is too time-consuming, but bringing the levels up in advance makes it much easier, plus I can better see all the haste-related irregularities common to all Old Glory sculpts. Irregular, but endearing, even charming! 

That's Dark Warm Flesh from Pro-Acryl for the skin. Lovely paint - one coat application mostly. Army Painter Fanatics still require a couple of coats, but they are far better than the originals. Tan for the cowls, grey for the robes.

Bootstrap for the shoes, leather, belts, and some of the hair. Ancient Stone was for the rope-style belts.

Pro-Acryl for the wood and weapons, Two Thin Coats Glistening Gold for the larger crosses - odds and ends for the rest it, the ham, rolls, necklaces, etc. Everything has a base coat of something.

I'm doing what I call "YouTube" painting - most of the non-competition painters on that platform do it this way: lay down the midrange base coats, then put a wash (colors vary, but they are always darker. Then bring back the original colors, leaving the darkness in the recesses. BUT my Army Painter Strong Tone has lost some moisture over the years. Further, it was kind of a mess to move around having a jelly-like consistency. I went with it anyway knowing I can fix it with subsequent steps.  

Here I've brought back the original colors on skin, cowls and robes. (Maybe hair?) I like the weird muddy effect it left behind (not just a rationalization) on the bottom third of the robes so I left it there and didn't paint over it. This also made it appear like the robes are not only dirty, but sodden too. 

The next steps were to just bring up the highlights on everything while leaving that bottom part of the robes alone. You can see I've uncharacteristically work away a lot of the primer along the base edges. And I have been poo-poohing using figure holders while I paint!

Finally, I finished the bases with Vallejo's Diorama FX Thick - Russian Mud. Every mini in this project will get this treatment to unify the collection. First time I tried it and it came out great. The peasants have to be revolting mud dwellers after all. Historians may disagree. 

The mud did shrink down a bit after drying, so note to self: pile it up! I also resisted putting any of this stuff on the miniatures themselves. It's quite dark, and I chickened out, though in the end, I don't think it needs it.

I put in a Wargames Atlantic Foot Knight in the mix so you can see how they compare size-wise. They are monstrous compared to modern miniature making, but I love them nonetheless. So don't get me wrong, I love putting together plastic mins, but Old Glory will always be my favorite in any number of projects, as this blog attests. Character matters.  

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

25/28mm Northern Crusades Miniatures: Medieval Ruined House

 I picked this up at an HMGS con last year, I think. It was not from the manufacturer, as this particular one had all kinds of printed buildings in a jumble. 

Still, serviceable little thing, useful almost anywhere, though drybrushing really brings out the print lines. I notice I was also charged $6, when the manufacturer charges $5.

Warlord French infantry with Wargames Atlantic zombie heads for scale. 

It took just an hour or so over the course of a couple of days, picking out individual stones, drybrushing, and finishing with some speed paints. 

I'm still working on the Warlord O'er the Hills and Far Away, British, but needed something small to do in between all the details and flippin' straps. I've also boosted the box contents by an extra sprue, swelling it up a bit. This has taken many, many sessions, as I'm, even with AP Fanatic, having to go over and do the two thin coats virtually everywhere. I really want a solid foundation as I've never done British Napoleonics in 25/28mm before. There are easier and faster ways I know, but I'm doing my traditional layering approach. 

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

28mm Black Orc Games - Hundred Kingdoms - Kingdom of Avalon - Friar

Many were excited about Hundred Kingdoms - a miniature agnostic, faction-based miniature game from Black Orc Games. They were going to have, literally, a hundred different factions to pit against one another. I think they only did ten before packing it in. 

This is one of two Friars - the one sculpted by Drew Williams, not Gene Van Horne. 

This is another I painted up and photographed in the early 2000's. 

He'd be a good combatant in the Peninsula War, or even in medieval games too, I reckon. 

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

28mm Reaper Miniatures - Maria Roseblade

Little blurry, but you get the idea. I found the pictures, not the miniature itself, in a file called "Reaper" all by themselves. These photos were taken in December of 2005, when I was more focused on this kind of thing. 

I think I painted this at the request of a friend of mine who wanted her player character for D&D on the tabletop. Occasionally, I come across the question in forums about how much one has improved their painting over the years. This one suggests I may be worsening! Looks pretty good to me! Probably Polly-S paints too. 

Further, I didn't start this blog until 2010, and I was pretty active in the early 2000s, painting for our group. Some have been posted here already, others I stumbled across quite by accident, as I did this one. There'll be more from that era in between current projects as I find them. 

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

28mm North Star Military Figures - Oathmark Heavy Dwarves - Unit 2 and Heroes

 Ok, the black armor came out better than the former unit, so THIS is the Black Metal Heavy Dwarves unit. 

Most of the faces were visible here, allowing for the corpse white faces, the blackened eye sockets, and blackened lips. The GW/Tolkein take on Dwarves is that they are vaguely Scottish, but another strong theme copies a Viking sensibility. So starting there, but trying a more paganistic angle, I aped the look of black and death metal bands. I'm more of a Thrash guy, but I have some fondness for the early progenitors of the genres that took off in Gothenburg and Norway.  The metal armor here is black, so the only real color is denim sleeves and the surcoat, where it peeks out here and there, all with silver studs - a basic look for metalheads. The flag itself is a giveaway as to inspiration here - more on that below. 

At least for the Dwarves, the "Hero" pack is the most armored of them all, so these are included below as well. The "Champions" seem to fit in with the regular Dwarf Infantry, and the Dwarf King, Wizard & Musician, I'll do when I get to the Light Infantry. 

Easy to do the Black Metal face on the, er face. I probably should have done her hair black too, but I don't see that in musicians of this genre; they tend to wear their hair in natural colors. I have some small regrets about doing her ears in white. I think it's mostly just the face that is painted. Ah well. 

As with the hammer gal, I have one regret - I left the ears flesh colored, but I did his bald head all white too. I also see my brush tips are too blinkered to do fine scratches on the hammer head. 

Armor on everyone was done with ProAcryl Dark Silver, this was highlighted with Army Painter Plate Metal, THEN it was given a layer of Armor Wash from P3. For the first unit of heavy dwarves, I used the armor wash before all the highlighting. All gold was Glittering Gold from Two Thin coats. That is a magic paint, I tell you, very finely ground and just lovely in one coat. It's nice, bright, and punchy against all the darker colors here. 

This is the intended officer - a plastic mini, whereas the Heroes are metal.

There are three swordsmen among the rank and file, and I love the idea of swords being super bright which is more evident in real life than in this pic, but I gotta sing the praises of Vallejo Model Air - Silver. It is the brightest, smoothest silver I've ever used; I'll be using it wherever I can for final highlights on white metals. These particular swords had small mould lines along their lengths that I neglected to eliminate, marring the overall effect, but still: satisfactory. 

If you don't know, the Little Big Men Studios, Shield and Banner set is not intended to work with the Heavy Dwarf set. Yes, the smaller gray banner fits on this flag pole, but the better one (the black one) is twice the height! Too bad, it really would have been perfect for this unit. Where did this flag come from? Google found me the goat on a black field, Google Gemini provided the "dwarfish runes, border and symbols." In Excel, I made three cells with a blue background, then pasted two flags side by side within the blue borders and printed, then cut it out and touched up the edges. Easy peasy! 

This is many times more effective than the Excel flag I made for the Perry Linebreakers in this picture. I really need to go back and redo that. I have transfers and stuff that can make this infinitely better. 

For this flag, here's what I started with. One prompt later:

I wouldn't say these are Chaos dwarves, but they could also just be evil dwarves. Oathmark allows for strange allyships with the way the campaign map works, so these could easily be in alignment with an Undead Oathbreaker faction, or go against other dwarves in a civil war-type scenario. OR they could just be the strange toughs in an otherwise traditional Dwarf army.

Here are all the heavies mopping up a unit of orc archers. Heh, behind those mountainous facades are the assembled, but unprimed knights from Wargames Atlantic I need to get to. 

Building plastic kits, or cleaning up models and priming them up, is fun and rewarding in and of itself. However, I have locked myself in with primed models everywhere, on this table, my former "main" painting table, on shelves, everywhere I look. So instead of not buying anything til I paint up something, I'm not going to build or prime anything new until I get some of this stuff completed and out of here. I've had a good run in 15mm last year and cleared off a lot of old projects, but it's time to get some of this 25/28mm stuff completed. 

Anyone else read Bernard Corwell's Sharpe novels? I've read all but the two latest ones, but just completed Sharpe's Assassin, which has me itching to get some of this Peninsular War stuff into play. Yes, I've tended to focus on Russia, but I plan to do a comparable project for Napoleon's western front in Spain and Portugal. New Perry releases are also contributing to this mania with the brilliant Skirmish in a Box and now a new set of Guerrillas coming out as I type this.

I've daringly invested in more medievals, too. This is a project I never had much love for, but that early side that the Barons Wars era covers has got me in its clutches! I would love to assemble all this stuff from Victrix too, but I'd be forced to carry them around in my hands, having no surface on which to put them down! I need to build the rest of the orcs and dwarves too!

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

Cold Wars 2026- Saturday Morning Observations

 I made a point of checking my expectations before Number 2 and I headed out into some of the most unpleasant chills in years to see what was happening at Cold Wars Saturday morning. Since I've noticed the quality of conventions declining steadily, I wanted realistic expectations going in, so I wouldn't end up frustrated or bringing in a lot of negative energy. Expecting a small but friendly con, we stepped into the short line at Registration.

And since I first started coming to HMGS conventions over 25 years ago, I've always been a day tripper. I think I've spent the night once at a Historicon one year, but generally, I like to swoop in, hit the dealer hall, poke around Wally's, then get some inspiration from the best tables. I'm typically done by afternoon. Imagine my surprise when admission for the two of us for said purpose was over 80 dollars! I don't think I've used a single swear word in this entire blog, but fuck off. I can't imagine a better way to kill participation than this foolishness. In fact, I don't think I'm gonna bring any family members ever again. I may skip Cold Wars myself. Purest enshitification move ever: offer markedly less, and then charge significantly more. This follows trends seen in so many aspects of American life, from onscreen entertainment, publishing, music, to restaurants and grocery stores. I hate to see my hobby go this route, so I say again, fuck off. 

Of course, there are two possibilities. One is greed. Could be. The other is worse, the math doesn't math. Not enough demand. Folks who insist the hobby is as strong as ever need a check. On the historical side, it is in trouble. The growth seems to be elsewhere as there are tons of new paints, new Sci-Fi, and Fantasy stuff. In my lifetime, I've seen the embrace, then the utter rejection of a whole scale - 15mm! I've not even seen a Warlord Epic Game that wasn't put on by the manufacturer. Was there a 15mm vendor in the dealer hall? Maybe some buildings? Wally's is full of 15mm armies at every convention.

Too bad, as there were some great conversations and great tables - Cold Wars is a fun place to be for a few hours. I'd put it at a $30 dollar value for the two of us. Number 2 doesn't game or paint, but inexplicably still likes to hang out with her dad on these excursions. She's an extra pair of hands, too, when the credit card begins to buckle as it frequently does three times a year, But, because of the size, we had shopped and seen everything there was to see by about 11:30 and were done. Brigade Games was the only real draw for me this weekend, and I spent some at Your Hobby Place too, a  regional chain with a location some 20 minutes from my home. Indeed, the online pictures of buildings at Diabolical Terrain exactly matched the ones on display. About half the time, a vendor will tell me they didn't bring this and that, so go ahead and order it online when you get home, bah!  

Because of the cold, we didn't go down to the barn to see the tournament games. They have mostly been the same kinda thing every year.

The mood was positive everywhere, like I said, lots of friendly conversations. Lots of enthusiasm around existing tables, too, but I think overall it felt very underattended. Maybe less than at the Eisenhauer last year? Super Bowl weekend must have suppressed turnout to some degree as well, I'll wager.

I'm glad to see Pillage maintaining a foothold. Wally's was so underlit that it was easy to move through it quickly. And as is typical, my documentation only covers Saturday morning, so there may have been some games/events I never saw. 

Still wrankled by the admission charges, I was less enthused about documenting everything I was shooting. So this will be a more potpourri presentation with less captioning than normal. Grats to all the GMs and players - lots of beautiful and fun-looking games! In no particular order, here are the tables that caught my eye: 

Some Blood and Plunder - always cool!

I love this, but I'm gonna do it in 15mm!

Planters! Love it!

This table greeted us as we entered the Ballroom

I'm sure I've shot this teddy bear fur mat before but it's so excellent. And it has my favorite Crescent Root Studios stuff on it. Let's linger a spell ...

ahh ... wasn't that nice? 

I love the aridity of this presentation - I need an icy glass bottle of Coca-Cola just looking at it. You know, the kind with condensation all over it, the sun shining through its caramel-y goodness!

Are these those kits from Sarissa Precision?

You remember the Alamo, don't you? This is one of two Alamo games set up for Saturday.

Pillage with 12 players! I couldn't get in close enough ...

Quite a few 15mm games going on - that's one reason I like going to these smaller cons. 

This may be my favorite of the show. Really well done!

Not my cup of tea, this one, but I am attracted to shiny lights!

This is a Russo-Ukraine battle! Too soon? They even have little drones in play.

This year's theme was Wild Wild West! Tons of great set-ups - much to enjoy, but not at these prices. Looking back, I wrote about Cold Wars last year, and then not until 2012. So I missed it for over a dozen years in the past and will likely do so again in the future. It's an almost three-hour drive, and if I can't bring the girls, I'm gonna skip the whole thing entirely.

What did you all think? How do you rate this Cold Wars compared to past ones?

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858