15mm Essex Colonial: Dervish Rebasing Project TSATF

      I was introduced to Sudan gaming many years ago through dear friend Stuart McDonald (d.1998). The interest was strengthened through TSATF games that he ran but at the time, there wasn't available to me a Zulu or a March or Die movie to give it that inspirational oomph. Since he had most of what we needed to play I never felt compelled to mirror his output in any way. Nonetheless I was asked to provide more Dervish to help provide bulk to fight his British. My responsibility was simply to add reinforcements while he maintained the buildings, terrain, artillery, cavalry and all that. I bought a couple units of British anyway as counterpoint but it was the Dervish we needed more urgently.
  
     I painted (even eyes for crissakes!) and based them up individually in the traditional Sword and the Flame manner. But moving this many figures around is a pain and I have not found a way to make movement trays look esthetically appealing. I recently re-based Arabs for my fully fledged FFL games here and really liked the results and found that basing Native infantry in this manner doesn't affect the game appreciably at all. It was inevitable I'd cast an eye on these Dervish and redo them as well. Another benefit, to re-base them on steel washers, is that they will be better secured in my magnet lined trays rather than ranked up in an old nuts & bolts organizer drawer. So there is a preservation angle to all this too. Anyway, here's the results:

L to R, 1 leader, 2x4 men, 2x3 men, 2x2 men and an individual spearman to make change = 20 figs.

These are the most arid looking bases I've ever done but they came out really well; the recipe is a perfect harmonious triad -all from FolkArt: 1. Mushroom, 2. Country Twill (heavy dry brush) 3. Final dry brush highlight: Linen. I went back and edged the sides with Mushroom to finish. Tufts are Highland Tufts from Army Painter.

The Ansar unit organization didn't shake out so neatly and the astute observer will see there's only 18 men in each of the three units at rear. There's million ways to explain that on the tabletop of course. All rifles were based 2 per stand with a single for change. This was done in the odd event I needed Dervish rifles on walls or on buildings in a defensive role.

For the Fuzzys I had enough to make a dedicated Rifle Unit. They were based: 1 leader, 2 individual rifleman to make change and 10x2 men =23.

As for the British, I only have one and a half units painted up. They are still on wooden bases and the steel base replacements are on order. Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath.

Thanks for looking. Questions? Comments? Feel free to post and/or Follow ...!

25mm Old Glory Minute Men Part 2

In the short term, these are the second of three. The first was in blue & brown, these in brown & tan and the third in black & tan (almost done). There'll be three more such units at a later date in green, red and gray with 60 men in total.

I, for reasons I won't get into right here, can only prime and seal in batches of 14 so the West Wind Sleepy Hollow Milita man who accompanies this unit got left off due to space. Bumped by goblins, he's painted identically and will turn up later.

Citadel painters will recognize a classic Scorched to Beasty Brown build on the coats. I really like that combination and it looked better than I had hoped.

Here's a couple of the weirder sculpts in the pack though I like the guy on the right. Being Minute Men, they don't look quite right and that's deliberate. I used darker pallets to disguise the fact that they are not the participants at Lexington/Concord. All the undershirts, for one, are a dark gray instead of the expected white linen.

Straightening out the rifle on the guy at left was a challenge as, out of the bag, it was wrapped around his waist and connected. Not just a bendy job. And I forgot to use Ogryn Flesh Wash on the skin and used either the Sepia or the Devlan Mud - can't remember now; its still serviceable but not as good.

The face on this guy came out interestingly though I ruined a lovely blue cap with a ink wash. It was a risk and it failed and I'll be more careful with it in the future. I can't be bothered to fix it.                                    Halfway through I found I could still paint eyes if i took OFF my glasses and let my near sightedness work. A couple here below didn't make it in time.

Crazy variety of style and character - some look Malburian and others, like the officer in the top picture (front left), has what looks like a Confederate floppy hat head on - full beards? In town?

 Thanks all for looking and as always, questions, comments and followers are welcome!

25mm Goblin Factory: Goblin Armored Command

Two sets of command actually, the senior officer (far left) you've seen before ...

I wanted something mean for the banners but after doing the right one and feeling vaguely unsatisfied with it, I went online looking for inspiration and found the motif for the flag at left which I like a lot better. The banner itself is angled so it looks asymmetrical here but it is fine when examined directly. You'll get a better sense of it below:

These can be found at http://www.thegoblinfactory.com/home.htm  or maybe not?

Sometimes with Fantasy figures I just try out random stuff. I'm not super happy with the red on the cloaks but it'll do.  The scale armor on the flag bearer on the right looks almost like fur after the two washes I put over the metal. I wanted something rusty but not quite right ... 

Questions? Comments?

15mm Minifigs French Foreign Legion: Mule Company Pt. 2

Here's the mounted half of the Legion company from a few weeks ago ...

I didn't know it but apparently mules had the stamina and speed of camels but couldn't sprint. Mule mounted, the Legion could cover much more ground in chasing down Arab raiders than on foot.

There was an encounter where mounted Legionnaires tried to fight on muleback and were bettered quite handily by mounted Arabs. Subsequently they assigned two men to each mule to 1) remind them that they should dismount and fight as the infantry they are and 2) reduce the number of men required to hold the mules while the others fought. I gather that there was no appreciative loss in speed.

And here's both elements conjoined.

These are actually two units I guess though I'm short on command figures; I'm not satisfied with how I'll have to represent the full dismounted part when that occurs but that's a problem for another day. I'm done with Legion painting for awhile. These guys kinda burnt me out ...

Questions, comments are welcome!

15mm Stone Mountain French Foreign Legion: Cavalry

Nothing special here. These were sloppily painted a few years ago to match the older units in my Legion forces. I did however, update the bases to match all the Arabs I rebased.

25mm Old Glory Boxer Rebellion European Civilian Volunteers

None of these figs will see China but are instead an armed group for a Victorian London game I've been building for a few years.

I've revised the way I do skin and am thus a bit unhappy with these but they are still quite serviceable. This particular unit is in black which I hate doing because due to the subtlety of the highlights I never feel like I quite achieved the pop I'd see on more colorful miniatures.

Here the faulty skin technique is really apparent - especially the guy on the right - Stan Laurel?. Collectively these scored a 6 on CMON - fair enough, though I think the mediocre photography helped limit their appeal.

I really like these sculpts. There's definitely some "Hey Steve" figs in here but overall they look ok.

15mm Peter Pig Pirate Range: Civilians

   I'll try not to ever post WIP's unless I really need help with something, but I have it it my head not to base any of these until they are all done to insure uniformity within the range. 
   The solution of course is to just make a note of what I've done and apply it but I haven't quite decided how I want to base these ultimately. Sandy beach is the front runner.

Pack 13: Governor, Bodyguards and Priests

   These packs are just the civilian portion of a good sized collection of 15mm piratey stuff. It includes, to be featured later, pirates from Peter Pig, Minifigs, Eureka, Museum, Blue Moon, and others whose names I've forgotten. 

Matching uniforms? Sure, why not?

   As always, questions and comments are encouraged and followers are welcome.

Pack 29: Mob with Machetes

All of these but the six women at the bottom were painted about 10 years ago.

Half @$$ composition here but this is two packs of Pack 27: Armed Mob

Two sets here of Pack 19: Women

Part 2 of Pack 19: Women

I finished these six today as a break from 25mm for a little bit. I had done the skin years ago so it was just a question of choosing the dress colors.

Pastels are easily created by just adding white to whatever color you choose as a base. Left to right: VGC Turquoise, Armoury Gun Carriage Green, V Brown Ochre, VCG Terracotta, V Brown Rose, GW Vomit Brown

I have almost 200 pirates done in the same style that I will feature at a later date. Thanks for looking - there's much more to come!

15mm Museum Miniatures Pirate Range: Bar Staff

These are: PT09P Serving Wench Walking, Holding Tray and PT10P Landlord Breaches & Tunic, Holding Tray

Kinda ugly sculpts but I'm sure they are as old as the hills as well as serve a definite purpose. Plus, painted up, I find them endearing in their way.

25mm Old Glory Minute Men and West Wind Militia

This is the first unit of six from Old Glory that will never fight British but rather the minions of the Pumpkin King. The Vampire Wars Sleepy Hollow range provided the inspiration and these will oppose scarecrow armies, headless horsemen, or even zombies.

I didn't paint them as I would for AWI. I chose a darker pallet to just change the tenor of it all, to make you forget that though the game is set in New England and just after the revolution, these are not soldiers for the fledgling government.

In terms of skill, these will rank among the very lowest. They'll be 60 in total and I expect they will often fail fear rolls or succumb to whatever adverse events I can come up with.

There were clearly two sculptors on these Minute Men packs, some have enormous heads like the two on the left, remind me of Dixon Miniatures.

These depicted in this post are in Dark Blue and Brown. On deck is a set in Black and Tan, and another in Dark Brown and Tan. They appear uniformed but I'll be able to mix and match them to make them more dissimilar in appearance. Second wave of 30 has Green, Dull Red and some unyet picked color scheme.

When I unpacked these originally I thought, "oh boy these are terrible" but actually they paint up quite nice. Not as good as Perry nor Eureka but definitely serviceable and evocative. I will have a unit of BOTH Eureka and Perry Militia that I'll paint in traditional AWI attire but for these lowbies I came up with these ragged uniforms. Note: The officer at left has holes in his uniform and is not wearing socks ..bizarre sculpting choice as he's the only one.

West Winds Sleepy Hollow Town Militia. There's 8 in this pack and 6 will be painted to match the respective Minute Man units.  They'll be a class above the minutemen in terms of skill but less than the Heroes and leaders upcoming.

All these will be based on dry dead grass bases to reflect 1) New England Autumn/Winter and 2) the blight of the Evil - however that manifests itself. Thanks for looking - Questions, comments and followers are welcome - much more to come, and soon!