A couple of NCO's

I've spent the last couple of evenings working on these figures. They are a couple of NCO's from Musketeer, there great figures, my only "complaint" if you want to call it that, is that the eyes have been sculpted very narrowly, if that makes sense, and made it really really hard to paint the eyes. Other than that they are lovely figures, and were another chance to practice tartan. 

Again these chaps probably would have been wearing the issue khaki kilts in reality but I wanted to paint tartan, so I bally well did! 

These are the last of my two kilt wearing figures, so I'm going to have to grab some more from Musketeer in the future. 

SOLD

The above figures from Renegades WW1 range were painted by me recently and to be honest I don't have space for them any more. These have now been sold. 

A couple of close up pictures. 

Some Tartan

I've had this figure for a while now ( I think I got him in a set last xmas) but after my last go at tartan I hadn't fancied having another go. My last tartan attempt (which is on here somewhere) turned out okay, but I wasn't really happy with the results.

So this afternoon I decided to get this figure out and have another go at tartan. Now I know he probably wouldn't have been wearing tartan in reality but I'm not obsessed with uniforms, only what I'm happy with, besides its an officer perhaps he wants to go over the top in the clan colours.

The tartan itself turned out just how I wanted it to this time. I used a plate from one of my ospreys for reference and I am pretty pleased. To the point that I am going to paint up the other two figures that came in this set either tomorrow or the day after. In any event I am thinking that as I am moving back to Aberdeen I might just have to paint up a platoon of Scots.

Tring Big Game

I have spent a very enjoyable day at Tring today playing VBCW with some gaming chums from GWP. The game I played was a 2 a side game of Anglican League (me and Ook from GWP) versus Alan (from the local club) and Andy (a newbie to wargaming but a fine addition to our group none the less).

Some pictures below of the game, most of which are a bit arty farty as I got distracted and didn't take many wide shots of the actual game.

My supply wagon in parked up behind the front lines. 

A squad of my infantry move to secure a small farm on the outskirts of town, the chap nearest the camera is there NCO who took 3 turns to jump the hedge while his troops made it in one go. These guys were cut down in two turns of shooting not long after this. 

 One of Ook's Anglican League on the edge of the village preparing to advance on a small orchard occupied (sort of) by Royalist Infantry.

Royalists prepare to cross the same courtyard as my troops. They never actually crossed but took pot shots at me from the edge for a couple of turns. 

The recon shed on the edge of town. It fired twice and ended up jumpy and then suppressed for most of the game. Can't blame the commander I guess he is sitting in a potting shed with wheels. 

My LMG gunner prepares to cut down a Royalist rifleman. Well I say that, what actually happened was that the LMG gunner fired for three turns, and the rifleman fired for three turns and no one died despite us being 3 feet apart . The game ended shortly thereafter. nice and cinematic finish though. 

Delivery Truck

I finished a business meeting early today and had some time this evening to paint this up. Its a Lledo diecast (it was originally marked up as an Able delivery lorry I believe) which I have undercoated and repainted to my own design. As some of you may note the van now bares the same name as the small shop I made earlier in the month.

Basically I've painted this up as a delivery van for the pharmacy. I have hand painted the red crosses on the front and back, hence they look a bit ropy. However generally speaking I'm pleased with the results, the sign on the sides was knocked up in Photoshop and glued on.

Low brick wall

A little terrain project for this evening. Knocked up a selection of walls using (as if you don't know) scale scenes textures. Only took me a couple of hours to do this, and in fact might not have even taken that long as I stopped halfway through to go and clean out my chickens.

I'm pretty pleased with how these look and also how easy it was to create so many, I think all together they give me in the region of 150 cm's of low wall! My plan is to make a little gate section and some corners tomorrow, as well as some more straights.

Love the easy peasy nature of building with these textures, might not be to everyone's tastes but I am really pleased with the look, and how quick and simple it has been to make things using these.

Supply Wagon

I've been working on this across the last couple of days. Started life as a Lledo "days gone by" truck, I cleaned it up and undercoated it in grey primer before repainting to the above finish. I went with an interwar/early WW2 green/brown paint scheme, and I like the results.

I wanted to use this as a supply truck in my VBCW games (and pulp I suppose) so I have filled the truck bed with various bits from my modelling cupboard. The supplies are from a wide range of manufacturers and scales, I just grabbed anything that looked right.

I'm quite chuffed with how this turned out as I haven't tried painting a diecast before, I  have a couple more of these dicast trucks in the cupboard and a fuel tanker from the same range. All will now be painted up to match I think.

Some more real estate

Just finished building this over the space of a couple of evenings. Again the textures on the buildings are from scalescenes, with the carcass being built by me. Its two semi detached houses, built to go with the other buildings I've knocked up recently. Going to take a break from terrain building and have a think about what else to build, although I'm thinking of building a garage based on some pictures of a garage I found online.

This is a quick shot of some of the buildings which I have built recently, with some tarmac road sections I knocked up as well. I'm quite pleased to be honest as when you combine these buildings with some of the other things I built recently I have enough of my own buildings for a small village setting. I've tried to make the buildings reasonable vague period wise so that I can maybe use them with a range of periods, but I guess only time will tell on that point. 

Rural Camouflage

I spent this evening painting and finishing off my VBCW silly. I'm very pleased with the results and think this will serve my forces rather nicely as a perfectly disguised very very lightly armored recon vehicle. Just park up on an allotment or by a hedge row and no one will ever know what lies beneath the cunning "shed" camouflage! :)

I knocked this up yesterday evening when I got back from Glasgow, and painted this up this morning. The picture says it all, just a simple little checkpoint made from a bit of kebab skewer (unused).

Fez wearing mother fudgers

The last of my Turks, I have a little group of Turk officers but probably wont paint them up for a little while as I have some other things to paint up first. I have really enjoyed painting up these Gripping Beast Turks and will be looking to purchase some more in the future. My thinking is I can use them for back of beyond games, some WW1/WW2 and pulp games.

I'm also still trying to resist buying some Viking figures and looking at the new Saga rules which are being sold by Gripping Beast.

That's no shed

I just had to pop up some pictures of this. Now as fellow VBCW fans will be aware the rather madcap world of VBCW inspires madcap creations. Well I have wanted to build something a bit wacky for a while.The idea of an improvised armored car disguised (badly) as a garden shed has been something I've wanted to try.

This turned out a bit bigger (taller) than I was expecting so I will just say its built on the chassis of a tractor, which explains it being quite tall. Its basically a very lightly armored car with a vickers at the front, which looks like a garden shed. Making rural recon easy :)

I'm in Glasgow tomorrow for a job interview so it will probably be Saturday night or Sunday sometime before this is painted. There are some little things still to add, hinges on the back door stuff like that, but generally speaking I'm pretty pleased with my construction.

Some more Turks

Following the announcement at work that I'm being made redundant in 6 weeks I decided to sack work and come home. On the upside I spent the afternoon painting up these turks in an effort to focus my mind a bit. Its not as bad as it sounds to be honest as I had already decided to relocate from the Midlands to Scotland with the wife, still was a bit of a shock, and now means I HAVE to find work before 1st November.

Dont fence me in

Another little project, completed late yesterday evening and painted just now. Basically a few lengths of fencing. In the future I need to add another couple of lengths and a gate. I made these to use to break up the battlefield, edge roads/buildings etc.

A bit of property

Knocked these up over the last couple of evenings.

The first building is a little bungalow with a flat roof extension at the back. This  needs a bit more work, mainly on the base but other than that its finished.

 The other building is a small warehouse . The warehouse yard is designed to join onto the side of the shops I built previously which can be seen in an earlier post named "shopfronts" The signs on the warehouse were created by the wife in photoshop. I am particularly pleased with the small crane, loading dock thing I have built on the side of the warehouse.

These are both finished with a variety of scalescenes textures. The plan with building these was to get enough together so I have a small collection of buildings which can be used in a range of periods. I have also made a selection of roads using the tarmac texture.

Johnny Foreigner

Just finished painting up the first of my turks, I picked up these quality figures from Gripping Beast when I was at Partizan. I got a pack of 10 infantry figures and 4 officers in Fez hats. I got them with the Fez just for the sheer hell of it, and I like the splash of colour it adds to the figures.

I'm thinking that I might try and work them into VBCW as the personal guard of some Turkish lord who was England when the civil war kicked off. They could also be of use in Back of Beyond and WW1 games, and I guess possibly even some WW2 games.

In any event these figures are really nice, and I'm enjoying painting them.

The other Partizan

Some pictures above, some taken by me, some from Partizan's website, of the game which me and some of the chaps from GWP put on at Partizan last Sunday. (and a picture of me and the chaps at the bottom) Was a very fun day and the game went well, especially when you consider that it was organised only over the internet and the first time we ever laid out the table was on the day of the game. 

The game was a VBCW, the king and consort visiting RAF Wittering when a number of the other factions turned up and had a go at grabbing the king. We didn't quite get to a conclusion, although the local police came closest to winning, and taking the King into protective custody. 

The buildings were supplied (in the main) by me, Ook and Panzerkaput from GWP as well as a huge hanger which Bungle from GWP built in two days, and had functioning doors. A really enjoyable day and I even got to use my RAF LDV. 

Partizan itself was also really good, I spent a fair amount and saw some other great demo games. We have been invited to return next year, although I probably wont be involved in organising that one as I am moving back to Scotland, and its a bit of a trek. 

Shop Fronts

I have just managed to finish off this building. Again the walls are covered in Scalescenes great printable textures (light stone, on this occasion) This is a reasonable copy of a couple of shop fronts that are in my village. I wanted to make the front and the back detatcheable so that I could use the back with other things that I might make in the future (a warehouse front or at a push a goods in yard at a train station).

The Pharmacy and Post office signs were made for me in photoshop by my good lady wife and I think they look really good. To the rear I have built a small separately based stand of crates and a chemical drum. These turned out really well I think, the crates were scratch built from balsa wood and the drum is a copper pipe fitting I had in the cupboard. Again in Photoshop my wife created the "shipping stickers" that are on the crates and drum, these look really good I think, and printed out nicely.

All in all I am really pleased with how this turned out and as with the other buildings I hope to make more in the future using scalescenes great printable textures.

Herr Oberst

Just finished these two rather nice figures off. The top one is a German officer, whilst the bottom one is the bren gunner for my polish paras. Lovely figures from Warlord. In other news I got fed up scratching around for bases and popped to the bank and got £5 in 2p coins. Should keep me in figure bases for a very long time.