Why 28mm and I are going through a trial seperation

Just finished painting up this figure from Hasslefree, I wanted a manga kind of look for his top and hair, and of course his golden gun. I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out although I think on reflection the purple is a bit flat and needed more highlights/shading.

As the name of the post suggests I'm having a trial separation from painting 28mm (mostly). Over the last 3 years or so I have painted a lot of WW1/WW2 type stuff in 28mm which required me to finish squads and platoons etc. As a result I'm actually quite tired/bored with painting units of beige/khaki 28mm figures, equally I just don't seem to have the stamina to paint the same colour scheme over any groups of 28mm figures at the moment.

So I'm going to have a break. Instead I will be working on my 6mm projects, and "single" 28mm figures so Zombies, post apoc or fantasy figures that are not part of units but would be on their own so I can just work on that one figure without feeling I have another 9 to do before its finished.

I'm sure I'll end up going back to collecting 28mm army's but at the moment I'm a bit fed up painting tons of 28mm and I have enough troops for the games I actually game (VBCW) to not need more troops.

SALE - THE LEAD PILE

So I've come to a realisation, I will probably never get round to painting a lot of what is sitting in the "lead pile". So Rather than sit on the pile having it take up space for no reason I have decided to have a clear out. This is by no means all of my lead pile but is a lot of stuff which I doubt I will ever paint, or wont paint anytime soon.

So I am looking to shift the lot as, for convenience sake, a single lot. As such I am offering a big discount on retail for this lot.

The pile consists of

40 Warlord Plastic Scottish Covenanters (with metal command) still on the sprues except for about 5 figures worth of bits which are in a jiffy bag. Nothing painted

8 US Vietnam era troops from The Assault Group Undercoated only

1 Hasslefree Grymm LMG Team unpainted fresh lead

Empress British Javelin Team

Black Scorpion Resin Pirate

3 Polish Para's from Warlord (Bolt Action)

30 WW2 British Infantry figures (20mm) from Stonewall figures 26 unpainted rest fresh lead

20 Warlord WW2 Belgian army figures

1 Warlord WW2 Belgian Boyes AT Team

1 LAF Figure (one of the medieval lady cook ones)

10 Artizan Designs Figures from "A Very Private Army Range" (the dads army looking infantry)

21 x Random figures mostly Artizan with some Musketeer Miniatures mostly WW1/WW2 with some other stuff.

Now sold. Expect new projects in the future!

Lady In Red

Just finished painting up this figure from Hasslefree Miniatures. I've had her for a while but only just got around to slapping some paint on. I went with a light coloured trench coat (rather than the more traditional black) and red for the cat suit. I'm pretty pleased with the results, the red in particular turned out just how I wanted it to.

More 6mm Brits

So I realised having painted my 3 Carrier Platoon stands that I needed a fourth carrier stand as the Platoon HQ. So here is the 3 Platoon Stands with their HQ stand which is just represented by the Carrier with an officer figure.

This means that my Battalion is now completed and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks

You can see the Carrier Platoon at the back, the four infantry company's that make up the Battalions strength and the command stands. On the right are the 6 trucks that represent the Admin Platoon (motorpool)

I'm down to dribs and drabs in my 6mm pile, not enough of any one thing to create a full company or group. I was however able to scrape together enough bits to make the 1st Company for one of the Machine Gun Battalions that was attached to the Division, which was better than nothing.

Pictures a bit naff on this one (light's going) but again I'm quite happy you have the three Platoons and the HQ stand which is represented by the Tilly.

Covenanter Troops

I have spent the last couple of nights painting up my first six Covenanters in Government grey! The figures are from the Perry's range and the base is one of Warbases 2p MDF multi bases. I opted to base my figures on 2p pieces and then just use a multibase so that I could use the figures for other things, and on bigger bases if necessary.

These were supposed to be painted quickly and more simply than usual but I basically couldn't break from my normal painting pattern. I think in total it took me something like 18 or 20 hours to paint up and base these figures. Hardly quick but I'm pleased with the results and that's all that really matters.

I might press on and do more of these for the regiment or break and paint something in 6mm over the weekend and paint the next batch next week. Who knows.

Partizan 2013

This weekend was Partizan in Newark, as per usual Panzerkaput and myself came up with and put on a VBCW game. It was a busy year with about 10 of the guys of the Very British Civil Forum turning up to game the demo in the end ,which made for a frantic but very fun game.

The game itself was set on the very edge of Leicester with Royalist/BUF forces attacking the city through the Village of Evington aiming to capture the General Hospital (the large building in the background of the picture above) As far as I am concerned the game was a roaring success we seemed to attract a fair bit of interest from the public and I spoke to lots of people about the game and terrain etc.

I was particularly pleased with how well my Hospital and terraced housing looked on the table as I had built both in relative isolation and was worried pretty much right up until the moment people started gaming that they would look too big or not right etc.

 This was our "period" display at the end of the table, Art and background on the battle by Panzerkaput with period weapons and equipment provided on the day by our forum member Captain Bigglesmay, who also spent the whole day in WW1 British uniform with webbing. Given that I was wearing jeans and a Shirt and today my back is killing me, I shudder to think how sore he must of been by the end of the day!

 Picture of my Hospital on the edge of Leicester, I was so pleased with how it looked on the table!

 More of the table with buildings brought along by a number of our forum members. Tym off the forum built the wonderful allotment squares seen in the bottom complete with greenhouse!

Another shot of my Hospital and my terraced housing which I used to edge the board.

Arty shot looking down the road towards the Hospital (just visible) I was really pleased with how "full" the table looked.

More arty farty picture taking, again I am chuffed with how nice our game looked.

Shot of forum member Burnin' Coals Mower Bomber, words cannot explain how fantastic this looks in the flesh, there are more pictures of this over on the Forum and it really is a work of art.

And what with spending money, chatting, and minding our own game I completely forgot to photograph any of the other lovely games which were there. However I did take this snap of my personal favourite which was this WW2 Desert Scrap which was on the table behind ours. The figures and terrain looked amazing and there where some great entrenchments which had been built into the terrain boards so they were actually below ground level.

Loot wise I picked up loads of ECW figures for my Scots army and some Warbases 2p multibases so I can have the figures for skirmish or bigger battles. I got some Highlanders from Warlords which are nice sculpts but I think I may now be a devotee of the Perrys. I have not previously looked at their ECW range in the flesh (as it were) but had a look at them on Sunday and bought a load of their Scots straight away. Nice simple, but detailed, clean sculpts and lovely casting, I think I was paying something like £6 for 6 figures so it was great value as well.

The question of what to do to top this years game is immediately at the front of my mind (being the sad git that I am) and I do have a probably over the top, difficult idea which I will probably start planning quite soon.

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello and looked at our table, Partizan felt very busy this year (which was great) and I had a top weekend.