Author Archives: steve wood

More tales from the Jungle!

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I mentioned that I had been distracted by the new releases from Lucid eye. Here’s one of the reasons! This figure is Simian Alpha. Although he has a passing resemblance to a certain character from a  monkey film genre, he is actually the leader of the much feared Simian tribe that inhabit the Savage Core. He is the first of a small range of Simian warriors that will terrorize and hunt down those careless enough to stray into their Jungle territory.

As you can see, he is beautifully sculpted and was a real pleasure to paint. After undercoating the figure in black. I dry brushed him in various shades of grey for the fur, and used vallejo rose brown for the chest & nose. The face was done with off white, with the marking added in red.

As well as the various tribes that will inhabit the Savage Core, there will be a variety of ‘Lost Explorers’ or Characters. The first of these to be sculpted is ‘Annalisse’, an intrepid female explorer ready to take on the perils of the jungle. This figure couldn’t be further from my current obsessions but sometimes a change is as good as a rest! So I took time out from my Napoleonic army and Lion Rampant retinue to paint her.Analise

Once again, the quality of the sculpt means that it is very straight forward to paint Annalisse. I just went for fairly muted safari colours – off white for the shirt, Green Ochre trousers & leather accessories. She’s based with a few Jungle plants & flowers ready to take her place in the Jungle. I’m not quite sure what I will be doing with these figures yet – at some stage a rules set for the Savage core will be available but in the meantime, I’m dusting off my copy of tooth & claw to see if I can adapt them for some Jungle Action!

With my range of DeeZee jungle beasts, I should have the basis for an interesting game. Of course it will also give me an excuse to keep painting the rest of the Lucid Eye range!

There’s something happening in the Jungle!

I mentioned in my last post that I had been somewhat distracted by the new releases from DeeZee and Lucid Eye. DeeZee is part of the Arcane Scenery empire and over the last year or so we have been gradually updating the moulds, converting some of the larger figures to resin, releasing some of the lines that had been lost or discontinued and even releasing two new lines. If all that sounds like a lot of work, it isn’t really – even now we still only have 31 codes or packs in the range, which pales into insignificance when you compare this to the number that, say, Warlord have in their range. If there was nothing else to do, and plenty of spare cash around, we could have done this in a month!

Still, slowly, slowly, catchee monkey, seems the appropriate phrase and we are making steady progress. The latest releases have been two packs of assorted dogs, some mini Pterodactyls and the latest, an updated Jaguar pack. In the past, this pack had two animals of the same type – we have added a new pose so that there is a bit of variety. So in between painting my Napoleonic Army and building my Lion Rampant retinue, I’ve been painting the odd DeeZee animal. If you have read any of previous blog articles, you will know that the Jaguars were the last animals that I have painted but I hadn’t got around to basing them. So here they are at last,based up and ready for some jungle action.

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The other distraction has been the figures released by Lucid Eye. They are sculpted by Steve Saleh and I think look superb. The range is also growing and has an eclectic mix of explorers and tribes that will inhabit the strange world of the Savage Core. I hope that Steve himself will write some details of what he has planned, so that people can understand how these figures will eventually work with each other. For me, the obvious tie in is that the DeeZee range of animals are a perfect fit for the tribes. So when I saw the latest characters I just had to have a go at painting them…here’s Analise, the lost explorer, being stalked by a Jaguar.

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So, watch out! There’s lots more to come from both DeeZee and Lucid Eye and if you would like to see the ranges, just click back into my shop.

The Somersetshires take shape!

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With one eye on the coming 200th anniversary of Waterloo, I am still adding units to my Napoleonic Army. Work is progressing slowly as I am being distracted by the need to finish my new Lion Rampant Retinue for a games day on 31st January and the steady stream of releases from Lucid eye and DeeZee. More of the latter in another post. Back to Napoleonics, though and as you can see from the picture, I have painted the two Mounted Colonels from Victrix as commanding officers for the 1/27  and 1/40 battallions. As both these units had buff facings, the officers would probably had the same, although as ever, it depends which reference that you look at. Some show a dark blue facing on the uniform and from what I have read, some officers customised their uniforms according to their own taste. Still, they look pretty enough for the wargames table, so they will do for me!

The rank and file for the 1/40 are in progress, with the six men representing the two flank company’s almost completed. Here is a picture of them, work in progress, just having been sprayed with matt varnish after coating in army painter strong tone. They now need basing and I will retouch the lighter colours and metallics to enhance the highlights. So it is just the command group to finish and another battalion will be ready for the table!2014-12-11 09.55.34

What’s the use of Bidowers?

2014-11-27 13.16.33Well that was the question I asked myself when putting together my Lion Rampant retinue. With just 6 men in the unit, an armour value of  1 ( 2 when shot at) and a points value of 2, I couldn’t see why I would bother having these in my retinue. The fact was that I had never heard of a Bidower before, come to that, neither has Wickipedia. A google search revealed the following link, which was sort of useful:

Bidower

So why would I have them in my Lion Rampant retinue. Well, after a number of battles facing these units, I realised that despite their cheap cost, they were very useful indeed. For a start, they move on a 5+, and they move quickly, 8 inches a turn and are not slowed by rough terrain. Add to this that they can Skirmish ( shoot and move), cant be targeted from over 12 inches and have the ability to evade. If they do get caught in hand to hand they are going to be slaughtered by most units on foot. However, in rough ground they can hold their own against mounted men at arms, even dragging them into combat ( on a Fierce Charge) on equal terms.

I soon learnt that they were very useful indeed, particularly after they had badly mauled my unit of Foot knights and killed my Leader ( now named Kenny, as he seems to die in every battle) before I could close with them and finish them off. The result is that I have now included a unit of Bidowers in my army. OK, it’s another 6 men to paint but it will give me just a little bit more flexibilty in battle.

And flexibility is badly needed in my retinue. Having chosen the later English retinue from the Lion Rampant rule book, I have found that although they are good in a pitched battle, they can only fight in a tight defensive formation. The bowmen need protecting from any marauding foot or cavalry units by my Foot Knights & Sergeants. So I have made the Foot Sergeants a standard unit ( allowing them to form Schiltron) to save the 2 points need to add the Bidowers. I’ll still need to fight on the defensive & try to lure or goad my opponents to advance within arrow range but once the two expert archers get to fire they cause mayhem among most of the opposition units.

So it’s back to the battlefield tonight with my new look army to see how it can cope with the new tactics that I have planned! The picture at the top of the page shows my latest finished unit, the Foot Sergeants and here is the army that I will field tonight. The archers & bidowers are still temporary units made up from some very old figures that were kicking around in my spares box! They will need rebasing & touching up before they become permanent additions. However, the plan is to replace them with archers from the Perry’s boxed set. The next batch is on the work bench as I write!

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Whats on the Workbench 20th November 2014

Much as I am committed to my Lion Rampant retinue, I couldn’t stop work on my Napoleonic Army. I intend to  complete the 6th Division as it appeared at Waterloo ( with some artistic licence, of course). Having added another Hanoverian Battalion, I decided to go back to the British. I had already painted the 1/27th Inniskillins, and the 1/4th Kings Own, so the final British battalion in the Division was the 1/40 2nd Sommersetshires. This battalion has buff facings and so is very similar to the 1/27th. Fortunately, when I assembled this unit from the Perry boxed set, I made all of the figures, so in effect I had 12 extra men already finished in buff facings. It is now just a question of adding the command group of 6 and 6 figures to represent the flank companies and another battalion is ready for battle.

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As usual, I will use the Mont St Jean web site for reference when painting, but for the time being, here are a few pictures of the additional models being assembled & made ready! As you will see, the easiest way of making the command group was to order a spare command sprue from the Perry web site. I’ve slightly altered the Officer and used a head from the Victrix set to make him different from the 1/27th officer. I’ve also added in a Sapper from a Victrix metal command set. As a side project, I’ll also paint the mounted Colonels that the Sapper came with as Officers for the Battalions, which will use up the whole pack and reduce my lead mountain reserve slightly! The rest of the command are assembled as usual.

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For the Flank Companys’ I have used a mixture of Perry’s & Victrix parts to make the six required figures. Here’s the Left flank:

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And here is the Right Flank:

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As you can see, the Perrys (grey plastic) and the Victrix (Light Brown plastic), mix very well and there is very little difference in the size of the figures so they are quite compatible. Mixing sets is a very simple way of making conversions and giving variation to the troops in a unit. So it’s just the painting now….

The Lion is Rampant – Again!

Lion_rampantI mentioned in my blog earlier that I had signed up for the Wargames Illustrated Magazine’s Lion Rampant day, to be held on 31st January 2015. Although it seems some way off, I thought that I better start putting my retinue together and of course practicing the game. As I am somewhat focused on collecting English Armies (and their Allies!), I thought that I would start with a typical English Warband. In the LR rules this breaks down to: a unit of 6 foot men at arms; a unit of 12 ‘expert’ foot sergeants and two units of 12 ‘expert’ Bowmen; a total of 42 figures to assemble and paint.

I could save a bit of painting time by having two units of 6 foot men at arms but this will make the army quite fragile. However, in the short term it will speed the process of having my own retinue finished. The beauty of the English Retinue is that I think that I will be able to build most of the figures using the Perry’s Wars of The Roses Plastic boxed set, which has 40 figures, a good mix of which are either archers or Bill men (foot sergeants). So for an outlay of £12 for the rules and £20 for the figures, I’m in the game!Perry-Miniatures-WAR-OF-THE-ROSES-INFANTRY-1455-1487-28mm-plastic-boxed-set-380871945137

For those of you not familiar with Lion Rampant, it is one of the Osprey Wargames mini rules, written by Daniel Mersey. It’s one of those clever rules sets that does what it says, it really is straight forward and simple to learn, easy to play and has enough subtlety to keep players engaged. As I have previously noted, this type of skirmish game is a great way to explore a historical genre before you pile in and build a huge army. Even better, the small war bands allow you to mix & match different troop types. So if my English Army doesn’t work for me or if I fancy a change, it wont take too much effort to produce, say, a Templar war retinue.

The game itself is a bit like Saga Rules, but without the Saga board – all the action takes place on the table and combat is resolved quickly by rolling either 6 or 12 dice. A simple attack & defence mechanic determines how many casualties are inflicted and then it’s down to morale – which unit has the stomach for a fight! The fog of war comes in the order system, you roll a dice to see if a unit will activate or not. If it activates ( Moves , Attacks etc) then you go to the next unit. If not, your opponent gets the turn. This soon opens up opportunities or causes problems, depending on which side of the table that you are on! Of course, the other fun comes from the scissors, rock, paper effect of matching one type of troop to another.

So, I have painted my first unit, the foot men at arms. It’ a bit of a motley crew -4 of the figures are Perry plastics, and two are spare metal figures that I had lurking in my lead mountain! In fact I think that both were figures given out at past Newark wargames shows, one of which I painted some years ago & just needed rebasing. Painting was fairly straight forward, I spray undercoated the figures in Plate mail, gave them a dry brush with silver, painted the cloth & leather bits ( Scabard & belts etc) blue or red for a bit of colour, and gold for the sword pommels, brown for any wood. Then a good wash of black ink, brought out the detail before re highlighting the armour. Basing is done using Sandy paste to level up the figures on the renedra 20mm  plastic bases, then extra sand added & painted in chocolate brown & highlighted & dry bushed with Iraqi Sand. I finished off with a liberal dose of tufts and flowers…. Here’s the first unit :2014-11-05 20.20.53

Whats on the Workbench 23 October 2014

2014-10-23 10.19.08Well I am just about going to scrape in with my objective of finishing a Hanoverian unit by the end of October! As you can see the officers are close to being finished – final highlights need to be applied. The only figure that needs painting now is the Drummer and I will then have my unit of 24 finished. The next stage is to base them and then finally the add the flags. Ah! the flags….

The problem here is that I cant find any reference to flags used by specific regiments of Hanoverian Troops at Waterloo, particularly the Landwehr units. Indeed, it is possible that they did not carry any into battle. But that wont do for a war games unit – my aim is to make a representation of the unit for the war games table and they look prettier carrying flags! As I have already stretched history by giving my unit the flat peaked caps, it wont hurt to use a bit of artistic licence when it comes to the flags, so I think that I am going down the route of using a conjectural Hanoverian Battalion flag and a Blue Kings Colour for the other ensign.

If there are any of the ‘fashion police’ or ‘button counters’ out there twitching at the liberties that I am taking with this unit, dont worry, I’m twitching with you! One of the dilemmas of historical wargaming is deciding whether you are trying to build an entirely accurate scale representation of the units involved in a particular battle or a general representation of the units that were around at that point in history. Of course, the further back in history you go, the more difficult it is to be sure of who wore what and when. Even the modern day infantryman appears to supplement his uniform by purchasing kit from ebay! It always amuses me that we are told exactly what style of armour/helmet/weapons various ancient tribes used when after a battle, the first thing that the winners did was loot the dead of their possessions.

You can just hear the conversation now. ‘Oi Ulrich, there’s no way you’re wearing that Saxon Helmet, you’re a Viking, so put it down, besides, you’ll make us look silly when Osprey come to take our picture…..’

It seems I digress, but you see the problem. Regardless, this weekends task is to finish painting the drummer, re highlight the officers and then get the whole lot based up and another Hanoverian unit can join my growing British Napoleonic Army!

Whats on the workbench 16th October

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Sometimes it’s difficult to fit painting miniatures around all the other jobs that need doing! The last week has been no exception. However, I have managed to finish the second pack of Neanderthals and I’ve also finished those Jaguars that were undercoated about three weeks ago. I’m happy with the Lucid Eye neanderthals. They are superb sculpts and that always makes it a pleasure to paint miniatures that have so much character. As regards the paint scheme, I used a variety of browns for the furs, from Vallejo of course! The colours were:

822 German Cam. Black brown, 872 chocolate, 984 Flat Brown, 871 Leather brown, 877 Gold Brown, 914 Green Ochre, 819 Iraqui sand, 918 Ivory plus white & off white. I painted the flesh using 804 beige red and flat flesh. I also used a few ink washes of various strengths , both strong tone brown & Vallejo black shade. The basing was straight forward. Just some Vallejo Sandy paste to level things up and then a coat of basing sand painted with Vallejo chocolate brown highlighted with Iraqi sand. To finish, just a few highland tufts!

2014-10-16 13.16.29The next project was the Jaguars. I’m not sure that I am happy with the finished result. Painting and highlighting black is a devilish business! I’ve tried using blue rather than grey or white and in the end it was a mixture of both but I haven’t got the effect that I was looking for. I also used white to paint on some whiskers & for the teeth but it all looks a bit stark. the standard of photography isn’t too good either!The yellow eyes have just about worked. I think that when they are properly based, with plenty off jungle cover they may look OK. So that’s it for this week. Next up, back to Hanoverians – the officers this time.

Whats on the Workbench 9th October – Neanderthals & Hanoverians!

2014-10-09 09.37.11A strange mix of subjects on my workbench at the moment! I’ve just about finished painting 18 rank & file Hanoverian Landwehr. As you can see from the picture, they’re all based and ready for the table. There are of course 6 figures missing – the officers, ensigns & sergeants. They are undercoated and ready to paint, so they should keep me busy for the next few painting sessions. I will then have a nice unit of 24 figures representing the Munden Landwehr battalion. As far as finishing the figures went, once I had painted them with Army painter Strong tone, I gave them 24 hours to dry and then sprayed them with Army painter Anti shine. I tend to use a light coat and if the figures are still a bit shiny in places then I use vallejo matt varnish, just brushed on, to finish off.

The next job is to go back over the lighter colours to make them stand out. So I repaint the white straps, yellow hat bands and any metallics. The bayonets get a coat of silver to make them stand out on the battlefield! It sounds like a long process but it doesn’t take too long. The idea is just to highlight these colours, so if you miss a bit then it just looks as though the area has been shaded.

Basing is then completed. Again, I have gone for a quick basing finish. The first task was to mount each 4 figures on a 40mm square renedra base. I then used Vallejo sandy paste to blend the figure bases into the renedra base to get an even surface. When this was dry, I painted this Vallejo chocolate brown to gice a dark base on which to work. I prefer a brown edge to my bases rather than green or black, which are also favoured by painters. Next up, I coated the bases in PVA and covered with a forest brown scatter. This in turn, had patches of Javis green scatter added and then I detailed the bases with smaller patches of Expo flowered field static grass. The final touch was to add some Noch summer grass tufts and of course my ‘trademark’ flowers – in this case, Noch white flower clumps.

In the picture you will also see that I have painted a female admirer waving the Hanoverians off to battle! It’s a bit of a nod to the Warlord box art and she will of course take her place in little Bingham, the town on my war games table. Without getting too commercial, all of the items that I use are available in the Arcane Scenery shop and if anyone out there reading this needs some help, call us and I will be happy to talk through the materials & techniques used.

2014-10-09 09.46.44The other project that has leap-frogged up the painting queue is pack two of the Lucid Eye Neanderthals. Arcane Scenery are now stocking the Lucid Eye Range and of course the Neanderthals go really well with some of the Ice Age DeeZee miniatures that we produce. The Mammoths, Cave Bears & Smilodons for starters! So I’m working on getting a little band of Neanderthals ready for a Hunting party. One is just about finished, except the basing, the other two are just awaiting the fur pelts to be highlighted & the detail picked out. The techinique that I have used for these is slightly different from my usual style. Rather than using ‘dip’ to shade, I am shading and highlighting using inks, dry brushing and mixing lighter & lighter shades of the base colours. It’s a bit more time consuming for me but gives a nice result, particularly when the figures are so well sculpted. Here’s the progress so far. I’ll spend a bit more time in my next blog detailing the colours used.

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The Lion Rampant!

I’ve managed to wean myself off of playing Black Powder for a few weeks! It can get a bit stale playing the same rules set, although I am addicted to Napoleonics for the time being. That said, I have wanted to build a collection of army’s and have been looking for inspiration elsewhere. I have been very tempted by the American War of Independence, as I like the look of the Muskets & Tomahawks rules but the thought of painting more redcoats doesn’t appeal whilst I’m still working on my Napoleonic army.

A recent rules set arrived in stock that did take my fancy and it would give me the opportunity to start another different army from a different period. The Rules set was ‘The Lion Rampant’, a medieval skirmish rules set. Skirmish games are a great way to get you into a period and allow you to play with just a few figures. The Lion Rampant is ideal in this respect as you need about 30 to 50 figures and you have a reasonable retinue with which to play the game. I think that with a box of Perry’s Foot Knights & Mounted Men at Arms I will be able to make a decent retinue. I’ll also have a look at the options from Fireforge games. Their figures have been tempting me for some time now!

So when I was invited to play a game at the local club, The White Hart Gamers, I jumped at the chance. As I thought, it was a straight forward rules set that allowed easy play, just right for a club night game. We played on a 4×4 foot table with 4 retinues all doing battle. It ended with all four leaders meeting their end in glorious combat! In fact we probably overplayed the game but by the end of the game, we were all familiar with the basic rules and enthusiastic enough to sign up for a campaign day in January next year. So I have another project to add to my list. In the meantime, if anyone out there is looking for a new game to play, I can very much recommend the Lion Rampant! Here’s a few pictures of our game.2014-09-11 19.26.57 2014-09-11 19.27.31 2014-09-11 19.28.50

Whats on the Workbench 25/9 & Deezee Miniatures

2014-09-25 11.06.22Progress on the Hanoverian battalion continues, albeit at a snails pace. I had started to paint a batch of 18 figures but progress was too slow and so I decided to finish six off just to get to see how they would look. The picture shows the first six block painted according to the colour scheme from the Mont St Jean site ( see last weeks blog for link). The next stage will be to paint them with army painter quick shade – I’ll use the strong tone or black shade. This will give me the shading to bring out the detail, particularly the faces and trousers. It will also give a clear outline to the equipment and lacing, making them stand out. Once the quick shade has dried, I’ll highlight the figures by repainting the lighter colours, particularly the webbing & lace and I’ll highlight the metals with either silver or gold as appropriate. This will really make the Buttons & bayonets stand out on the battlefield. Of course the most important finishing touch will be the bases! I just need to think about the colour of the flowers that I will use….. Hopefully by next week I will have at least these six finished. One final thought on painting these models. With hindsight, I should have painted the three individual pieces that make a figure separately. It would have made painting the detail much easier, so I will give this a try when I paint the next 18 figures.

Changing the subject completely, I mentioned in a previous blog that I was working my way through the Deezee range. Well, next on the workbench is a couple of Jaguars! One of them is not yet in production but we are edging ever closer to sorting this out! All being well, we will change the pack on the Jaguars so that you will get two different animals rather than two the same. The bear cubs should be in production by next week and we will have a couple of brand new packs of dogs! Here’s the Jaguars, just undercoated. I will be trying to paint them both as Black Jaguars, the sort that appeared in Apocalypto. On the face of it, that is the simpler option as opposed to the spotted type of Jaguar. However, painting & shading black is quite difficult – I’ll show you how I get on when they are finished. 2014-09-25 11.07.26

Collecting an Army……

It’s always a pleasure to hear from other people in the hobby and to see what they have been up to. I recently had an email from Alan, who collects and paints 1/32 scale WW2 figures. Not only does he have a huge collection of Soldiers & AFV’s but due to space constraints, the collection has to share a table with his vintage railway. However, the result is just great and the two interests compliment each other and help to show one another off. Here’s Alan’s email detailing his collection:

‘Have had a count up, nearly 20 Shermans and Fireflies, 2 M10s, 4 US halftracks and around 150 infantrymen depicting the 29th Division from Omaha beach to the Bocage region, also 101st airbourne. Also includes support trucks. Brits are 130 Coldstream Guards and full battery of 25pounders and paras.

Germans, 160 infantry of 916th division, Omaha and Bocage complete with Stugs,  Hetzer tank destroyers, Panzer IVs and Panthers support. Also Kettenkrads and Kubelwagons with PAK 40 anti tank guns and mortar batteries and motor cycle combos.  ther are 40+ paras supported by Panthers, 50+ Panzer grenadiers supported by King Tigers, Tiger Is, halftracks and assorted light vehicles. Full battery of 88s with remnants of Luftwaffe regiment support.’

Wow! now that is a collection. Here’s just a few of his pictures:

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