Blog – Page 16 – Steve’s Hobby Blog

There’s always time….

With my attendance at Partizan and all the preparation that goes with it (and of course, the tidying up afterwards) my hobby time has been at a premium – but when have I said that before! To be fair, I have made some progress since my last blog. Due to the way that I work on my hobby there is always something on the work bench and I will use any spare time that I have, even 10 minutes to keep things moving along. I am lucky in that I have a permanent place to paint and model, so it is easy to pick up where I last left off and do a bit more to a model.

I was chatting to someone about this at work. Paul, was saying how he was so busy that he didn’t have time to do any painting. The problem was that he was looking for a spare morning or afternoon or even a day when he could really get stuck into his project. I find that such blocks of time are difficult to come by these days and I tend to work in short bursts – sometimes just 2 minutes! Yes, seriously. If the next stage of a model is to slap some texture paste on to the base, then it only takes a couple of minutes to do this. It will take 2 hours for the paste to dry but if I can get this job done just before I leave for work, then I know that it will be dry when I get home and it will take another two minutes to paint the base and so on.

The same goes for the evenings. I may be too weary to spend the evening modelling but just half an hour or an hour gets a lot done, so I just focus on the next step in the modelling process rather than what needs to be done to finish the model, if you see what I mean. So since the last blog, some 14 days ago I have only finished one model/project. As you can see, Kojiro is now completed

Wargames Illustrated Special Edition Models now completed

However, I have made progress on a whole lot of other projects. I mentioned that I would be working on another unit of Nassau infantry. Well over the 14 days they have gone from bare castings, primed and the start of the batch paint.

Nassau Volunteer Jaeger on the work bench.

The (poor) photo above shows the figures 7 days ago. The back rank is primed green and the flesh and hats painted. The front rank (out of focus) shows that I have yet to add any black.

Volunteer Nassau – next step

This photo shows as they are now. ( I promise all 12 are at this stage!). Yes, they are a long way off being finished but I’m happy that progress has been made. I know the next step to be painted – I’ll be painting the gaiters dark grey and then I’ll start the straps with yellow ochre. It wont matter to me whether I do both colours on all figures or just paint the gaiters on just two of them. So long as I am moving forwards, I’m happy. Now I know that 14 days to get to this stage seems like very slow progress but it is progress and I will soon have another unit for my Napoleonic Army.

But that’s not all I’ve done. Taking a break from painting, I’ve assembled the next set that I would like to complete in the Test of Honour Range – Daimyos Retinue.

Daimyos retinue, under construction

The majority of these were assembled over at Jaz’s house one evening. We took a break from gaming and just had a hobby night. I had never thought of modelling as being a social hobby but I was once again surprised as to how much I managed to get done whilst chatting away with my war gaming pals. So Seven mounted Samurai are nearly ready for priming.

Musket men and Sergeant of archers

Building the Samurai cavalry gave me the urge to go back to some spare plastic ashigaru and assemble them as Musket men and I also needed a Sergeant of Archery to complete all the figures that appear on the cards. The musket men will be to go with Nobunaga – as this figure allows you take musket men for just 2 points each, I decided that I wanted at least two bases of them. I also decided to add some extra pouches using green stuff. I’ll never make a sculptor but they look passable enough. Interestingly, I ran out of time and rather than waste the green stuff, I used the excess to make some rocks on the Sergeants base. These models were actually assembled while I was sitting out in the garden with a glass of something cold and chatting to Julie.

British Artillery

Finally, on the work bench are a couple of cannon that I am planning to add to my army. They were kicking around in my lead pile and it wasn’t a long job to get these assembled and ready for priming. I’ll probally prime these at the same time that I prime the Samurai horses, so they will be ready for painting.

So as you can see, I haven’t done much in the last 14 days…

The Commercial bit

You can get most of the modelling supplies that I use from the Arcane Scenery shop. Even better, it’s still post free for most world wide locations!

ARCANE SCENERY

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More for Test of Honour – Scenery & Musashi!

Having just finished my latest Napoleonic Battalion, I fancied a change. A recent post on the superb Test of Honour Facebook group had inspired me to send for some plastic Bonsai trees from China. The Bonzai trees make excellent full sized trees for a Test of Honour game. As a bit of a digression, I am usually not too fussed about the scale of my trees in war games, particularly when playing the larger battles. The trees on a wargames table are there to represent an area of wood, not to be a scale model.

However, Test of Honour is a skirmish game and a tree that is more in keeping with the scale of the figures and buildings seemed attractive. Even if the leaves are a bit on the large size, the overall impression would be of a specimum tree, as seen in Japanese gardens.

Plastic Bonsai tree

As you can see, the tree comes in a nice plastic pot so it was a simple task to cut it out and using a glue gun, stick it to an old DVD. I used ‘Seven Steps to a Better Life’ a free DVD from a newspaper and clearly nonsense, as none of the steps included ‘spend more time wargaming’. You can, of course, use any suitable DVD or CD…In fact, I think that would be an interesting survey…’Which DVD/CD is more suitable for scenery bases than watching/listening to! I digress once again, but at least I am recycling my rubbish!

Tree attached to DVD

The next job was to slap some filler (Polyfilla or other decorators filler is ideal) over the base and when dry, I covered this with Vallejo Dark Earth Textured paste. Incidentally, the temple dog in the picture is from the Ainsty Castings range. They do a set of two of these and also make a very nice Sampan – if you haven’t discovered Ainstey Castings the link is below and they have some very useful stuff! Once the paste was dry, I gave the whole thing a good coat of paint – I use emulsion for scenery, it’s cheaper. The base is now ready for detailing.

Bonsai tree based and ready for detailing

The next stage is to dry brush a highlight onto the textured earth and to add some scatter and of course, some grass tufts and flowers. While I was highlighting the base, I also used the same mix to dry brush the tree trunk to bring out the detail. You could really spend a bit of time improving the tree with a quick spray or dry brush but time was at a premium and I’m happy with the overall look for a piece of wargames scenery that I hope will see plenty of use.

The completed bonzai tree based and ready for the table.

Each of the stages above only take a few minutes but the drying time is the issue. So I tend to have another project on the go when I am making a piece like this. As you can see from the picture above, I am working on a set of ‘Giants in Miniature’ figures from Wargames Illustrated. The figures represent the famous duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro and are a limited edition of 500 sets. If you would like one the link to Wargames Illustrated site is below.

Miyamoto Musashi on the work bench

The figure is straight forward to paint as he is all in black, so while waiting for my scenery piece to dry, I got on with him. Sasaki is in the background. ready for his coat of paint! You can see the finished Musashi in the picture above based and ready to fight his rival Sasaki. The final picture is a very poor shot of the two of them fighting in front of the Sarissa shrine, with the Geisha spy looking on. Sasaki is yet to be finished, requiring a coat of matt varnish, some extra highlighting and of course, basing.

Musashi and Kojiro clash!

As I have said, modelling time has been at a premium these last couple of weeks but I should have Sasaki Kojiro finished for the weekend and he will complete my triology of limited edition figures from Wargames illustrated. I’ve also got a couple more of the Bonzai trees to base, but now that I know what I’m doing , these will be a quick little project. It’s back to Nassau Infantry after that!

The Commercial bit

You can find Ainstey Castings site here:

Ainstey Castings

You can get the Musashi and Kojiro ( there are 45 sets left at the time of writing) here:

GIANTS IN MINIATURE

You can visit the Arcane Scenery shop for all Vallejo paints, textures and basing products – we send post free! We have a great Samurai section and carry all of the Sarissa Japanese range.

ARCANE SCENERY

As regards the Bonzai tree, you will have to search ebay! However, we are looking to import a batch from China – they will be a little more expensive but we are looking to see if we can bundle them with some buildings. If you follow us on Facebook, you will be the first to know!

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Happy Modelling!

Painting the Nassau-Usingen Battalion. Part two, Batch paint

In my last blog I gave some back ground into how and why I was painting Nassau troops for my Napoleonic Army. This week is just a walk through of the basic steps in batch painting the unit. I was on a fairly tight deadline with about three weeks to finish the unit. For me getting 24 troops finished in that time would be a record but I had a plan! Actually, the unit would eventually consist of 36 troops but I quickly realised that this was just not going to happen. I am using the Perry’s metal Nassau troops to build my unit and my painting guide is the plate from the Mont St Jean site – see last weeks blog for more details.

I wont go through the preparation stage other than to say although the Perrys models are beautiful sculpts, some of the castings need a bit of work to get rid of the flash and feeds. There was nothing that couldn’t be sorted with a quick file and scrape with a scalpel. Once cleaned up, I blutack the models to a temporary base and using the Army Painter Green skin primer, sprayed the figures. When batch painting, I usually work on batches of 6 to 8 models to start with. That said, if I am familiar with the colour scheme, I have painted up to 24 in one go.

The first batch of Nassau primed with green skin!

Once I had checked that primer had covered the models, the batch paint starts with the faces and hands. I use Vallejo colours from now and I will list the colours used at the bottom of the blog. With the flesh done, my next colour is usually Black, to paint the hats, boots, sword scabbard, cartridge case, collars and cuffs.

Flesh and Black added.

The next stage is to work through the equipment. I used leather brown for the hair, backpack, bayonet scabbard, and water bottle strap. This is an example of me cutting corners – if you want a more professional look, you would vary the hair colour and use different shade of brown for each item but these are war games figures and I am on a deadline! I used yellow ochre for the straps, off white for the food bag, black grey for the water bottle and sea grey for the blankets.

Nassau, main equipment done.

Each of the centre companies have a different coloured plume on their hats. Company 1 is yellow, Coy 2 is white, Coy 3 is Blue and Coy 4 is black. Orange was used to paint the rosette on the shako. The next stage was to paint the metallic colours, brass for the hat badges and chin straps, detail on musket and sword. I use steel for the muskets and bayonets. I also painted the piping around the collar and cuffs and tidied up any obvious errors.

Voltigeurs block painted

The picture above is a bit of a cheat as this is the Voltigeur company that actually was not ready for the battle! However, it does show the figures at the block painted stage. The figures are now ready to be painted in quick shade – I use the black or dark tone. Note that I don’t dip the figures as suggested by the manufacturer. I find this wasteful and messy. Simply use an old brush to apply the quick shade and you will have a better control over the finish. As a side issue, I decided to give some of the light company off white trousers, just for a bit of variance.

Nassau Grenadiers – quick shade applied

The picture above again is a bit of a cheat in that these were also not ready for the battle but it shows a unit with the quick shade applied and the first coat of matt varnish. I have now resorted to brushing on matt varnish and currently use the artists Galleria varnish. I have had a few recent mishaps with spray varnish and the Galleria seems to give a better finish.

Nassau line Companies ready for basing!

A closer look at the Nassau line

As you can see from the pictures above, the unit of 24 is complete and ready for basing. The figure on the end is from a the casualty pack and I added him in for a bit of variety. To base the figures, I use Renedra plastic bases or I am happy to use the Sarissa MDF bases. In this case, my haste led me to choose Renedra as I had some spare at home (I usually use wood bases for metal figures, plastic for plastic figures). I thought that I was using 60mm by 40mm but in my rush, I picked up 60mm by 45mm by accident. It’s not really an issue for me as depth of bases is often of no particular consequence in rules sets and certainly not in Black powder. I will be more careful in future!

When using the Vallejo paste , there no need to glue the figures to the base, the paste will secure the models. Just draw some of the paste up around the base to hold the figures in place. Once the paste is dry, I give the base a coat of Vallejo Chocolate brown to blend everything together and then add some Iraqi Sand to provide highlights.

Nassau Grenadiers based

The picture above shows the Grenadiers based and I have added some Woodland Scenic scatter to represent grass and to help blend the bases together. The final part of the process is to add some grass tufts and a few flowers – yellow seemed appropriate.

The Nassau line based and ready for action

The picture above shows the bases completed. There is one step that I have missed out from my narrative. Once the figures have received their coat of matt varnish, I will go back over some of the lighter colours and metallics to tidy them up and make them shine out. So the collars ,cuffs and piping were highlighted with flat yellow, I used gold to highlight the brass and silver for the bayonets. I also retouched the yellow ochre where the quick shade had ‘dirtied’ it down too much.

Nassau – Ussingen 2nd battalion almost complete. Just the Voltigeurs to add.

So the 24 figures in the line Companies were completed ready for the battle and I have nearly finished the Voltigeurs and Grenadier company’s. I now have a large unit of Nassau to add to my Napoleonic army. Next up, the small Jaeger unit and of course Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to complet and my lead mountain will return to it’s starting level in February.

Despite taking casualties, the Nassau hold the gate at Papelotte!

The picture above shows the Nassau ‘in action’. Papelotte was held – whether the battle was won is another matter! Below are just some shots of the finished Battalion taken in front of Papelotte at a later date.

Nassau command – still waiting for a flag!

Nassau Voltiguers

Nassau Grenadiers

The final two pictures show that I did manage to get the Voltiguers and Grenadier companies completed – my photography skills don’t allow a full picture of the 36 man unit but hopefully, you will get an idea of how the battalion looks.

The Commercial Bit!

The Vallejo colours used were as follows:

Flesh 70955, Black 70950, Leather Brown 70871, Yellow Ochre 70913, Black grey 70862, Medium sea grey 70862, Off white 70820, Steel 70864, Brass70801, Flat yellow 70953, Silver 70997, Gold 70996, Orange red 70910, Light Orange 70911.

All paints are available, post free at the time of writing, from the Arcane Scenery shop here:

VALLEJO MODEL COLOUR

Tufts and basing stuff is here:

BASING MATERIALS

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Painting the Nassau-Usingen Battalion. Part one, the plan….

Back in March, I was a participant in a small Napoleonic demo game we had put on to support the Bingham Napoleonic day. We, being my two gaming buddies, Pete and Andy. I had already agreed to finish my model of Papelotte in time for the battle and I surprised myself by completing it way ahead of schedule. You can read all about the day and the battle here:

THE BATTLE FOR PAPELOTTE

Papelotte is secure!

With the main scenery piece completed I turned my attention to the troops involved. Our battles usually tend to be a nod in the direction of historical accuracy and if we haven’t got the exact order of battle we are happy to improvise. However, when I checked my Waterloo companion for the OOB, it was clear that one of the most significant deployment of allied troops in this area was the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment. Whilst we had plenty of Hanoverians, a contingent of Dutch and Belgium and plenty of British and French troops, none of us had any Nassau. There was even a provision for the Prussians to arrive and we had even talked about using some Portuguese troops as reinforcements! Actually, this turned out to be not so daft as I thought, as Wellington had the same idea, but that’s for another blog!

I thought that I would have a go at painting at least one unit and so ordered some figures from the Perry’s Web site. Of course it wasn’t that straight forward. First I had to do a bit of research and to be truthful, I tied myself in knots trying to figure out what Nassau was which. There were the Orange Nassau Regiment, otherwise know as the 28th Nassau, comprising of 2 battalions and a small Jaeger battalion. The Nassau-Unsingen regiment consisted of 3 battalions of which the first was sent to help defend Hougomont and the second and third battalions, present at Papelotte. The Perry’s web shop list the first and second battalions as separate packs as there does seem to be a difference in their uniforms. The third battalion isn’t mentioned, so presumably it’s identical in uniform to the second, the battalion that I was interested in.

A quick check on the wonderful Mont St Jean site seemed to confirm my thoughts so I went with the second battalion. Now usually I am pretty rigid in painting my battalions as units of 24 figures but I noticed that the Nassau battalions were quite large and consisted of around 900 men. This is significantly more than the usual 600 that were present in British Battalions at Waterloo. There are also some significant differences in uniform within the battalion which is divided into 6 Companies. The four ‘centre’ companies or Fusiliers, are identical apart from the different coloured cap plumes but the Grenadier and Voltigeur flank companies are quite different.

The grenadiers!

After a great deal of thought, I decided that I would have to go with 36 figures in a regiment and placed my order for a command pack, 3 centre company packs, a pack of Grenadiers, a pack of Voltigeurs and while I was at it, the casualty pack and two packs of Volunteer jaegers. Oh! and the very nice models of the commander Prince Bernard and his staff! And that, my friends, is how that lead mountain accumulates!

The Voltigeurs

Then reality set in. How was I going to have these figures finished in the three weeks that I had before the battle was due to take place? As I had said, my research was cursory at best and I hadn’t even thought about what colours I would use. Fortunately, Dave Woodward happened to call into Arcane Scenery for some paints. Dave actually painted the models used on the Perry’s web site so I pinned him into the corner and interrogated him as to what colours he used! ‘I don’t know’ he cried ‘it was ages ago that I painted them’. Fortunately, Dave is a great guy and he helped me to work out a basic colour scheme that would give me a fighting chance to at least get some of the figures painted for the battle.

The cunning plan that he came up with was to spray the troops with Army painter Greenskin primer. This colour is perhaps a bit bright but I intended to use quick shade which would dull it down. The other significant colour was the cross straps on the uniforms and the yellow stripes and facings. The answer was Vallejo Yellow Ochre 70913. The rest of the colours were pretty straight forward and using the pictures from the Mont St Jean site as my guide, I could press on and batch paint the battalion!

You can see how I did this in the next blog!

The Commercial bit and useful links

You can see the Mont St Jean reference for Nassau here:

NASSAU UNSINGEN REGIMENT

The Sarissa version of Papelotte is here:

PAPELOTTE

Vallejo model colour paints can be found here:

VALLEJO

The Perry’s web site is here:

PERRY MINIATURES

Toranaga San!

I’ve been away on a short break over Easter, so progress on my various projects has been limited. A holiday, however short, is a good time to refocus and think about what will be next onto the workbench. Whilst idling on a sun bed in Gran Canaria, my mind wandered as I considered the unfinished projects back at home.

Oda Nobunaga primed

Before I went away, I had cleaned and primed a Wargames Illustrated Limited edition model of Oda Nobunaga. The original plan was to pretty much copy the colour scheme the the Wargames Illustrated painter had used.

Wargamies Illustrated Oda

The Oda model had been produced by WI as one of their ‘Giants in Miniature’ series but was also given a special card for the Test of Honour game that I am such a fan of at the moment! The card allows players to recruit groups of musket men for just 2 points a group – an interesting option for my next warband. You can download the card from the Wargames Illustrated site here:

http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nobunaga2.pdf

To read more, you will need to get hold of a copy of WI335 or join the WI prime club – this will give you access to all of the WI articles and is particularly useful to recover older magazines and articles from their vault!

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/?s=Oda+nobunaga&post_type=

Rather than copy the WI colour scheme, I decided to use a colour scheme based on the description of the fictional hero, Toranaga, from the book ‘Shogun’ by James Clavell. In the book, the ‘goodies’ wear a brown uniform and I thought that this would make a change from the usual bright colour schemes that I tend towards.

I also decided to use a slightly different Flesh colour scheme. It’s one that I have used before and is simply a case of starting with Vallejo 70804 Beige red as a base, adding in 70927 dark Flesh and then using off white 70820 to top off the highlights. I also tend to use at least one or two washes of Army painter soft tone ink to help with blending.

Toranaga Work in progress.

For the robes, I started with 70822 German Camouflage black brown, followed by 70872 Chocolate brown, with a top highlight of 70983 Flat earth. The Under shirt was simply Iraqui sand. It all looked a bit stark so I gave these area a good wash of Strong Tone, the dark brown Army painter ink and the result is as shown above.

Toranaga almost finished?

I then went back and using first a mix of Flat Earth and Chocolate brown re painted the highlights and then gradually added more Flat earth, with a touch of Iraqui sand to add in the top highlights. I also added some grey to ‘Toranaga’s ‘ hair, painted the Katanga silver and brass and added some red details to the scabbard and the under shirt. The socks are off white and the sandals German Cam Black brown.

Unusually for me, I’ve painted the eyes on the figure – I don’t usually bother but these are quite well sculpted and fairly easy to paint in. That said, by now my eyes were getting tired and as you can see, eye’s are not my strength when it comes to painting.

Toranga ready for battle - well, nearly!

Toranaga ready for battle – well, nearly!

Not much has changed in the final picture, I have added some ink to the Katana handle to bring out the detail but as I mentioned above, by now my eyes were tiring and I always find that a break from painting and a look at the pictures gives me a chance to assess if anything else needs changing. I can see that the Katana handle will need a quick touch up with white and the red stripe on the under shirt needs a bit of definition – either a black line or careful wash of ink.

The most significant improvement will of course be a proper base ( without the blu tack!) and some grass tufts or flowers to add a bit of interest and Toranaga will be ready to take to the wargames table. Of course, I will still use the Oda Nobunaga card!

So the plan is to have him finished over the weekend and then it’s on to the next part of the Test of Honour project, nine Ashigaru armed with Teppo!

If you would like to read more about Samurai Arquebuses , or teppo, click here:

https://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Teppo

To read about Oda Nobunaga, click here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobunaga

The Commercial bit!

To see the range of Samurai items currently in stock at Arcane Scenery, Click here:

SAMURAI

For Vallejo Paints, click here:

VALLEJO PAINTS

Nearly all of the items in our shop are available post free to most destinations in the world at the time of writing!

The Battle For Papelotte

One way or another, March has been a beast of a month! What with two bouts of snowy weather causing disruption both at home and work, a radiator bursting ( old age not cold…) flooding the bedroom and dining room, a brace and a half of significant Family Birthdays (Father in Laws 80th, Wifes 60th and Granddaughter’s 5th) all topped off with yours truly going down with a nasty dose of man flu, Hobby time has been at a premium.

Despite all of that, the month started with my attendance at the Bingham Napoleonic weekend on 3rd March. I was there with my two gaming buddies , Pete and Andy to run a demo wargame based on the action around Papelotte, Waterloo 1815. The previous year we had run a similar game based on the action at Quatre Bras with some success, so we thought a continuation into the next day would be fun. Andy, who does the organisation & research had decided that the action around Papelotte is very much under represented in favour of the other ‘big’ moments in the battle. I also had a very nice Sarissa Precision model of Papelotte lying unfinished in my garage so it was an excuse to get on with the model for the day!

You can read how I went about finishing the model for the Demo game here:

PAPELOTTE IN PROGRESS

The other attraction of basing a game around Papelotte was that most of the Allied Soldiers fighting there were actually Allies, not British Redcoats, so a force of Nassau, Dutch-Belgium’s and Hanoverian troops would be taking on the might of France. Of course, we didn’t follow the exact script or order of battle. Andy likes to have a bit of ‘what if’ in his battles – it gives us armchair generals something to pontificate about whilst munching our mid morning bacon cobs….

The rest of the blog is a bit picture heavy but should guide you through the battle as it unfolded.

Dutch Jaeger deployed outside of Papelotte.

2nd Nassau were deployed inside the farmhouse – hold at all costs!

French cavalry scout the battlefield

Once the French Cavalry had scouted the area, the French Columns deployed to take the Farm house and capture the ridge, pushing Wellingtons left flank back and preventing him from reinforcing his centre.

The French Advance!

Despite reaching the road running across the ridge, the French advance is held by the Hanoverian Landwehr.

Hannoverian Landwehr hold the line!

At Papelotte farmhouse, the light Jaegers were quickly overcome and the assult of the farmhouse began.

The skirmishers are overcome

Despite taking casualties, the Nassau hold on.

The road was fiercely contested!

The French were very determined!

Meanwhile, the Dutch & Belgian troops had managed to redeploy and march to relieve the pressure on Papelotte.

Dutch – Belgians save the day

Catching the French attackers in the flank, they push them back, and Papelotte is held!

Papelotte is secure!

If Papelotte is secured and with it, the corridor for Prussian reinforcements to arrive, the battle is still in the balance. The French General decides to ignore the farmhouse in favour of a push on the ridge.

Take the ridge!

Advance!

French Pressure begins to win

The determined French attack on the ridge now began to have it’s effect and despite reinforcements, the Hanoverians were pushed back. As yet, there were no signs of the Prussians arriving to help out either. Clearly they had be delayed! Wellington would be forced to shore up his left wing to hold the French back. Would this have made a difference to the overall battle? Well, it was a good time to stop for cakes & coffee and consider the position!

The battle is ours!

And so the battle drew to an end. We had played the game at a very lazy pace although we had few opportunities to talk to visitors – the bad snow fall had meant that visitor numbers to the show were very low. The show had been held on the same day as Hammerhead and despite Hammerhead being cancelled, this seemed to have the effect of dissuading anyone from travelling to Bingham, even though the major roads were open.

It was a shame that the event was so quiet as there were some very interesting speakers and guests on through out the day. Perhaps if you are free next year, you might like to pop along, weather permitting!

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks!

My Christmas present from my wife this year was a two day course at Barwells in Leicester. The topic, ‘How to use an Airbrush’. After over 50 years of modelling and painting, you would have thought that I was familiar with the technique but apart from one failed attempt with a cheap humbrol airbrush and canned air back in the ’80s, I have never been able to get my head around the idea. I have watched others and picked up a bit of knowledge from reading, you tube, and talking to customers and suppliers but the truth is I never use one. It seemed like I didn’t have time to stop using a paint brush and learn a new technique from scratch. I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be of use, now that I have moved from 40K to historical subjects.

To put things into context, I even had bought a complete set up from Expo but it has sat in my garage under the work bench for over two years and the model air colours that I had bought have been used with a standard brush. As an aside – Vallejo model air are very good for brushing!

The opportunity to go on a course and have someone to show me how to use an airbrush seemed to be a good solution. I had seen the Barwells stand at a couple of war games shows and loitered around watching Steve from Barwells demo-ing the products and I mentioned to My wife that perhaps a course would help. As buying Christmas presents for me is difficult, Julie was more than happy with the idea and I was booked in to the ‘Airbrushing for Beginners’ course on the weekend of 24th/25th February.

The course is run by the appropriately named Steve Puffer of Barwells and it is made clear that on day one you don’t need to bring anything but yourself. Everything is supplied, including unlimited coffee and chocolate biscuits, a buffet lunch and of course the Airbrushes and paint!

The set up at Barwells

After a friendly welcome from Steve, the day began with a short informal talk on how an airbush works and it’s component parts. As there are only 6 people on the course, there’s plenty of time for questions and Steve is well able to get around and check how you are doing when it comes to the practical exercises. Steve has spent his career using an airbrush in the car and bike customisation industry, so his knowledge is not only extremely comprehensive but also very practical and down to earth. He quickly dispels the ‘myths and magic’ that sometimes go with this aspect of the hobby and emphasises that the airbrush is just a tool to do a job, not very different to a paint brush and with the same degree of care will give superb results.

With the basic instructions and techniques demonstrated, ( I wont repeat them all here – you will have to go to the course!), we were unleashed with our airbrushes and the practical work started. For me, this was the great benefit of the course. We started by practicing the various ‘airbrush strokes’ on paper. The beauty being that as well as a great set up, we had plenty of time, materials and Steve’s enthusiastic coaching to keep us focused. If I had been at home, I would have lost patience and picked up my paint brush to do some modelling!

Once we were reasonably competent, the next challenge was to paint a Demo piece shown below. We had a picture to follow as a guide, but we were encouraged to use whatever colours we fancied!

Test in progress!

Throughout the day, Steve was on hand to give encouragement as well as share ideas. At the end of the session, we had all produced something that looked a bit like the original but more importantly, we had gained confidence when it came to using the airbrush.

First days work completed – not bad for the first time with an airbrush!

Onto day two, and we had the choice of either bringing our own models to paint or we could use some of the many sample models in the studio to work on. I elected to bring my own as I wanted to see just what I could achieve with an air brush. The day started with a bit more tuition and a fun exercise where we had to see how many colours we could get onto a model in 15 minutes.

Chaos Biker with chaotic colour scheme!

The exercise was of course another clever way of getting us familiar with our new tool and demonstrated just how quickly we could change colours.

It was now down to the serious business of working on the models that we had brought. My main subject was a 1/48th scale Panther made by Blitzkrieg models. I was using the studio colour range but I had help from one of the other course members, Rodger, who knew his German camouflage colours!

I started out with a bit of pre shading, a technique previously covered in one of the ‘coaching sessions’ with Steve.

Pre shading the Panther

The next task was to build the base colour – I perhaps not only underestimated how little I needed to recoat the model but also misjudged how the colour would dry – more patience and experience will sort this!

Base coat on!

The next step was to airbrush on the brown and green camouflage. As you can see, I was perhaps too heavy handed and I should have taken some reference material rather than work from memory!

Camouflage on!

At this point, I would have been reaching for a paint brush to add some detail but Steve wouldn’t allow anyone near a brush! So I went on to paint the rubber road wheels with an airbrush and using another technique that we had learnt, added mud splashes and then ‘dirtied down’ the top areas to represent wear and tear. As usual, I was a bit heavy handed and over enthusiastic but I got the idea. In future less will be more!

Completed Panther

As you can see from the picture above, I also added some basic markings using a mask Supplied by Barwells. As well as painting the Panther, I also had a go at painting a couple of miniatures to see just what could be achieved with an airbrush. The 28mm Prussian Landwehr model was a limited success, the close ups below showing the over spray. That said, for a first attempt, the results show some promise and whilst it would be beyond my skill to complete a figure, it looks as though most of the block painting of the major colours could be achieved.

Close up of Prussian Landwehr

Rear view of airbrushed figure.

The limber horse was also an experiment and I think that there is definitely potential to paint horses using the airbrush as the shading is quite subtle. Once the straps and harness are tidied up, I think the horse will look acceptable.

Airbrushed Horse

Air brushed horse – it looks better on this side!

Finally, the other piece that I took was a Tamiya V-1 rocket that I had quickly put together on the Friday night before I went to Barwells. In this case, I just managed to prime the model but I must comment that using an Airbrush to prime your models is much superior to blasting them with a spray can! The finish was excellent – the only problem was that some of my heavy handed use of the glue showed up!

V-1 primed and ready to paint!

So a busy weekend came to an end and what a productive one it was too! My next challenge is now to re -jig my painting station in the garage to accommodate my new airbrush and to keep using it. There’s no question that it is an ideal way of priming even the smallest of models and of course, spray varnishing them once they are done. Incidentally, using water based paints through an airbrush is quite suitable for indoors work – there were six of us working in the same room without any ill effects and none of the smell that you would get with using a spray can. No more going outside into the garden to prime or varnish my models!

If you are thinking of trying airbrushing for your self, I can heartily recommend that a course at Barwells is well worth the investment. You wont become an expert in two days but you will gain a tremendous amount of experience, and thanks to Steve Puffers enthusiasm and practical knowledge of the subject, I have no doubt that you will become competent enough to start to get the best out of this method of finishing your models.

If you would like to attend a course, you can find all of the details at Barwells Web page here:

BARWELLS BODYWORKS

As well as courses, Barwells have an amazing range of Airbrushes, accessories and spares, as well as the Badger recommended range of paints.

We stock a limited range of Airbrush equipment and accessories as well as a good range of primers, cleaners thinners etc here

AIRBRUSH ACCESSORIES

You can see the range of airbrush ready Vallejo paints and primers here:

Vallejo Airbrush Paints

As always, I hope that you enjoy your modelling as much as I do!

Papelotte in progress

I have committed to helping with a Wargames Demonstration at the ‘Bingham Napoleonic Day’ organised by the writer Peter Youds, who lives in Bingham. We ran a similar demo game at last years event – you can read all about it and the event here:

BATTLE FOR THE CROSSROADS

This year the plan was to run a battle loosely based around the action that took place at Papelotte, Waterloo. As I have found, it’s a very under documented part of the battle, probably because it involved mainly the Belgium, Dutch, Nassau, Hanoverian and of course, Prussian contingent from the Allied side and was somewhat overshadowed by events elsewhere on the battlefield. As an aside, if there is anyone out there that can point me in the right direction of a reasonably priced English language account of this part of the battle, I would be very grateful.

British Light Cavalry deploy behind Papelotte

I had been given a ‘test shot’ model of Papelotte by those very generous people ( Steve and AJ) over at Sarissa precision and it seemed a shame not to get it painted and battlefield ready. The picture above shows the Sarissa show model superbly painted by Gary at March Attack. My first thought was to follow Gary’s colour scheme, Terracotta roof and white washed walls with exposed brick work. Here is my first attempt at painting it.

Papelotte Farm – Under construction!

I have used standard household emulsion to paint the walls and roof – no priming is required, just slap the paint on! I also used the terracotta paint on the ‘exposed’ brickwork and then brushed over with the white. However, I wasn’t happy with the effect. Firstly, it didn’t look as good as Gary’s painting! Secondly, I had seen some versions of the Farm with a Grey slate roof and decided that I would go for this as a finish. So it was off to the bargain arts shop to get some more paint and some big brushes. As a Model shop retailer, it might seem strange not to be pushing ‘proper paints’ but if you are undertaking a project like this, it’s silly to use something like Vallejo to cover large areas. I also find the the ‘coarser nature’ of cheap paints helps with the texture, so that when it comes to weathering or dry drying, the cheap paints are better.

Papelotte,divided into it’s components for painting.

So I simply mixed black & white paint to get a nice grey and repainted the roof. As you can see, the Sarissa model easily breaks down into the seperate buildings to make painting more straight forward. It will also help when it comes to storage or transport.

There’s something not quite right…

The picture above shows Papelotte assembled but there was a problem with the Farm house building on the far left. It had been assembled with the walls in the wrong position. Once again, MDF showed it’s versatility, as I was able to carefully split the walls from the building and re assemble it with out too much drama.

Papelotte assembled with damp course and correct facing for the building.

The building is now assembled correctly, the damp course is painted in black and I have used some artistic licence in painting the stone surrounds on the gates in grey, although modern pictures of Papelotte now show this detail. I’ve also used the same artists paints to dry brush the grey roof and the white to blend the exposed bricks on the walls. At this stage I had left the yard ‘whitewashed’ but then decided that it would be muddied up.

Papelotte with muddied yard.

To create a more used look to the yard, I simply used Vallejo textured paste dabbed straight onto the MDF yard and then painted and dry brushed with my gaming board colour ‘Dehli Bazzar’ emulsion with a small amount of Vallejo iraqi Sand to lighten it. I have also painted the doors German Camouflage Black, a nice dark brown colour.

Another view of the yard at Papelotte

I’ve also added a bit of ‘moss’ – green scatter to parts of the roof and detailed the yard with some Gamers grass tufts and some Javis leaves.

Through the door at Papelotte.

So for now that is as far as I have got. I have done some detailed work in some of the open buildings in the courtyard and added some mud/ straw to the interior using textures past and plant liner that I have cut into small bits but I don’t have photos of this. I’ve also added some Javis climbing weeds to the back of the big barn for a bit more detail and artistic licence. I’ll leave it for now as the next project is to get some Nassau painted ready for the battle but I suspect that I will add a bit more in the way of debris to the yard to make it a bit more battle worn.

I’m a great fan of the Sarissa buildings. They are extremely practical to build, paint and use. If you are looking for a reasonable representation of a building to go onto your wargames table at a great price, I think that you will be pleased with them too.

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

To see the range of Sarissa buildings for Waterloo, including the ‘big three’ Hougomont, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte, click here:

SARISSA OLD EUROPE

VALLEJO PAINTS AND TEXTURES

JAVIS SCENERY & ACCESSORIES

Pauper Paint Job

Having finished assembling the Pauper archers (see last weeks blog) the next job was to paint them. I had an idea of the colour scheme that I would use and decided to ‘batch paint’ all nine in one go. The deadline was to have them completed by this weekend as I have a big Napoleonic project that I has to be completed by the end of February – more on that in future blogs!

So the first task was to prime them with Army painter matt black spray.

Pauper Archers primed and ready for painting

Senzo was put to one side for now – he will get his own special paint job! Next, using a large brush, I dry brushed them with Vallejo Sea Grey to bring out the detail. With hind sight, I should have given them a heavier dry brush, a lesson for the next batch as it not only highlights the black armour but brings out the detail making it easier to paint the models. It also helps to show any imperfections that I had missed before they were sprayed.

Dry brushed models ready for the next stage

The next stage was to paint the face and hands with Dark Flesh and the straw hats were painted with Flat Earth.

Faces and Hats done

Rather than give all the archers the same uniform, I wanted them all to be slightly different. They are supposed to be a ‘rag tag’ band not a cohesive unit. That said, I still wanted them to look similar so when it came to painting the tunics and trousers, I used five different ‘earthy tones’ and using a trick learnt from painting my Dark Age War Bands, applied these colours randomly across the nine figures.

Tunics and Trousers painted

The next picture shows the bows painted using New Wood, The socks, arrow flights and trim on the bows are off white, and the arrow shafts are painted using Old wood. I’ll list all the colours with their numbers at the end of the blog.

Bows, arrows & socks done

The next picture shows a bit more progress. I’ve dry brushed the hats with buff to lighten them & bring out the texture. The straps on the sandals, Katana hilts and detail on the quivers have been painted using German Camouflage Black Brown, the arrow heads and Katana hilts have been painted in natural steel, The katana scabbards have been painted in burnt red. The idea has been to stay away from using any more black than is necessary (the armour and gloves) and to keep to the earthy colours.

Main colours now blocked in

I also gave the figures a thin coat of Army Painter Strong tone and added texture to the bases. The figure are nearly done but I’m not quite happy with the finish yet.

Reinforcements arrive at Papelotte!

I’ve added a simple pattern to the archers tunic, tidied up the arrow flights and painted the base chocolate brown ready for highlighting. The tuft is just to see how it looks before I finish the basing. I was also having problems with the figures being top heavy. Because they all have metal heads there is a tendency for them to be top heavy and to fall over easily. I fixed this by gluing a penny into the base of each model – this also had the effect of increasing the value of my collection!

Weighting the base makes the figures more stable

You can also see from the picture that I have dry brushed the bases and added some green scatter. I’ve also added the bowstrings using the stretch sprue technique outlined in a previous blog here. One further tip. I attach the bow strings using super glue, applied with a cocktail stick. Don’t put the wrong end of the stick into your mouth when manoeuvring the model. Super gluing a cocktail stick to your lips is not a good move and it hurts when you take it off!

I finished off the base using some of the new Gamers Grass spikey bushes. I think that they look great!

bases complete with spikey grass!

And so another unit is finished. If I’m honest, I’m not as pleased with these as some that I have done. The faces are not good – perhaps an ink wash will hide some of the problems and help to blend some clumsy highlights. In truth, I have rushed them over a week, rather than take my time. That all said they make a nice band and once the bases are tidied up and they are in the triple bases supplied, they will look fine on the table.

Nine Pauper Soldiers ready for action!

I now need to paint the leader,Lord Senzo ‘The Thorn’. However, he might just have to wait as I have Papelotte to finish and about 60 Nassau infantry to paint, ready for the end of the month!

The Commercial Bit

Nearly all of the materials that I use are available from the Arcane scenery shop and at the time of writing are supplied post free to most worldwide locations.

here are some of the links:

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP

SAMURAI SECTION OR CATEGORY

VALLEJO PAINTS AND TEXTURES

GAMERS GRASS AND OTHER BASING PRODUCTS

The paints used were as follows. Face & hands; Dark flesh 70927: Hats; Flat Earth 70983, dry brushed in Buff 70976: Trousers and Tunics; 70923 Japanese uniform, 70877 gold brown, 70977 desert yellow, 70821 german cam. beige, 70914 green ochre: Bows, 311 New wood: Quivers, saddle brown 70940: Socks, bow trims, arrow flights, Off white 70820: Arrow shafts, Old Wood 310: Sandals, sword hilts, quiver ties, Germans Cam. Black Brown 70822: Arrow heads natural steel 70864 ( silver highlight), Dry brush on armour, Sea grey 70870: Sword Scabards & patterns 70870 burnt red. I have used army painter inks & Strong tone as described above.

I hope that helps!

Pauper Soldiers

I am gradually working my way through the Test of Honour boxed sets. Having completed all the figures in the Starter Box, Bandits and Brigands and most recently, the Samurai Cavalry, my next project was the Pauper Soldiers set. I very much like the main metal figure, Lord Senzo ‘The Thorn’ although I have to mention that the couple of occasions that I used him in a game, his accuracy with the bow led me to christen him something else – nothing to do with my dice rolling of course… I digress, back to the modelling!

As well as Lord Senzo, the box contains two sprues of ‘Missile ashigaru’, enough to build ten bowmen and musket men. The cards supplied also enable you to field groups or single models of Bowmen or Musket men. I decided that I wanted to build 9 bowmen to go with Senzo. It seemed logical that as he was armed with a bow, his retainers would follow suit. A sort of Japanese version of Robin Hood and his merry men! The tenth model would be used as a musket man but I have plans for fielding a force of Musket men and if they come to fruition, I will post these in a separate blog article.

Lord Senzo ready for priming.

Lord Senzo himself was pretty straight forward to put together as he is essentially a one piece metal moulding. I made a couple of changes though. By carefully cutting an arrow away from one of the plastic arms on the sprue, I was able to add an arrow to his bow. I also wanted to alter the angle at which he was firing, so by adding a small piece of slate to the base, I super glued Senzo to this. as with the other archers that I have made, I will add a bowstring once painting is complete.

Kneeling Archers

The Pauper Soldiers come with a selection of metal heads – some with hats and some with separate hats. I decided that I would leave the ones without hats bareheaded and hang the hats from the belt. I’m not sure whether this was the idea, but I quite like the effect. Two of the kneeling archers are aiming high. It was a case of finding the bow arms that looked about right for this pose and slightly modifying the arrow arm by adding a sliver of sprue to the shoulder to adjust the angle. Any gaps were filled with Vallejo plastic putty, which is easier and faster to use than green stuff for this small job.

Adjusting the angle of the draw!

You can just about make out the inserts in the picture above – it looks messy but cleans up OK! Incidentally, I’ve cheated as you only get two kneeling figures in the set – I had a spare donated by a friend who didn’t build everything in the starter set.

Standing archers

The standing archers are fairly straight forward to put together but I have made some slight modifications. I’ve used the legs that are have feet at right angle to each other and made sure that they are spread as wide as possible. There is no need to fill the slight gap but I did need to flatten the waist area slightly. The middle figure is holding a second arrow, ready to reload quickly! It’s a pose that I have seen in many pictures of Japanese archers. The spare arrow came by carefully cutting it away from the arm on the sprue. I’ve used that arm, now without an arrow, with the man on the far right. The idea is that the arrow has just been fired and when I fit the bow string this should look more obvious. I’ve also tried to tilt the bow down as though the tension has now gone.

Bowmen Reloading

The two bowmen reloading have been made using the left arm that is designed to be used to hold the musket. By simply glueing it so that it is positioned reaching over the shoulder, it looks convincing enough. Of course the other trick is to glue the quiver in place right under the hand! The bowman on the left has had a bit of surgery on his leg to make it look as though he is supporting his body as he leans back to get an arrow. It’s a small modification to cut off the legs and re-join it at an angle. As before, I have used Vallejo plastic putty to fill the gap. If you are not familiar with this product, it is idea for filling gaps in plastic models, dries quickly and is easily sanded and primed. You use it straight for the bottle or tube with no mixing and the drying time is very fast. The final note is that I have again used a piece of slate on the base of the right hand figure to change the angle of his pose.

Running bowman.

The final figure of the ninth bowman is pretty much a straight build except that I have altered the angle of the bow arm to one side and as a result, the arrow is resting on the ‘wrong’ side of the bow. As I’m not an archer, I’m not sure how realistic this is but it makes the pose more dynamic. The other point to note is that I have given him just one sword. This is true for all of the plastic pauper archers that I have made. I had originally thought to leave the swords off but decided that even paupers would have some sort of sword, so I have either given them one of the ‘extra’ short swords from the samurai sprue or simply cut the small sword away from the double Katana that is supplied.

Pauper soldiers, primed and ready for painting.

Here is the finished group, primed and ready for painting. I’m sorry that the picture doesn’t show the detail but it gives you the idea as to how they will look. I have a colour scheme in mind that will hopefully make them look a bit like pauper soldiers – more of a drab scheme than I have used for my other archers. I’ll update you with my progress in a future blog.

The Commercial bit.

If you would like to have a go at building your own Pauper soldier warband, all of the products that I use are available from the Arcane Scenery shop and with the exception of aerosols are supplied post free to most worldwide locations at the time of writing. Here are some links:

SAMURAI AND TEST OF HONOUR CATEGORY

GLUES AND ADHESIVES

FILLERS, INCLUDING VALLEJO PLASTIC PUTTY

BASING MATERIALS INCLUDING SLATE

Samurai Cavalry

If you have been following the Arcane Scenery Facebook page, you will be aware that I have been working on the Test of Honour Mounted Samurai set. In this picture heavy blog post, I’ve pulled most of the pictures together to give a running commentary on how I finished the band. I haven’t detailed all the paint colours but I use Vallejo model colour throughout combined with the Army painter ink wash range.

Mounted Samurai set assembled

You can see that I have assembled the full set before I started to paint them. I already had an idea as to how they would look. It might sound a bit daft, but when working on a project like this I have a sort of story or narrative in my head as to how the warband should look. You will get the idea as the finished warband appears. Just as an aside, I have made a mistake when assembling the horses tails – I’ll leave the reader to figure out what it is but I decided to leave things as they were…

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuuf

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuff

The mounted Samurai set comes with six plastic samurai and their horses plus an extra metal character model, the widow Takeda Naoko, which means that you have a ‘spare’ samurai. I decided to use a spare GW horse and using green stuff, it was a simple job to add some samurai trimming! There were now seven Samurai in the warband.

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naocko

I started the painting with the Widow Takeda Naoko. It’s worth pointing out now, that my research regarding colours is limited to the warlord web site, my pinterest board ( link below) and googling ‘mounted samurai’, so don’t take any of my colours as ‘accurate’. I save all that malarkey for my Napoleonics and just want to have fun painting these models as the mood takes me. In my mind, I decided that a widow should have black armour and I put her on one of the more sedate horses. Her pose is not as dynamic as some that Warlord produce and it looked to me as she was watching over proceedings as her retinue wreaked vengeance!

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naoko complete

The next two models that I painted were the widows immediate bodyguard. In my imagination, she would have two faithful retainers who would put an arrow through anyone that came too close! I also wanted a bit of Hollywood, so one of the archers is firing from a rearing horse.

Samurai mounted archers

To contrast against the Widows horse, I decided to paint these two on matching white horses. I am also using my new favourite red, Vallejo burnt red 70814. The archer on the rearing horse just needed a bit of filling at waist level to get him to sit upright in the saddle.

Samurai Archer on rearing horse

The next picture shows the three models together as I had imagined them. The bowstrings on the archers are made using stretched sprue – its an old modelling technique that I have covered in a previous blog – again, the link is below.

Takeda Naoko and bodyguard.

The next model was the ‘lead’ Samurai in another group of three that would make up the retinue. I planned to have these all in Black Armour with gold trim. The lead model is on a rearing horse and I thought that a light brown horse would look good.

The next samurai in the group

This picture also shows my preferred basing method. I use Vallejo dark earth textured paste and add some small rocks as detail. I then paint the whole thing with Vallejo chocolate brown and dry brush with chocolate brown and Iraqi sand mix. For the rocks, I also added some white to get a brighter finish.

Five mounted samurai in the band.

The basing is finished with some woodland scenic scatter, some Noch flowering tufts and my new favourite thing, Gamers grass long tufts. You can see the fifth Samurai on a brown horse, and in the next picture, the sixth on a similar horse.

Now six Samurai in the warband

It’s not clear but I have added the flags on the back of these three Samurai and using decals, added the Takeda mon to show their allegiance. I also used different colours on the horse decoration as what I hoped would be a subtle way of differentiating the different allegiances in the warband.

The final horse in progress.

I wanted the final or ‘bonus Samurai’ to be different again. With a bit of a nod towards the movies, this one would be all red on a dappled grey horse carrying the Takeda Colours into battle. Perhaps he is the Brother or son of the Widow Takeda Naoko charging to avenge the death of his Father/Brother in law?

Takeda Charge!

I was worried that perhaps I had used too much red so decided that the banner would have to be a different colour – a picture on google helped here.

Takeda banner added

The last couple of pictures show the warband complete.

Takeda Naoko’s warband complete

Takeda Naoko’s warband ride out to seek vengegance!

I started the project on 23 December 2017 and finished just this weekend. Painting these models have given me a great deal of pleasure as I have lost myself in the stories that I have imagined as I painted the models. I’m now looking forward to the battles that they will fight!

Below are some useful links, including links to products in the Arcane Scenery Shop. Remember we post free to most countries in the world.

SAMURAI RANGE

VALLEJO RANGE

ARMY PAINTER INKS

GAMERS GRASS

The joys of Sprue Stretching

MY PINTEREST SAMURAI BOARD

Does Size Matter?

The title, of course, is a cheap shot aimed at getting attention but stems from a serious question from a customer asking if one range of 28mm figures was compatible to another. The answer depends very much on your own standards or personal degree of OCD. I’ll be showing you my thoughts and opinions (never humble – but opinions, nevertheless!) through my own collection of Napoleonic figures. I think the principle will apply to most periods, though.

My collection features at least eight different manufacturers -it’s difficult to see them at this distance.

So first of all, lets establish that we are talking about 28mm figures here. Other sizes are available and again, many of my comments are as relevant to them as 28mm figures, particularly when the ‘scale’ is given in millimetres. So whether 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm or 28mm we are talking about a size of figure NOT a scale. Whatever manufacturers may claim, it is not really sensible to think of scale when it comes to wargames figures. As a side issue, I get a bit twitchy when I am asked what ‘scale’ a model tree is – it is rare that such items are a particular scale but simply a depiction of how a tree might look. But I digress and perhaps I’ll look at scenery in another blog.

What scale is this tree?

Back to wargames figures. They are sculpted and manufactured to a size rather than a scale and for 28mm figures this is supposed to be the height, from feet to eye level of the figure. In theory, this means that all figures will be the same size. Which in scale terms is immediately a nonsense. People come in all shapes and sizes. So where has the idea of scale come from? I think in the main, the issue has grown out of the need to match figures to vehicles and guns, particularly as wargamers moved into the industrial age with their games. In the main, a gun or vehicle would be manufactured to a specific size, so one Sherman tank will be identical in size to another. The ‘hobby’ seems to have fixed on 1/56th scale as the ‘right size’ and there is a growing standardisation in this scale for vehicles. That in turn seems to have fed back into figures and customers seem to be increasingly concerned with a ‘scale’ as opposed to a ‘size’.

Peter Crouch was disappointed that he would not be represented in the Spurs Subbuteo team once again

From my own point of view, so long as the figures are reasonably similar I guess that I am happy to mix and match…up to a point. Different companies use different sculptors for their figures and this leads to both variations in style and size. At the smaller end of the scale Foundry and HaT produce some nice figures in 28mm but Foundry can be smaller – some are closer to 25mm, although not all the range is so…HaT tend to produce plastic figures that look thinner and more to a ‘scale look’ than the ‘chunkier’ metal manufacturers. Sitting nicely in the middle, the main Plastic manufacturers , Perry, Victrix and Warlord are all very similar and certainly compatible with each other to the point that interchanging components is very straight forward when converting. At the top end of the size comes Front Rank and Trent Miniatures. Front Rank and Trent sculpts are simply superb but tend towards 30mm rather than 28mm. So how do they all mix. See for yourself.

I deliberately haven’t captioned this picture but I can tell you that there are Foundry, Perry metals & plastics, Warlord, Victrix, Front Rank and Trent Miniatures all present. If you start to look closely enough you will see differences in style and size but are the differences really that great? They look like a natural line of blokes in uniform…

Line infantry Comparison

This picture shows from right to left, Perry Miniature plastics, Warlord games plastic, Front Rank Metal and Victrix plastic. The most obvious difference is the thicker bayonet on the metal figure.

Light infantry Comparison

I’m actually not sure but I think the models here are Foundry, Front Rank, Trent Miniatures and Perry metal. Yes, there are slight differences but more in style than size and were they not side by side I think that it would be difficult to tell them apart.

Regiment Comparison

Apologies for the poor photograph, but the point here is that if you use the same manufacturer for different units rather than mix them, the difference becomes less obvious, particularly when on the table. This means that I am more than happy to mix and match manufacturers in my collection and army. I tend to produce one unit from a manufacturer rather than do too much mixing within units. That said, when it comes to skirmishers, as they are individually based, I am happy to mix things up and if there is a noticeable height difference, an extra piece of plasticard under the base can level things out.

The Guards line up ready for battle!

The final picture shows figures from at least four different manufacturers on the table. With hind sight, my army would look more cohesive if I had been more consistent with the basing! Unfortunately, I have a tendency to experiment with different products and techniques! The old wargaming adage that ‘faces, bases and flags make a good unit’ is great advice and applies to armies as well. I do have plans, or more accurately, dreams, to standardise all my movement trays and that will go a long way to give a more uniform look to my collection.

So, in the end it is up to you whether you mix things up or stick to just one or two manufacturers. My experience is that the majority of the well known manufacturers produce superb figures that in the main are compatible with each other. I guess that some people have their favourites but I have always been happy to mix and match. Without getting too analytical, I think that different people want different things from their hobby. I know that some collectors and wargamers prefer their figures to be identical and all lined up in the same pose. It’s not for me though. When discussing the subject of all units looking the same in the same pose with my wife, her opinion was that if you had 400 blokes marching down the road together, the chances are that at least one would be scratching his arse or picking his nose….

Happy modelling!

You can see our comprehensive range of 28mm Napoleonic models from many of the manufacturers mentioned above all mixed together here:

28mm NAPOLEONICS

1 … 14 15 16 17 18 … 41

The Commercial Bit!

The Commercial bit and useful links

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