Modelling Tips & Ideas – Page 5 – Steve’s Hobby Blog

Tori Gate

No, it’s not a headline from the Sun Newspaper regarding a scandal in the Conservative party but the first piece of scenery that I have made for Test of Honour. A very straight forward and easy piece to finish, it is the simple Tori Temple Gate from the Sarissa Precision range.

Made from Laser cut MDF, assembly is very simple using PVA glue. Painting is just as straight forward. There seem to be a lot of questions as to how easy is it to paint MDF. The answer is very easy. I just use the same paints (Vallejo) that I use on my miniatures, unless I am painting a large area. In which case, match pots of emulsion from B&Q (other DIY superstores are available) also work very well.

Completed Tori Temple Gate

So, once I had assembled the gate, I sanded down any obvious mis matches on the pieces to get a smooth surface. I left the main gate separate from the base and just sprayed it with Army Painter red. The first coat will bring out any imperfections and it is easy to remove these with another sand over with fine wet & dry paper. Once this was done I just resprayed it a couple more times to build the colour and that was that. I’m not sure if it’s the right shade of red but it will do for me!

As for the base, this was just as easy. I took a fairly large brush and simply dry brushed it, with out priming, in a Dark Grey. I think that I gave it a couple of coats to cover the wood. This technique ensures that the laser etched detail is not covered. I then repeated the dry brushing with a Medium grey and then again with a lighter grey until I was happy with the effect. I picked out the etched cement between the flag stones using a small brush and a watered down pale grey to get the effect shown above. It was a simple but laborious job to follow the pattern.

Tori gate & warriors

So with my first piece of scenery made the next job was to sort out a playing surface. Of course I could use one of my other mats but I have a cunning plan for Test Of Honour. I think that it is an ideal club night game and my intention is to put together a ‘Pick up Set’ where by I can just grab a couple of boxes of Scenery and figures and head off to the club knowing that everything is there, ready to play. The solution to a playing surface can be found at Aldi at the moment if you are quick! For just £6.99 you can get a 1 metre by 2 Metre green Awning mat. Cut it in half and you have two ideal sized mats for Test of Honour, so if you ‘go halves’ with a mate, you pay just £3.50! Here’s mine:

Aldi Mat

OK, it’s not as glamourous as a Cigar Box mat but then at the price…If you look on the Test of Honour Face book page , I’ll post some pictures of how it looks with scenery and figures on it later. If you follow this link, you can see details of the mat online:

ALDI GRASS CARPET

You will also notice from the pictures I have some trees in Blossom. The story behind these is that I picked up a job lot of trees that were being discontinued by a supplier two years ago to sell on the stand at Salute – just £1.99 for a pack of two. Nobody wanted trees in Blossom and these were left over after the show. I decided that they would look nice on my table and here we are two years later and I cant get Blossom trees at such a price to sell for love or money…. They still look nice on my table though!

So if my playing surface and scenery box is taking shape, how am I doing with the figures. As usual for me, painting is slow but I am getting there. I now have six spearmen done.

My war band takes shape.

The basing isn’t really finished – I need to add some grass tufts or even better flowers but I haven’t quite decided on the final scheme. I am also waiting on some decals to add onto the back banners. They are ready for tonight’s game though. Next up, the archers and I will give a bit more information on how I went about painting my war band.

Close up of Spearmen – I’m not sure why they look so happy.

In the meantime, you can see the range of Samurai items that we have in stock, including the superb Sarissa Japanese buildings range, here:

SAMURAI RANGE

Sarissa also make a really nice range of Far East buildings that are also very suitable for more rural settings:

FAR EAST RANGE

If it is paints that you are after:

VALLEJO PAINTS

Basing the 28th North Gloucestershires

Ready to base!

If you have been following the series of blog posts, you will know that from the outset, the aim has been to produce a unit for the Black Powder rules set. So deciding how to base the figures is now a straight forward task. I prefer to base my figures on Renedra plastic 40mm by 40mm bases, four figures to a base. This gives each figure a 20mm ‘frontage’. Other basing configurations can be used – the Perry’s use six figures on a 45mm by 40mm base, each figure having a 15mm frontage. To be fair, this looks more realistic, with your troops standing shoulder to shoulder. However, it would involve painting more figures per battalion and by now, you will know that I prefer to take the easier option.

The other point that I would make concerning basing is that by using a consistent 20mm per figure approach, you can get around the need for multiple basing by using movement trays. In the early days of my change to Napoleonics from Scifi gaming, I based figures individually on 20mm square bases to use them in Sharpe Practice skirmish games. It was easy enough to then change these into battalions by putting them into movement trays when I started to play Black powder.

Ready for basing Sir!

I now base in fours and you can see from the picture above the start of the process. I take the Renedra 40mmm square base and cover it in Vallejo 26218 Darth Earth paste.

Splot! put figure on the base!

Then just push the figure into the paste. I don’t even glue the figures, there’s enough adhesion in the paste to hold them solidly in place when the paste dries. It even is good for metal figures. In the unlikely event that I decided to rebase my collection, it would be a simple task to gently pull the figures from the bases.

Four on a base

As each figure is placed on the base, I use a sculpting tool ( it could be a cocktail stick!) to bring the paste up over the figures base to blend them into the groundwork. You could at this stage, add some other detail to the bases – small rocks, logs etc – on this occasion I’ve kept it simple.

Whilst the bases were drying, I went back to the Grenadier company. I should confess – My OCD had got the better of me and I decided to change the badges on the back of the shakos. They are still slightly oversize but by using a smaller strip of evergreen, I managed to cut some slightly smaller diamonds. It was then a case of using a scalpel to slice off the larger ones and to replace & repaint the badges & any damage to the shakos. I also have decided that I would paint 28 figures for the Battalion. I thought that a full base of four grenadiers (the guys with all white plumes) would look better than just two on their own as they would have the French backpacks. I then would have four figures in the Light company (all green plumes) that I would base seperately to be used as skirmishers. All of this will be clear when you see the finished unit.

French back packs

To make the french back packs it was a simple task to cut the water bottle & cartridge case from a British pack pack and then glue them to the cleaned up French style packs as shown above. I then painted the packs in leather brown with off white patches – everything else was painted as standard. These were then super glued to the Grenadiers and they were finished as per the rest of the unit using the quickshade & rehighlight method described in last weeks blog.

Light company will skirmish!

The picture above shows the four figures from the light company on their seperate bases. The Vallejo paste has dried and I have painted it first with Vallejo chocolate Brown and then highlighted this with a quick dry brush of the chocolate brown with some Iraqi sand added to lighten the top colour.

Green scatter added to the bases

The next stage is to add some green scatter, in this case I have used Woodlands Scenics Green blended turf. I use watered down PVA and apply with a small brush. Then just dunk the base into the scatter, tapping off the excess.

Grenadier Company based

The picture above shows the Grenadier company based but there is one final touch. I like to add some grass tufts to give another layer of detail on the base. I’ve used Gamers grass Dry green tufts and attached them with a dot of super glue.

Rear of Grenadier Company – tufts added

The Command Stands

You will have noticed that the Officers & ensigns have also been painted and added to the unit. The procedure that I use is exactly the same as for the troops but I paint the Drummer & Sapper separately, rather than as part of a batch. The ensigns are carrying flags supplied by GMB, my favourite flag supplier. With the flags and tufts added, the Battalion is now ready to take to the table.

Full battalion in line ready for action!

The Light Company will skirmish!

So another unit is completed and it’s on to the next project. I tend to have a break between Napoleonics so I’ll be painting something a bit different. However, next week, I’ll just explain how I use movement trays and how to split the battalion into two to facilitate a black powder game on a smaller table.

If you would like to have a go at painting your own unit, as I write, we have an offer in the shop. Buy the black powder rules set and get a box of Warlord figures for free. This also includes free postage. For more details Click here:

Special Offers

You can purchase the other products mentioned using the links below:

RENEDRA BASES

VALLEJO TEXTURES AND PAINTS

ALL BASING PRODUCTS INCLUDING GAMERS GRASS TUFTS

WOODLAND SCENICS

Block paint and Quickshade – Batch Painting the 28th

On with the next colour

Having painted the shakos black, it is a straight forward job to paint the plumes in white – I use Vallejo off white 70820. The shako plates are painted with 70801 Brass. Notice that I will have to use these colours again, but the point about the batch paint process is that small progress is better than no progress. It is easy for me to find 10 or 20 minutes to paint the plumes and shako plates rather than block out a whole evening or part of my weekend trying to complete a whole figure or batch of figures. This is why the process works so well for me. Any spare time that I have, I use to paint a couple or more figures in one colour and the Battalion gradually takes shape. I do admire those painters that can sit and gallop through 24 figures in one sitting. However, first of all my back would seize up after a couple of hours, then my eyes will get tired, until finally, I start to make mistakes. So short sharp bursts work for me! It’s not so daunting to work through a battalion in this way, over the course of a week, you will find that the unit moves to completion.

Back to the painting. The next colour is Red 70957 for the jackets and the bottom of the shako plumes. There is a fair degree of discourse that takes place on forums as to what colour or shade British redcoats really were. Without repeating the general thread of this conversation, my view is simply to take a pragmatic approach, they were red. To be fair, the quick shade will darken and dirty this colour to a less garish red, so the effect is about right for my eyes. The other colour the I have used is Iraqi Sand 70819 for the food haversacks. These were usually made from canvass or a strong linen and although they started out as perhaps a paler shade than this, they would have been discoloured from use. If you prefer, you can use off white for these as well.

White lace and yellow facings added

The picture above shows the next stage. When it comes to painting yellow, I always find it very difficult to get a decent coverage and colour. To help overcome this, I first painted the collars and cuffs ( facings) in sand yellow 70916 and then when dry, over painted this with flat yellow 70953, although the vallejo 70915 deep yellow may have been more effective. Next up, the laborious job of painting the belts, lace, collar edging and rifle strap in off white 70820. I prefer the off white as it is a softer white, but if you prefer, you can use 70951 white or the Foundation white 70919 for a brighter finish. The next colour is Natural steel 70864 for the buttons, musket barrel and bayonet. I’ve also added some detail to the muskets and at the same time painted the main buckle plate using Brass. Finally, I’ve painted the water bottle strap in Leather brown 70871. The figures are nearly complete.

Rear view & Flank Company

The picture above shows the rear view of the figures with the brass painted onto Musket sling, bayonet scabbard and rear shako plate. (which keeps looking bigger…see last blog entry!) Note also that the Light Company figures have green plumes and the Grenadiers, which are not pictured, will have all white plumes. If at this stage you think that the painting is a bit messy, bear in mind that the quick shade will cover some of the errors, I will tidy anything too obvious and of course, the pictures tend to magnify errors. On to the backpacks!

Back packs primed in black

As you can see, I have primed the back packs with army painter black spray to save some time. I have also painted the water bottles with Vallejo 70901 Pastel blue, which I think is about right. If it looks too light here, it will darken down with the quickshade.

Back packs completed

To finish the back packs, I used Neutral Grey 70992 for the blankets ( I also used this to tidy any overruns onto the troops trousers), off white for the straps, leather brown for the water bottle straps and miscellaneous pouches and steel for the pan. I suspect that the mess pan is far too clean for being on campaign and should be a smoky black, but it looks nice! You will notice the tidying up that I have done around the white strapping. Once again the quick shade will cover this up.

Ready for action – well quick shading…

I’ve now attached the back packs to the troops using super glue. As we are gluing two painted surfaces together, super glue will be more effective than polystyrene cement. The main painting is now complete. The next stage is to use the army painter quick shade to add depth and definition to the models. Now you could use, either an Army painter ink or another brand – I’ve used the Windsor & Newton Ink in the past to good effect. However, I do like the finish that you get with the Army painter quick shade. I do not ‘dip’ the models as army painter advise, simply paint the model with the quick shade. I prefer the Dark tone, which is a black shade, rather than the dark brown strong tone, although some prefer to use strong tone over red. I know that there are reservations about using this stuff and to be fair I agree with many. The quick shade is too expensive, more because I have yet to completely finish a tin before it starts to ‘skin’ over. This isn’t to do with the seal on the lid but the air that gets trapped as the level in the tin goes down. The tins are simply too big. I have passed my concerns on to Army painter but I cant see them designing a new tin just for me! Having got my gripe out of the way, I have to say that otherwise the product is excellent and does do what it says on the (oversized) tin!

Three stages of quick shade

The picture above shows the effect of quick shade. The first figure is just block painted, the second has been painted with quick shade and the third has had a coat of army painter matt varnish or as they call it anti shine. You can see that the shaded figures look as though there is more depth to them. The Quickshade does ‘dirty down’ the colours and close up this looks messy but in ‘real life’ the effect is quite acceptable.

So to recap, once the figures have been coated with quick shade, leave them to dry for at least 24 hours to harden off properly. Then spray with a good matt varnish. Matt varnish can be very temperamental and I could write a blog just on this subject – just carefully follow the instructions.

Ready to base!

The final part of the painting process is to retouch some of the lighter colours. You can ignore this stage but you will find that if you carefully retouch the most prominent parts of the figure, the effect is well worth the extra effort. For these figures, I have repainted the white cross belts, tip of the shako plume, shoulder tufts and lacing on the cuffs. I have also retouched the yellow facings and finally, painted the bayonets in silver 70997, to make them shine!

The figures are now ready to be based. I will cover this in detail in my next blog. I’ll also show you the Grenadiers with their French backpacks and the completed Battalion.

If you are new to Napoleonics and would like to give it a try, at the time of writing, we have an offer running in the shop. If you buy the set of Black Powder rules, we will add in a free box of figures. we also send post free to most worldwide locatios. Click here for details:

BLACK POWDER OFFER

All of the products mentioned above are also available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY AND MODELS

Down to business – Batch Painting the 28th – Assembly

With the last two blogs explaining the rules choice and the research that I had done, it was time to start work on the unit itself. The figures that I had ready to paint were Warlord Games British Peninsular Infantry. As you can see, they have the stove pipe shakos that the 28th continued to wear at Waterloo. The only slight problem being that the shako plate on the front is incorrect for the 28th. I had two choices, either sand the incorrect plate off and replace it with the correct style plate or ignore the minor difference. I chose the latter. Even as I type this, my OCD reflex is twitching, but to replace all the shako plates was too much work for this project. I would either have to paint on the correct style three piece plate, model it with, say, green stuff, or track down a decal set of some sort. There may even be replacement heads available out there. On this occasion, the simple, albeit incorrect solution won the argument.

When it came to the additional rear shako plate, it was a fairly straight forward job to make these diamond shaped plates by cutting an evergreen strip of 10/000 plasticard into diamonds by simply cutting the strip into small pieces at an angle. With hindsight, I have made these too large and should have used a thinner strip. Once again, my OCD reflex is twitching and I am considering cutting these off and replacing them, even though I have nearly finished painting them! At the moment, I have decided to leave them as they are but it wasn’t until I checked the photos that I realised how big they were. Now, I wanted to be able to see the badges when the figures were on the table and making them oversize would help to show the difference in regiments but maybe I have gone too far….

I could have simply painted the plates on but modelling them gave a crisper edge to the plates than I could have achieved by painting.

28th Assembled and primed

The picture above shows the unit assembled and primed ready for painting. At this stage, I had also modelled the ensigns with Peninsular style Bicorn. However, after some thought, I did revisit the figures and I have now changed these to Stovepipe heads to match the Mont St Jean reference picture. The officer kept his Bicorn – a bit more artistic licence but officers did tend to make their own choices when it came to uniforms. As far as numbers go, I have made the unit 24 figures strong, the standard number for a Black Powder unit. The unit that I am making is a representation of the 28th, not an accurate ‘scaled down’ man to man depiction. As far as the research goes, there were 557 men in the 28th at Waterloo, a somewhat reduced battalion due to the casualties lost fighting at Quatre Bras on the 16th June. Compare this to the 862 men present in the 1/40th and you can see why it becomes impractical in wargaming to start fussing about the numbers. The battalions fought as units, regardless of numbers.

I will use two figures only for the light company on one flank and another two for the Grenadiers in the other flank company. I occasionally use 28 figures for a battalion. 24 for the main body of troops, upgrading the Grenadier company to 3 or 4 figures and a further 4 ‘detached’ figures from the light company are then used as skirmishers out in front of the battalion. So, although 24 figures are currently on the workbench, don’t be surprised if a further 4 appear in the course of these blog articles!

The figures were all assembled using polystyrene glue for the plastics. Polystyrene glue gives a much better bond when gluing plastic to plastic. I only use super glue on the metal officers and command figures – usually the thick expo super glue which has a bit of ‘fill’ to it and again, will give a better bond. I left the back packs off to make painting easier. It also means that I can prime the figures in grey and the back packs in black to save a bit of time when painting. With a grey primer, I wont bother to paint the trousers, just retouch any overruns. I also find it easier to paint over grey than, say, black.

First batch primed and first colours applied

After a quick clean up to remove any obvious flash missed during assembly, I fix the figures to temporary MDF painting bases using blutack and start applying the paint. I use Vallejo paint almost exclusively to paint my models. Vallejo have a huge range of colours, the quality is generally excellent and value for money is about the best you can get. When it comes to the sequence of painting I tend to work from the ‘inside’ of the figure to the ‘outside’. This means that you can save a bit of time – as you paint the figure, you can tidy up any overruns as you go.

I should also declare at this stage that I will be using Army Painter quick shade to finish the figures. So all that I need to do, is to carefully block paint the correct colours. I know that this is not to everyone’s taste and I will cover the use of ‘Quick shade’ and it’s merits in next weeks entry. So the figures above were first painted with Vallejo 70815 flat flesh for the face and hands. Next up, 70950 flat Black, for the shakos, boots and bayonet scabbards and finally, 70872 Chocolate brown for the muskets and Hair. If you are feeling so inclined, you can of course vary the hair colour! However, I tend to paint the lower ranks all the same and just vary the hair colour when it comes to the Officers, Ensigns & drummers for a bit of a change. Until I get a sponsorship deal from L’Oréal, I don’t think that I will worry too much about it….

On with the next colours…those rear plates do look big…

The final picture shows the next step in the batch paint process but I’ll pause there and come back next week to explain what colours I have used and the sequence. I’ll also give my thoughts on why the batch painting process works for me – it might help newcomers to Napoleonics start to climb that painting mountain!

If you would like to purchase any of the products used in this article, they are available from my shop and the links are as follows:

Warlord Games Peninsular Infantry

Vallejo Paint

Glues and Adhesives

MDF BASES

Sable Paint Brushes

Evergreen Plastic Strip

STOP PRESS!

We are running a special offer until the end of April2017. Buy a copy of Black powder and get a free box of Peninsular British Line Infantry just click here:

SPECIAL OFFERS

Researching the Research – Batch painting the 28th Regt.

I mentioned in last weeks blog that as well as deciding on a rules set to work to, it helps to have a theme running through your figure collection. In my case the theme is the British Army at Waterloo. I do not intend to paint every Battalion that was present but I am working towards a decent representation of the units that took part. This means that I have some discipline when it comes to buying and painting units and ensures that I do not go off at a tangent. Well not much…

One of the interesting body of troops that were present at the Battle is the 8th British Brigade of Infantry led by Sir James Kempt. It was part of Pictons 5th Infantry Division and was not only in the thick of the fighting at Waterloo but was heavily engaged at Quatre Bras, two days earlier.

Lady Butlers painting of the 28th at Quatre Bras.

The Brigade is interesting to me because of the mix and variety of troops. It consisted of:

The 28th North Gloucestershire’s; a standard infantry battalion but equipped with stovepipe shakos and with yellow facings.

The 32nd Cornwall Regiment; a standard infantry battalion, Belgic shakos and white facings.

The 79th Cameron Highlanders; a Scottish regiment, green facings and of course, tartan kilts.

Six company’s of the 95th Rifles, the famous Light infantry regiment.

They were supported by the Divisional artillery, including Major Roberts Foot artillery battery of six guns.

I don’t think that you could do much better when choosing a ‘starter’ force for a Black powder army. I have already painted the 32nd Cornwalls – you can read how in these blog entries:

The 32nd ( Cornwall) Regiment of Foot

Soap Opera Painting

The 32nd Foot ready for action

So the next task was to batch paint the 28th North Gloucestershires. As usual, I consulted my favourite research sources, The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin, British Napoleonic Uniforms by C.E. Franklin, Ospreys Wellingtons Infantry by Brian Fosten and the most useful Mont St Jeans Website.

The Pictures on the Mont St Jean site are simply excellent to use as a painting guide:

28th North Gloucestershire Regiment Centre Companys

Now the sharp eyed amongst you will have already spotted a discrepancy. Lady Butler has the 28th in Belgiac Shakos, whereas Mont St Jean shows them in Stovepipes – they both couldn’t be correct, could they? My first thought was that perhaps they were light infantry but I was further puzzled by the red and white standard plumes ( I thought that ‘lights’ had all had green plumes) and Shako plates – no bugle to indicate that they were light infantry. That said, the Shako plates were different to most regiments standard one piece large plate. The plot thickened….

It was time to consult the internet once again and to risk diving into the murky world of forums and social media. Those dangerous habitats of armchair painters and armchair generals, button counters and lace pendants, crusty old buggers of immoveable opinions – you get the picture. In fact even as I typed this blog, I thought that I could hear the sound of caps locks on keyboards clicking on like a chorus of safety catches on AK47s….

They were wearing STOVEPIPES!!!!!

Of course I jest… just a bit. I am actually in awe of the expertise found on the forums and generally this expertise is passed on with good grace and even better, with links back to the primary references. My usual port of call is the TMP, The Miniatures page, and the search facility can reveal some fascinating information from some very knowledgeable people. So what did I find out? Well, it seems as though the 28th had a number of differences from the ‘standard’ infantry battalion. The Shako plate was indeed as shown above and not a one piece item. In addition, there was a small plate on the rear of the Shako, awarded after the battle of Alexandria in Egypt 1801, when the front and rear ranks of the 28th were simultaneously engaged, whereby the soldiers received the order “Front rank stay as you are, rear rank about turn”. The conduct of the regiment won for it the distinction of wearing badges both at the front and at the back of their head-dress.

Bottom picture shows rear cap badge and French style Knapsack

And so to the head dress. It seems that the 28th were still in possession of their Stovepipe shakos at Waterloo, although this is by no means a sure thing. Lady Butler seems to think that they wore belgiac shakos and there is at least one contemporary account that confirms this. However, there are other accounts and sketches that indicate that they definitely had stovepipes and that these were also worn by the Officers. Who knows what is really correct? I tend to go with the idea that the shakos were stovepipes based on what I have read but I am acutely aware that what I am reading is someone else’s edited research. After all said and done though, I am painting a unit to be used on the wargames table not an exhibit in a museum, so I am happy to go with the more interesting option.

28th with Trotter Knapsack….

The other piece of information that I turned up was that the 28th used French Knapsacks rather than the standard British Trotter knapsack. Once again, I have read conflicting evidence. One account claimed that all men in the Battalion had the French version. Another, claimed that it was just the Grenadier company. Both stories seem to come from an account stemming yet again from the Egyptian Campaign. It is said that the 28th ‘liberated’ a French supply depot containing the superior French Knapsacks which they then adopted as their own. It strikes me that the chances of these knapsacks lasting for nearly 15 years in service, with men coming and going, are remote but I have no knowledge of how long a knapsack would last… Finally, just to add to the controversy, I have read that the whole ‘knapsack story’ was made up by a Victorian writer.

What is for sure is that the Battalion is an interesting subject with some good opportunities for some artistic licence in both modelling and painting. I’m happy to incorporate some of these idiosyncrasies into my battalion and I’ll show you my interpretation in my next blog.

O.C.D? – No, just organised.

Good grief! What happened to November? I was supposed to have finished my Portuguese brigade by now. As usual, life has got in the way, and as we approach the ‘Season to be Jolly’ there is less opportunity to sneak off to the garage and get some painting done. I guess the clue to my progress has been in my blog – no pictures of Portuguese in the last few posts. Mind you, I have had some good wargames with my friends and as I will show you, I have nearly finished the complete regiment of the 23rd Portuguese line infantry.

In the meantime, chaos theory has proved it’s existence in my games room (garage) and the amount of stuff lying around is preventing me from actually using my gaming table. Quite how it all got there is a mystery. It was time for a tidy up again. I find that too much clutter is just a distraction. The first task was to get rid of all the sprues with spare bits from the Portuguese Infantry that I haven’t used. I just cannot bring myself to throw away anything that might be of use in a future, as yet, unimagined project, so like most modellers I have a fairly comprehensive ‘bits box’ or rather a collection of bits boxes. They actually date back to the start of my hobby in the 70’s. I kid you not! Here is a picture of one box:

My early bits box – spot the Almark Japanese Infantry figure..

The sharp eye’d amongst you will see crew members from the Airfix Dennis Fire Engine, Old Bill bus, the bits from an Airfix Highlander and some racing car crew, some of whom found life as converted snow speeder crew for a star wars diorama that I built. Part of the fun when building from scratch or converting was to rake through the bits box in search of a piece that you knew would be just right if only you could find it. I decided that some sort of organisation was required. So my sophisticated solution was to put all the little bits into a plastic bag…

My first attempt at organisation – seperate out the small bits!

Even now, it’s fun to look through the heap. Oh look! There’s a frozen Han Solo from the Boba Fett ship that I built. Clearly, there must be a better way. As I re started historical war gaming, I needed a new system for spares. So I treated myself to a set of mini drawers – I now had the height of sophistication in bits boxes. A separate drawer for Dark ages, a drawer for Napoleonic Heads, a drawer for right arms – you get the picture.

The New Bits system!

However, there is still a slight problem. Never mind the space that the drawers started to take up, I have to remember what’s in each drawer and finding the right arm (literally!) is still a faff! And so, I now introduce my latest innovation in the world of bits boxes!

Zip lock bags and post it note technology!

Oh yes, zip lock bags and post it notes are some of my favourite stationery essentials, so why not combine the two and use them to catalogue the spare bits as I cut them from the sprue. As you can see, the hand writing is a bit dodgy, as is the spelling – I meant ‘Barretina’ – but once they are placed in a card index box, I will always be able to locate the bit that I want…..

And so back to the Portuguese. The regiment is taking shape and here is just a quick preview:

23rd Ameida Regiment take shape.

As you can see, I have included a couple of British Officers as part of the command, which I think adds a bit of ‘flavour’ to the regiment and is a fair reflection of the composition of the Portuguese Army in the late Peninsular period. Once the basing is complete, I’ll post some better pictures of the whole regiment. In the meantime I’m off to write some Christmas cards. Bah! Humbug!

Portuguese Men of War.

My attention has been very much on domestic and nursing duties this past week and so my hobby has taken a back seat. That said, I have still found the time to sneak off and get some painting done and so I have made some progress on my latest batch of figures, Napoleonic Portuguese Infantry. As I have mentioned previously, I have painted these for an article that will appear in this months Wargames illustrated, issue 349. If you would like a copy, it will be available, post free from my shop here:

WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED

Wargames Illustrated 349

As you can see from the article, I had painted a full battalion as well as part painting another battalion to show the various steps that make up the process of batch painting these troops.

Painting Portuguese article

The article is entitled, The Perils of Painting Portuguese, not because the figures themselves were difficult to paint but because of the problems that I had in getting good reference materials to confirm the various colours. To find out more you will have to purchase the magazine but I am willing to share some of my references here:

https://uk.pinterest.com/horzawood/portuguese-napoleonic-uniforms/

It’s a link to my pinterest boards and if you are interested in painting some Portuguese infantry, I hope that you will find it useful. If you haven’t come across this site before it is a very useful way of gathering reference material for a project and if you check out the rest of my boards you will have a clue as to what I am interested in painting next!

So back to my work bench and as you can see, I have finished and based the Infantry:

Portuguese Line Infantry

And the command group are nearly finished. They are just awaiting the last touches of paint, a coat of quick shade, matt varnish and then basing!

Command Group still W.I.P.

I’m afraid that the pictures were taken in haste for this blog post – once the battalion is complete I’ll post some better ones! That said, Portuguese infantry may be occupying my work bench for some time to come. The reason being is that I have decided to build the full regiments for both the 11th Penamacor from the Central Division and the 23rd Ameida Regiment which were brigaded together in the Peninsular War. Each regiment consisted of two Battalions, the first battalion carrying the Royal Standard, the second battalion carrying the Regimental flag. So in all, I will need 96 figures, which means that I have another 48 to paint. I have decided that I might as well complete these whilst I am ‘in the groove’ so to speak, rather than come back and of them later. It will also force me to do a bit more research as to which battles they fought in and who they fought alongside.

Portuguese Infantry in movement tray

So there will be plenty to keep me busy as we go into the Autumn and the clocks go back! My target is to have a full brigade of Portuguese, complete with Cacadores as skirmishers and some artillery support. Unless of course I get tempted elsewhere…..

Doing Up The House.

Following the completion of my Irish Warband it was time to move on to a new project. I planned that this would be some scenery for my Saga games and rather than dive into the next pile of miniatures that are waiting on the painting table, I thought that now would be a good time to try my hand at some scenery making. The goal is to have some generic scenery for each period that I am gaming in, so that when I am off to the wargames club, I can just pick up the appropriate boxes and I’m ready for battle. I also thought that having some nice scenery would also improve the look of our games. I dont expect to reach Wargames Illustrated standards but having scenery that is relevant to the game will improve the visual appeal. I have some nice Sarissa Precision Dark Age buildings that I am working on at the moment. Previous blog posts have shown the first of these buildings that I have completed, the A frame Hut, in the background of my Irish figures.

Fiana, Kern and A frame house.

My next building was to be the Timber Framed House J14. I covered the roof in ‘Teddy Bear Fur’ thatch, to match the A Frame hut and then coated the fur in PVA glue to flatten it down and stiffen it up. Teddy Bear Fur is just one way of making roofing for these buildings. Gary, from March Attack, the designer for the range, prefers to use pan scourers as roofing and they look just as good, if not more effective. Other choices include flannel cloth or even coco fibre hanging basket liners. I think that it is a question of taste as they can all look realistic. I went with the teddy bear fur primarily because I had some to use up! I think that it’s worth pointing out that the Sarissa Buildings look very good with just a coat of paint, I just fancied trying a few ideas to pimp them up! So having covered the roof, the next stage was to add the timber framing.

To do this I used some standard matchsticks. I didn’t actually use the headless hobby variety – we do sell these in the shop in bags of 2000 for just £2.99 – but as I was at home, I resorted to a box of Swan Vesta’s that were handy! I used the etching on the building as a guide and cut them to the right length. It is then a simple matter to glue them to the building using PVA glue.

Sarissa Dark Age House j14 with framework added

You need to gently sand down the tops to let the roof fit nicely but it is a relatively simple job to do. Once the frame work was glued into place and dried I used Vallejo Dark Earth Paste to represent the mud or daub filling in the panels. Actually, you can use any of the Vallejo pastes as you will be painting over them At a push Polyfilla or a similar product will do! I used a squared off coffee stirrer to apply the paste, leaving the frame work showing. You can see that I used the stirrer to roughen up the paste to get more of a texture.

Applying the daub!

Once the paste had dried the next stage is to paint the building. I confess that I had made a slight mistake here. It would have made more sense to paint the inside of the building black before assembly or even afterwards, before I started to add the framework. As it is. I forgot and it doesn’t really show.

Dark Age house with daub.

The picture above shows the effect achieved before painting and the picture below show how the building looks from the end with the door.

Dark Age house viewed from the end – note door is left unpainted at this stage.

Once everything was dry, I painted the building with my favourite brown, Vallejo Chocolate Brown, including the door. I then dry brushed everything with a couple of lighter coats, using Iraqi Sand to lighten the brown on the panels of mud. Now, I’m no expert on Dark age buildings, so I wasn’t sure whether to paint the panels in a lighter colour or even whitewash them but I decided that they were best left a dry mud colour – this village hadn’t received a visit from the travelling Dulux Salesman! The next step was to paint the timber framing. I choose a very dark brown. Vallejo German Camouflage Black Brown was a good contrast. I used a light grey to lighten this and then gave the building, in particular, the timber frame, a gentle highlight using the dry brush technique. The final task was to pick out the door hinges with black and to add some black & grey to the smoke hole in the roof.

The finished dark age house, complete with new owner.

The building is now ready for the table and my village now consists of two houses. I have a couple more to finish in a similar style and that should give me a nice little settlement for my Dark Age war bands to fight over! Whilst I was thinking about other scenery that I could use, I remembered that Arcane scenery has it’s own small range of Neolithic monuments. Although not specifically designed for the dark ages, they seem to be useful additions to the table top and will add a bit of atmosphere! Here’s a couple of the pieces:

Neolithic Stone Circle

Neolithic Burial Chamber

If you are interested, the DeeZee scenery range can be found here: DeeZee Scenery

So, my aim of building some new scenery for my wargames has moved forwards. If you would like to undertake a similar project, I would recommend that you visit the March attack site for some very useful Tutorials of how to get the best from the Sarissa Precision MDF buildings. Just a very simple paint job will give superb results as Gary demonstrates in these PDF’s

http://www.marchattack.co.uk/Painting%20Building%201.pdf

http://www.marchattack.co.uk/Painting%20Laser%20Cut%20Terrain.pdf

Yet more Irish!

I have just about completed enough troops for an Irish Saga warband but the OCD part of my personality has taken over and I’ve decided to finish painting the rest of the figures in the Footsore Dark Ages Irish range. I did need to complete a warlord figure and was trying to decide between the Brian Boru set, The Irish warlord and Standard bearer or the Irish Command group. In the end I decided to paint all of them and have done with it! I also have a priest to add in, so there is another eleven figures on the work bench.

Irish Command ready to paint.

As you can see, there is plenty of work to do! With the Standard Bearer block painted and the chain mail dry brushed on the other figures, it will be a couple of weeks before these are table ready. As well as cleaning these figures up ready for painting, I have been busy elsewhere. I mentioned that there were another eight warriors to finish and these are now complete and based. If you read my post last week, you would have noticed that there was something missing from the first unit of warriors – Shields! Well these are now painted and attached and my war band is close to completion.

Irish warriors ready for battle

Here is a view of both units with the Slingers in the back ground.

Irish warriors and Slingers

I’ve kept the shield designs fairly simple for these boys but I am thinking of going with shield transfers for the Lords so that I can give them a more affluent look! I also may resort to a decal for the banners. There’s no doubt that they look superb. My only concern is that in the days of Dark Age Warriors, graphic design and silk screen printing was not a skill set possessed by the local banner maker! So I may rely on my own free hand designs, which, whilst they will be more primitive, may look more appropriate. I suspect that I will use both methods. Perhaps use the decals for the Brian Boru and Irish Command set and my own freehand design for the Saga warlord. The next photograph shows my war band as it is now.

Dark Age Irish Saga war band

You may notice that I have used a slightly different tray for the four Irish Heroes. I’m thinking of using this style of tray in the game. I know that once combat is joined it makes more sense to move your figures individually, but these trays may be useful at the start of the game to make the movement faster & keep unit cohesion. So with 12 Slingers, 16 warriors and 8 Hearth guard armed with Dane Axes, I can comfortable muster a 5 point Saga war band. The additional 4 Hearth guard ( Irish Heroes) that I have painted can either double up as another Hearth Guard unit or as two Curadh and the Warlord. Once the leaders that are on the work bench are complete, I will comfortably have 6 points, more than enough for the average club game. I haven’t forgotten that the Irish are allowed to take war dogs! That is another unit on the back burner though. I have the dogs, I just need to get them converted and painted.

Finally, I mentioned last week that I was working on some scenery. I have another three Sarissa dark age buildings that I am working on. Although not specifically Irish, the idea is that they will represent a small settlement so that I can use them with either my Anglo Danes, Irish or the next Army that I plan to do, Anglo Saxons. I wanted to add to the MDF finish to make them look a bit more well worn, so as with the A frame hut that I have completed, I have added the teddy bear fur roofs. I also intend to add detail to the timber and daub walls and have started to detail the walls. However, my focus has been on painting, so I have not made very much progress. My plan is to complete the figures in the war band and then I will build the scenery. It’s going to be a busy September!

Sarissa Building with roof added and detailing started.

Rules for Old Wargamers with Short Attention Spans!

Having played Black Powder for some years now, our group has been looking for a set of Skirmish rules for the Black powder era that would enable us to game using a limited number of figures. We all have quite large Napoleonic Armies but when it comes to, say, the AWI, French Indian Wars and similar periods, some of us are still playing catch up with painting. So skirmish rules are the way to go. We had been playing Muskets and Tomahawks but in truth, the groups enthusiasm to learn a new set of rules was on the wane. The other issue was that we were playing M&T’s fairly irregularly so the rules just weren’t sticking in our brains….

muskets & tomahawks from Studio Tomahawk.

The first Skirmish game that actually introduced me to the hobby was ‘Sharp Practice’. With the launch of the new version, complete with the cards, this seemed to be the answer to our problems. The Sharp Practice rules set has a depth to it that really encourages you to develop characters and scenarios and provides a ‘rich’ game play ( no pun intended) that develops into a story line of it’s own. Unfortunately, we encountered the same issues. Although we were familiar with the rules mechanism, the lack of experience and consistency meant that we were having to constantly refer back to the rule book to resolve queries. Of course, it didn’t help that half of our group had sort of read the new rules and the other half played in blissful ignorance, happy to do what ever they could get away with!

The group decided that we needed a simple set of rules that would allow us to play a skirmish game on a Thursday evening that would not tax the brain too much and would be something that could be read quickly and absorbed. Step forward, Andy Callan, veteran rules writer, who volunteered to put the two rules sets together and simplify them down to two sides of A4 paper. Andy has been writing rules and war games scenarios for many years. His rules set ‘Loose Files and American Scramble’ appeared in the very first edition of Wargames Illustrated ( why the hell we aren’t using these at the club is another mystery to me…..) and his current joint project with Peter Dennis is the Paper Soldiers rules sets & armies published by Helion Books that I have previewed here

The rules are not an attempt to replace the other two rules sets. In fact, I would suggest that either are a mandatory addition to war gamers collections but Andy’s rule set serves two purposes. Firstly, it is a quick, playable set of rules that will allow you to explore either a Black powder period or campaign without committing to vast numbers of figures. Secondly, the rules are a good introduction to Card driven activation games. Many players are not familiar with this style of play and are more used to the U Go – I Go turn sequence of most rules sets. The card driven rules activate units in a random sequence on either side. This can be frustrating to players that like to implement carefully made ‘chess like’ strategies. However, if you would like a more ‘cinematic’ type of game, with tense stand offs and risky gambles, the card mechanism is one of the best ways to achieve this. If you do like the way Andy’s abridged rules play and would like more detail, including army lists, either of the two rule sets, Muskets & Tomahawks or Sharp Practice are ideal. Once again, I would heartily endorse both!

So if you fancy a go at this style of play, the rules are contained here in a PDF in the link below. Hopefully, if I have the technology working correctly, you should be able to click the link and down load these for free. If you are worried about how to make the cards, there are a couple of simple solutions. First of all, just cut them out of card board – an empty cereal packet will do – remember to write on the blank side though… If you prefer a less ‘Blue Peter’ approach, use an old deck of cards and place stickers on them with the Officers names, and the other miscellaneous card types written on. If you don’t have an old ceck of cards, pop down to the local pound shop and get one. You should be able to pick them up for a pound….. Anyway, I hope that you will give the rules a go and have fun playing them:

SharpTomahawks

An Irish Saga

My output continues to be slow and steady but this week I have made a start on my new Saga Warband, the Irish. I am using the Footsore figures that are available from my shop as I really like the sculpting and the poses of the figures. Even better, Footsore have a ready made 4 point Irish War Band that will form the core of my army. That said, I have decided to add in some Irish Slingers and some other extras so that I can field at least 6 points, possibly more. I have also decided to make some scenery specifically for my Saga games. The ideal outcome of all this will be that I have a Saga ‘kit’ of a couple of boxes containing my army, rules & dice and the scenery that I need to play a game. Well that’s the plan! With this in mind, I have started to ‘pimp up’ some Sarissa Dark Age buildings, well one at the moment. So here is my progress so far. Last week, I showed that I have primed and prepared the Irish Slingers ready for painting. I had also painted the flesh using Vallejo dark flesh. Rather than use my usual method of block painting and quick shade, I thought that I would try a variation and use ink and highlighting to see if I could get a slightly better finish. Unlike my Napoleonic figures, I wanted each figure to look more individual.

Irish Slingers from Footsore primed with leather brown and Flesh added

Having spent so long painting Napoleonic troops where every figure pretty much has the same uniform, I find it quite difficult to paint a batch of figures where they all are clothed differently. I have been tempted to paint them one at a time but this will be an even slower job for me and will waste paint, as I inevitably squeeze far too much out on my pallet! The solution for me is to use a limited range of colours and vary them across the figures. As you can see from the next picture, I have chosen a batch of earthy and drab colours and this is how the figures look once they have been block painted and washed with strong tone Army painter ink.

Irish slingers block painted & ink washed. Colours used in the background.

The next stage is to repaint the colours, leaving the shadows created by the ink and to create highlights by adding a bit of either off white or Iraqi sand to the original colour. I also used normal flat flesh to highlight the skin.

Figures repainted & highlighted

The lighting makes it all look a bit harsh. I hope that this picture shows them in a better light!

Irish Slingers in cover

As you can see these are not properly based yet. I will finish the next six figures and then base the whole group in one go so that they look similar. It is also a chance to correct any obvious errors – the camera is good for spotting these as you can see…. Whilst they wont win any painting competitions, I’m sure that they will be ready for the table soon.

In between painting the Slingers, I have been attempting to add some detail to the sarissa Dark Ages A frame hut. I thought that I would add some teddy bear fur roofing as a start.

teddy bear fur roofing being glued in place.

The first job was to cut the fur to shape using kitchen scissors ( don’t tell the wife!) and then to stick it into place using PVA glue. The clamps are just holding it whilst the glue dries.

Roof coated in glue & primed

The next stage was to coat the teddybear fur in watered down PVA glue, wait for it to dry ( two days!) and then I have sprayed it with Army Painter brown primer ready for a coat of paint. I’m not sure whether to paint the roof grey as this is the actual colour that thatch goes as it weathers or a light brown or straw colour as this is the colour that seems to be used more by modellers. I’ll show you progress in my next post.

Finally, with all of this dark age stuff on the work bench, I did finally find the time to order my flags for the Cornwall regiment that I finished some months ago. The flags are from GMB, my favourite flag supplier and they certainly improve the regiment. Here are the command stands.

32nd Cornwall Regiment now with flags!

British Napoleonic Spare Wheel Wagon

This is a conversion that I actually finished some time ago and whilst I had all the step by step pictures I didn’t get around to writing up the article. A wheel wagon isn’t going to make much of a difference to your army’s firepower but I have been fascinated by the logistics involved in getting a Napoleonic army to battle and a subject like this makes an interesting talking point. I saw the plans in Franklins superb book on British Artillery and thought that it would make a nice project. The only picture I have is from the actual book itself and I hope that showing it here will not offend.

If you dont have this book in your collection I thoroughly recommend it. It is of course available from Amazon and many good military booksellers!

So onto the conversion itself. I used the British gun carriage from the Trent Miniatures range, pack number BA01, the British Light 6pdr and long 3pdr. You will have the barrels left over but these will no doubt come in useful for a future project! You will also need a pack of British wheels from the same range pack number EQ07. There are 8 wheels in the pack, so again, you will have some spares. Both packs are £4.99 each and are available post free from my shop at the moment, so for under a tenner you will have a nice new wagon and lots of spare parts! The wheel wagon itself consists of the carriage and 5 wheels in total:

The main components laid out ready for assembly

You will also need a few scraps of 1/8 inch square balsa, some evergreen plastic rod and some thin evergreen plastic strip. You will use so little of these items that rather than purchase these, a delve into your scrap box may find some bits that can serve instead. If my lack of exact dimensions for these parts is a bit frustrating, it is more to make the point that even Franklin says that the wheel fixings ‘are conjectural’ so feel free modify as you wish.

I used a small piece of balsa and a short length of rod to make the central axle that would hold the two side mounted wheels. A similar piece of balsa and rod was used to make the front axle for the

other spare wheel. Both axle holders were detailed with some thin plasticard strip. The strip is only about 0.25mm thick so is easy to bend and mould around the components. I used super glue for all the construction. It was the easiest way of gluing the various components into place but mind you dont stick your fingers together as I did!

It is then just a question of adding the wheels themselves and the wheel wagon is complete. The next picture shows the main wheels on and the spare ones ready to slide into position. I have also fixed the two equipment boxes that are supplied with the gun carriage into position. As you can see, I have also primed the wagon ready for painting.

At this stage it is easier to paint the wagon before affixing the wheels. I used the British Artillery grey paint from the Foundry range. I then added white to the colour and dry brushed the whole piece to get the highlights and show the texture of the wood. When dry, I picked the metal work out in matt black and used steel to add chips & highlights, particularly on the wheel rims. I also stippled various shades of brown lightly onto the wheels to represent a bit of mud & dirt. The picture below shows the wagon as it would have been attached to a standard artillery Limber. I think that four horses might be more appropriate than six though!

Wheel wagon and Limber

As you can see in the final pictures, I added some wheel caps from small discs of plasticard to fill in the gaps on the ends of the wheels. These are easily made by punching them straight out of a plastic sheet using a button hole punch ‘borrowed’ from the wifes sewing kit! That is it, done. Another wagon to add to my growing collection.

Wheel carriage rear view

Wheel Carriage side view

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Category Archives: Modelling Tips & Ideas