Too Much Lead

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Oh hey there, did you miss me? No.... Cool.

If you don't visit Instagram, here's some of what I have been up to.  The intention was to keep the blog for things that require a bit more depth, but to be honest, I never sit down and write those things up at the minute anyway!

So here's the round up of Historical/quasi-historical miniatures from the last few months:

Two more 15mm Bavarian Battalions; IIRC 3rd & 4th fusiliers

Col. Adam Muir of the 41st; Upper Canada 1812

Imagi-Nations Gebrovian Regiment.  15mm Warrior Miniatures

US infantry platoon.  Italy 1943-44.  mixed 20mm.

The Stuart is a rescue of one of a pair I've owned since childhood!

Stug III G.  PSC kit in 1/72 with full treatment of techniques!

So having got the Biblical stuff put to one side, I went off and blasted out some uniformed troops and added to the WW2 collection from mostly the leftovers pile.

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I knocked out some additional forces for my WW2 Germans, after an actual game, in which it became apparent they were actually too well provisioned with anti-tank support, and needed something on roll that was weaker!  I also took the excuse to get a Horsch Car kit from PSC and have a play around with it.

Pak 36

MG42 and cobbled together crew

I think these are some of the last Valiant German Infantry in the old moulds that I have.  The new in scale models are probably better but their price-point isn't.  The Pak is one of the Zvezda Art of Tactic pieces, and although more early-mid war, its a nice crisp piece, that will sit well with my 2nd line infantry regiment.  Lastly the Car features my now standard weathering approaches, using oils, pigment powders and wet effects.

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Pumping out the WW2 at the minute.  The latest batch have been done a week or so, but I kept forgetting to add them on here.  Early War Germans in 20mm:

Everything

Check the listing here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333703628720 

These are classic Airfix miniatures, and I think the largely stand up very well, if a little smaller than most modern makes.

Command

A section (one of three)

These represent a Full platoon (with some losses) circa 1940-42, or a full strength Platoon from late 42 to 1943.  Alternatively they would work well as a second line or fortification unit into 1944.

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Sometimes we get a chance to have a second chance at life; I know I certainly have, and well, things would be very different had I not.  But let's keep it light, eh?  In this case I'm talking about figure painting.  

With my German WW2 forces of a more than usable size now, I took the time to look at my Americans, and found them a bit light on infantry.  Or rather, many of those I had left were in a pretty sorry state.  

Rebased but otherwise unmodified from 30+ years ago.

Lovely!

Going through the plastic rubble, I found many models I didn't need myself, that would still be fun to paint and do something with, but not keep.  And so up online for sale now are the following:

Sicilian Normans of the 1st Crusade

Milites

Spearmen unit 1

Sicilian Muslim Bowmen

This lot were mostly 28mm Conquest Games miniatures left over from my Feudals project, but I also bought in a dozen more to make a viable force.  Fun to paint, but it's not an army I had any plans on making so for the time being they are a selling project to fund other whims.

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You may have seen 4D models floating around the internet, and some of them are pretty terrible.  The tracked vehicles bear only a passing resemblance to tanks.  But the couple of trucks they do are pretty good.  I picked one up for a couple of quid from China to fill a niche in my WW2 Germans at a modest outlay, and to see if the kit was any good:

You're lucky if you get a box, to be fair.

Text:  'Smoking Forbidden'

So as you might know from prior models in my WW2 German project, a lot of detailing was done here.  Broadly speaking; Airbrush, oil paint filter surface, add hand painted lettering, tires, oil panel line wash, chipping, rust - including full exhaust system, dust, mud splatters, fresh mud, silt stains, fresh water marks.  Yeah, something like that.  Oh and the base was done separately, the interior was painted before fitting and the windows were custom made to replace the clunky fish tank in the kit.

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TML towers has been highly productive during lock down, one of the projects undertaken has been the rejuvenation of some sad looking old armies, I painted some 25 years ago!

My 20mm Romans and Celts were the first armies I created when I returned to wargaming after university.  They held a fond place in my memories, but to be perfectly honest, they did not look terribly great:

As was...

Based on cheap card, with rather basic flock, no undercoat, no shading, no varnish.  There were a lot of rookie errors here and the motley selection of Aifix, Revell, Italieri and Hat miniatures - gathered over about 6 or so years - had suffered further from being crammed too close together (both on their bases, and in file boxes in layers).

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Who enjoys re-basing miniatures?  You do?!  Get out, ya' weirdo!

Seriously, it must rank universally lowly on hobbyists ladder of preferred activities.  I've always found re-basing miniatures to be an awful job.  And the project to reanimate two tired old ancients armies I'd hung on to is absolutely a case in point.

If it wasn't for the lock-down I doubt I would have got round to this job, and it is still a long way from finished, but the absolute worst part of the task is past now:

Five file boxes in total, 59 bases if I remember correctly.  Some four hours of jabbing a paintbrush covered in PVA into every orifice, attempting to cover as much of the old flock as possible.  On the face of it it didn't take that long, but it isn't the sort of job one enjoys, although there is plenty of satisfaction to finishing it.

Of course there's a fair bit of work to go yet.

Tatty lads

It should be obvious in the image above that some of these chaps need some TLC.  Whilst the Revell, HaT and Italieri sculpts in the armies are in reasonable condition, the Airfix models look pretty sad.  They are thin and glossy plastic of a very old formulation, and hold paint very badly.  All these figures are painted in Enamel (with no undercoat either - it was when I was very new to painting!), and it simply hasn't survived the flexing.  Something acrylic paint should be better at, so long as it adheres!

Whilst I am not going to do a full repaint, I will fix up the weapons, helmets and limbs that seem to have suffered the worst.  The big unit bases will make it impossible to get to everything, but they should also hide some of the sins, especially after the subsequent stages I intend, and offer more protection in handling.

That's all for now.

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Easter came and went, lets just say it was, quiet.

I bet yours was too.

The last two weeks were very weird from a work standpoint, as well as a living position.  But the lack of a commute and the extra free time as a result did mean I got a lot of hobby time done.

So in no particular order:

Stan for Scale

Well over a Kilo

 So first up is a Grand Manner Church; another generous donation from James S.  Well worth the effort this hefty model needed.  This model is as far as I can tell, no longer in production, but the painted replacement currently sells for £180!!

Next are some additions to the Imagi-Nations 15mm project:

Hussar!

 Another unit of Hussars, and a light Horse Limber; all from Warrior Miniatures of course.  The limber is from their Gallia 19th century range but it will suffice at a pass, at the less than a pound that it cost.

Next some fantasy:

Reaper miniatures

 These are newer Kobolds from the Bones range, to add variety to my Dragon Rampant army, enough for a single unit themselves, I think they will be best blended in.  The details are finer but the models softer too.  I think I like the older models more, but these are still great additions.

Back to terrain:

I've picked up some OO/HO railway pieces for use in WW2 games mainly.  The most important bit to get done was the track.  Here are just over 6 feet of track.  I toyed with using ballast as railway modellers would, but in the end, I opted for painted texture instead.  I think this actually looks really good.