GF ACW Union

And so it begins...

DS - Agent Nick Lockhart in Sprechenhaltestelle

The contact is late, and Agent Lockhart grows concerned.

The year is 1981. The cold war is in full bloom. In the past eight months, three agents of the Special Intelligence Group have gone missing and two have been found dead in the neutral central European town of Sprechenhaltestelle. Growing concerned over the heating up of the cold war, S.I.G. Director J.J. Hubbard has dispatched Agent Lockhart to investigate the comings and goings on in this mysterious town of intrigue...

Another Copplestone Castings spy this time from the "Top Agents KKBB101 pack."

DS - KGB Spies....

More figures from Copplestone Castings! The item number is "KKBB111 - More KGB Men" from his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang line. The idea behind the figures is spies and agents from the 1960s. I think they really catch the feel of old James Bond films.

DS - Pulp Investigator

This is a character I painted up for a Call of the Cthulhu or pulp game. The model is from Copplestone Castings Gansters line, GN8 "Honest Citizens?" It was Grant's call on colours, (which I think worked out really well) and the idea to do the base as an interior wooden floor.

se twisted defiler on display base

After some success using the fencing material for scenery, I decided to use it to make a base with it. I found a couple of extra marines, got an acrylic rod and some gel media later we have a grusome scene.

DS ACW

The Dale Wardens Civil War order was sent off to Perry Miniatures last week, but I could not wait for the figures to arrive to begin our group's ACW project! I picked up 3 packs of Crusader's Civil War line to start out. The item numbers are RHF 32, 33 and 34. Since most of my forces that I ordered are Confederate, these are going to be painted up as 20 figure Union Army regiment.

The sculpts are very nice, but are a little bit more sleight than Mike Perry's are.

DS Ancients

The painting begins. The centurion was fun,
so he got more done.




Roman Cohort in formation: Still
needs shields and basing flock.

A steely eyed Centurion.

A new Histoical Period for me:
I am part of the Minneapolis Napoleonics Meetup.com group. On the message boards they have an area to post about other periods that people are interested in. Several of the players play Fields of Glory, which is an Ancients set of rules and were discussing it. I have always had an interest in the battles of Ancient Rome, so I pulled out the computer game, "Rome: Total War" to get a healthy dose of Ancient Battles, but it was not enough.

I did a thewarstore.com order and purchased a Warlord Miniatures box of Roman and one of Celts. They produce a line of hard plastic miniatures that look good so I thought I would give them a try. Neal Capitano of thewarstore.com also carries some of the Foundry 3 tone paints, which is difficult line to find in Minnesota, so I picked up 5 new sets to help out my paint collection.

Then it came to waiting for the order to arrive... I began to scour the various Ancients wargaming blogs, and look at the various manufacturors of Ancients minis. On one blog, the writer said that he picked up a good deal on ebay of some used Romans, so I decided to have a look. The above minis are first part of Wargames Foundry - 124 figures set I bought for $140.00 US plus $7.0o shiping.

So far I have been working on them off and on for 2 weeks. They are very close to being completed. The shields still need to be put on, but I don't plan on doing that until I get some waterslide tranfers for the shields. I am also deciding whether or not I want to paint "eyes" on all the rank and file.

One thing I did not do was put the shields on the figures to see how they work out before I painted the figs. If I would have, I could have saved time by not doing the detail on the brass buckles on the front of the figure. When it comes time to glue the Roman shields on the figures, all the work on those parts will be covered up!

The last thing I have to decide is what look is going to be for the flocking of the figures. My idea is something arid, but with a touch of greenery.

Static Grass Trick?

Someone needs to try this out and report back...

Here is a top tip for those of you who use static grass on their bases to make them look more realistic. Once the grass has been applied, and I use PVA for that, put the figures on a plastic tray and leave them on top of the telly overnight.
The static electricity in the telly,(and it doesn't have to be left on, watch that carbon footprint. my [gordon brown]), will charge the grass and make it all stand up, looking much better than some of the sparse limp efforts you see.
Jon Sutherland came up with that gem, and it works a treat.

JR LOTRO Cave Trolls

It has been a while since I posted, but I picked up my brushes this weekend and here's the result. Two new Cave Trolls to support my horde of Moria Goblins:

Game Table - W.I.P.

Work continues on yet another game board. This time I have four individual 2' x 4' board sections that can be combined to create up to a 4' x 8' table. The surface is 3/8" MDF board mounted on a frame of 1" x 2"s. The texture was created by mixing saw dust in with brown paint. I then drybrushed using some old cans of paint I had around the house.