Norman Knights (II)

I painted a unit of 12 Norman Knights during the summer of 2013. The figures were by Black Tree Design, and I was happy with the results. However their shields were pretty drab and the bases had not received their full treatment. This fall I placed an order to Gripping Beast to purchase a pack of their Norman shields and to order some  Little Big Man Studios ' transfers. I think the results speak for themselves. Something now has to be done about William the Bastard's banner.

The Saga Continues ...

This post is about a month overdue. I was the very fortunate winner of a giveaway by Monty Luhmann whose blog, Twin City Gamer is worth talking a look at. He does some fantastic work, and the photo of the Viking Warlord I received is a fine example. The stand is the start of a Saga warband. The rules arrived in the mail two weeks ago and I now have to paint the followers of this fine fellow.

I had previously started to paint a 28mm DBA Viking army, but now I am torn. Do I finish the army, or do I rebase the figures for the warband? The following figures were on unflocked bases and the work on the elements was completed at the same time as the Norman Knights. 

However this was before the idea of a Saga Warband was planted in my head. As well as having another 40-50 Wargames Foundry figures to paint, I also have a stack of RAFM Vikings in my mountain of unpainted lead.

Oriental Blades (2 Packs)

Earlier this past summer, Le Valet d'Coeur a local game store in Montreal had its annual garage sale. I took the opportunity to pick up two boxes of Oriental Blades by eM-4 Miniatures. 

The figures come pre-painted and include a matching 20-sided die for mini. For five bucks, how could I go wrong. I figured I can always use the figures for Bushito by FGU or some other Japanese skirmish game. The only work I did was to do the bases of the figures. A relatively painless job. I added a metal washer to the bottom of each base for weight and to allow them to be stored on a magnetic sheet.

There Be Dragons Part II

I attended Cangames 2014, in Ottawa during the Victoria Day Weekend last May. I hope to post more about the event in upcoming days. However I found a miniature that I've have been on the lookout for ages. That is an inexpensive dragon for 15mm Hordes of the Things.

It has the look of Smaug about him

And this is what I found for $5.00, already painted. It was covered in dust and sitting in a bin of old minis and parts. I think it was something put out by Games Workshop for their Warmaster/Battle of Five Armies games, but I am only guessing. If you can identify the figure, please let me know in the comments.

Tim, see comments below, has identified this miniature. It was originally a Ral Partha product, the Golden Dragon (01-094) and is now available from Iron Wind Metals. They seem to have kept the same product number. It’s a great looking figure and not a GW product at all.

The Captain Returns

It has been a long time since I've posted on my blogs or even painted a figure. My life was in a bit of turmoil, but things have straightened out. After five years of chronic underemployment I now find myself, as an accounting technician, very much in demand. It has been a good year. However the hobby side of my life has suffered, while I searched for steady employment, and then found it.

I will start off with an item that recently arrived in the mail. As some of you may know, the Government of Canada has officially introduced a new bar for the veterans of Bomber Command.  In my opinion this recondition was long overdue.

All Canadian Veterans, regardless of rank, who were awarded the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and served a minimum of one day with Bomber Command are eligible for the Bomber Command Bar. The application for the bar can be found on the Veterans Affairs Canada Website.

My father passed away in 1995 and his medals were donated to the Royal Canadian Legion, Spryfield Branch 152. My plan is to make sure the bar gets added to them on my next trip east.

On the Workbench October 2013

Last month I had the pleasure provided by a visit of a long time friend and his wife to Montreal. It was Olya's first visit to the city and  she seemed to enjoy the experience. While here, Doug wanted to check the limits of his new camera, a Nikon D3200 and took a few photos of some items I had on the workbench. Last night, I received these files and thought I'd post them on the Blog. Unfortunately the work on these miniatures has not advanced beyond the state shown in the photos. 

Cold War Warriors: West German Jagdpanzer Kanone

The Jagdpanzer Kanone 90mm was one of my favorite military vehicles from the 1970s. I like the look both it and the Swedish "S" tank had. Certainly by the mid 1970s the Jagdpanzer Kanone was undergunned and obsolete. I'm unsure of the make and scale of this model, but I suspect it is near 1/48th scale. It was included in a box of assorted items that I picked up one year at Cangames.

WW2 Soviet 57mm AT-Gun ZiS-2 Model 1943

This post about the ZiS-2 57mm AT Gun is an update from August 2009. I was not happy with the previous presentation  of this excellent piece of Soviet equipment and remounted it on a 60mm x 80mm base, so the gun and the crew were both on the same element.

Men In Black: Japanese Ninjas

Long before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones took to the screen, there was rumoured to be a secret organization that dressed in black and utilized special gadgets. The ninjas were covert agents or mercenaries in feudal Japan. Their functions included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and they used specialized equipment to complete these tasks.

According to Wikipedia, "By the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the tradition of the shinobi had become a topic of popular imagination and mystery in Japan. Ninja figured prominently in folklore and legend, and as a result it is often difficult to separate historical fact from myth. Some legendary abilities purported to be in the province of ninja training include invisibility, walking on water, and control over the natural elements. As a consequence, their perception in western popular culture in the 21th century is often based more on such legend and folklore than on the historical spies of the Sengoku (15th-17th Century) period."

I have completed 3 small "hit teams" that can be used in either the Bushito or Daredevil Adventures RPGs by Fantasy Games Unlimited. These were two of my favorite RPG Games. I ran a Daredevil's campaign and my good buddy Harris, ran the Bushito Game for our happy band of tabletop warriors.

Cold War Warriors: 20mm Soviets

This was a project that never got off the ground. Back in the mind 1990s I was visiting Toronto to attend a Rolling Stones Concert and I made a side trip to a game store that I think was located just off Queen Street.

 I picked up a couple of packs of what I think were Platoon 20 Modern (mid 1980s) Soviets. I recently painted and mounted the final figures and applied a wash of Transparent Burnt Umber to them all.

The heavy weapons Pack included the RPG-7, the Sagger AT-3 missle and IMO the star of the Rambo III movie, the Soviet 30mm AGS-17 Plamya Automatic Gernade Launcher. The miniature is a poor presentation of this weapon system.