Vikings 28mm Wargames Foundry Part I

I'll begin this posting with some light entertainment by the Muppets about our fun loving Norsemen.

While I was painting my Seljuk Turk DBA army I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. Every time I dipped a brush into paint for the 15mm figures, I would use the same brush and colour on a larger scale figure. I looked around and saw that I had a clear plastic storage box with a collection of Wargames Foundry Viking figures already cleaned and primed. I won them on eBay about 5 years ago.  In total there are about 80 Figures and I thought that I would work on a quarter of them at a time.

Six Elements of 4 Blade

1 Element of 3 Aux (ulfhedinn)

2 Elements of 3 Blade/Aux

Since I prime my minis usually with 4 or 5 foot 28mm figures on a craft stick at a time I figures that this was more a more sensible approach then trying to paint 80 large figures at once. My attention does wonder, especially in summer. Like much of the northern hemisphere in Montreal we experience our first real heat wave of the summer. With the humidix the temperature was in the mid-40s C most of a week. It’s hard to paint in that type of environment.

Possible Choices for General (4 man Blade)

1 Element Bow, 1 x 2Ps (Scouts)

Recently I was checking out the troop types needed for a Viking army due to my recent 2nd place finish at Cangames and the resulting prize. The 80 Foundry figures should provide enough figures for a DBA Viking Army. The Foundry Figures are just too chunky to base on the standard 20mm deep element. So this army will be fielded with Blades with a 30mm depth

Painting Totals for the Month of July

39 x 28mm Vikings

43 x 25mm Colonial Gunners

1 x Siege Engine

18 x 15mm Seljuk Turk Cavalry

18 x 15mm Seljuk Turk Infantry

Some Other Odds and Ends that were also Painted

1 x 15mm Baueda Wargames Tent

7 x 15mm Essex Medieval Cavalry (Came with the tent)

1 Element 4Kn (Eastern)

1 x 3 Cv (General)

6 x 28mm Medieval Cavalry (Mix Revenge/Black Tree Designs)

A Couple of Young Rakes Showing Off the Lastest Style of German Armour

DBA Army III/73 A: Seljuk Turk 1073-1276 AD

I purchased this army from David at Crossed Swords while at Cangames in May 2012. My intention was to be able to field a matched pair with the Nikaian Byzantine (IV/31) army that I already owed.  It was my hope to have it ready for this year’s Cangames DBA tournament but it sat on my worktable only at the undercoat stage. It became my initial project for July. Other than needing to finish the bases, it is done and I am happy with the results. 

DBA Army: The Sultanate of Rum (Steppe Ag 3)

The Seljuk Turks have two options available to them and I purchased the "A" Rum option. The Sultanate of Rum was a medieval Turko-Persian, Sunni Muslim state in Anatolia, It existed as a state from 1077 to 1307.

1 x 3Cv (Gen), 1 x 3Cv, 1 x 3Kn, 6 x 2Lh, 1x 4Sp, 1x 3/4Bw or 2 Ps, 1 x 2Ps or 3 Bw or 3 Aux

1 x 3 Kn (Armenian and Georgian vassals)

1 x 3 Bw/ 1 x 4Bw

1 x 4 Sp

2 x 2P

1x 3Cv (General)

1 x 3 Cv (The emirs of Anatolia)

1 x 3 Aux

6 x 2Lh (Mounted Seljuk and Turkoman tribesmen)

Soldiers of the Queen: Royal Artillery Part II

I was torn between blogging about the Soldiers of the Queen or adding another entry of Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts. Ross Mac, a fellow gamer and all round good chap sent some Ral Partha Colonial Artillery crewmen my way. It came up in an email discussion about what we were looking for.

The Field Force's Original Gunners

When I purchased my original colonial army it came with quite a few guns but almost no crews. I trolled eBay for a couple of months without success before purchasing three packages of Wargames Foundry British Colonial Crewmen, not realizing how grossly out of scale they would be compared to the older 25mm Ral Partha equipment. (See my original posting)

Gift from Ross Mac

With the figures Ross provided and another eBay win I had close to 43 (4 Indian, 10 Egyptian and 29 British)  crewmen to paint. I utilized a dark blue (Valleja 70930) over a black undercoat for the Imperials. It gave me the look I was aiming for without ant hassles. I now have to make a decision on how best to display these figures. Do I mount them on individual bases or do I glue them to the bases that already have the Guns Mounted? It would not be a problem for me to use casualty markers.

Egyptian Gunners: An eBay Win

Reaper Madness

What were you ladies and gentlemen smoking? I can see Kickstarter is a fantastic way for a company to raise capital for a line of products. But to turn a $30K request into almost $3.5M investment is madness, simply madness. Damn I wish it was my idea.

I hope that all that partook in the kool-aid are happy with the results. No doubt, those of you at the Vampire Pledge level will be very smug with your box of figures. From the looks of it you have everything you can run into on a Dungeon crawl except the kitchen sink.

25mm HOTT Dragon (15mm Figure for Scale)

All joking aside, I think the “Bones” approach that Reaper is using to make the RPG figures accessible to the younger crowd (or those cash conscious individuals) at a reasonable price is great.

 I obtained two of the figures. A buddy of mine went at the $100 pledge level and qualified for the additional options. Through him I was able to snag the “There be Dragons” for $15. 

15mm HOTT Dragon (15mm Figure for Scale)

I will be mounting these for HOTT, one for 15mm Scale and the other for 25mm Scale games. I admit that I am curious in how long a paint job will actually last on these polymer models. I was very pleased to see how easy it was to glue these figures to a base.

Be it resolved…Jyn of Death

Last month I vowed to myself that I would paint more miniatures and write about it at least once a week. I now find myself standing on the brink of August without having contributed a single word to this Blog. I managed to keep the first promise to myself, having worked on a number of projects in no particular order. 

This week I started to read The Terror, The Shadow of the Guillotine: France 1792-1794 by Graeme Fife. In the text there is a discussion on the development of a killing machine and the Halifax Gibbet. 

"The Halifax Gibbet Law condemned anyone who stole goods above the value of 13 and 1/2 pence in the liberty of Halifax to be beheaded on the gibbet on a  market day on a hill outside of town. " It ceased operation in 1650.

"At Halifax, the Law so sharpe doth deale,
That whoso more than thirteen pence doth steale,
They have a jyn [engine] that wondrous quicke and well
Sends Thieves all headless unto Heav'n or Hell".

                                    

                                          John Taylor, Works (1630)

What does this have to do with my Blog?

I may live in Montreal, but I am from Halifax, Nova Scotia (not the original Halifax of the above tale) and it reminded me that I had my own Engine of Death and Destruction requiring a paint job. 

Games Workshop Trebuchet Cataput Mounted on 60mm x 80mm Base

The model is a Games Workshop piece I picked up in a delete bin a few years ago and it came with a few goblins to act as crew. I plan to add this to my Undead HOTT (15mm on 60mm Bases) Army, of which I have  blogged about in previous posts. My next step is to obtain a crew. I will be placing an order to Irregular Miniatures for some skeleton artillery crew for this purpose.

I really like how the heavy counterweight stone has a face craved into it. With a brown wash I tried to bring out the craved features including the sunk-in eyes, the lower lip and the fangs. I think it looks like it was craved with some Goblin War God in mind.