Painting table January 2023

 Happy New Year everyone!

Well, here is the usual chaos on my table at the moment:

The now-commonplace assortment of genres and scales - fantasy, sci-fi, and historical - 6mm through 28mm.  The pile of 'stuff' in the center is yet more vehicles and now infantry with their bases for BattleTech.  

I continue to be amazed by interest that both of my sons have in BattleTech.  My original thought, when I bought the introductory box set last year, was that I would need to collect all factions for the game, paint them, and cajole my sons to play.  Boy howdy was I wrong, and we are in the process of collecting and painting more mechs, and now 3rd party vehicles and infantry, for the game.

Another popular game amongst my sons is Infinity.  This is a sci-fi skirmish game by Corvus Belli with some of the most finely sculpted and cast 28mm metal miniatures currently in production.  The troops in the middle of the pic above, both unprimed and in shades of red, are part of my collection.

Sci-fi is not the only genre getting attention here, however.  I am beginning to dust off some older historical projects, starting with some Medievals:

These units are for a 14th century Scots army:  Two units of schiltron on the left; and four Highlander units and their leader center and right.  They are not quite complete as their flags have yet to be purchased.  Somehow, these figures, and their unpainted counterparts, missed both the first and second sweep of 'disposals' last year, perhaps because I have a definite fondness for the project, which my lovely wife and I started way back when, and that a fair few were finished.

Here are the next two units, in a less finished state:

Two more schiltrons being sorted.  All of these figures are by Claymore Castings, now available through Antediluvian Miniatures.

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Scots, part 6

 Another addition to the Islemen contingent - these were finished some time ago:

Originally produced by Claymore Castings, now available from Antediluvan.

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Scots, part 5

Finally, some finished figures!  Two elements of Islemen, and one element of Scots schiltron:

These fellows put the Scots army at 20% complete (roughly).  I have two more elements of Islemen waiting along with some more schiltron, then a lot of schiltron, some bow, skirmishers, and dismounted knights to order, and several commander/hero types to fill in the gaps.  Then, after that I need their English opponent...

Slowly but surely, this project is coming together.


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Scots, part 4

More progress:

The tufts have landed!  The tufts are Gamer's Grass brand; I believe that I purchased these from GC Mini.  


After the glue dries - I secured the tufts to the bases with Matt Medium - the last step can be completed and that is to clean up the base edges.  Then, finally, they will be done.


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Scots, part 3

With this post, I bring to you a project that was originally featured on a separate blog that was disbanded long ago.  The posts and pics from the discarded blog are here now, so one could look at previous work on these miniatures by clicking on one of the labels listed on the right or at the end of this post.

Slow, slow progress... the first two stands of Islemen for my medieval project:

These miniatures were originally produced by Claymore Castings, but are now available from Antediluvian Miniatures.  The bases are not quite complete, as I have some tufts waiting to be placed.  From looking at the pics, I can see that I need to work on my skin colors a bit!


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Scots, part 2

There has not been much time here for the painting table recently, with a plethora of other items as distractions and to top it off by feeling a bit under the weather.  I did manage to get some brushtime on the Scots:

The Islemen are slowly getting some attention, and on the right foreground are some knights with their gesso primer.



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Scots, part 1

Purchased these some time ago, but only now just getting around to the pics:

Scots, or more specifically Islemen, from Claymore Castings.  Here are a few more:

The fellow on the right of the bottom pic is a standard bearer, and he is holding a length of brass tubing that I glued in.

I am a little worried about the axes that they are wielding, as they are a bit thin and the pose is energetic.  Wonderful figures despite that.  I have others, but they had been primed black already and black primed figures just do not photograph well.


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Just arrived...

The delivery person left this for me today:

Lion Rampant, the new medieval rules from Dan Mersey, published by Osprey.  I will try and have a good look at the book soon, but two things pop into my mind immediately:

First, I am not too sure about the smallish, perfect-bound format of the rules - I am just a Luddite I suppose!

Second, the urge to get my medieval project on the table again might lead to some unpleasant side effects - orcs versus Scots might be a possibility...


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New books

A few new books occupy my shelves, new to me at least:

The newest one of the lot.  I picked this up on the recommendations of a person posting on The Wargames Website, a new forum/news source that started up recently.  There is an article in WS&S 70 about converting these from Dark Ages to Ancients - from there it should not be too hard to slot them into use for Tékumel battles!


An addition to my small set of Meso-American books:

This should be good for some background reading and illustrations.


And, two interesting prospects for new projects:

The first is an overview of the Punic Wars, and the second details the border conflicts of the Scots.  I see both of these eras as potential gaming projects, although the current CFO - my lovely wife - is most interested in the Scots.  It is kind of a win-win situation for me as either one is great!  This will not see much work until the Meso-American project gains more traction...


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A brief note...

Some time ago, I had started up another blog (!!) concerning some medieval miniatures that I had purchased.  In the thought and hope of simplification, the posts from that blog (only a small amount) are being moved to this one, and the blog deleted.  Thanks to Alan for being the one and only follower over there!  If I ever get that bug again, I will continue the series here.


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Foot troops, part 1

Another set of pics on some of my first purchases:

OT05 Scots Spear

 OT19 Billmen

All of these are from Claymore Castings.  It would not be too much of a stretch to interchange these miniatures, to add variety to your units.

Direction

After a bit of a break, I have re-started work on this project.  But before I flood my hobby table with miniatures, I ought to put some thought into a plan!

First off, I do not intend to use the miniatures for skirmish battles, no matter how tempting it will be to do so.  This means that single basing is out, and element basing is in.

Second, rules.  I have a couple of sets that I think would be suitable.  My preference will lean towards simple and quick sets, suitable to element basing.

Third, a schedule of purchases.  Much of this will revolve around the rules chosen, so as to prevent too much duplication and overstock in miniatures actually needed for the project.  Also important for this aspect will be to have an actual list of units and therefore miniatures, flags, etc. to buy.  I am going to avoid willy-nilly purchases and then try to assemble units afterwards!

The first pics...

And now for some real content:

OT01 Command

This is the first set of command types from Claymore, usable by the Scots and English forces.  One shield, pictured at right, is included in this set.

WP01 Weapon Pack 1

And, for more variety, Claymore offers a Weapons Pack with more bills and shields.

Medieval battles...

As yes, yet another blog!

This one I am hoping to keep strictly history-based, using the awesome miniatures from Claymore Castings as a basis.  Now, the battles might not be historical, but historically plausible.

This will be a slow-boiling pot, as I have other projects on the go but I do hope to give this some attention.

Greetings

Welcome to this, the first post of many for our blog!

We (my girlfriend and I) are going to be sharing our mutual love of gaming with the rest of the blogosphere. I am the miniatures gamer, and she is the MMORPG'er, but we play both genres together. Hopefully we will post not only our thoughts, but also photos and screenshots of our games.

Comments welcome!