Piles of minis!

I have uncovered a mother-lode of old minis!


Some of these minis have not seen the light of day since the change of address BEFORE the last one (over 2 years ago). A lot of these were purchased in the 90's from one of my favorite game stores - Fantastic Games & Toys in Lynnwood, WA, USA. And there is quite a mix of manufacturers represented:

Foundry - a single Great Orc on the left
Harlequin - lots of orcs from their LoTR line which predates the movies by some years
Games Workshop - black orcs, savage orcs, and goblins (and some unfinished Kroot for conversions!)
Old Glory - orcs and HYW crossbowmen
Ral Partha - an ettin, half-giant with huge sword, VOR Growlers
RAFM - Gilla worms, a war turtle
Wizards of the Coast - half-orc assassin, and some gnomes hiding on the right
Grenadier - wolves and giant rats
Mithril - a giant eagle

and more!

Many of these are in sad shape, but a new lick of paint and proper bases will go a long way into rehabilitating them. I have found that I am missing most of the shields for the Harlequin orcs, though.


In the back of the pic above you see some of my Eureka Legion of Ever Present Glory troops. Yes, they are finally nearing completion:


They are mounted on 7/8" steel washers. A little bit of spackle hides the cast bases on the washers. Soon the bases will be painted and flocked - a clear overcoat will finish them off.


One of the neat-o finds in the top pic was a bunch of Old Glory crossbowmen from their Hundred Years War series. The minis shown in the top pic have had their old square bases removed in preparation for new round bases. Since there are so many - 30 (an entire bag) - I am going to divide them up for painting/gaming purposes. Roughly half have chainmail, the other half do not so that is the starting point. Unarmored minis will be more akin to a militia, I'm thinking, and probably will not be painted in a uniform fashion, while the armored minis will be somewhat uniform.

One high point of many OG products is the variety in the sculpts. In the 30 crossbowmen I have, only 6 are the same; the rest vary in one form or another.




Now, many of the stances are similar - I believe this bag had 6 different stances - there are many individual differences, especially in the heads and faces. With all of these minis being utilized for skirmish gaming, the variety is a nice touch.

(BTW, the mini in the bottom pic on the far left seems to be the only one repeated in the entire bag - there are 6 of that pose)


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Navwar, continued...

Unfortunately, I've been distracted and have yet to work with my new Navwar ships - no painting, no pics, and they are still in the bags. I have discovered that I forgot to place Augsberg on the order sheet and instead received one of my alternates - a Wittelbach-class predreadnought. I guess that means that I'll need to place another order, soon!

Navwar order

The ships from Navwar have arrived - faxed the order in last Monday and delivered on Saturday - very fast service! Pics later on...

First set of minis...

I finally have some pics ready to post. Some of these are a bit dodgy - I need to refine my method just a bit of these small ships.

First up, the Germans:


These are the WTJ versions of Prinz Heinrich and Lübeck.



A very close-up overview of Prinz Heinrich.

The WTJ castings are very nice - not much flash, just a small amount there on Prinz Heinrich's fore funnel.


And some Russian ships:


The cruisers Oleg and Bogatyr.

And a close-up:


Nice. I really like the detail on the ship's boats.


And a broadside view. Note the detail on the casemate guns. There is a bit of a mold line along the waterline; some careful filing will take care of that.


Last but not least, Bayan:

Empire Outriders, part 5

Just a little bit of evidence that I actually am making some progress on the Empire project:


This is my first-ever attempt at painting horses, so bear with me.

The plan is to paint the horse, along with some of the tack, in basic colors and then give it a good wash of dark brown. Almost like 'the dip', without the dipping. Then, I will come back and touch up the horse, adding socks and various other marks, and voila - done! Hope so, at least.

I did initially plan to paint the horses in different colors, but the paint I selected is rather ancient and needed a lot of dilution. With a lot of paint on the palette, I just kept on painting... There is a slight variation in the colors, but not much.

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