28mm Kitbashed Thracians - WiP

 One of the back-burner projects I have is a 28mm Hellenistic army - I've been slowly buying the figures over the last year but not really starting it until I have them all in hand (and have finished many other projects first too!).

However... 

...I've been wondering if I can kitbash some Thracians out of the Victrix Peltasts and their Dacian Warriors kit, with the Dacians providing heads, arms - and romphias - and cloaks from some of the excess spares that Adam has collected in building his own proper Dacian army.

I've done a single test base so far, which is yet to have static grass and tufts added, and is also yet to be matt varnished, but is now at a sufficient WiP stage to be worth sharing:

 LBMS "peltast" transfers of course, picking out the more "Thracian" (yeah, right...) ones. If you look carefully you can see that some of the hands are "reversed" where I decided it was perhaps too hard to trim off the wrists and repose left hands to right hands - but you do need to look quite closely indeed!

I'll try and get them finished off and varnished in the next week or so. 

 

Flames of War eBay listings for Clive

One of our club members, Clive McLeod sadly passed away a little while ago, and I'm now one of the people helping his family sort through and dispose of his wargaming collection. 

He had a number of rather nice Flames of War armies, but with not all that much FoW being played at CLWC at the moment I'm now listing a couple of them on eBay now, and will be posting another one later, with all proceeded going back to Clive's family. 

The armies listed at the moment include a rather stunning Free Polish Armoured Division and a large  many-options Hungarian force. In a couple of weeks (possibly after the new FoW book comes out on June 13th) I'll also be listing a brilliantly customized Hungarian Student Defence Brigade army complete with custom-made "comedy" booby-traps - although if you remember seeing it on-table somewhere before and are keen on it please get in touch directly.

The listings can be found here : My eBay Listings 

Here's some photos of the armies:

Hungarian Artillery

Hungarian Hetzers

StuG & Hungarian Infantry

Free Polish Armour

Free Polish Recce

Free Polish Commando's and Recce

Free Polish Shermans

Free Polsih Cromwells

Free Polish Armour

Hungarian Students

Hungarian Student's Booby Traps 

Hungarian Student Armour Support

Hungarian Student Recce / Armoured Cars

The listings can be found here : My eBay Listings 

Chariot Madness

 I'm not even sure how I ended up with these 4 (FOUR???!!) Essex Scythed Chariots - it's a figure/model that many people will own and recognise, and I have had these sat around undercoated yet unpainted for years as I have a couple of more robust chariots from an unknown manufacturer that I use for Scythed Chariots in my Hellenistic armies anyway.

But, with the sun almost shining and a need to make space in the Bisley drawers for some new armies the lead pile has been taking some paints to see if I can turn unpainted projects into eBay fodder - and these are the next in line. 

This guy was painted mostly pale blue, using Talassar Blue Contrast as a final "wash" coat. The scale leather armour is Skeleton Horde over shite undercoat, as are the horses

This one was a base of yellow, with Iyanden Yellow Contrast as a wash  

I'm almost tempted to keep them now - or perhaps I'll do some "wallpaper" for the final two and keep them instead! 

Medieval Apocalypse - in 10mm !

 Listeners to the Podcast may have heard me mention some 10mm Barons wars-type medieval 10mm miniatures a few times, as Ryan from Apocalypse Mini's was kind enough to send me a few samples. 

I've not really got a plan to build a 10mm army, so they have languished a little in the lead pile, but finally I came up with a plan to potentially use them as game counters for some very lightweight Medieval board games which came as part of a Battlegames book about "Knights at War" which I've owned since I was a kid - it probably helped propel me into actual wargaming if I'm honest, so whilst the games are pretty flimsy I have a lot of affection for them even now.

There's a mix of foot spearmen, mounted knights and retainers, all of which I've done in basic Contrast paints and then based up on 15mm rounds - ideal to act as 3D game counters

Not bad at all!     Now... I wonder what other games I can use them for... maybe I need to buy Kingmaker, and then a few more of these figures... aaarrgh!! 

Ottomania!

 Just before Christmas (and the "B" word..) I placed an order with Guiseppe of Legio Heroica in Italy for a number of different figures to round out several armies.

The biggest batch were Ottomans, allowing me to transform my existing 15mm "Generic Arabs" into a convincing-enough Ottoman force - and now a mere 5 months later I've managed to get them finished.

These are from the Siege of Vienna range, but other than a few easily-overlooked pistols in holsters on the commanders figures they look just fine to my untrained eye for the Elite Sipahi's of the Ottoman Medieval army

They will be the two units of Impact Bow Elite cavalry in the army list, whether they do technically have an embedded General or not.

As they were the Elites, I painted the lancer figures up in uniform red. 

These are regular Sipahi - these two units are almost totally unarmoured, so can play as Medium Cavalry if asked.  The main colours are done with GW contrast paints for extra depth and a silky-effect.

The spears on all of these are bristles from a brush-head I bought some months ago, having read about it on wargaming forums for decades but never quite believing it. Trust me, it works and is a lot cheaper than buying spears commercially! 

These are all wearing chainmail, so are Heavy Cavalry in ADLG world. 

From the back you can see the distinctive red and white headgear

There's also a base of LH - I really should have bought a couple more, but some Arab horsemen will just have to turn out for the LH troop I suspect. 

 

ADLGv4 Changes - reviewed on Madaxeman.com

With Version 4 of ADLG now hitting doormats across the globe, Herve (the author) has just published a summary of the main changes between v3 and v4 on the ADLG website.

I've therefore taken the liberty of creating my own commentary on the changes - which you can find on my website here

I'm sure this will generate even more activity on the ADLG Facebook Group - it all seems pretty positive so far!

WW2 Germans - the full set

 More than a year after picking up some new 10mm tanks from Red3 at the PAW show in Plymouth, I've finally finished the daunting project of re-doing my WW2 10mm German forces, all with a coherent, hand-painted 3-tone cammo scheme.  

I've also uploaded all of these to the 10mm Gallery on my website: 

Puma, from Arrowhead - a stunningly detailed multi-part metal kit

Dragon King Tiger, with Arrowhead tank riders. I left their faces un-inked to make them pop a little more at this small scale. 

Arrowhead Tiger 1's - another stunning model

Pendraken Wirbelwind

Pendraken (I think?) Quad AA 

Pithead Diana. I know they were only used in the desert, but I ordered this one by accident and hey, one 'might' have been cobbled together and saved for later...? 

Nashorn from Minifigs. 

Arrowhead StuG with tank riders

Front view. 

Theree StuGs. From left to right, Arrowhead new kit, Pendraken old casting with Arrowhead barrel, Arrowhead now-discontinued one-piece model 

Old & new Arrowhead StuGs

Red3 PzIV  Really clean two piece casting (turret and "the rest")

Arrowhead PzIV with no Shurzen

Butlers Printed Models Steyr truck. A lot of printing lines on these which the cammo just about hides at wargaming distances.

Dragon pre-paint JagdTiger. The barrel melted when I was stripping the old paint job, so I bodged together a rather unappealing substitute.

Arrowhead 88. Something like 2.3 million pieces in this kit - but worth it!

Arrowhead and Pendraken 88's side by side

Pendraken Pak40. Crew could be anyones - I  mixed them up 

Pithead (I think?) 105mm infantry support gun

Slightly enhanced Dragon pre-paint Panther

Spinning StuG

The rest of the Germans are on this blog already

And, finally, a video of these and more photos and turntable clips as well: