The Tlaxcalans are here !

A somewhat epic painting project has now finally reached the "lets spray varnish outside before it gets too cold and damp" phase of completion, much to the delight of vendors of multicoloured grass tufts, as my first Meso-American army finally gets finished off. 

All of the figures (apart from a handful on the baggage element) are from the rather wonderful and characterful range sold by Fighting 15's - who sadly are kinda winding down their business, potentially selling off the moulds and rights at some point in future (we hope!). 

These guys are from the same family as the Egyptians I own, and have bundles of personality baked into the sculpts. They are the sort of figures that really do make you wonder whether 3D modelling and printing, with its ability to make and print out anatomically accurate poses even at 15mm without the constraints of traditional sculpting or even the need to design figures that can be cast in, and removed from, rubber moulds, will ever quite capture the magic of what is very much a work of art rather than a  3D product develped by the technical application of science.

Anyways, I'll be posting pictures of the various troops in batches over the coming weeks, starting with the main body of Warriors.

These guys are a mishmash of different figure codes and are equipped with all sorts of weapons - as you'll see later on, there are some specific, names units who soak up most of the figures I bought with particular or specific weaponry, so these "standard" warriors are a bit of everything that was left.

The painting on these is a mix of contrasts and normal paints, with some of the new Warlord Fanatic  normal paint "triads" of 6 (erm..?) slightly different tones as well. 

The padded armour is white base coat with Aggaros Dunes GW Contrast, with the skin being a couple of applications of GW Contrasct Darkoath Flesh on a white undercoat.

 

The new fanatic paints give great coverage, and choosing some new, bold colours has allowed me to paint these chaps in the bright and vibrant colours you really do want to see on Meso Americans.

The two main sets I bought were a Green one, which ranged from Guardian Green to Ferocious Green, and a Red which ran through from Basilisk Red to Raging Rose - to which I added a few blues and a couple of even lighter colours too to use as highlights.  

These sets of 6 paints are available on Amazon in the UK for a very reasonable £18 each set, with free postage (if you have Prime) - if you buy them through these links (6-part Triads on Amazon) I may even get a small kickback from Amazon's affiliate programme to! 

This set of 6 units all have a big blob of red flowers on their bases to allow me to keep up to 3 commands woth of troops easily identified - or perhaps to say that some of the generic warriors are armed with atl-atl annd others (with different flowers) are not? 

 I didn't use any static grass on these, instead going entirely for grass tufts and flowers to try and create a more unique, jungle sort of vibe to the basing - after all, they will only ever fight alongside a handful of bases of Conquistadores, so they don't need to be all that compatible with my other armies. 

South America Inbound

 Having been a great fan of the Fighting 15's / former Black Hat ranges for ages, I have had a South American army on the to-buy list for a long time - and with the closure of Fighting 15's, and hence the potential loss of these excellent ranges (unless Ian sells them on) I decided now was the moment to invest in a new 15mm army.

Given some of my clubmates already have Aztecs and others, the one that looked a little left-out at CLWC were the Tlaxcallans - and the ADLG list has some interesting options for the list, even without the Cortez alliance so Texcallan / Tlaxcallan it was.

I've actually bought a shed-load of them, giving me all options (and probably more). but as has been my habit of late I've started with just a handful to try and get a feel for how they will paint. 

 I've ended up with a bit of a mix in real paints and Contrasts, starting with Contrast Darkoath Flesh for the flesh parts giving them a darker skin tone than the usual "Flesh" on my European figures.

These all have white loincloths, and a palette of bold intense, real paint colouurs in reds, greens and yellows (plus the odd blue).

The "armour" is a speedpaint though, the ever-reliable Aggaros Dunes, with a drybruch to pick out he texture even more.

The feathers were basecoated yellow, and they I gave them a "wash" of Contrast Yanden Yellow to give them more texture than the rest of the "clothed" parts of the figures. 

For basing I have opted to only use grass tufts and foliage on my usual Rustons Woodstain'ed Builders sand + drybrush basing, as they won't appear alongside any other of my troops (who all have static grass) - aside from a handful of European Spanish of course.

The aim overall was to make them colourful, but with a predominance of red as this was apprently a Tlaxcallan colour. I may go harder on this approach with the basic warriors I think.

This lot are now intended to be Otomi mercenaries/allies, which may or may not be correct as now Fighting 15's have essentially closed their website its gotten rather hard to identify the castings and match them to what they are supposed to be.

Anyway, pretty much all of these guys have obsidian-edged 2 handed weapons, so they will work as a coherent and discrete set of figures compared to the rest. 

Very pleased how they have come out, and this test batch has made me look forward to - rather than dread - painting up the rest of the army.