Refurbished 1/300th scale tanks

A couple of months ago I was gifted a huge collection of 1/300th scale tanks by brother, most of which I'd actually painted and some of which I'd owned way back when we were both still at school.

Other than the sheer amazement as to just how dammned many of the blighters there actually were (and being mind-boggled that we managed to even play a single turn either of the old WRG modern rules, or the even more complex and marker-tastic Battlegroup moderns with quite so many AFVs on table..), it was also a challenge to see how easily it would be to upgrade some of them to a full set of CWC Middle Eastern forces.

None of them were based, and more concerningly a significant proportion of them were suffering from some sort of evil metal rot/fungal plague as well.  The internet provided some help, and I ended up buying a large amount of Dettol to act as a paint stripper - and smelling out the house in the process with a rather different, more medicinal small than I usually do (with paint...)!

The end result is four full A4 trays worth of based 1/300th AFVs, and at least as much again that will go for sale to clubmates or on eBay in the new year.

Here are pictures of the Israelis, and also some of the Brits as well:

Israelis and some extras for other forces in the storage tray. This is an A4 plastic paper storage box from Paperchase lined with steel paper for the magnabased AFVs top stick to. 

A layer of bubble wrap will sit on top of them and hold them all in place when the lid is shut, allowing them to be stored upright alongside the rules in a bookcase. 

British command stand

Israeli command stands

British Challenger AFV's, command and Warrior IFV's. 

The basing is magnabased card, with sand glued onto it, stained with Rustins woodstain and then drybrished in pale grey and the old standard of Bleached Bone 

The metal rot!  I guess I could have just left them as-is and used them for FWC ...

Dettol, an old toothbrish head, and a bad smell ... 

M60's post-soaking

 

British recce units

Skytrex (I think) Centurions

Set of three Israeli tanks

The Russian-supplied kit, and a USMC desert-MERDC battlegroup will be posted soon..

Building the Lancastrians in 25mm for ADLG

Following on from the battle reports of the surprisingly effective Lancastrian ADLG army, I thought it might be interesting to share how the army was put together in terms of figures and basing, and the thought behind the list design as well.

Most - but not all - of them are Perry plastics, making this a very cost-effective army to build. There is now a summary of the figures I used,  how the army was designed and was supposed to work (in theory and then in practice) and also some ideas as to how I painted them up on the main website now. If you wish you can buy yourself a set of the whole lot for under £100!

Full details of the figures are on madaxeman.com

Egypt Arise! (well, "rebase" actually..)

After a rather salutary outing with the Myceneans last weekend, and rather than focusing on painting new stuff I took it upon myself this week to rebase a 15mm New Kingdom Egyptian army that I've not used all that much in recent years.

The rebasing now puts them onto ADLG 40x40 bases in the main, using MDF from Warbases. Most of the figures are Gladiator Miniatures, a range which has just been bought by Ian from Fighting 15's  with a few Essex and even Irregular Miniatures thrown in for added variety.

The basing is done with sand, glue, Rustins Wood Stain and some drybrushing - the technique is show in this YouTube video I made a few years ago with the same technique for Saga miniatures.

They may not fight any better, but at least they are now consistently based to match my other "Biblical" armies like the Myceneans

War & Empire Sassanid cataphracts

As well as picking up some Numidians at Britcon from West Wind's war & Empire range I also added a set of 12 of their Sassanid cataphracts to my collection.

OK, I do have lots of cataphracts already, but none which were overtly Sassanid - so a blister pack of a dozen seemed like a good chance to add 3 units to my mostly Legio Heroica ADLG army, and to get some size comparison photos of the W&E cavalry as well.

Here are the full dozen from the blister pack. The pack has (well, mine did have) more riders than horses, with a few officers and standard bearers to include if you want - which of course I chose to do.

Cataphracts are a decent host for a Sub General in ADLG, so the standard and sword-waving chaps in the middle may well be an embedded Sub General with some regularity.

Here are 8 of the W&E guys, with a textbook Essex cataphract unit in the middle of the line.

The proportions are a tad different, with the Essex ones looking bulkier and having stumpier horses but bigger bodies for the men, but they are basically the same height at the end of the day.

This shot has the Legio Heroica Sassanid Asarvan cavalry in the line. Again, not a great match in terms of stature but a decent one in terms of overall height.

The W&E Cataphracts are from their first range of releases, which seem to have fairly slight and short cavalry riders so perhaps later ranges will be a bit chunkier.

Here's the General and standard bearer. I wanted a fairly colourful mix of figures with different types of barding to match the look and feel of my existing Asarvan.

From the rear you can also see they have a fair selection of cloaks, allowing a more irregular look as well.

The size comparison shots for the Numidian foot can be seen here

Improving Some (rather) Old Pikemen

My Classical pikemen date back many years, and are some speed-painted Minifigs figures designed to be shoved together in multiple ranks and viewed from a distance..

Rebasing them from DBx to 40x40mm ADLG bases has given me a chance to tart some of them up a little however.

This has seen some given more colourful uniforms and boldly-painted shields - and others given Veni Vidi Vici shield transfers.

They can all be seen in more detail here

Myceneans

I bought a Mycenean (and Assyrian) army earlier this year in the Museum Miniatures sale (25% off every January!), and after spraying most of them in a flesh-coloured undercoat I finally got round to doing a couple of test bases to see how the planned colour scheme works out. 

With flesh undercoat they are very quick to paint - so they could all be on the table very soon.

I'm a big fan of Museum for the Biblical period, as the slightly over-stylized look and limited number of poses seems to work really well in this theme.