Slate Ridge Mauler

Given the summer, painting and writing up match reports have taken a bit of a back seat to sitting in the garden and drinking imported session IPA whilst grilling chunks of chicken on the bbq.

However, in the midst of all of this excitement, a Malifaux monster, in the shape of the Slate Ridge Mauler has taken to the tabletop.

Mounted on a 50mm round base and pinned to a chip of actual slate (which was surprisingly easy to drill) he and his 4 arms are ready to appear sporadically when I next get in a game and want to try out what is often regarded as an under powered but potentially situationally useful model.

Grrrr!

Gordon Bennett, it's El Sid! 5 more ADLG Reports

ADLG has reinvigorated a whole host of previously little-seen armies and figures, and next up on the rehabilitation trail are some Two Dragons Normans (and dubiously Viking-esque Almughavar morphs) who take part as a Feudal Spanish army in 5 games of 300 point large-army L'Art de la Guerre 15mm action at the 2016 BHGS Challenge.

Marvel at how these brave Norman-esque warriors emerge blinking into the light after so many years with flocked (rather than more modern grass tufted) bases.

Thrill as they double-base themselves to form ADLG units.

Gasp in horror as they still appear to have learnt nothing about tactics and planning despite their years of free time in which to study the classic military manuals.

And chortle with smutty delight as El Sid James provides the General's Commentary in all 5 match reports

Malifaux - the final Arcanist Crew, Colette and the Showgirls!

The 7th, and final, Arcanist crew has been released in plastic, and I've now painted it up. This involved a bit of innovative basing (for me), some cute use of mini magnets and a lot of flesh coloured paint as Colette and the Showgirls take to the stage for the first time!  

See how they were painted, assembled and based in this painting walkthrough 

28mm Perry Longbowmen - with added Stakes!

At Warfare this year I had decided to jump into buying a L'Art de la Guerre army in 28mm, with the typical thought that adding around 5 boxes of multipart plastic self assembly infantry would be an easy way to expand my existing long-unfinished Swiss pikemen into a series of other morphable medieval armies.

That saw a purchase of Perry plastics and then, of course, a spot of the same stuff, largely built and mostly painted but unbased on the bring and buy. So I ended up with twice as much as I needed.

However, it did mean some of them got based up really quickly! I also had the time to play around with making some magnetised stakes, allowing them to be used with or without the stakes.

Instructions on how to do this, more photos, and links to buy the magnets are in this article

15mm Ancients - ADLG resurrects the painting urge..

Having become increasingly enamoured of ADLG, I finally got around to buying and painting up some proper Carthaginian cavalry and elephants recently, have fudged both types with dubious Greek proxies and morphs for pretty much the best part of, erm, mumble mumble years.

The 200 point format of ADLG means you have an army with just 20-25 elements (around 35-40 bases in old DBX/FoG money, with infantry being 2-bases and cavalry, elephants and psiloi being singles), so adding an odd element here or there to an existing army is a simple way to tart it up a bit.
The pictures of both are now included in the 15mm gallery - sadly Corvus Belli are no longer being produced, but I think that Martin at Vexillia still has a handful of the elephants on sale.

Both will be making an appearance this weekend at a 24-player ADLG event at Central London - how long they will appear for in the battle reports is an entirely different question!.

Random dents in the painting pile

Following on from my "shame myself" post about my rather eclectic lead pile, I've actually gotten off of Facebook, Yahoo Groups and every forum going and started painting some stuff again.

The rather random mix of "done" is presented for you here:

Here are a couple of sadly now discontinued elephants from Corvus Belli. My "Greek and Roman" elephants from Essex had gotten a bit aged and sad, and so when these came up at a fire-sale discount a year or so ago I jumped in to pick some up. Their predecessors may well be on sale in the Bring and Buy at Warfare I suspect...

A simple paint job, dry-brushing over black

I also picked up two Carthaginian elephants without howdahs - having never really had any like this before other than the odd one from Xyston, which is now a Generals element

And now for something totally different - a load of baggage and cargo, for obstacles for Malifaux to make my town look a little more lived-in

This is a mix of bits of barricade and luggage from Andy at Ainsty Castings and others. Some are multi-item castings, but at the back I have glued a few individual boxes together as well.

All of these should be clickable as larger photos

On the workbench....

Every now and then I remember that this website is basically a blog (and there is in fact a Blogger version of it was well), so this statement is true in a very literal sense as well), and so perhaps sometimes I should just make some entirely self-indulgent posts about what I'm up to right now.

So, in between updating this site and doing various BHGS things, I also am attempting to finish the following painting pile:

• 2-3 x 28mm Swiss / Landsnecht Kiels for FoGR (including Arquebus "wings")
• Updating some of my 15mm Greek & Cathaginian elephants with new versions for ADLG
• A 28mm Oliver Cromwell (because one can't have too many 28mm Renaissance generals..)
• 8 x 28mm Norman/Christian knights for Saga, plus a priest..
• 2 bases of baggage to go with the Landsnecht Kiels
• A pack of Mainforce 6mm modern British infantry 
• A 15mm PBI WW2 Belgian army which has been stuck at the stage of being based and undercoated for about 8 years... 
• 20-odd bases of 15mm Renaissance American Indians for FoGR
• Another 10 or so bases of Eastern shot in 15mm for FoGR 
• Casualties for the above... 
• Oh, and casualties for the Kiel..
• Boxes and barricades in 28mm for Malifaux
• 20mm WW2 Us Heavy Weapon teams, for CHain of Command or Bolt Action
• 4 x 15mm Scythed Chariots (no idea...) and 4 bases of 15mm Carthaginian Heavy Cavalry
• A full 15mm Scots Renaissance army, to be everything from Covenanters to Jacobites
• Loads of 20mm WW2 Germans, who are based and undercoated in Uniform Grey, but that's about it so far. 
• Some 10mm ACW Union troops that I was donated (I already have far too many..) 
• 5 x Modern Russian 6mm T90's - cheap GHQ in a bring and buy that I couldn't resist
• 2 x 20mm WW2 buildings (MDF) to assemble
• 16 bases of Polish/Russian Renaissance Shotte - undercoated, but now becalmed... 
• A 10mm WW2 landing craft 

and that's all before I start thinking about rebasing stuff for different rulesets, or selling things on eBay..

How on earth I find time to update this website who knows !

Renaissance (ish) Chinese Musketeers for FoGR

This painting project has been hanging around since - I suspect - late 2012 when I think I bought some Lamcashire Games Arab and Chinese musket-armed figures at Warfare. Some of the Arabs were done in time to appear as Maratha infantry at Clevedon 2013 but the Chinese have languished in the painting pile .... until now!

You can click on these images to get a bigger picture:

They are from Lancashire Games Boxer Rebellion range (what with me never being one to go for the obvious morph) and have the twin advantages of being a/ cheap, and b/ definitely not obviously belonging to any actual Renaissance Chinese historical era, which is my excuse for using them as generic musketeers or arquebusiers for any sort of Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian or other army from that FoGR army list book.

In an even more shameless morphing plan, they were painted to match a front rank of Essex Han-era Chinese spearmen, who you can see in the last picture. The Lancashire figures are stylistically very different, and a lot taller... but at wargaming ranges the difference is not too ridiculous. Sort of.

And given that they will only surface sporadically, getting 10 bases of interesting-looking infantry for under £7 is a pretty decent deal in anyone's book.

The real upside would be if someone comes out with a set of rules covering the Boxer Rebellion using DBX basing conventions. When that happens I'll be halfway to starting another period too!

Ironsides crew for Malifaux

Toni Ironsides is the penultimate Arcanist Master to be added to my collection, and the crew box arrived on Saturday and was painted by Sunday lunchtime - you gotta love games where you have a small figure count!

The competed crew can be seen here, with some rather neat "magical aura" effects as well

Reviewing the new "Painting War" series of magazines

One of the nice things about producing a website such as this one is that occasionally nice people send you nice stuff - and this is exactly what happened when Quino Ruiz contacted me via the Madaxeman.com Facebook Page to see if I wanted to road-test a couple of editions of their new magazine (more of that later...) Painting War.

Read what I thought about the first three issues in my comprehensive review

Rasputina and Kaeris

Two more sets of eBay purchases, one of which was (mostly) painted and the other of which I did myself.... see Kaeris and Raspy added to my 3 existing Arcanist Crews for Malifaux!

Lots of photos of the painted models, with details of how I painted them;

Xmas painting session for Malifaux

In between turkey and wine, I have snuck in painting up a few more Malifaux models over the past 2 weeks.

A lot of these are proxies from Black Scorpion.

Guild Guards

A shooter..

Showgirls and a Mannequin

December Acolytes.

Many more on the website 

A few more Malifaux proxies...

If you're going to be a Wild West Exorcist, why stop at just a crossbow... He also has a little of the Billy Bob Thornton character from Fargo about him. Which is probably not a good thing if you are about to be exorcised... 

Joss is only available in a box set where I already have the other figures... so here's a £2 proxy 

Home made mechanical toolbox from two 15mm/6mm drones

Brass Arachnid - another model only available in a box set I own already, scratchbuilt instead from drones.

An edited and cleaned up shot of the Exorcist

In my version of the fluff, Johan is actually a wise old union official... and may even be Kang's father... 

Blokes in hats with guns. 

There are plenty of them out there... Guild Guard anyone..? 

I also now have auction listings for Malifaux figures, scraped off of eBay. Have a look here

More Malifaux Painted goodies

This time its Marcus the Beast Master, and Ramos the man who conjures metal spiders out of scrap

Painted figures include the new plastic Marcus box set, plus some of the older metal figures

The Marcus Crew

Cojo

Rogue Necromacy

Large Steampunk Arachnid

and many more...