Match Reports of The Dutch at Campaign 2014

In a report spanning 5 pages and almost 10,000 words, you can revel in the exploits of possibly the blandest army ever to take the field on this website, the Dutch (of the 80 Years War - no, me neither) as they duplicate their World Cup heroics and take on a limited themed pool of other similar but generally better armies in a competition in which the last army to be used was the decidedly non-dull Pirates.

Have a look at whether lots of average troops can actually take on lots of Superior ones - and be amazed at how infrequently a 35 point ship can feature in 5 consecutive battle reports.

Wake up and Smell the Edam !!

King of the Scots!

With the 15mm Scots army still some way off completion, I decided to give them a 28mm Great Commander anyway, and see if this would inspire me to wade into the massed painting of kilts and sporrans needed to turn the 15mm lead pile into an army.

This chap was the result, from Front Rank Miniatures Jacobite ranges. His left eye has gone a bit skew-wiff, which I only noticed on these closeups and will need to fix, but apart from that I'm quite pleased with the wee fellah. The tartan is painted using my not-so-secret Tartan painting tips.

Arabs! For Saga!

I'm currently painting up some Griping Beast Arabs to make up an as-yet indeterminate Saga force. After undercoating the whole lot in white spray paint, a couple have been rushed to "finished" status to spur me on.

You may also spot a few North Star Berbers in there too for added variety. The Gripping Beast ones go together pretty easily, but need careful application of filler to hide the joins at the shoulders I've found so far. More pics to come as they progress further... 

15mm PSC Infantry being painted

I bought a box of Plastic Soldier Company's new re-tooled WW2 British in 15mm recently. The box is excellent value, with three full platoons of figures, including light support weapons all in one box - almost 150 figures!

I decided to paint them up "on the sprue" as an experiment - and here is a full walk-through of that process, showing the paints I used and some photo's of the finished articles as well :

By Fire & Sword Ottoman and Polish Commanders

At Salute 2014 I picked up a lot of stuff I didn't really need - but this sort of fell into the "might be able to justify" category - commander packs from Fire & Sword for Poles & Ottomans.

Admittedly it was as much about seeing what these figures looked like in the flesh as any real need to add more generals to these two underpowered FoGR armies, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much "stuff" each pack comprises. 6 Generals/officers/Musicians, wire spears (pretty long...) which are the pointed type, plastic bases (for By Fire & Sword rules I guess) and some nice high resolution flags on good quality paper.

The figures are now undercoated and added to the painting queue - from first impressions they are a bit lanky and the horses are the same, but the detail is very good if a little fine compared to some of my other figures. Pictures to follow when they are done (don't hold your breath..)

Match Reports from Oxford 2014

The wild and breechless Scots Royalists are coming down the mountain to raid rural Oxfordshire!

See how they fared in three comprehensive battle reports, with smatterings of the noble Scottish language embedded in them, together with videos from Al Murray, Robin Williams, Horrible Histories and The Clash.

Then lay back and revel in some truly "fan-dabee-dozee" post match analysis (yes, you do know what's coming next..!), but a word of warning - do try and avoid clicking on poor wee Jimmy if you are about to eat.

Enjoy!

Lists from The National League FoGR Competitions

Mine and my opponents lists from The National League (Campaign) are now published on the FoGR Wiki. You have:

• Later 80 Years War Dutch (x2)
• Hugenot (x2)
• Later Imperial Spanish (x2)

(hint - the Dutch one came first... and last in the period!)

Half a dozen manufacturers added to the 28mm Renaissance Manufacturers directory

Parkfield, Mirliton, Crusader, Crann Tara, Warrior, Scheltrum and Curteys all now listed as having some Renaissance ranges somewhere between 25-30mm ...

Want to make your views on them known?

As they say, vote early vote often !

Random Saga photos

A game of saga at the club on Monday night which may well have convinced me that having Harald Hardrada and the Varangians is the way to go with the Vikings!

Here are some of the lads storming across the ford (or should that be fjord?)

Wading into the Anglo-Saxons, watched by Harald (and his dog)

Thinking about taking on the enemy Warlord...

The rather battered Huscarls at least have captured a wench to take back to their ship...

Some proper battle reports to follow after the actual event itself..

Impressive service from Front Rank Figurines

I ordered a handful of 28mm figures to paint up as trophies for the Central London round of the FoGR Southern League from Front Rank Figurines only a couple of days ago (actually about 10 o'clock at night on Thursday the 8th May) and here they are, through my letterbox first thing on Monday 12th!

Not only is that amazing service, the figures are also absolutely stunning too. I'll have to go and vote for them on the 28mm Renaissance Manufacturers Listings page on this website !

Here are a Scottish infantry commander and a Louix XIV Era foot officer, both ready to be based and painted as 15mm FoGR Great Commanders.

Let's see if my painting skills can come anywhere near close to those of the sculptor ...

15mm Renaissance comparison photos added

I've added a few shots of the Donnington Louis XIV figures from the previous post into the 15mm Comparison gallery - so you can see them against Essex, Hallmark and Lurkio figures for scale.

They look to be a good match for Lurkio's range, but not so close to the others. 

Donnington Louis XIV Infantry

Today, for your delight and delectation, we present a series of photos of a Louis XIV era infantry unit using Donnington figures, in the final stages of being painted and based:

This is the unit just block-painted. I've not really got a particular army to use them in as I have a very full Essex Miniatures Louis XIV army, but I just liked these figures. Potentially they might be some sort of Jacobite unit in an otherwise Scottish/Irish army?

This is after adding the coat of Army Painter Strong Tone (the middle one in the range)

The figures are from Donnington's WEC ranges, sold as singles.

I tend to paint a base coat of a patch of dark brown underneath the apostles, and then almost drybrush them on in a linen colour. With the Army Painter as well they can really "pop" out quite nicely.

That rogue 28mm priest keeps sneaking into the shot on the far right, doesn't he..?

This appears to be after they have been matt varnished, this  time with a brushed-on Testors Dullcote. With just one unit on the production line, spraying is a bit of a waste so the brushed-on Testors is a better option

Now with the base colour painted in. I am half-tempted to put an ink wash over the rather bland bases, however this would mean reverse engineering an awful lot of figures so perhaps not... Anyway, they are now starting to look almost finished.

And this is with static grass added

A nice colourful unit, with a reasonable variety of figures and poses.

And a final close up of the shooters.

20mm Modern Figures

Not really Easter-themed in any way, shape or form, but here are some pics of the most recent paint jobs and a game of Ambush Alley Force on Force (the "The Alamo" scenario from the Road to Baghdad book) to enjoy

I don't play this game anywhere near half as much as I should, especially now we have managed to get the rules into an almost intelligible shape at the club... but buying the figures sure is addictive! 

QR Miniatures Pancerni

Just realised that I'd not posted any pictures of the Pancerni after putting up some carbine-armed horse from QR of Poland.

Well, here they are (click on any photo for a larger version)

I added the rather oversized lance myself - I think the figures actually come with swords and stuff, but I seem to have mislaid some of the hands (which are separate)

Nice to see someone actually shooting a carbine from horseback

This shows them next to Old Glory Pancerni. They are a little less bulky in these shots, but on the table the difference is really not noticeable at all.

VEPA Figures added to the 20mm Moderns Directory

I've just been contacted by a relatively new company, VEPA Figures, who do a small and growing range of 20mm Moderns - so their website has now been added to the 20mm Moderns Directory on this site.

That means you can also go to the Directory and rate their figures on a 1-5 scale, and compare them with the other 18 (yes!) metal figure ranges listed there.

French Italian Wars Match Reports

A classic of the Renaissance era, as a French Italian Wars army takes on Ming Chinese, Scots, Caroline Imperialists and finally the Ottoman Turks in an early period FoGR competition held at Usk in January 2014,

Thrill and be amazed at what is rather embarrassingly somewhere north of 8,000 words of rather rambling prose and poorly thought out analysis all stitched together with a smattering of overly-flowery descriptive phrases plucked from the depths of dictionary corner. 

But at least some of the pictures are nice, and there isn't as much foreign-language-based swearing as in some of the recent reports either. 

Aquilifer added to the 15mm Renaissance Manufacturers listing

Italian manufacturer Aquilifer have now been added to the 15mm Renaissance listing, with their range of 12 Scottish and Highlander figure packs.

They now have their own website, which has also been added to their listing in the Ancients 15mm directory

Tiger Tanks!

Remember those two BergPanzer Tiger 1's that came "free" with the collectable magazines which I got in order to get 2 Strykers for Force on Force? Well, a bit of spraying and painting later, and adding in a couple of barrels and some filler and here they are:

Here is the front turret plate, rather poorly "drilled" out by removing the plate, drilling a small hole in the middle of the (blank) plate and widening it out by spinning a craft knife round in the hole. This allows the metal gun barrel I bought to be glued into the hole.

The tracks - an Airfix-style loop of black soft rubber - are removed, which ended up breaking the drive and guide sprockets at each end of the wheel assembly, needing them to be glued back on. This is a pain, but you need the tracks off to spray them in Dunkelgelb, or to be precise, Army Painter Desert Yellow.

The nude Tigers are now ready for spraying and painting. I really should have filled the gap in the front plate, but I didn't get round to it, sorry...

The two finished articles, with the base yellow, the green and the brown all done in paints from Army Painter (Leather Brown, Desert Yellow and Army Green).  The green looks a little light to me, but German WW2 tank cammo was a real lottery with different paint batches, field-applied paints and different mixers (from water to diesel), so this is probably as accurate as anything else...

Washed in a diuted mixture of a few brown paints and distilled water, then drybrushed

The details of cables and the like are picked out in separate paint colours. I did them deliberately to stand out more, to help highlight the model

The numbers are 15mm scale FOW numerals from the Afrika Corps set of decals that came with the GREIF / Rommel vehicle. Not a bad job for a "free" model I reckon...