New - Donnington TYW Flags

As trailed in a previous news item, Donnington are about to release some new TYW flags, and Damian was kind enough to send me a set of the Swedish ones.

They come as part of a sheet of 16 different flags including both Company and Command flags for regiments in the army of Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years War.

I quickly added a few to my (sorry Damian!) Lancashire Games Pikemen, who generally serve as Swedes in my armies, and this is the result.

The flags are printed on decent paper, and I stuck them together with my usual adhesive of choice, PVA Wood Glue - my carpenter brother-in-law once told me that PVA Wood Glue was stronger than the wood it joins, so that works for me.

The "rocket science" about Donnnington's flags is that they are printed with a larger-than-the-flag guideline, so you cut out along the guideline, stick them together and then snip off the excess on the three sides away from the flagpole. It's not rocket surgery, but it does mean you are gluing and folding a much bigger piece of paper, which makes lining up the two sides a lot less fiddly.

These are from the Red Regiment - which I suspect will be no great surprise to many of you TYW experts out there...The flags are printed with shading on them to suggest that the flags are waving in the breeze, which as you can see enhances what is actually some very limited "bending" of the glued flags in these photos.

The one I was sent was "Sheet 2", however I've been told that Donnington will be selling at least four infantry sheets and either or two cavalry sheets in this range. I did also paint the edges of the flags red once they were stuck together - because of the guidelines this was a lot tidier than with some other flags I've tried this on.

At £5 per sheet of 16, these flags aren't exactly cheap especially given the increasing numbers of free flags out there, but they are definitely better than the quality I manage to produce using my home printer, and are on better paper stock as well -and they may well see action in the new year!

Britannia Miniatures 20m British Leyland- DAF DROPPS Logistics vehicle

At Warfare this year I picked up a British Leyland DAF DROPPS Logistics vehicle from the lovely chaps at Britannia Miniatures - this is for fairly morphable use (as all lorries look alike, of course!) in some of the Force on Force scenario's that require a transport vehicle of some sort.

The shipping container on the back is a separate piece, so it may well also appear as a piece of scenery in it's own right - a useful touch. If you look carefully you can see where I added a strip of magnetic sheet to the bottom of the container, which helps it stick onto the thin bit of metalized card that I added to the opposite surface of the vehicle.

The vehicle was painted in a black undercoat, then roughly done in a thick wash of a Miniatures Paints Dark Sand.

The by-now-familiar to regular readers wash of Army Painter Strong Tone gave it a messy brown overwash, which was then highlighted with more drybrish layers of the original colour, and then some GW Bleached Bone.

The container was done in a similar technique, but I think I used Miniatures Paints Olive as the base colour, leaving the British Osprey helmet-ed crewman in a non-obviously British plain uniform and body armour combo so he could pass as an American if needed. The windows were done in the textbook "bard blue and then some stripes of progressively lighter blues in one corner" technique often seen on miniature houses.

I think it's a great little piece all in al - robust, useful and brushes up very well.

I've got a load more pages with links to all of the 20mm modern manufacturers I know (and an online voting/rating system for the figures) on my website here

NATO armour in 1/300th scale

Just to prove that I've not been doing Xmassy things relentlessly for the last few weeks to the exclusion of painting and gaming, here are some pictures of NATO 1/300th scale armour that I've been working on earlier this year and only just gotten round to photographing.

The Brits !

Leopard II command unit

Retro-style M60 

1/300th Modern British on eBay

I'm currently selling some 1/300th scale modern British on eBay - photos of the chaps here. Click any photo to go to the auction for more details:

Scimitars and Scorpions

The complete force

Sultan CVT Command vehicles

MRLS and Artillery 

 Warrior IFV's 

Scorpions and Artillery 

Swingfire launchers

Scorpions and some Ferrets

Quite a tidy little force of mechanised infantry really...click here for the auction, which ends on Sunday 9th December

Macedonian Armies after Alexander 323-168 BC (Men-At-Arms / Osprey)

This new Osprey book on the Post-Alexandrian Successor armies seems to be generating some heated debate on TMP right now - and I thought everyone only bought them for the pictures !

UK Edition :

US Edition:

Donnington Flags

I saw regular show exhibitor Damien from Donnington Miniatures at Warfare last weekend, and he sent me over a bit of info about the flag ranges he's created to go with the rather nice ‘New Era’ Medieval figures he's now producing.

The exciting bit is that apparently some TYW flags are in the works and so if they are up to the same standard as the current flag sheets for Vikings, Saxons, Normans, 100 Years War, Gascons, 14^th/15^th Century Scots, French Ordonnance, Swiss, Burgundians and WOTR it'll be a good extra addition to the list of flag suppliers on my 15mm Renaissance Manufacturers page. 

There is even an instructional video available on the website to show you how to use them.

The flag sheets are available in 15mm scale and in other scales on request to A&M. The number of flags varies, with lots on each sheet - £5 per sheet for 15mm scale and £10 per sheet for 25/28mm scale. For more info contact Ancient & Modern Army Supplies:

Website:                      www.ancient-modern.co.uk

The Jacobite 15mm ranges find a new home..

At Warfare today I discovered that the Jacobite Miniatures ranges formerly carried by Stronghold have found a new home - the moulds for the ranges previously sold by Stronghold have now been acquired by a chap who plays at the Wargames Association of Reading club, and are gradually going back onsale under the name Elite Wargames And Models.

Apparently they got basically a load of unmarked moulds from Stronghold, and so are gradually working through the moulds they have to try and piece together the ranges. They have no website as yet, but one is probably coming - in the meantime they can be reached at elitewargamesmodels@gmail.com. So, I guess email them for a list of the figures they are selling right now.

Here are some pictures of them in the bare metal:

Compared to Essex figures (below)

 Compared to Peter Pig figures (below)

 and compared to Old Glory Figures (below)

I've also updated the Renaissance and Ancients manufacturers directories with the new details.

Buono Estente Oxford 2012 !

There is a veritable flurry of activity on this website this week as two sets of photos get immediately followed up by FOUR match reports, where the Imperial Spanish take on Transylvanians, French , Swedes and more Swedes in a themed TYW competition in which I was the "Catholic" half of a pair - with my team-mate being the Protestant. 4 games against Protestant armies was the result...

See how the forces of the Infante did    in this near incomprehensible (other than to anyone who remembers the Fast Show) report.

Scorchio!!

Peter Pig ECW Scots

Just in time for the club competition I've snuck in a couple of units of Peter Pig ECW Scots. Here they are being painted in various stages

Based up, figure bases hidden by some wood filler, and sprayed with a Halfords matt white spray (that's a car and bike parts retailer for those of you not in the UK) 

After the undercoat, the figures have blocks of colour added at random across the two units. Here Brown and Green have been added - usually my stuff is a mix of Coat d'Arms colours and some other bits and pieces such as Vallejo

Here I've also added a lot of grey, as I found a good picture online of some Scots units and thought it was worth copying... 

 With most of the colours completed, the Piggy guys are almost ready to varnish and tint

 I paint the feet/shoes and also look to ink them before painting the earth colour on the bases so I can paint over the inevitable messy bits. But it's still a simple looking blocky paint scheme at this stage.

And moments later with Army Painter Dark Tone here they are. Normally I'd use the middle Army Painter tone, but I didn't have any to hand, and with the grey tunics on these guys the darker one works quite well

Not bad for wargaming standard

 Here they are with some colour on the bases, and a few bits of static grass added

And with varnishing - not as good as Testors Dullcote, but I'd run out. I will have to re-spray them later once I order some more.

Close up on the commanders

Peter Pig's Drums of Scotland!

The pikemen - one has a fairly simple bit of tartan

Musketeers - the shine on the bonnets makes them look like they have some sort of yellow patch on the bonnet, but it's just a trick of the light

I added some swordsmen to make the infantry into Musket/Sword infantry... pretty pleased with them for a rush job.

And here is my step by step "Tartan for tiny soldiers" guide:

Start with a plain blue background

Add a cross-hatching of yellow stripes

Finish with a thinner red line in the middle of the yellow

This is with a green background

Then yellow...

And finally red. Simple, but effective on 15mm figures. Nothing too scary ....

15mm Comparison photos for Renaissance

I've just added a load more comparison photos to my site showing the scale/height/bulk of Peter Pig figures against a lot of the other manufacturers - like this one...

(Peter Pig and Old Glory)