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!

Look! I built a Town!

Picking ridiculous projects and then almost finishing them is a classic wargamers curse, and the process of building a whole Malifaux faux-gothic-steampunk town almost from scratch instead of just coughing up for some pre-built buildings is a pretty good way of ticking that particular "curse" box, as I can now demonstrate with the following series of photos and construction hints and tips.

Learn how this came to pass here on my website

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

Totentanz Miniatures - 15mm Renaissance comparison shots

I've just finished painting up 2 units of TYW miniatures, from Spanish manufacturer Totentanz.

Aside from the now-obligatory use of flowers on the bases, I actually think that they have come out pretty well - more a reflection of the figures rather than my painting!

As this is a new manufacturer I have also posted a load of comparison photos so you can compare height and stature against around a dozen different manufacturers.

(Testudo by Khurasan vs Totentanz)

Dead Man's Hand - Cowboy Name Generator

Yes, you heard it right - over a quarter of a million randomly generated Cowboy names are ready for you on this site, simply at the click of a button....

That also means you can generate over 11 million (!!) Wild West short stories (well, one sentence each ... so pretty dammed short)!

Just follow this link to the Cowboy Name Generator !

The English Civil War - 3 FoGR Match Reports

The plain-as-bread Parliamentarian army take on three opponents in a 1-day competition in the heart of the Kings Country - Oxford.

See how Renaissance Hannibal and Oliver Cromwell square up in the post-match reviews, and scratch your head as to how many Youtube videos that do not feature members of the Sealed Knot can be shoehorned into the three reports of some of the most vanilla armies every to take the field.

And, potatoes on bases... Say no more!

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;

Review of Salute! 2015

Yes, a comprehensive review of the stuff I saw at Salute! 2015, with loads of photos and some actual analysis and commentary on industry trends and stuff as well...

Feel free to share this review on your chosen web forum  and chew over my thoughts ...

Spring Showdown - Malifaux match reports

4 more almost incomprehensible Malifaux battle reports, with a big pink flying baby with a bad case of piles, hot chicks in leather with big swords, re-animating snipers in a childs playroom and a cast of thousands of mechanical spiders all creating confusion in deepest Essex.

The only thing you will probably recognise and understand is the crushing incompetence, the bitter taste of defeat and the withering analysis from Steampunk Hannibal

Some Saga Warbands - being sold off on eBay

I've recently listed 4 Saga Warbands on eBay - they are figures I was selling for a friend, so you probably won't recognise the figures from previous disastrous match reports!

The eBay listing included 2 Norman/Christian armies, one Viking-type Warband and an Arab Warband that can be most any of the Arab factions. As they have now departed my possession I thought it worth sharing the photos here.

All I have done is re-base them, and also photographed them with my new model-railway-inspired backdrop - which I think adds a surprising amount to the pictures.