Wednesday, April 22, 2020

From PeterA: Some Modern Russians

Despite being on lockdown, time seems to have slipped by alarmingly quickly since I last posted at the beginning of the month. So, even though the unit isn't finished, I thought I had better post these up sharpish.





They are all 20mm Modern Russians from Liberation Miniatures. I attempted to represent VSR camo on some of them, but at tabletop distance it can't be made out (which is its job I suppose) so several are without - I may go back and add this in later, but for now they are done. The other feature was adding a bigger collar out of greenstuff in an effort to represent the jackets many Russian soldiers wore in the First Chechen War.








I also revisited a couple of BTR80s (also from Liberation), heavily weathering them with AK pigments. I may have gone too far with this but then again, I have seen plenty of pictures of pretty filthy Russian vehicles!


That's all for now - stay safe and stay healthy!

From MikeV: Mediterranean BUA's in 6mm

I decided to give my poor eyes a rest this week and opted for two North Italy / Peninsular built up areas for my 6mm Napoleonics. Buildings are from Total Battle Miniatures and Timecast, both excellent but my preference goes to TBM. Trees are from some Chinese manufacturer on ebay, walls have been in my storage dump for ages and the piazza cross monument is scratch built from a couple of washers and stuff. I use Hexon terrain so the BUA's are mounted on hex bases for use with Age of Eagles.  No troop models are actually placed inside the BUA's, only counters to indicate the number of stands occupying them.  I pack the buildings close together to give the impression of those winding narrow streets and huddled buildings so common in the med.

Cheers and take care!

Village A

Town square closeup. Note bougainvillea creeping up church facade.

Village B

Joining both BUA's gives a small town

Both villages in the foreground with the rest of my Italian/Peninsular BUA's
Your typical alpine terrain. Hear the boys yodel?

From JamieM - some terrain pieces

Hello fellow challengers!  Here is my first post for this esteemed blog.  It's taken me a while as work has been super busy since everything kicked off.  Even when I did get time to myself, it was all I could really manage to wield a large brush and some emulsion/rattle cans and so I thought I should get on with some terrain as I have an embarrassingly large pile in the garage waiting for me to do it....


These are all 28mm MDF pieces from TTCombat, who produce a ridiculously large range of terrain at fantastic prices.  There's a Music shop, super market, 2 pieces of monorail and a refuse truck.


Side vie of the supermarket and the rear of the dump truck, home maded decals for the graffiti.


The other side of the supermarket (ewww, that employee entrance is mucky.....) 


This is the side of the music store, with more hand printed decals.


And the other side, with bare brick.  I painted it all one colour and then picked out odd bricks in slightly different colours and I think it works rather well to break up the wall and make it look a little more realistic.  It's the same with the roof tiles on the super market.

The monorail tracks are to go with the other 3 that I already have to add a bit of verticality to the battlefield.  Even if nobody ever goes on them, I figure they'll look nice.

From StuartL - Redcoats for Afghanistan

Being interested in historical gaming and British history in particular, it should come as no surprise that I have a British army for the Napoleonic era and one for the Anglo-Zulu War. A while back, I decided to start another British force, but I was sick of painting red, so I had a look around for something else. The 2nd Anglo-Afghan War provided the setting and I eagerly planned out a force for The Men Who Would Be Kings, using British troops in khaki. No red for me, no sir.

However, local interest in the period was disappointingly non-existent, so I decided to pick up a force of Afghans as well. If I could do demo games then I could maybe entice others into playing. As I started this project quite some time ago, (i.e. before the Perry brothers announced they were doing a range), I went with Artizan Designs range of figures. As well as picking up a load of British troops and Afghan tribesmen, I added some Afghan regulars to my order as well. May as well break up the monotony of another game with British lines facing down charging hordes of tribal infantry.

As I haven't made a great deal of progress over the last few years, I decided to make good use of my time and get some work done on my two armies. Grabbing the Afghan regulars from the box and undercoating them, I proceeded to look up their uniforms on Google. As it turns out, the Afghan army went through a period of updating their equipment just before the outbreak of hostilities. To smarten up his troops, Sher Ali Khan had purchased a load of surplus uniforms and equipment. This army surplus had largely come from British stocks, so quite a few of his regular units looked remarkably similar to British troops, right down to their red uniforms. At this point I just sighed, it looked like I was going to be painting red again. (I could have painted them in khaki or some other colour I guess, but as I was using khaki for their British opponents, that might have been confusing on the tabletop).

The headgear and footwear of the troops marks them as being non-British infantry. Likewise their weapons were not up to the standard of the modern rifles being used by the imperial troops they faced.


The troops from Herat (below) wore a distinctive hat made of soft black felt. The flag was printed from home after I found a few images on the Lead Adventure Forum.


And here is a shot of both units along with some terrain.


24 infantry should add 120 points to my unofficial score, for a total of 452.5

@NoelW - Is our side duel still on? I haven't seen you mention it, though several of your entries would score points.

These figures are all from the period of 1878-1880, so fit in the bolt action rifle era. Assuming that the side duel is still running, they'll bring my total up to 342.5 points.

From TeemuL: More Magma Hounds (10 points)

Two more Magma Hound terminators for my Kill Team. These were started during the Challenge X, so I count full points from them, tick them to the U and N list, since I need them for my Kill Team Campaign once we are able to play (you need 4 Chaos Space Marine Terminators to a single Kill Team, right?). I'd like to couple of Chaos Space Marines to my list, but I don't have proper parts... I do have some metal bodies, but I'm missing backpacks, some hands and heads.


Nothing special here, the same gold and purple scheme, that I have used before.


Black Templar Contrast paint suits very well for the weapons, I think. It gives them nice look, no need to highlight or anything.


I have now painted all four classic CSM Terminators, which were Abaddon's retinue back in time. Now I have something else on my desk. Also, if you would like to see something painted by me, please write something on the comments! It might be some past project, you would like to see more, something from my List to tick or something else. I'm open to suggestions, because at the moment I don't need to paint any specific miniatures for gaming purposes...

U: 2 (total 5)
N: 2 (total 3)
W: 0 (total 1)
F: 0 (total 12)
R: 0 (total 14)
S: 0 (total 2)
Points:
10 points for 2 miniatures (total 168)
From Minion TeemuL:
Gold and Purple looks very nice, but I really like the carefully drybrushed skulls!