KenR : Life on Mars

Having finished my uniformed officers for my 7tv game it was time to add some proper "Hard Bastards" or the cast of Life on Mars.

The real cast and a familiar car.

For those who didn't see it Life on Mars was a TV Series from 2006 where a modern day officer Sam Tyler got seemingly transported back in time to the 1970s and a very different era of British Policing.

I've used the picture of the cast as my guide for painting these, above are Gene Hunt and on the right Sam.

Ray on the left with Chris on the right.

WPC Cartwright on the right and the character Alex Drake (or Bolly knickers !) from the spin off Ashes to Ashes set in the 1980s.

The car in the first series was an early Ford Cortina Mk III but sadly I haven't been able to find one at a sensible price, so I have added 7 (there's a dog in the photo below) is another 35 points taking me up to 804 points.

So just to finish here's a picture of my completed Police Cast, I plan to add a couple of cars and vans but that's it for figures. I'm onto some more Kingdom of Jerusalem stuff, this time Foot Knights before I return to do some baddies to go up against this lot.

From PeterD SYW Auvergne Regiment in 28mm

Bad photo but i shows the full regiment ready for battle.

It's been a while since I've posted.  I've been very busy with the  end of semester for the last few weeks and I was sick as a dog all last weekend.  Today is the first Saturday in May and the wonderful day when I wake up and check what course prep I have for the week to come and then realize that there isn't any as I have no classes until after Labour Day!

I did use a couple of evenings each week to get some rehab painting in and finished up the 24 man French Auvergne Regiment from my Seven Years War  project.  As noted in prior posts I tend to do my foot regiments in units of 24, finished in three batches of eight.  Often I have two or three batches underway at once at different stages of progress.  This year I've been saving up my work until I have the full unit.  I then base them at the same time and post the full unit.

I only took pictures from the front but the white on the back of the bases are unit tables including the name a a jpg of the Ordonnance colour to help keep organization straight.  Crusader NCO is second from the right.

Figures are mostly Crusader with Front Rank figures being used for the officer and standard bearers.  I find the the Crusader packs have enough subtle variation in marching pose to give cohesion without being monopose.  I included 4 grenadiers and a few with coats without turn backs to add variety.  Of course the grenadiers are over represented, bu the caps look nice.  I like the Crusader drummers and the sergeant with partizan (long pokey stick) but I'm not a huge fan of the Crusader officers so sub in the Front Rank figures.  There is a size difference between ranges but it seems to work.

I normally manage to get better variety on the my bases but these guys all seem distracted by something off screen on our right.  I really like the grenadier drummer casting.

When you do a "French" Infantry regiment for King Louis' army, you're got a limited choice of facing colours mostly blue, red or none on grey uniforms to choose from (foreign regiments let you add blue or red coats).  At least it's not the snooze fest of Napoleonic French or Russian where every damn unit wears the same damn facings.  So the chance to do a regiment with Violet facings makes for more variety on table.  Plus Auvergne had some chops to stand on, notably a piquet company saved the day at Clostercamp by alerting the army to the Erbprinz' dawn attack.

The two middle figures are Front Rank and they fit in with the rankers just fine.  The chap on the right has left his coat unbuttoned.  The Ordonnance is black and violet quarters but they look alike in the lighting.

The flags were "borrowed" from the wonderful work of David over at Not By Appointment.  A quick download, resizing and real life cut and paste was all that was required

From MikeV: Baccus 6mm 1808 Spanish units

Following last week's Mediterranean BUA's I got the urge to continue with my Spanish 6mm army so I fished them out of the war chest and painted up a few units, more precisely six foot artillery batteries, the Maria Luisa hussars, Regimiento del Rey heavy cavalry, Lusitania dragoons and Zaragoza line infantry.  All units are painted with 1808 uniforms and are based for Age of Eagles.

Six foot batteries and Maria Luisa hussars

Red dolman and Sky Blue pelisse for the hussars - very colourful uniforms!

The artillerymen are no less colourful in their blue uniforms with red facings and blue grey guns

Rey heavy cavalry on left, Lusitania dragoons in the centre and Zaragoza line infantry on right

Infantry flags from Baccus, cavalry standards are hand painted

The Zaragoza regiment kept their 1802 blue uniforms, unlike the usual white for the line infantry

And a final group picture of the whole lot

Next week I will be pressing on with more Spanish units with a solo replay of Albuera in mind sometime in the future.


Good health to all

From SanderS: Calling a Balloon to Fran's Ford! (5 points)

Hoi,

In my Quest to complete the Challenge Island tour, I now need another Balloon trip to Fran's Ford.

Since a female figure is needed to pay for this trip (not my most PC remarks ever I know), I have finally found time to paint Footsore Miniatures brilliant Guinevere figure.

I am very happy with my colourscheme and the execution except for the shield design, I might re-paint that somewhere in the future.


This very nice figure allows me to add another 5 points to the tally as well as going to Fran's Ford. Now on to look for some 15mm figures among the unpainted lead pile.

From PeteF: Old School Minifigs French Heavy Artillery

This battery of 12lb ers is from a box of Minifigs I got from a guy in New Zealand thanks to the wonders of E-Bay. The figures were beat up and had different painting styles - most were a bit shiny for my taste. I didn't strip the original paint - just a light brush on primer to take any gloss off and cover chips before repainting.

I'm not sure if the guns are also original Minifigs. Back in the day my dad preferred the Hinchcliffe guns for their superior detail - I think he liked hanging the little chains and buckets on them. I'm calling them twelve pounders and these two will be the II Corps Artillery (7th Battery, 2nd Artillery Battalion) for my Quatres Bras project. Just over half the artillery is now ready for battle - more to come next week.

Needing some additional  displacement activity, I did a full inventory for the Quatres Bras project this week. I'll have to get a few bits and pieces from Calivers to fill in the gaps in stuff I've purchased in bulk - about 40 foot and 30 mounted figures. Then there will be 300 or so foot and 120 mounted to paint to complete the French side of the battle. It will keep me busy for Challenge XI and beyond.

JamieM - a passel of Wild West buildings

Bit of an odd one for me today, some Wild West buildings (is a passel a thing?). Cowboys are right up there with ninjas and pirates as cool toys to play with, but I hadn’t played any meaningful games with the few cowboys that I have for years. Looking at my stuff at the start of lockdown, I discovered that amongst the embarrassingly large number of scenery pieces I hadn’t painted, I had quite a few Wild West type buildings, so I decided they would be one of the first jobs to do.

All 28mm in scale and all from TTCombat.  Almost all picked up as part of job lots they occasionally do to clear space in their offices as far as I can tell.

The Wild West buildings that I have are mostly brightly coloured to add some Zing to the Wild West, so these are a mix of bright and woodstain (with odd planks picked out to add interest)

The Hotel was one of the pieces I treated myself to as a care package for lockdown as I've long admired it and just never gotten around to treating myself to it.

I bought the extension to the Sheriff's office to give myself a jail, which is rather nice and the two cells could be useful for adventures.

The other random building is a crypt entrance, which I found myself painting too and will be useful in a number of other game genres I think.

Quite a packed town now, so big it needs a Fire Hall, big hotel and Hatmakers, so I really should try to get some use out of the Dead Man's Hand and Fistful of Lead rules that I own.

JTinQT - Week 5 - Samurai Warrior

Dear All

Just a single submission for this week. Fancied a change and found this samurai warrior to paint up. I copied the material pattern from a picture of a sumo wrestling referee - they still wear traditional dress.  He might be useful in a samurai skirmish game sometime in the future and anyway fun to paint up.

Hopefully bit more output for next week ..........

Cheers Jez