From PeteF: New Bases for Old Soldiers, the Flocking Continues

British Flags courtesy of Napflag

The nice thing about the Quarantine Challenge is that I can show off my dad's old Minifigs and Hinchcliffe as I get them table ready for Quatres Bras in 2021, 2022? sometime in the future. A substantial part of the army has made it to the states on various trips over the last few years. All I have to do is put the little fellas on bases and make them look nice and they'll be ready for my wargaming friends to enjoy as soon as we can get together over a cold beer.

This has been another few days of intense flocking - so much so that supplies are running low and I may need to take advantage of my FLGS's new curbside pickup service. Here are the Kings Dragoon Guards, Dutch Light Dragoons, a KGL battalion and two British Line battalions along with some command and some Frenchies.

I went all in with this lot giving them a coating of crushed cat litter which largely hides the integral bases and provides some rocks (with no need for painting/highlighting) before 2 colours of fine brown grit to simulate mud, a blend of turf flock and then tufts and static grass. I did debate whether I wanted to do new school bases with old school figures - would it clash and take away from the 1980s vibe? but I'm happy with the results.

Dutch cavalry standard fabricated from a picture found on the internet

This has been a good week for my Minifigs addiction collection as I was able to pick up a bunch of Old Guard and some great coated infantry for a very reasonable price on EBay. I was hoping to get even more from the same seller as he's breaking up a substantial collection - unfortunately it looks like others have found him and I'm too cheap to pay much more than 50 cents a figure. I'll have to lie in wait until next time - in the meantime I have plenty of Minfigs to be getting on with.

From MattT, A couple of conversions. VBCW

Converted a couple of models for this weeks post.

The first one was really simple but i am very happy with the result. Its a pulp figures sailor with a simple arm swap from a warlord plastic frame. I think the final figure has a Steve McQueen vibe to him.

Also converted the Warlord BUF mortar. Its a model that i love, but it looked a bit too facist. One model had a head swap, the loader was a bit more involved where i just keep his arms. Doner parts came from the Pulp Figures Savage Seas range. This range has been a real gold mine for me and provided the spotter and ammo carrier.

Group shot

Stay Safe, Matt.

From TamsinP: 28mm Wars Of The Roses Mounted Men At Arms

I told you that you wouldn't have long to wait for my next batch of figures and here they are - some tin cans on tin cans. Admittedly i did suggest that I might post these yesterday, but I decided to finish painting the next batch before doing the final stages of basing on these.

The ALDG list allows up to one base of "Royal Bodyguards" (elite heavy knights) and two bases of "Mounted Men at Arms (heavy knights). As mentioned in my previous post, I have enough figures for two standard or three small armies so have done two bases for each, although there's nothing to say that the "Royal Bodyguards" bases can't be fielded as "Mounted Men at Arms". Besides, I had enough figures to do four bases!


Royal Bodyguards:

Mounted Men At Arms:

The remaining elements - the Currours (heavy cavalry) and commanders - are now on bases and may even be ready to post tomorrow, but Friday is perhaps more realistic. Or I might split them over two posts, one tomorrow and one on Friday.

From TomF - AWI Mounted Officer and Movement Trays

Sorry for the long delay in posting another entry.  The academic semester in the US is done and I've now got more time to paint.

Just a quick thanks to all of the participants that have posted entries over the last two weeks.  They were much appreciated distractions from work.

I did manage to paint a mounted officer for my Sharpe Practice American War of Independence (AWI) force during the last two weeks.  It is a Perry metal miniature from the mounted American officers pack which I've painted as a British officer.


I attempted to do some layering on the horse and officer's coat which don't show up all that great in the picture.

The other project I finished over the past two weeks was the construction of movement trays for three AWI British infantry units.  I also flocked the bases of the miniatures and movement trays.  All the miniatures are Warlord plastics; most were painted over the winter.

Thanks for viewing.  Stay safe.

From TimG - BAOR Blowpipe AAGM teams

As part of my current project to finish various Cold War bits I have here are a couple of British Army of the Rhine Blowpipe teams. In my NBC game they represent platoon-size units. The figures are GHQ and were painted last week. The Landrovers are Heroics and Ros models which I  painted in the early 1980s!
Both Landies are 109 LWB Series threes - a standard pickup body on the left and a FFR (fitted for radio) hardtop on the right.

From PeterD a Couple of Bridges in 28mm

Configuration one - a three span and a two span bridge.

I've been doing a few projects during the quarantine lockdown, some new and and finishing up of half-completed work from before.  This time up I've got a couple of bridges in 28mm (Beau and Jeff?) from Sarissa Precission.  Sarissa sells these mdf kits in various combinations and I don't recall exactly what combination I ordered.  However the end result is that I have two sets of on and off ramps plus three centre spans, enough to give me two bridges of various lengths depending on the combination of spans that I select.  Bridges feature in a lot of historical battles and make for good missions is a Table Top Teaser action.

Going for maximum length here.

To make these bits fully morphable, I painted these all in the same basic pseudo-Sienna stone for that I used for my Italian Wars buildings posted during Challenge X. These were started early in Challenge X but just finished recently.  

Auvergne regiment crosses the span.  The ruler shows that it nearly a 12" feature.

Normally I find Sarissa kits easy to assemble, but I had trouble with the roadbed on a couple of the ramps and made a bit of a hash of them.  If the ends don't meet up as cleanly as they should, this is also down to me not the kit.

In simplest form a single span bridge.

I kept terraforming down to a minimum.  I put gravel at the edges of the road work and various tufts and clumps to represent vegetation, including trying to get the impression of flowering vines.  For the mid-stream spans I hemmed and hawed between painting the bases to represent water or greenery.  In the end I opted for greenery so that they could stand on midstream islands if required and also to represent weeds and such growing on the bridge piers.  

From StuartL - British for Afghanistan

First of all, an apology, I have been a bit absent as of late and have missed my 1 post per week and failed to comment on people's posts for a while. My furlough came to an end last Wednesday, so I had to get everything ready for going back to work. On Thursday, I went to work for the day only to be emailed on my way home that I was being furloughed again. This has thrown my painting schedule all up in the air and I was a little lazy about getting back to the brushes straight away. So, my apologies for being tardy on this entry.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I posted some Afghan troops for the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War. Today I have some British to face them. The bulk of my troops are already done, these are the last batch for the British force. (I say last, but what I mean is last until I can get some more). All of these figures are by Artizan Designs.

 

First of all, a light artillery piece. This is an RML 2.5" Mountain Gun or a 'Screw Gun', so named because the barrel and breach were transported separately and screwed together when needed for battle.

This batch of twelve minis includes an officer, several sergeants, a bugler, a drummer and a standard bearer. I don't currently have a flag to use for this unit, hence the bare flag pole. I believe the Perry's plastic boxed set had the flag that I need, so I guess I'll have to order some more minis soon. The uniforms and yellow flashes on some of the helmets identify these fine fellows as belonging to the 67th regiment of foot.

Continuing with giving myself imaginary painting points, 15 infantry and 1 gun should net me 80 points (The gun is tiny so I'm only awarding myself 5 points for it). That brings me up to 759.5 points and puts my side duel total at 607.5