We’re headed to Bukhara

I’m just going to ignore the fact it’s been over 1 year since my last post. To be fair not a lot of miniature progress occurred in 2024. 

A bit of a set back was my commission painter retired and moved to Asia so the lead mountain has been creeping up. 

I did manage to slap some paint onto some WWI highlanders (from Great War Miniatures) that I was planning on using for VBCW and onto some WWI Americans (mostly Great War Miniatures and some Brigade Games).

I attended the 29th annual Hotlead in March of this year, which was followed by almost 3 weeks vacation so I really found my mojo invigorated.

I built a small Middle Eastern village following some plans/tips from Pulp Alley’s YouTube channel. I’ve started building the great walls of Bukhara.

I have a 24” section built and have another 4x 12” sections in various stages of assembly.

 I also worked on the RCW armoured train and the train tracks.

Here’s what I’m currently working on.

The black figures in the foreground are mostly Artizan Irregular Arabs from their First World War range. There are 5 Brigade Games Arabs scattered in. They have been painted for probably 3+ years but I haven’t done anything else with them. I put texture paint onto the base so they are almost done.

The silver figures are a mix of Copplestone Castings and Brigade Games WWI Turks to finish off that army.

My plan is for them to be a regular/well trained force when gaming Back of Beyond in any Middle Eastern theatre.

There are a bunch of primed horses and cavalry figures, again from Artizan Designs/Brigade Games.

It’s quite unfortunate in that I purchased many of these figures once online years ago that were lost in the mail. I never received compensation from the seller either, so I’ve had to buy them again. 

I also found some camels from Saga that were particularly discounted. 

The three figures in fezzes are Egyptian police from Artizan Designs. They will be guarding the jail house in Bukhara once build.

Lastly, here are the Artizan Designs Sharifan Infantry. 

These might be amongst my favourite figures. It’s disappointing that there are only 4 poses, and one of them is the figure carrying his rifle. I purchased 3 packs (one at Hotlead) and the other two online for 12 figures total.

I figured two HQ types and a 10 man squad would be sufficient. Cough unless Artizan decides to make more cough. 

The figure on the left is the stock figure.

The middle figure has his rifle cut away from his hand, his hand was opened up and a banner pole was glued in place. The rifle from the rightmost figure was glued on his back.

The figure on the right had his right hand cut away and the rifle was cleaned up and donated to the banner bearer. A new right hand with revolver was sourced from the Warlord Games British & Canadian Army infantry. At this scale, a revolver is a revolver. However, it’s likely a Webley which was in service in WWI so all good.

Lastly the left hand was removed and some of the body was shaved down. The binoculars and straps were sourced from the same Warlord kit. The straps were cut to look like they went behind the neck. I’m not 100% happy as the hands are slightly oversized but it’ll be fine. I just have to greenstuff a small gap at the wrist and he’s also done.

An open wallet

Alrighty, it looks like since Hotlead, I’ve gone on a bit of a spending spree. I had two packages at the door today when I returned from running some household errands.

I ordered 2 packages of French Foreign Legion from Wargames Foundry. £24.00 + £15.00_ shipping converted to Canadian is a whopping $68.46.

Seriously £15 shipping for 14 miniatures. 

I have 7 of these guys painted up already so wanted to get a few more. 

Maybe next time I should wait for a sale or something. Hey, at least they threw in a free figure that I have no idea what range it is from.

I also ordered 7 figures from Artizan Designs and the March and April issues of Wargames Illustrated. With £10 shipping this converted to about $69.49 The April WI issue came with some Warlord Games Epic English Civil War figures that hopefully I can trade or sell at next years Hotlead convention.

It is an interesting scale but I don’t have the capacity for any more projects right now.

The photos of the miniatures are below.

I also placed a small order with Westwind Productions. It converted to $35.11 Canadian, but that’s for 8 miniatures total.

Lastly I purchased 3 pots of Citadel contrast paints and a can of primer for $52.45.

So with a previous hobby budget of $208.19 plus another $225.51 for a total of $433.70

I also added 29 figures to the lead mountain.

Today it’s pretty hot out and I primed 13 Battletech miniatures.

Finishing touches

Small update.

I painted 6 Pirates belonging to  the Artizan Designs and Crusader Miniatures ranges last year but I haven’t had a chance to base them. 

I finally got around to it last week. I used the Tropical Beach Sand from Geek Gaming Scenics.

I also received my RCW Ukrainians from my painter Karl and decided to get the flag on ASAP. I just have to touch up the edge where the white seam shows through.

Lastly I built about 10 of Warlord Games plastic German Grenadiers. There were 30 in the box.

I got frustrated with the arms. I don’t like having figures with STG-44 rifles. I prefer the KAR98 or Gewehr’s but the frame has a limited number.

I’ll build the rest later and take some photos.

Reinforcements (or I’m going to need a bigger box)

July 2021 was a looong time ago. Lots of hobby stuff has happened, I just haven’t posted ANY of it for no particular reason.

I’ve been into Chain of Command for a while and have  been collecting a 101st Airborne force.

Looks a little cramped in the box so on the tabletop it looks like this:

HQ, bazooka, three squads, and mortar squad.

I also have two additional bazooka teams, three medics, a sniper, a MG and 4 spare infantry I can use to be a 3 man engineer demo team or to bump up the MG team to have 5 crew. Oh and two Sherman’s and a firefly for reasons.

Finally the other pieces have been completed. Another Sherman which gives me a full tank platoon. A Jeep with a mounted MG. An anti-tank gun and another mortar.

I also grabbed 8 crew for the weapons teams as I don’t really like using riflemen for crew. And another 8 riflemen to get the three squads into full compliance with rifles instead of songs or carbines.

Here’s a scale comparison of the troops.

L to R: Bolt Action, Artizan, Bolt Action, Artizan.

So they are basically done. I have decals for shoulder flashes and should put some markings on the Sherman’s but that’s for some other rainy day.

It’s getting warm out

The weather is slowly getting there.

We probably had the last “cold” spell on Monday and Tuesday until Thanksgiving. The days are getting longer. The temperatures are rising.

So what does one do on a day like this? Prime some miniatures!

I primed my Star Wars Legion Phase 1 Clone Troopers (7 figures) Anakin, Count Dooku, Priority Supples and Artizan Designs French Foreign Legion (14 figures) in GW’s Grey Seer.

I primed my Star Wars Legion B1 Battle Droids (9 figures) and Artizan Designs NWF British (16 figures) in GW’s Wraith Bone.

The plan is to use contrast paints for most of the base coats and use regular ones for highlights etc.

I was lucky enough to grab one of the cans of primer discounted to $10 because the lid was broken.

The weird object on the side is my trusty Citadel paint stick. It’s a little bit of a ridiculous hobby tool but man, does it ever work.

And on a side note, I have a platoon of unpainted OOP Footsore Miniatures WWI Scots on their way to me. They are Early War and sculpted by Paul Hicks (slightly on the small side) but will be fierce opponents for my Germans.

Happy New Year!

Wow, I really lost track of the time there.

Things have been busy since August, hobby wise and in real life. 

Here’s a quick recap Of the hobby stuff:

Purchased:

( and built) 2 Aberdeen  class airships from Crossover Miniatures

16 French Foreigh Legion and  16 British Northwest Frontier from Artizan Designs (Christmas gift for myself from the family) for a VSF setting. 

Oathmark undead box and two metal blisters.

4 Tier one operators sets from Spectre (Christmas)

1500 3/8x3/4 foam bricks off of Etsy.

Ltd Edition GW Gamling on horseback.

Painted:

Received the rest of my 28mm 101st Airborne from Karl at Kura Creative

Oathmark Goblin Wolf Riders (only rider figures) metal heroes and resin Ltd edition hero painted by Karl at Kura Creative.

I finished 30 Oathmark Elves, 10 light Elves, 4 hounds, 4 humans and one necromancer. 

Why did I purchase 1500 3/8x 3/4 inch foam blocks? I hear you ask. Because it’s cheaper than buying a Proxxon foam cutter and I’m not burning time cutting foam blocks. The reason is Jeremy from Black Magic Craft (YouTube) posted a dope video on modular rules that I wanted to try. The results will follow in a separate post.

The plan for 2021: Major Projects

Continue plugging away with Oathmark

I have to built, Prime and paint the 30 plastic and 6 metal Undead figures from Oathmark.

Finish painting 30 Dwarf heavy infantry.

Base 30-40 Dwarf Infantry and 30-40 Goblin Infantry.

Paint 21 Wolves (for the painted riders to ride)

Base 27 Light Elves.

VSF project

Finish assembly (on one) and paint both Aberdeen airships (other is primed). 

Paint 14 FFL and 16 British NWF using sweet contrast paint scheme found on YouTube

Purchase rank and file British troops ( 7 packs of 4 figures from Artizan). Paint  them. 

Star Wars Legion (or Chain of Command) this is my nice to get to 3rd project.

Assemble Count Dooku, Anakin, box of B1 Battle Droids (omg the pieces!), and Phase I clone troopers.

Purchase Clone Wars starter set.

Paint them all.

Minor Projects:

WWI terrain board - finish building both sections. Paint both. ( WTF is this really a “minor project?)

Have Karl finish painting my WWI Germans (under 50 figures-easy).

Have Karl finish painting my Wild West figures (under 50 figures-easy).

Foam brick terrain (about 750 have been made into terrain - needs to be mod podged and painted other 750 need texturing before building.

Would be nice Projects:

Try to finish painting my Frostgrave/Rangers of Shadow Deep, The Walking Dead All our War greyscale project ( purchase saviours and whisperers).

Tackle whatever GW lord of the rings I can (for the boy).

Stay away from anything new (looking at you  Stargrave).

Cheers and good luck to you on your Projects this year!

It’s like Christmas in August

I had three orders I’ve been anxiously awaiting. One each from Northstar Miniatures, Wargames Illustrated and Green Stuff World.

They all came today which was both awesome and annoying as I muttered it’s like Christmas in August and the Mrs heard it and proceeded to ask various questions about finances etc. Oops!

Anyhow, one shouldn’t dwell on trivial matters like money. LMAO.

I should start by saying I have a pretty big Wild West collection and have been looking to grab some more. I’ve also been into Rangers of Shadow Deep and think it could be re-skinned to a Wild West setting.

Lastly, slavery was and is bad and the south who fought to keep it were wrong. I purchased the following figures first and foremost for the zombies.

First up is the Artizan Designs, the Risen South box set. Two confederate necromancers and 8 confederate zombies.

Next up is from Dracula’s America. The Dark Confederates boxed set. One Necromancer (evil looking dude in white) 5 ragged confederates and 4 confederate zombies.

Lastly on the Wild West frontier, I picked up three new single figures from Artizan and 5 foot and mounted packs.

From Green Stuff World, I got two packs of barbed wire for my WWI trench boards and some fallen leaves for scenery.

From Wargames Illustrated, I purchased the August issue and a Giants in Miniature figure I plan on leading a future expedition to Mars.