Raising the standards

I have quite a large collection of RCW figures. Amongst the masses I have a handful of standard bearers. Painted with empty flag poles.

Here’s 8 lucky figures about to be completed. Three whites and Trotsky’s train guard in the front. A “red” Latvian and three Makhnovists in the rear.

I printed off a few flags at work. Some of the flags I found were a little pixelated but I don’t really care. The white flag on the right I’ve had for several years waiting.

The “red” Latvian and 3 Makhnovist flags on top and the Trotsky’s train guard and 3 white Russian ones on the bottom.

I have a few others who have yet to receive their flag pole and another whose flag I forgot to print. So I’ll do a part two later on.

I fold the flag in half, and use a glue stick to glue the sides together and onto the pole. If the flag comes loose later on, a drop of super glue fixes it tight.

I leave the white ends on to help with alignment and bend the flags to look like they are fluttering in the wind. When the glue is dry I trim the sides off.

Here’s the Makhnovist/anarchist flags. I have no idea what they actually say but the internet says they aren’t offensive.

Here you can see the pixelation on the white flags but from 6 feet away they look ace.

The “red” Latvian and Trotsky round out the group.

What I like about the RCW is that there is room for the whimsical, the odd and the imaginative mind.

Kickstarter, 28mm Germans and terrain build

As stated in the last post I needed some more metal washers. A quick trip to Home Depot got me sorted. 8x 1-1/2” and 4x2” washers and now  I have a small surplus  going forwards. But I saw some 1”x 2’x2’ insulation boards. I have long since thought of making some modular terrain boards using these. They are just shy of $8 each. Which is a lot considering a 2’x8’ board is about $16 (double the cost). However my local places only have shiplap sides instead of a butt end so it is worth it for me.

I picked up 6 boards (enough for. 4’x6’ table).

I also bought some black duct tape to cover the edge to prevent chipping/dents/damage. The washers, tape and insulation cost $73.03. I used up all the tape to line 3 full pieces and 1/2 of a fourth. 

I need some more tape before I can crack on.

Around this time I also backed the Hero Realms Kickstarter for 99 USD which was roughly $134.00

This brings my 2023 hobby budget from $67.48 to $274.51. Yikes. I was doing so well.

Lastly I based the last of the Germans.

I decided to pull out all of the Germans and take an army on parade photograph.

Here’s a few close ups of the army.

Here’s the unpainted 3rd Platoon, a flamethrower team and some casualties.

This is the first platoon, cavalry wing, field gun and machine gun. 

At the rear are an anti-tank rifle, mortar, 3 snipers, another machine gun and an anti-tank gun.


Lastly the HQ group, a mortar, 2nd platoon a tank, assault squad and another machine gun.

Lots of variety to field a number of options. I think I’m March I’ll be dropping off my WWI British to be painted before the unpainted Germans so I can get some games in.

Bases and buildings

My oldest has a 24 hr bug that caused him to miss a really important soccer game today so what better way to spend the day than to plug away at the piles of shame.

I also took the youngest to practice as there is a Home Hardware nearby. I needed some larger metal bases 1-1/2” and 2” widths so the casualties, snipers and heavy guns.

So I spent another $5.15 on metal bases. However I had a gift card so I’m debating whether that counts. I’ll count it bringing the 2023 Hobby expenses total to $67.48. 

Anyways I picked up 4x 2” washers and 4x 1-1/2” washers. I got home and quickly realized I probably need another 2-3 of the 1-1/2” size.

I based some of the figures.

I put a bit of plastic down first as there’s some type of chemical reaction that occurs between the glue and washer hole apparently that leaves marks on the table. That was a fun discovery last go around.

Pictured L to R top to bottom are the grenade launcher and 3.7mm TAK anti-tank gun, the casualties, a sniper and the machine gun. I left most of the crew off of the weapons teams for east of painting.

I have 1 sniper, another flamethrower team and an antitank rifle left to base.

I also put together four sprues of Warlord Games’ plastic ruined hamlet I got before Christmas. I had tested out one building so now have the set done.

Shown are two sprues worth. I opted for 6 pieces of ruins to allow for various configurations.

The weather was atrocious this week but it’s finally warming up. Hopefully I can prime these ruins quickly.

Baron’s War Outremer Kickstarter

Back in May 2022, I backed Footsore Miniatures Baron’s War 4 Kickstarter titled Outremer which takes the game to the Crusades setting.

To be honest, gaming the Crusades isn’t something I’m overly interested in. However, I was interested in getting more figures for my Baron’s War forces.

Growing up watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and more recently Robin Hood, I like the idea of English noblemen returning to England during/after the Crusades and finding King John mucking things up.

Today, my pledge arrived.

Now this was paid for in 2022 so it doesn’t affect my 2023 Hobby budget.

I received 12 Cavalry and 20 Infantry figures. I have between 30-40 other Baron’s War figures so this give me 2 larger forces. I think 2 freebie figures are missing so I will have to follow up.

I should also probably track all new figures received vs figures painted to see how the Lead Mountain changes in size.

New figures for 2023:

12 Cavalry

20 Infantry

Blog Review

My plan this year it to post more. Including pictures.

I had several posts way back in 2014 regarding a German FallschirmJager army and the board game Descent. Thought a tiny update would be appreciated. They are gone.

I traded Descent and all the expansions for some figure painting by my friend I want to say around 2019. I know Descent 2.0 is now out but I have no plans to return to that market. It was a good game. Just not enough time.

Also sometime in 2022 (possibly at Hotlead 2022) I sold off my FJ to another friend. I kept all the armour and am building a German Grenadiers force instead. 

I thought it weird to have US 101, British Red Devils and German FJ.

I’ll probably try to hock the Red Devils at some point in the future too.

January update

Here’s a quick update,

Hobby expenses:

$18.43 on 2x 1LB boxes of 5/16 metal washers. 

$43.90 on  50mm x 50mm plastic bases and Jan/Feb issues of Wargames Illustrated (shipped for UK).

Total $62.33

5/16 metal washers are my go to for my 28mm metal figures. They give a nice heft and make the figures harder to knock over. They are about 25mm across. 5/16 is the interior hole size. My individual German infantry are now all based. I need a few larger bases for things like snipers, the machine gun and the anti tank gun.

I also need (sometime this year) 50mm square bases. So I placed an order from Northstar. I also added the two WI issues. February seems extra appealing as it has some RCW articles.

This week I started basing my 30 Oathmark Dwarf heavy infantry and 4 metal characters.

I cover the base in GW Stirland mud and then add static grass. I did the mud stage. I do a heavy-ish coat to hide the integral base of the miniature.

Then I’ll static grass the base and use the geek gaming scenics spray to lock it in.

I also put head on my 30 Oathmark orcs and built 10 of the 30 newly released Goblin slaves.

I have 30 more Oathmark Goblin infantry to build as well. That’s all for now. Hopefully I can find little bits of time to keep plugging away.

Happy New Year 2023

We’ll it’s been quite a year.

I finished only a handful of figures myself, a whopping 9 28mm NPCs for my ongoing RCW project. 

I have another 9 RCW figures in some state of painting. I have 6 pirates about 20 Afghan War and another 20 Barons War figures also with some paint on them.

Pretty disappointing to tell the truth but I found some painting mojo and expect to exceed these numbers this year.

Vehicles wise I primed two MDF airships from Crossover Miniatures, and put paint down on a Sarissa Precision train set (tender and 4 carriages) for the RCW. I also assembled an Ainsty Castings Man o’ war pirate ship and have mostly painted a Firelock Games sloop.

My plan for 2023 is:

RCW project

Finish painting the Sarissa train.

Base the Sarissa train tracks.

Finish painting the NPC characters I have for the RCW

Pirates

Get some paint on the 60+ figures I have.

Finish painting both pirate ships.

Oathmark

Finish building my Oathmark Orcs, Goblin slaves and Goblin boxes and get them commission painted (100ish)

Paint my oathmark wolves for the Goblin wolf riders.

Stargrave

Finish building the rest of the Troopers (20ish) box set.

Paint them (60ish)

Baron’s War

Finish painting the figures I started.

Assemble/paint the 40ish figures I have still in the blister.

Assemble/paint the new kickstarter figures whenever they get delivered.

WWI/WWII

Get my WWI British (90ish figures) and remaining Germans (40ish figures) to the commission painter.

Get my WWII German tanks to the commission painter.

There aren’t any major projects I’d like to start this year so hopefully just some small purchases here and there to finish old projects.

My wife thinks I spend $200/week on figures. I actually spend less that $200/month so I’d like to also document my hobby expenditures. I’ll also include supplies like glue and baseing materials etc.

So far I’m at $0.00 Hahaha.

That’s my plan so far.