Of Plastic, Dinosaurs & Toads

13/01/2018

Not the post I intended, but I am once against thwarted by low light levels which has hindered the highlighting of several figures.

So I diverted my efforts (mostly) to sorting out a shoe box size pile of slotta bases, some of which I’d promised to Too who turned up to collect them this afternoon.

I now have some on Freecycle to try and give them to a good new home, as having sorted them I don’t need so many, and as black plastic they cannot be recycled. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should have heard that plastic is a major pollutant in the environment, so we should be doing as much as possible to stop this stuff going to landfill and or being washed in to the seas. I’ve shifted loads of stuff on Freecycle, so i recommend it as a way of getting rid of stuff you no longer want, but has no monetary value.

(NB: Plastic sprue can be recycled providing they’re not black ! So make sure you check your local council’s recycling details and put them in iff they can be recycled PRETTY PLEASE)

Talking of plastic:

Found these on Evil-bay,, and bought them so I could hack them up into scenery pieces for Back of Beyond and Ghost Archipelago pieces.

At only £7 they’re good value, even if they are not 100% anatomically correct.

On the subject of anatomy:

I was hassled at frostFayre, for not having Ice Toads in my expansive collection, so the following w/e I ordered some from CP Models.

Jon then sent a smug message saying he already had two of them.

Good job I’d ordered three.

To distinguish them on the field of battle I painted their tongues, red, white and blue !

Now hopefully tomorrow, I should have finished off some more Captains, treasure items, and continued with the small challenge I set myself !

Filed under Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, RCW / BoB, Scenery

Log defences

06/09/2017

I’m sure there is a proper name, but here are some log barriers that act as barriers. I had one set painted up years ago, and bought some only for them to be lost…

I’d undercoated them and then packed them away in a box of stuff I’ve now sold.

They’re by Ainsty.

Simple, log barricades kept in places by staves at either end. I’ve added flock on the outer side.

 

These should be good for AVBCW, BoB, and WHFB games as well as my long planned AWI project.

In a wild moment of madness I painted the staves on this set a different colour.

The usual paint mix is:
– Foundry Bay Brown (Shade)
– Foundry Granite
– GW Agrax Earthshade wash
– Foundry Boneyard (shade), for the logs’ split ends and staves

The alternate set had the staves painted in Granite (light).

Wild I know.

Some more figures have been found in advanced states of painting…

Filed under AVBCW, RCW / BoB, Scenery

BoB: Studio Siberia Miniatures

21/05/2016

In preparation for another BoB Big Game in June/July, and with a healthy Paypal balance, I splashed outn and bought some figures from Studio Siberia Miniatures that I had seen advertised on the Lead Adventure Forum.

I bought a unit of Kuban Cossack Plastun, with some extra bits and bobs including the command unit and HMG packs.

The package arrived today less than two weeks since ordering (I’ve had e-bay sales taking longer to get from the UK to France than that), and only one single bayonet had broken off.

The miniatures are well made, moulded, and look the part even unpainted, so now my challenge is to paint them in time for the next Big Game.

I’d taken a gamble on them as I knew of nobody who actually had got any of this range from this manufacturer. I’m glad I did take the risk as the service was excellent.

So, how do they match up with other BoB/RCW manufacturers ?

L-R:
– Siberia
– Footsore/Musketeer WW1 Russian
– Siberia
– Copplestone
– Siberia

I would have added in a Brigade Games figure but couldn’t find an unpainted item this afternoon.

As you can see, the Siberi minis are slightly bigger than Footsore/Musketeer, and slightly smaller than Copplestone, so I’d say they’re about the size of Brigade Games, and totally compatible with all of these manufacturers.

Because they do grenade weilding figures, and interesting groups, I’d say go for it !

I already have my eye on the Women’s Death Battalion unit.

All in all A GOOD BUY.

Filed under RCW / BoB

Music: The March Violets Mortality Tour & Album (and Saffron Dreams)

06/10/2015

The Purple ones are out and about again, but they are also planning a new album at the conclusion of their US East Coast Mortality tour:

Full details, delivered in Si Denbigh’s idiosyncratic style about the Pledge Music campaign for the album are here.

At the time of writing, about 24 hours after the launch it is at 37% funding already, not bad.

A tithe of excess funding again goes to charity, Macmillan Cancer Support.

Yes, a double CD of live, “re-forged”, new and previously unreleased material, plus a DVD to boot.

As a complete side comment, I ended up giving a Bhuddist Monk a lift today (as you do in the depths of the countryside), all done up in his saffron robes. He was looking a bit bedraggled. We had a good chat about the Dalai Lama, Tibet, Hay-on-Wye and playing wargames.

I thought he might be offended by the later point, but he happily confirmed that Bhuddist Monks may take up arms in certain circumstances, which confirmed what I’d read in Peter Hopkirk’s book Trespasser’s on the Roof of the World.

Filed under Music, RCW / BoB

BoB: Bolshevik Artillery & Support

06/03/2015

Another week of seemingly meagre pickings, sorry ! Here’s the first of several updates that I have been working on in between community meetings, funerals and other stuff:

Copplestone Bolshevik field artillery. As per previous comments, I have replaced the commander figure with one from the Bolshevik Heroines pack to make it a bit different.

medic and Ammo carrier from Musketeer, now Footsore Miniatures WW1 Russians packs. Though slightly smaller and not as beefy as the Copplestone stuff these figures fit in nicely and help expand the range of poses on offer.

Filed under RCW / BoB Tagged with , ,

Fade to Grey

27/02/2015

Here’s a taster for some of the BoB stuff i was doing during the last few weeks:

Just a White Artillery piece, with in the background two more sections of hedging for the AVBCW game we are planning for March 14th.

The White gun crew are joined by a crewman from the Red Artillery set – as I have multiple setsw of both I am swapping figures round so that each artillery piece is unique.

Not an original, one I nabbed from another blog, but quite funny given the piles of grey plastic sprues us wargamers accummulate ! 😀

Filed under Painting, RCW / BoB

Cat !

23/02/2015 3 Comments

There you go, that should boost the ratings – any mention of cats is bound to get loads of hits because the internet was invented for pictures of cute cats.

So I finally got round to painting this Reaper cat – from the wizard’s familiar pack. I was given this by Byakhee Rich after he funded a kickstarter campaign. JP got the weasel for his weasely wretches.

Of a a medium soft plastic I painted this up as my cat BlackJack, complete with eyes lit by the fire of hell itself (I call him Satan’s Emmisary on Earth).

Updates have been few of late due to a combination of factors:

  • I was manically painting up lots of Bolshevik and Chinese Cavalry for my BoB game on Saturday
  • …which all ground to a halt on Thursday due to Man-flu…
  • …followed by a bereavement in the family.

Now I am back to health and almost firing on all cylinders. So I have some photos of BoB stuff, another Special Guest Super Star DJ posting, and a couple of AVBCW games AAR to come.

Filed under Cats, Painting, RCW / BoB

BoB: Fences & Hedges

01/02/2015 2 Comments

For my Back of Beyond games, I need a few more feet (!) of hedges and fences. From contemporary photos varioys fencing styles were used throughout Russia, and the simple wattle fences seemed common enough. So I bought last year a load of the Renedra fencing.

The individual sections are about five inches long, so a couple of them maker a useful length of fencing (a subject I will come back to WRT another manufacturer’s product), or approximately a foot. Now carving up the thick artists’ mounting card or greyboard using only a foot long steel rule as a guide for the kinife resulted in wibbly wobbly base sections.

So, having WRITTEN A SHOPPING LIST early in the new year of various materials I needed, I ended up in an arts/hobby shop, and found this – a steel ruler for cutting things that was/is just over a metre long. £23 but worth it.

Needing to do tens of feet/several metres worth of fencing and hedges for both BoB and AVBCW this is ideal for churning out standard width scenery pieces.

With a THICK layer of paper underneath I carved up metre sections of card only an inch wide easily with disposable knioves from B&Q.

Withe the fencing being bulked out with some Woodland Sceneics clump foliage I did some 13 foots worth of fencing/hedging for BoB in only a few days.

Nopt exciting stuff, but very much needed for the next Big Game scheduled on the 21st February !

Filed under RCW / BoB, Scenery

BoB: Mark V Hermaphrodite tank

17/01/2015

Finally, something I started painting ages ago has been cleared off the long painting list:

A Brigade Games model assembled by Byakhee Richa and myself some time ago.

One sponsoon was armed with a 6-pounder and Hotchkiss, the other side with two Hotchkiss’.

As with the Male and Female Masrk V painted earlier, I’ve painted it a drab Khaki. Some sources suggest they might have been painted a chocolate brown, others a Navy Grey. A few sources suggest a three part camop pattern may have been used of drak brown, light brown and blue/grey in a manner similar to the German camo patterns of 1918. YMMV !

I’ve painted the white/red/white which seems the most common marking on the “horns”, again, there are suggestions that the tanks received by the Whites in the AFSR during the RCW were marked in this way, with a few changed to the White/Red/Blue national colours. Given the paucity of info and their rarity, I stuck with the red/white/red to maximise use across all fronts for WW12/RCW and even AVBCW games.

Filed under RCW / BoB

BoB: Cabin

09/01/2015

On the painting table for some time was this new cabin from Grand Manner who have come out with a small but excellent range of Russian/Eastern European buildings.

Pricey, but their quality is very good, they’re also more true to 28mm scale than some other manufacturers.

Paints up nicely though, and done well before my planned BoB Big Game on the 21st February. Currently 11 of us attending, if you want to pop along, its based in Hereford (UK), add a comment to this message and I’ll pick it up and PM you.

Whilst uploading the pictures of the cabin, the postie arrived, with a pile of hills for me to paint up, for the other planned event – March 14th AVBCW, agsain in Hereford. More of which to come later as JP & I write scenarios up. Roo is already on the case for more scenery to wend between these hills. 😉

Filed under RCW / BoB, Scenery

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