Zulu wars Perry Plastics

Its been a while since my last post here. I haven't been idle though. Regulars will know I have been taking part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and posting there instead. Post Christmas I managed at least one post a week, so not too shabby if I may say so myself. So, apologies to anyone that saw these models in that blog  but I thought they warranted another posting here with some different accompanying words.

As I have previously said many a time, I love historical gaming, but I am slower at painting for it due to the self imposed stress of historical accuracy in uniforms. (Yes, so much has already been said about "Do your own thing" This is just my own issue, let's move on.)

So, I greatly enjoyed sticking together these Perry Miniatures plastics, then they sat on my painting tray for a long time. A very long time. Inspired by the Father in Laws love of the Victorian era in toy soldiers, I picked up a copy of Ospreys, The Men who would be Kings rulebook. They are skirmish rules and using their half size unit rules, you have enough for two forces if you buy two boxes of Perry Plastics, one for Brits, one for Zulus. (You are actually just a couple short, but the free Warlord sprues from Wargames Illustrated I have got recently covered the shortfalls.)

After these were all finished I decided to add a Gatling Gun to the Brits.

The gun carriage colour was inspired by checking out these guys here.

I also remembered I have a couple of the Wargames Illustrated limited edition figures that fit in nicely.

I'm probably going to paint up another box of Zulus if I can bully myself around to getting to it.

The British box comes with casualty markers. The rules I have don't specifically require any on-table markers but I decided to future proof myself by using green stuff to make some dice holders with them in case something crops up in the future that they are useful for.

All the models were finished with Coat D'arms Super Shader which gives them some nice shading, as well as an old school gloss finish that I kinda like for this project.

The paints used were (For those interested):

British.

Citadel paints:

Zandra dust, Corax White, Cadian Fleshtone, Eshin Grey, Dawnstone, Ironbreaker, Abaddon Black, Retributor Armour.

Coat D'arms:

Pale Sand, Horse Tone Dun, Beige Brown, Blood Red, Supershader Light Brown.

Zulus.

Coat D'arms:

Beige Brown, Dark Flesh, Pale Sand.

Citadel:

Zandra Dust, Corax White, Abaddon Black, Agrax Earthshade.

For the bases:

Tamiya Grass Effect Khaki, Gamers Grass Dry Steppe tufts.

The gun carriage is Citadel Russ Grey.

Now, anyone know if I can get an mdf Rorke's Drift kit in 28mm that folds down for easy storage?

Another Space Marine, Dagnammit.

As I stated in my last post, I used to be a lazy painter. My days of playing warhammer was all about the game rather than the painting, so my armies didn't look that amazing on the table. I had a Skaven Army that included a massive slave unit of sixty models. All I had done to paint them was spray them brown, paint each nose black and the end of their spears silver. Oh and flock the bases, jobs a good'un. My first 40k army was actually Blood Angels. They were so badly painted I have actually overpainted or sold most of them, so apart from a terrible Mephiston Librarian on a Bike conversion I still have I technically don't have any Blood Angels.

I recently ventured into the town centre for a visit for the first time in a long while for my first Covid Vaccination (Yay!!) Whilst there I decided to get some hobby supplies. I still haven't touched my Stargrave plastics as I don't want to waste them, I am saving them as a treat. We have a small independent store in town that mostly sells airfix type kits so I picked up some Tamiya plastic cement from there. I have good memories of that brush on poly that GW had back in the nineties that just bonded the two surfaces together without getting any gloopiness everywhere. Apparently this stuff is just like that, so my Stargrave plastics will get the same VIP treatment. I really want to get these plastics right, almost to the point where I am scared to actually build them. Not having definitely decided on what any particular rule system I am using them for (I didn't actually buy the Stargrave book) I'm not sure what I'm going to arm each model with. Do I go for lots of variety for a skirmish type games or do I make whole units of models armed with similar weaponry? I also grabbed a few new texture paints to try out.

I also thought I would pop into my local GW store to get some paints and another painting handle. When I first saw these painting handles I thought they were a waste of money, but then I got one for my youngest as he was struggling when painting to hold the models. Then I'd actually started borrowing it myself and found it really useful so now we have one each. (Never too long in the beard to pick up new techniques.)

Whilst in there I showed the store manager a picture of my latest Space Marine paint job and he was impressed (I know, I know, it's his job to be nice.) and he asked what I was going to paint next. Well the store is having it's anniversary soon and they are having a couple of competitions including a conversion competition. GW only bits or green stuff allowed. So, I decided to go right back to the beginning and have a play with some green stuff. Could I make a new style Primaris Marine look like an old school Blood Angel. Well, I don't think it's gonna win the competition, but I had fun making him.

Oh and of course it had to have an old school green trim on the base, nothing else would do.

Paints used:

Coat D'arms. Blood Red, Bone, White, Grass Green, Ink Wash Armour

Citadel. Abaddon Black, Caliban Green, Eshin Grey, Retributor Armour, Grey Knights Steel, Steel Legion Drab, Flash Fitz Yellow, Baal Red Wash, Brown Ink

Painting Space Marines

So regular readers will know I'm no longer a GW fan, I am definitely not up to speed on the current rules, or background of their systems. I'm not anti-GW at all. I buy their paints and I will peruse their shelves to see if anything jumps out at me, although I'll be honest, a lot of the new style models with their insistence of using lots of negative space and delicately balanced "stringy" bits isn't to my taste. (just me, I know I have no reason not to like it, I just have no idea how anyone transports any of it safely!) 

There are a large number of people who look back on the nineties as the "Golden Age" of Warhammer, whole groups of people look back with tinted glasses on what was once my teenage years and the "best of times" rather than the "end of times". (Okay seriously, that is enough with the quotations.) There is an excellent fanzine out there here dedicated to those days of goblin green edged bases and cardboard standees for that larger model in your army you just can't afford. 

There is an argument to be said that us Longbeards need to let go, like the middle aged man with his car on his drive he had when he was a teenager, tinkering with it every weekend to keep it running because it is a classic. When in reality, it's just a piece of metal from the eighties. Things improve, technologies change. When I was a kid embracing the latest 40K rules coming out there were probably Longbeards at the time tutting and stroking their facial hair, lamenting the lost days of Rogue Trader. So, maybe things have improved?

The last time I played Warhammer 40K the rules were in the midst of a trend that bigger is better. Apocalypse was the trend so all games had to be bring everything you have to the table. I had a Space Marine army and so had increased it to the size of an entire company and then some. I had a lot of Space Marines, mostly painted as quickly as possible to get them on the table. The game took all day for us to play, turns would last for up to two hours, the rules were basically skewed towards whatever the latest new models were, so my Space Marine army suffered horribly. I packed my lads away carefully in their foam trays and I was done with them.

More recently GW did one of those magazine runs where part one is £1.99 to entice you in and the first issue came with three new style Space Marines, a brush and three pots of paint. As one of those colours was black and paint costs more than that per pot in store, I proceeded to buy three copies just for the paint. The Marines were packed away for a rainy day.

This week I decided it's been long enough and to see if I could paint Space Marines any better, also to see if it the models are any better. My painting style has changed over the years so I thought it would be an interesting experiment. I also read somewhere recently where someone suggested that we should try not to compare our painted models to others across the internet but rather our own earlier attempts. That way you can see your own improvement. So, here they are.

I've gone for an Ultramarines colour scheme for a mass appeal so I can use them to show my painting ability. It's amazing how many paints you actually use though for what initially seems a simple colour scheme. As an exercise I took note for once in the actual paints I used:

Undercoat: Coat D'arms white

Main armour blue: Citadel Macragge Blue, Citadel Blue wash (if you don't happen to have a twenty year old pot of this Coat D'arms do a similar ink blue wash), highlight with Citadel Russ Grey.

Helmets: Coat D'arms white with a wash of Coat D'arms light brown super shader, Citadel Eshin grey for the eyes.

Sergeant head: Coat D'arms horse tone brown, then drybrushed with Citadel Cadian Fleshtone. Hair is Citadel Sunburst yellow with a glaze of Coat D'arms Golden Yellow.

Boltguns: Coat D'arms gun metal and horse tone brown with respective washes of Coat D'arms ink armour wash and Citadel Brown ink. Citadel Abaddon Black for the middle body.

Brass trimmings: Citadel Retributor Armour with Citadel Gryphonne Sepia.

Purity seals: Coat D'arms Blood Red and Bone. Washed with the same Gryphonne Sepia.

Base: Vallejo thick Mud.

There you go, 19 pots of paint for a "simple" paint scheme. I think I've come a long way since I first started painting Space Marines.

What do I think of the models? Well they are a lot less fiddly to put together than they used to be, this might be partly due to the fact they are bigger but that is explained by the fact that apparantly they are a new strain of superior advanced Space Marine. I due wonder if the larger sculpts came first then the backstory was invented as an excuse. They do feel more like the genetically superior beings that I always imagined when reading the novels though. The original guys never seemed to tower over their guardsman counterparts.

I fished out a couple of my old guys to do the comparison. 

Well, they are clearly a lot taller, but these are Primaris Marines, an improvement on the original geneseed. Maybe the larger model came before the story, maybe not, who knows. I actually kinda like them. Has my painting improved? I'd like to think so, mainly not due to any increase in skill but in care and attention. I spent probably ten times as long on each model as I would have back the first time. I certainly couldn't paint another full company of Marines at this rate, not if I didn't want to go crazy. Nevertheless I don't think I'm going to go out and buy the latest 40K rules and get playing again, but to be honest, when I first painted Space Marines I think 90% of my hobby time was about the game, the painting was a means to an ends, these days, this old Grognard likes to take his time painting a model, if I get to roll some dice now and then that's just a bonus.

Talking of bonus content, those of you who did the maths, will know that if I bought three copies of the magazine I would have nine marines, well I first painted up just a five man squad, then I thought I would have a little play with a tiny conversion by fishing out an old power fist from my bits box. (Yep, I never throw any spare bits out.) I think it fits quite well, in fact in the old marine models I felt the power fist looked too big, here it looks pretty good.

Napoleonic progress

So, it's been a while but bear with I'll catch you up.

So, still in lockdown here in the UK as most of you will know, but I do have international readers. Still working at home, only going to the shop once a week if that. I'm going a bit stir crazy if I'm honest, but hey I'm sure we all are. Working at home has taken its toll, not having been prepared for this, I've been working at the dining table on a solid dining chair. Fine for sitting eating your dinner, or painting for a few hours in the evening, but not really suitable for all day working. One day working all day, then an online Pathfinder roleplay session, followed by a couple of hours painting and I worked out I spent around 16 hours sat in the same spot. Needless to say, my knees gave in. A couple of days later I had what looked like two filled water balloons in the middle of my legs.
Not being able to do your hobby when you are stuck indoors under lockdown makes it even less fun, but at least I could catch up on some of my Netflix list. A weeks rest however and work to the rescue with a more suitable work chair safely delivered and I am back up and about.

Before my stupid self inflicted injury, I did however get quite a bit of painting done including some things for my on going Napoleonic project.

A while ago I treated myself to some character models to paint in between rank and files models. I actually didn't paint this until after the other items I am showing below as a completion treat. I find sticking a character between the repetitive painting tasks helps motivate.

Wellington and Copenhagen fron Front Rank

I've been toying with the following idea now for a while and I finally got the parts required. For my Napoleonic rules I wanted to create models to represent a Zombie French regiment. I ordered some standard zombie sprues from Mantic games and then raided my bits box (and had some donations from the Illustrious Opponent as he has a French force). There are parts from Perry and Victrix I believe. I thought I would show you photos in progress to show how much of a mix of parts the models were.

regiment bases are your friend when making zombies

I'm sure a couple of them look like they are trying a dance routine

I'm particularly proud of this one dragging his drum

Next up I've completed some Prussian infantry, I managed to get a good system going painting them on strips with blu-tak to get some good speed painting going. I've got a couple of boxes of these to paint so I'm not going for super-detail, they just need to look good when there are in ranks on the table.

Perry Prussian infantry

All bayonets currently still intact (I'm sure that won't last with my clumsiness)

Prussian Jaegers from Perry

The last show I went to ( when was that? I've lost all sense of time, was it a couple of months, a couple of years?) I picked up the following as part of a pair. His bowler hat wearing friend is still on my painting table. I'm not going to use them for their intended purpose however. I think he will make a great brawler in the Old West. He is 28mm scale but actually represents more like 7"

Henchman from Crooked Dice

Next up are a couple more character miniatures from Front Rank. They are listed as civilians but I shall certainly not be using them as standard civilians. Note one is dressed slightly more flamboyantly than the other? Yes, may I introduce to you, Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell.

Wellingtons own practising magicians

I made an order recently to Black Hat miniatures to fill out some gaps in my paint pallette. It's a paint range I have used for many years, picking it up at shows from various traders but I've never bought direct from the owner. My paint purchasing I must admit is not very organised, when I go to a show I forget to take note what I need and just make random choices (I'm never going to run out of red) or I get lazy and if I need one colour, I work in town, so I do admit, it is easy to pop to the local GW at lunch time and pick up that one pot (shh, don't tell anyone, I hate myself.) so this is the first time in a while I have made a concerted effort to spend a good chunk of change and sort out my paints. (and throw out all the dried out ones.)

Well, I was intrigued by a product on their site for shading. I have often used inks and washes but never an all over shade. So, I added the below to my order to give it a go. I've used it on most of the models I've shown in this post. You just paint your model in block colours then paint the whole model with the shade. I'm probably teaching you all to suck eggs, but I've got to say I love it. I'd probably not use it for special characters (I didn't use it for the whole of the Wellington model or the final model of my blog below.) but for quick repetitive painting, it's the bees knees. It's called dark brown, but I find it gives more of a brown/grey shade to the model. It has almost a gelatinous texture and goes on like a wash but somehow has a semi-transluscence that means it matches the colour it sits on. They do a lighter one too if you like your models a bit brighter.

And finally...

Illustrious Opponent and I and our regular Pathfinder group are trying something new. We are embarking on a new adventure with new characters starting at level 4. My previous character being a dwarf bezerker, I wanted to try something completely new. Our crew are to be employed in the local Navy so I volunteered to be the ships wizard. Meet Zachariah the Great.

Zachariah is available for Life Day celebrations and Coming of Age Ceremonies

Now I know what you are thinking, we aren't actually meeting up, don't panic. The sessions are still being played via Zoom. I just found building and painting a model really helped to "create" my character. Some people can draw and have done so. My drawing skills are limited to stick figures and tracing, so actually getting to make Zachariah really helped me imagine him ready for our first session.
He is mostly made up of bits from the Frostgrave Wizards sprue with a tricorne from a Warlords AWI militia sprue. Then his staff has been given a burning sphere I had in my bits box that I believe was from a GW wizard and so was the swirling mist he is stood upon. Needless to say his favourite spell will be Glitterdust.

Anyway, that's all for now. Stay safe, keep painting and please feel free to comment below.

Painting your models

I've mentioned many firsts on this blog. My first wargaming army (more than a few models skirmishing) that I rolled dice with was, like many a wargamer, Space Marines. I'd read battle reports in White Dwarf of second edition 40K between Blood Angels and Orks and so the classic red look Spam had appealed to me. Blood Angels, painted Blood red, not rocket science really. I can see why a lot of beginner hobbyists began with Spam, you can get away with a simple paint job and then you improve your skills taking on the more complicated looking character pieces.

Once confidence set in, I decided to take on vehicles and a Dreadnought. Wanting to speed up the process a bit I purchased a can of spray paint, Blood Angel Orange. Hang on, Orange? Thus began my education in the weird world of wargaming paints. 

So, my tanks were orange and my troops were red. Don't believe me the colour existed? I have a pot I found at a car boot sale more recently.

Yep, that's a tube of Beattie glue as well. I'm keeping it preserved for prosperity.

Sometimes I check my paint box and grumble at the number of pots that have dried up and despair at how quickly it has happened, then remember that they are probably four or five years old and it's been six months since my last check. Then I counter that argument with myself by pointing out the twenty five year old pot of Polished Blue that has not dried up. Why can't they all be like Polished Blue! (Good old reliable, discontinued Polished Blue.) Then I cry tears into the dried paint as I realise I have been doing this hobby for a quarter of a century. Then the tears make the paint useable again and all is good in the world.

Remember these? Yep, still not painted them. You've all got some in a box somewhere, reminding you how long you've been playing.

Another sign of ageing is the number of times I have mourned the loss of a favourite colour, oh they tell you it's been replaced by an identical colour with just a different name, they show you the colour conversion chart but it's just not quite the same colour is it? Yes I've been taking my sweet time painting my current project (normally counted in months or years) but I need to colour match exactly.

Found some of these once in a toyshop on holiday, bought their entire stock as the colour was discontinued in the official GW stores.

I'm not blaming any one company either. I've tried other companies too. Coat D'arms are a good alternative if you miss the good old GW days but even they have problems sometimes.

Split lid? It's fine, the dried up paint makes a good seal to keep the rest of the paint fresh!

Then of course if you want to avoid all the issues of lids, why not try a pot with a dropper top? That's fine, but I always end up putting more on my pallet than I actually need.

These are all grumpy old man problems really. No-one can expect paints to last forever, even if the old school ones do. As for actual coverage and pigment matching, don't get me started...