Tuesday 30 June 2020

More from the Basing Department

A  bunch more figures back from the basing department to share with you, mostly for the Sikh Wars with some White Russians.

Firstly are two Indian porters to add to my small baggage train, I want this to be quite large eventually as the centre peice for a couple of games.

I have a heck of a lot of Sikh artillery, but then they did like their guns, here is another line artillery peice with Wargames Foundry gunners.
The gun is I think a Prussian Napoleonic piece with split trail. The Sikhs had lots of different peices of artillery, much of it quite heavy and they used it well. Still got a few more f these to do.
More Sikhs, these guys are the first base of my next regiment, two Foundry and two Old Glory sepoys. Thye mix well together an I quite like this blue and red mix of colours.
The return of these has given me a kick to make some more progress with the rest of the battalion so hopefully an update on those soon.
The White Russians I only painted a couple of weeks ago and they are complete already. These are to flesh out a new unit. Originally I built my Russian Civil War forces based on units of 12, however moving toTriumph of the Will has meant I have moved many of these to 8 man units with four left over.
So united with the other 4 figures here is the complete unit.Nice and ragged with a touch of colour in the caps and shoulder boards.

And finally a shot with the original unit so giving me 2 units of 8. The Russian Civil War collection is very near to complete now, just some odds and sods to follow including a Tachanka, more on that later.
The basing department now has a couple of other bits to be getting on with and I have started on some more figures for the Sikh Wars I will share with you soon.

Thanks for reading.

Friday 26 June 2020

Polish Pancerni for the Deluge

With the easing of lockdown the basing department paid us a visit and had some goodies for me which I immediately started to photo for you good people.

The first unit to share are these Pancerni for the Deluge, they can of course also be used for my Great Northern War collection which is nice.

As the weather was nice I chose to take the pictures outside, they came out OK.
Most of this unit have been given red shields with brass fittings, a popular addition for Pancerni and a colour scheme which most seemed to use.

Figures are a mix of TAG and Redoubt with one Foundry and one Essex figure mixed in and a mix of horses too. I think they all go together quite well.


These were the first unit with some nail art on the blankets and I hand painted soem basic patterns on a couple too. The officer has a basic pattern which came out OK.
This end horse has a strip of diamonds run across the blanket which I like.
Whilst its difficult to pick out the design on this yellow blanket is really nice. But only from close up.

The other unit is on its way for basing and that will be all the Pancerni I plan completed, having anything completed is a bit of a novelty to be honest.

Nice to be making progress.

Friday 19 June 2020

Russian Civil War Red Tachanka

I picked this up from ebay the other week. I have been hunting for a Tachanka (Or Tchanka if you prefer) for some time. These were typically peasant, sprung, 2, 3 or 4 horse buggy's with a Maxim mounted in the back. Most forces in the Russian Civil War used these, mainly to support cavalry formations, with Makhno's anarchists having lots of them in particular. I wanted at least one for my Reds.


There are four options really in 28mm, Eureka have a lovely dynamic one, but its 25mm and looks tiny against the chunky Copplestone and Studio Siberia miniatures, I painted and based one but had to sell it as I felt it looked silly. Warbases do one, but I didn't fancy building it from MDF and I didnt like the crew in particular but also the horses. There is another MDF option which is really good, I bought it and put it straight back in the packet when I saw how complicated it was, I also need to source horses and crew to add to this, I might come back to it. The last option is the Warlord games one. A much sturdier afair with nice crew and horses BUT its a WWII one so the carriage is a bit chunkier than the traditional peasant ones and the crew need head swaps, its also a bit expensive.

I managed to find this one on ebay at almost half price and already built so jumped on it.

As it was already built the figures were already glued solid to the cart so not ideal either for painting or in particular cutting off heads, however with a bit of delicate chopping I got there in the end.

Weirdly despite making a great job of building it the chap who I bought it from had made a half start on painting bits without priming it at all. This did mean I had to be careful when I primed it not to paint out all the detail, that said I am really happy with the end result.

I was reminded of some of the lessons Ken taught me when painting horses, I used the same oils but different base coats to ensure that all three horses had slightly different shades of coat. Again I am really happy with the horses.


For the heads I purposely chose three different hats to increase the diversity of the look. The Budenovka cap (rod head as Dave calls them) is not quite as nice as the other two which are Copplestone spares bu it looks OK. The only thing I might have changed if I had thought about it is to make the uniform colours slightly more diverse too, but again I am generally happy with them.
The pink flowers are a nod to my daughter ( The basing department) who likes to add flowers here and there, the splash of colour does lift the whole model as well so pleased with that.



So overall really please and a pretty quick turn around with painting it too, pulling the whole thing together over a weekend.

I am now wondering whether adding a red flag to it might also add a bit of something?

I wonder when I can get it on the table?

Sunday 14 June 2020

More Pancerni off the workbench for the Deluge Poles


With these so near completion I was keen to get the last of the Pancerni completed and do a little more nail art. I think that will be all the Pancerni I need for now.

So this standard bearer came out really well. The floral design on the saddle blanket I think has come out really well, as has the flag.
Not sure this picture captures the other side but this gives us the first two.
The Officer also has a strip of nail art across the back which sets it off quite nicely.
I quite like this figure, the long plumes are supposed to be painted as pheasant, again I think this came out OK.
Before I give them over to the basing department here is the unit on its bases ready for the last stage. Again really happy with this one. probably half have the nail art and a number of minor changes invluding the guy on the left with the sword arm swapped for a pistol with a hand wrapped aroud it. The standard bearer had a sword which had snapped in transit, so I cleaned it off and and drilled it to take the standard.
The other unit has already winged off to York for basing so hopefully a couple of units finalised very soon which would be very nice indeed. That should see my Pancerni complete with a unitof Winged Hussars,Noble levy and Dragoons still to do in order to finish off the Poles for now.

So there you go for now, short and sweet. See you soon.

Monday 8 June 2020

A Butterfly Workbench

 Been busy letting the butterfly free over the last week, just enjoying painting. A fairly eclectic mix of figures for various rojects and collections. Still its keeping me sane.

A bunch more Cossacks to kick things off, all Old Glory and not bad figures these ones. The first has a random head which looks a bit Hungarian I addedd along with the additional sword arm, the second was holding a spde but I thought a pike might be more useful so swapped it over, the third is just as he comes with a fine set of moustaches.
This Redoubt Pancerni has no nail art but I really like this "Polish Crimson" I picked up from Colour Party Paints so I dont think it needs any. I dont normally go in for garish colours but the Poles and the Sikh Nobles lend themselves to soem colour so happy to make an exception in this case. Another three of these guys and I have two units to pass to the basing department, lockdown easing will mean I can actually meet her and social distance from Monday.
Another Government Musketeer for 1745, these are lovely figures by Flags of War, very slow and steady progress but that will pick up when I get a bit further along with other projects. Really pleased with the red in particular.
Two more Company Sepoys for the Sikh Wars, both Foundry from the old and newer ranges, sill nice sculpts. Only takes me to 3 for this unit but again the pace can pick up later, for now happy to have  a couple more completed.

A post would hardly be complete without a Pole or two somewhere, this one is a Volunteer from 1920 to fight the reds, a Studio Siberia figure, I have a few of these to paint.
Lastly a bunch of White Russians. These guys will finish off a unit of rifles. Some artistic licence has been taken with the uniforms, the cap based on parade caps for a rifle regiment to add a splash of colour. Sorry I know it annoys the purists. Two Copplestone (Left) and two Studio Siberia figures (Right) by Leonid. They fit together really well.
These guys bring my Russian Civil War collection close to completion although I will no doubt be enthused by something and get some more at some point, probably Cossack's, you can never have enough Cossack's!
My workbench looks just as eclectic with more 1745 troops, Pancerni and Sikhs. But it all helps taking each of the projects a step closer.

Thanks for reading, stay safe.

Wednesday 3 June 2020

Wargames Atlantic Plastic Afghans

These beauties arrived in the post,  released at the start of May I have been looking forward to these for a while.£25-£30 depending where you get them and 40 figures is a bit of a bargain.
You get 8 of the same 5 figure sprue so no command sprue but that suits me. These were always going to be mixed with the Perry metal (and hopefully Perry Plastic) afghans. I also intend to use some Sikh turbaned heads from WWII ranges to create some Sikh irregulars too, probably just one unit of 20 but possibly push to 2..

So each sprue has 5 Afghan warriors, you have a choice of 12 different heads, some of which are very nice indeed, others are OK. Not a fan of the tuareg style wrapped across the face but each to their own. You also get two arms with Khyber knife, two with sword, one with punch dagger, three with jezail and two each with musket and martini henry so useful from 1700 to 1900 really, adding a later bolt action rifle or even a Kalashnikov shouldnt be too difficult if you need to advance them into the 20th century and you also get a spare of each weapon to stick to the back of a figure with bladed weapons. The left hand is sculpted on the barrel of most of the firearms so you need to match up the corresponding arm which can be fun, trying to get both arms and the hand to all stick together at the same time. A modeller I am not as I am sure will become evident.

However the figures are nice, they are quite slim but fit reaonably well with other ranges. The 4 shields are a boon as I am short of some so really helpful.The charging figure with the satchel is probably my least favourite of the figures whilst the kneeling chap is probably the one I like best. All in all though happy.
Here is the first sprue built and primed. Initial thoughts are that the firing jezail probably only works well on the kneeling figure, but we will see as I build more. The kneeling chap is still my favourite.
A quick paint job and here we are, 5 more afghans. The finished article is quite nice, definately slimmer than other ranges and I need to be more careful with my modelling and positioning of the arms but nice result. The standing firing figure looks OK now hes painted but I wont use this one with that arm again. the kneeling figure defending himself with shield and chora came out well and the others are OK.

I like using a mix of washed out colours rather than just whites although I will mix more whites and greys in as I do more.

Here I have mixed them with Perry Afghans and an old Foundry one (kneeling pointing), they are certainly slighter but I think they mix well. No concerns about mixing on the same base.

Finally three of them mixed with three metal Perry's to give me  small unit of skirmishers, happy with the end result and ready to try another sprue of them.

So overall I am happy with these, the pack will give me two full units but will of course be mixed with the metals and also the Perry plastics when they come out to probably give me 4 or 5 more units of irregulars.

So they probably get 3.5 out of 5 for me, maybe more if I can get my modelling skills a bit higher and well worth the money I feel.

More to come.