Culverts and Bengal Tigers

I finally got round to finishing off the culvert from Sabotag3d which has been lurking around for ages, and now can be safely stored away in a terrain box till we are all allowed out to play again. 

The early war campaign uses culverts in one game, and I should have purchased two sets, but thought I would check out one before fully committing. They are very nice, and quick and easy to paint. 

Say it with flowers.. It's always springtime when armies clash..   except when it's winter. Of course.

A platoon of Volksgrenadiers plus a FOO (which I don't think is even an option in the support list). In Chain of Command, there is a headquarters of the officer plus 3 rifle grenadiers, a 2 LMG + riflemen squad, and 2 squads of 8 men (inc Junior leaders) equipped with the StG 44 Assault Rifle. 

And how can you do Battle of the Bulge without a Royal Tiger? - The new Rubicon kit was irresistible. This is the base build not yet glued together so I can paint the interior and the track assemblies. 

And after a little bit of work, texturing the armour plate, replacing grab handles with wire, making up a new towing cable and other minor changes. Here it is undercoated and ready for the airbrush. 

Yes, I know I should be painting Flags of War Jacobites, or even Sub-Roman British and Early Saxons, but this won't take long..  :) 

Resist anything but Temptation

So here it is.. in my hot little hands, well done Rubicon. Shame that I am still waiting for the infantry to go with it..(not from Rubicon) it's a ginormous box!

I'm afraid I feel a dose of Late War Empress British coming on...  I should have resisted.

UPDATE - the Warlord Games order arrived today, a box each of their Winter Grenadiers, Veteran Grenadiers, Grenadiers in Winter clothing and Winter SS, which together with a spare bloke with an MP40 I had lurking around (actually from the Warlord Fallschirmjager Support group box), and another bloke who will be a FOO (Forward Observation Officer), made up a Volksgrenadier Sturm Platoon. 

Green troops but well equipped. In my favoured ruleset (Chain of Command), they are small squads, will be easier to hit and suffer a morale penalty, but they still have pretty decent firepower. Similarly German tank crews of the period were of pretty poor quality, so it makes an interesting equation, superior equipment but inferior training and skills.

Now all I have to do is resist the Rubicon schwimwagen and another Sdkfz 251 in whitewash..  :) 

Sub-Roman Peasants

In the Lardies Dux Britanniarum rules, the 'British' forces are initially, 1 group of elites, 2 groups of warriors, 3 groups of levy - (peasants with pointy sticks), and 4 archers. So here they are.

When I slapped the LBMS transfers on, the shield designs are too small. I persevered, but now I am wondering whether to leave them as is, or try to paint in some kind of rim or something.. 

I suspect I will leave them as is. 

Just the Archers and 2 groups of Warriors to do, and then it is on to the Saxons. I just have to make sure I don't get distracted by shiny things.. ooooh Rubicon have released their 1/56 Tiger II...  watch this space.

More Sub Roman British

These chaps will be the elite troops of my Sub Roman British army. Still waiting for the LBMS shield transfers to arrive but otherwise these chaps are done. Next up with be two groups of warriors. Then the three groups of levy.

First Dux Britanniarum

So, I was supposed to be painting 1745 Scots..  but someone on the Society of Ancients forum had a bunch of Sub-Roman British metal casts from Gripping Beast for cheap..  and I ended up with a force for the Sub Roman British for Dux Britanniarum (TooFatLardies).

So then Warlord Games had their price reductions, and I had a £5 off 'medal' so it made sense (to a wargamer anyway), to pick up all their early Saxon miniatures (formerly 'Saxon Miniatures'). 

Well - when you have a bunch of new figures, for a new period, and a new(ish to me) set of rules, it would be rude not to paint up some test figures.

Sub-Roman British Leader stand

 

Scots Wha Hae

It seemed appropriate on St Andrew's Day to finish off two test pieces for my Jacobite forces. These are perhaps more of a colour palette test. Though I am going to have to replace my Armypainter 'hard leather' colour, as the entire bottle split open when I tried to open it. I also managed to have the Vallejo Military Green come out an entirely different colour when I used it for highlights on the Lowlander's breeches. 

Otherwise, I am happy. They can join the solitary Hanoverian infantryman that so far constitutes my entire painted 1745 force. 

And Flags of War who produce these figures have a current Kickstarter for further figures including Bagot's Hussars and artillery pieces and crews. If you sign up to the Kickstarter you can get the already produced packs at the reduced Kickstarter prices, so it's a really good deal, and an opportunity to add soem lovely figures to your forces.

So here they are, Hamish and Rab. I'll finish off the basing in one go once the rest are painted.

And as I am starting to get into painting these, keep an eye on Stiu's blog for updates on how his Government forces are progressing.

Some Barricades - clearing the workbench

 Over time, besides major projects I have succumbed to occasional temptation, such as carts and small resin scenery items, these tend to get assembled (if required), undercoated, and then they are just a little too dull or low priority, and so they hang around for ever. 

Time to clear a little space, so I slapped paint on some barricades and a broken down cart from Alternative Armies.

These will do nicely for barricades for pretty much 1630 - 1950. And the cart from 1630- 1900 I guess. I wanted the barricades primarily for civilian defences in WW2, but I suspect they will see use in AWI, and possibly even the Jacobite period. The castings are nice, as I usually expect to have to fill at least a few holes in resin casts, but these ones I decided it wasn't necessary.

Not hugely exciting, but another space cleared in the lead(resin) pile. I really must start putting new pieces into a scenic context, not just snapping away on the very tatty old cutting mat.