Baby Got Some Bad, Bad Gas...

A change of pace. I've been keen to get back to work on my zombie apocalypse game; Infection Z, for some time now. So I've been reading through the rules and decided to work on some terrain to get me into the mood. I already have plenty of zombies and survivors and don't feel like pianting more of either at the moment. I have about 80+ zombies and 40 odd survivors (although there's really nothing wrong with adding more zed's to the herd!).

As it is I've had a couple of Sarissa Precision buildings constructed and undercoated for a long while and decided to finally get them finished. First up is this little gasoline station:

This is a nice little kit but it was pretty fiddley to paint. That undercover piece and the signage on top was really awkward. As you can see the arrow at the end of "gas" broke off because it was a bit delicate and, despite how it looks now, I painted all the parts with a high level of accuracy. I knew I'd be messing it up but painting it neat and tidy beforehand really makes a difference to the final effect.

I decided to keep that front awning/undercover piece separate and didn't glue it in place. I'm hoping the slots for holding it will be strong enough to keep it in place during a game. Keeping it separate will make storage easier.

The windows are just thin acetate. Nothing special but they give the illusion of glass. The sign on the front is just paper. I made it on photoshop and painted the silly face and skull.

The interior is pretty basic. It only came with a door and a counter. I made the little shelf stack out of thick card. Unfortunately the front door is just etched into the outer wall and doesn't open. 

This will go well with my other terrain. When I finish a couple more buildings I'll have have more than enough to set up a little abandoned, dilapidated town. 

Anyway, it's about time we left the Atomic Gas station and it's friendly proprietor to their own business. Y'all come back whenever you want. Drop in and say "Hello," and try not to get your face eaten off.

A Fanfare for the King

I've had this figure of Henry VI for a while abut but I didn't know what to to do with it. It's the Perry figure that comes in the same set as Margret of Anjou and Buckingham. I wanted to keep Henry separate for a purpose but I didn't know what to do with him.

Last week, as mentioned in my previous post, I visited Eureka and found out that they have a range of Wars of the Roses figures that don't appear on their webstore. Because the horses in the plastic set are far too animated for what I wanted, I ended up using most of the metal Perry horses I had on my Margret/Buckingham command base. So I needed a few replacements for the King's base.

Eureka only had 2 horse options but I thought they would work well: and they did. They don't have saddles so I had to sculpt one for the Perry "Lord Wenlock" figure that I used and ended up with the rider and horse as a single figure. I pained this figure not as Wenlock but a more generic "Kings Counsellor." I like the way the figures work together. It looks like Henry is explaining some complex piece of theology and the "Counsellor" is rubbing his chinny, chin. chin and thinking..."Ummm... Okay?"

The standard bearer is from the Eureka range. I don't like this figure much. His pauldrons are studded and look like a fantasy figure and the figure itself is quite flat. I trimmed down the left pauldron and sculpted a cloth on top to match the plastic Perry arm that I grafted onto its right side. He already had a saddle which fitted perfectly onto the horse.

The musicians are from the Eureka range and as soon as I saw them I thought: "I know what to do with these," and what to do with the Henry VI figure. They are fantastic and I'll be getting another set of these to add to my Hemmingseatic League Imaginations medieval army. A great little set.

That banner on the trumpeter was tricky. Using photoshop I cut the actual banner down and then re-sized the image. Because the figure is hand crafted one side of the trumpet banner needed a 14mm square and the other side a 13mm not-quite-square, square. Both hands got in the way too so there was some micro-trimming required. Then I had to try and match the paint to the banner.

By the way, this base isn't supposed to be a command base. It's a King Henry VI base, meaning that it will mark on the table where he is if he's present. He could be in the custody of the Yorkist, or sitting under a tree with the battle rages all around him and the Queen takes command. Whatever situation he finds himself in, I really like how this base turned out. Lots of colour, pageantry and a little bit odd.

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I also made some other pieces. As you can see below I made some stakes for the archers and some Re-Load tokens in case they are needed for any particular set of rules. The stakes are individual little things on a base as are the bunches of arrows. Both from Eureka. The stakes are on 6" bases.

Some New Ordinance

Another day and another retinue for the Lancastrian cause. 
And a couple of guns.

This time Lionel Welles, 6th Baron Welles has turned up to lend his support to King Henry VI and brought a pair of cannon with him, one of which came to me unexpectedly.

I did Welles' retinue a bit different to my previous retinues. Instead of doing a unit of bill & bow and a separate unit of dismounted men at arms I've just done a single unit of retinue with a few dismounted knights incorporated into the central base of billmen. This way I don't need a separate command base with Welles on it. I just included him in the unit itself.

I'll do a few more units like this. One of the bonuses of doing more units this way is that I can include more variety in the livery and banners and therefore...More colour! I'm quite happy with Welles' livery. I's not great but at arms length is looks nice and stands out. At this point, I think I'll be doing Sir Andrew Trollop next.

The Ordinance:

This first one is a Perry model that I ordered a couple of months back. Most folks interested in this era will be familiar with this piece. It's a nice little model and came out looking okay. As with all of my cannon I've given them a sort of generic look livery-wise so that they can be used with either Lancaster or York (when the time comes to start a Yorkist army).

The other cannon came to me on a recent visit to Eureka Miniatures. I haven't visited for a while and I was chatting with Nic and I mentioned that my current project is Wars of the Roses. Low and behold! He pulled out a tray full of WotR's figures that don't appear on the Eureka website. I bought a few figures, this gun, some horses and some other odds and ends.

This is a great model. The gun itself is cast very clean with great detail and was very easy to prep and paint. The crew are of varying quality from great to average.

The Master Gunner is a lovely figure and my painting doesn't do it justice. The guy with the cannon ball (doing the shot put) is a bit odd but has plenty of character. I like the bloke with the sponge, he looks like he emulating the boss just like a true toady would behave.

There is also a figure with a hand bellows and a fire. A nice figure to add interest. I took 4 different photo's of this model because most people will not have seen this piece before. I'm sure if you emailed Eureka to ask for it, you'd be able to get one of these models.

Thanks for reading. I'm working on something special for my next post.

Bye for now.

Ian KH

A Tudor and Some French Men

As I planned, I added another base to my WotR's French Mercenary pike and I painted up a Jasper Tudor, Earl of Richmond, command base. 

The colour pallet for standard bearer came together pretty easy and I really like the resul. But the Jasper figure was a pain in the butt. I wanted to do him with his coat or arms but it just didn't work. I used the command figure from the Perry Dismounted Men-at Arms box but found out that his tabard is trapezoid shaped and not square which made it impossible to paint the coat of arms without making it look distorted.

I looked for some inspiration and, as you can see, I opted for the Tudor colours with a large Rose of Lancaster. I think I ended up painting that tabard four times (different colours). Then a wash. Then a touch up of thinned colours. Then varnish. All up the tabard has about a dozen layers. I freehand painted both roses and I like how they came out. I also made the flag using photoshop. I'm not sure how to attach files on this blog. If I could I'd attach the flag files I've been making.

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My French mercenaries look much better. They now look  like a proper little pike block instead of a unit formed up in line. I also included another pennant just because I could and everyone knows that more flags is always a good thing. I used a metal standard bearer figure and one of the Perry flags.

The flags that come in the Perry boxes are notoriously difficult to use. The paper is far too thick and it's glossy. What I did is this: I scanned the flag sheets and printed the scan on to normal A4 paper. This way they are far more usable and, if I need them, I can print multiple copies.  

Previously...

One last thing: I'm getting better results form my new camera now that I've had time to play around with it a bit.

C'aaarn The Roos!

If you're not from Melbourne, you're probably wondering what the title of this post means. "C'aaarn The Roos," is what supporters of the Aussie Rules Football team North Melbourne call out when their team is playing (North Melbourne are called the Kangaroos).

What does this have to do with wargaming I hear you think? Well if you're thinking of the Wars of the Roses and you're making a Lancastrian Army there's a very good chance that you might want to field Thomas Ros the 9th Lord Roos, a stalwart supporter of Henry VI.

I decided to make him the commander of my little heavy cavalry contingent for no other reason than I needed a character to lead them. I also gave him some retinue bill and bow too. I put Lord Roos on a base with his standard so that the figures can be used as a separate command stand if there is no cavalry on the field.

The knight in orange and black is just a minor noble that I invented just for the sake of added colour. I painted a tiny little Rose of Lancaster on his breast. It's tiny; a little bigger than the head of a pin. Likewise I painted a tiny peacock on Lord Roos' standard bearer. 

And here's his retinue bill and bow. After boasting about painting the tiny little badges above, I actually forgot to do tiny bulls head badge on these guys. I'm pretty this will bug me and I'll end up painting them at a later time. Little mistakes like this annoy me.

These are composed the same as the other bill and bow units I've made: 16 figures (10 bow and 6 bill/command). I'm sure this isn't the most accurate way to depict troops in this manner but they were mingled together historically and they did fight side by side. This method of basing also allows me to organise them differently for other game systems if needs be.

I should also mention that these figures are all from the Perry Miniatures plastics range except for the commander and standard bearer of the bill and bow, which are from their metal WotR's metal range.

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And here is what my Lancastrian army looks like so far. I'm pretty happy with it and I should begin looking at making a start on York now. I can see a couple of little things to finish now that I've laid them all out: I need another commander on foot and I've decided that it will be Jasper Tudor. I also want a mounted Duke of Somerset command base. I've just finished prepping the figures for these and I'll get to painting them very soon.

5 Bands of Retinue Bill and Bow (2 Somerset, 1 Exeter, 1 Tudor, 1 Roos)

3 Bands of Dismounted Knights (1 each Somerset, Exeter, Tudor)

1 Band Mounted Knights (Roos)

1 Band Levy Archers

1 Unit of French Pike

1 Band French Handgunners (Small unit)

I Cannon.

Duke of Somerset in the centre. His retinue is the largest.

With the French Pike unit I only made 3 bases so that they'd line up with the other units but that was a silly mistake. I need to make another base so that they can be formed into a pike block. I'll add another flag to it just to make it look groovy.

Exeter on the left with Lord Roos.

Jasper Tudor with French mercenaries on the right. 

So that's it for now. A couple of command bases and a base of pike. Should I stop there or keep going? I have plenty of figures and I'd like to keep painting Lancaster but I'm tempted to start making York.

Whatever shall I do?