Venusians, Galaxians, and Dragoonians

I'm still getting small projects off my painting table. Most of these figures have been sitting there half finished and gathering dust for the past 18 months or more. Some of them I painted about 12 to 13 years ago and I was adding to their numbers when I stopped painting.

Venusians: First up are the beautiful Venusians and their ruler: Yllana ~ The Queen of Outer Space! These figures are Valkeeri from Hydra Miniatures. I bought them for a space-pulp demo game in 2013. I painted half a dozen of them and never managed to do the rest. Until Now!

They are great figures so it's good to finally get them finished and looking beautiful.

I now have two atomic-blaster squads of these beautiful space vixens as well as the Queen, a heavy atomic-blaster and a speciality figure with a Venusian neutron-whip.

I don't actually know what the speciality figure is supposed to be but she's obviously a mistress of the lash so I gave her some beasts to obey her every command. The critters are from Eureka Miniatures and I initially got these for a King Kong game I put on a long time ago (back when I first started the blog). I rebased them to match the ladies.

Galaxians: I also finished a squad of Galactic Patrol (again from Hydra Miniatures). These must have been sitting on the desk for longer then 18 months because they had a fairly heavy coating of dust. I painted the first lot a while back but I don't remember when.

I'm thinking that these guys and the Venusians might go well in a Bug Hunting game. I have a good collection of space-bugs and all I've needed are some brave troops to take them on. 

I like the thought of that.

Blues Squad

Orange Squad, with heavy weapon.

Leader and Hero.

Dragoonians... 

Who are the Dragoonians???

Well they're just a couple of French, Napoleonic dragoons on foot. I had these figures that I made from the Perry plastic French Dragoon boxed set. I thought they'd make interesting bases to add to my French skirmish line. Also a base of regular voltigeurs (also Perry plastic). I have one base representing the two dragoon regiments I currently have.

I really enjoyed painting these figures. I always love the finished result of doing Napoleonic regiments and battalions. I have four battalions of metal Young Guard that I'd like to paint. I hope I can get on to them soon.

And that's it. A few little projects off the painting table. I'm hoping to finish a 15mm ancient Spanish cavalry base and I might finish constructing some Perry Prussian Dragoons. I made the horses a year or two back but never made the riders. It's about time I got them done.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

The Hairy Kraken Sails Again

Yesterday I played my first game in a long time. I was invited to play a pirate game. The club that I attend use to put on a massive pirate game every year at the end of September called Pirates in September. I played a major role in several of the events but gave it up a few years back. But I was invited to yesterdays game and I had a great time.

The event has been scaled down quite dramatically in recent years from about 40 odd captains and crew to just a few friends. But there was enough for a good game and plenty of laughter.

I reverted to my old captain persona of Don h'Emmingo - the Spanish scourge of the seven table-tops (my surname is Hemmings). I gave my ship and pirates to a friend a few years back so I only have a bunch of marines but I didn't have any pirate crew so I had to borrow some for my basic crewmen. My ship is The Hairy Kraken and I got to use it again.

The Kraken Archipelago: Where every scurvy dog that ever sailed on top of a billiard table will eventually meet his fate.

The view from the crow's nest.

Captain Don h'Emmingo once again, strides around the poop deck.

My mission for the game was to rescue Capt, Johnny Finch from Turtle Island (far left) and sail off the edge of the table. Unfortunately, I was to start on the opposite table edge.

Below is Peter's ship. He doesn't know it yet, but he's not about to have a good game. 

As well as other pirates to contend with there were other hazards that could pop up depending on the dice roll. One of these was The Kraken, which could erupt out of the sea and randomly attack any ship.

I drew first blood for the game when my lookout in the crows nest took careful aim and shot one of Peter's crewmen as we sailed past. The first of many he was to lose during the course of the day.

When sailing between the islands the walkways were ignored by ships although figures could walk over them.

I managed to sail past a couple of pirates and only lost one crew member to shooting (even though I was the main instigator of most of the violence). I got into the archipelago and was on my way to an easy win.

L - R: Peter, Robin, John, Gary, and Steve (Darryl is off camera).

As I was about to sail to victory I was hit by the other peril of the game: The Maelstrom. After three turns of floundering my ship was turned 180degrees and headed back in to the archipelago and I had to navigate a new rout to Turtle Island.

I eventually got to Turtle Island after my journey across the table.

The elusive Darryl watches on. His ship started out, sailed a bit, got hit by the maelstrom, spun around, sailed again, got hit by another maelstrom and spun around again and finished the game about half a move from where he started.

I rescued the stranded Captain Finch and... Robin's ship sailed off the opposite table edge and he won the game. In the next turn The Hairy Kraken sailed off the table and I came in at a close second. 

Below is Peters ship and his remaining crew. His crew got to the island, found the buried treasure, and got it back onboard ship. He was shot at with musket and canon, The Kraken attacked him twice and by the end of the game only the captain was left standing, stranded on his half sunken ship.

It was a great game and I'm glad I took part. It was great to get back to flexing the tape measure and rolling some dice. I was invited by my friend Michael who organised and umpired the whole event.

Terrain Time

I'm continuing on my mission to finish off things that I left sitting around prior to my sabbatical. This time I decided to complete some terrain pieces. I have plenty more to do but taking things one small project at a time will see me get through the backlog pretty quickly.

First up is some 6mm buildings to go with my 10mm Marlburian troops. I decided to go for the smaller scale because I prefer the smaller footprint of the town tiles. They don't look too weird next to the 10mm battalions. All the buildings are from Total War Miniatures and I still have more to paint up.

This is a small village tile based, I think, on one of the hamlets around the Waterloo or Ligny battlefields. The buildings are resin and the tile is made of latex.

This is Papelotte Farm from the 100 Days range. It's a nice little self contained model. It sits in the palm of my hand pretty comfortably. I also have Le Hay Sainte and I'll paint that one up soon.

This one is Ligny Chateaux from the 100 Days range. This came in 3 parts and looks fantastic. Its footprint will make it a nice fortified village to be fought over (hopefully many times).

Attack of the 50' Woman!! 

Just for scale, here they are with a 28mm figure.

I also finished this small forest. These are 3d printed spooky trees. I got them as a set from Temu. From memory I got them from a dealer in Queensland. They look great and I think I might get another set. They are mounted on some mdf blast-crater-marker templates that I found. The shapes are nice an irregular so they work well. If I get more trees I might have to try and find some more of these templates.

The canopy was made with some cheapo artificial moss that I got from Amazon. It came as a 100 gram pack which was vacuum packed and quite small. However, once I opened it it started to expand and due to the very light weight of the material I ended up up with quite a quantity and I ended up using less than half of the pack. Even better... I ordered in in the morning and it arrived around dinner time.

And here they are with some of my forest dwellers, all ready to defend their new woodland abode.

Thanks for reading and I'll post some more as soon as I can.

Cheers.