AWOP - Apologies ...

Well, once more I've been AWOP - Absent WithOut Posting - for a while and apologies for that ... work has once more been very, very, busy, but I have managed to get quite a bit of hobby stuff done as well, but not had any inclination to photograph and post it.

I'll hopefully be changing that tonight and eith putting a post up later or sometime tomorrow - although best laid plans and all that ....

Anyway, what I have as the subjects for my next few posts - this order is not necessarily how they'll appear though!

• 15mm Village - models by Ironclad Miniatures
• 10mm Jungle and 15mm European buildings by paperterrain.com
• 15mm WW2 Burma, figures by Peter Pig
• 15mm Very British Civil War BUF (British Union of Fascists) force, again figures by Peter Pig
• 15mm Rumanians, figures by Quick Reaction Force (these have been painted for some time, but I've not posted about them)
• 6mm Ancients armies that I'm thinking of selling, figures by Baccus, most painted by Turbil Miniatures
• Witchfinder General - Days of Revelation : ordered these rules from Amazon yesterday, so will post on them after I've read them - thanks to Shelldrake's Wargaming Blog post for sharing their existence!

If anyone has a preference on something they'd like to see sooner, post a comment and I'll do my best to oblige!

Tidied my ATZ Campaign posts

Reading Vampifan the Great's latest ATZ Batrep put me in the mood to play another in my own campaign. Not remembering where I'd got to though, I decided to re-read my posts and found that the pictures had gone!  OOps!!!

Well they are back now and I've tidied the posts up a little bit - you can see then through this link. Feel free to comment on them, as I lost the original comments when I moved them to this blog ...

I hope to add another installment soon - I even threatened on a comment on VtG's blog to have a Rager only game! not sure about that though ... :shudder:

Army Painter Quick Shade - aka 'Magic Dip'

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I bought some Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade (aka 'magic dip') from Figures in Comfort at this year's Colours convention. I paid £19.95 (IIRC) for it, but saw it cheaper from other traders :(   I decided to use it on a new project so that all the figures in that project had the same finish. I didn't want one side in a game looking completely different from the other - in terms of finish anyway!

So - somewhat appropriately - my new 18mm fantasy animal figures from Splintered Light Minis, were my guinea pigs and now that they're done, here are some before, after and 1 'during' pictures, with my conclusions on Quick Shade afterwards.

Hedgehog and Badger - before



Hedgehog and Badger - during (immed. after dipping)



Hedgehog and Badger - after



Otters - before

Otters - after

Shrews - before

 

Shrews - after

Squirrels - before



Squirrels - after

Note: All the 'after' pictures were taken approx 24hrs after dipping.

When pulling the minis out of the dip and then standing them on my cutting mat, they were covered in huge blobs of the dip - the Badger and Hedgehog 'during' photo shows this perfectly. There was so much dip on them that you couldn't see the gap between their legs!

Not having used the dip before, I spread the excess around with a brush and felt obliged to do that with all the dipped minis ... but that rather defeats the object of the dip doesn't it? If I have to spread it around the figure with a brush I might as well use a wash - how I normally finish my figures! Perhaps they would have been ok without spreading the dip, but to me there seemed far too much to just leave it ...

As an example of the wash finish that I normally use, the 28mm Sci-Fi figures in my last post were all finished with the mucky brown/black wash and I think the effect is just as good as Quick Shade's and is also considerably cheaper.

The only advantage I can see of using the dip is that it is a varnish as well, but seeing how glossy it is, I fell that I'm going to have to put coat of matt or satin over it.

So, my conclusion ... I like the shading of the finish, but not the gloss; Army Painter Quick Shade is not for me due to its high gloss finish and cost. I'll probably use up the tin I've got, but I won't be buying anymore.

OFC, YMMV.

D'oh! 28mm Sci-Fi Instead

I was going to do a post on my first use of Magic Dip, but found that I hadn't downloaded my 'after' pics from my camera - got the 'before' and even one 'during' but no 'afters'!  D'oh!!

So instead, I'm re-posting some pics from my old blog, in this case samples of my 28mm Sci-Fi minis, that I think have come out pretty damned well.  I've got Two-Hour Wargames' rules 5150: Star Army and 5150: New Beginnings and am looking forward to playing them - after I've finally got around to reading them!

So ... first of all; 2 samples of the approx platoon strength force of Alternative Armies' Muster Troops I've got (although they were called 'Levies' when I bought them IIRC)

I like these figures - the poses seem full of action and vitality. I had thought them OOP but they are not, so I might get some more at some point.

Next up, some GW Genestealers. I've got around 30 of these happy-smiley chaps to use as 'Xenoforms'/murderous-aliens. I've gradually picked them at bring-and-buys at conventions I've attended, refusing to pay inflated GW prices, even though I like the mins:

Third, a sample of Copplestone Castings FW36 Grey Aliens. I'm not sure how, but I must have lost one of the pack at some point as I'm sure I don't have the sitting alien that is shown in the pack on the linked page ... oh well ...

As you can see, I've painted then as 'greens' instead of greys. I've also got Hasslefree's Female Grey to add to the group, but she isn't painted yet :(

Now the other platoon sized group - Irregular Miniatures' Spice-Lice. These come with some varied, pretty odd-looking, IMO, antennae on them, but I removed them all. I've put squad desginating coloured flashes on their heads as well

I've also got some of Irregular's Scorpio-Bugs to use as assault troops. I'll get some pics of them up (eventually!)

Here are some samples of Copplestone Castings FW25 Hunter Aliens and FW32 Hunter Aliens with Guns. I've got both packs and it took me a while to decide how to paint them, but I eventually decided to go with a orange/purple colour scheme as it looked pretty alien IMO

I'm very pleased with how they've come out, so here are 2 close-ups:

Wonderful figures ...

Hopefully I'll get the Magic Dip post up either later today or maybe over the weekend, but as I have my daughter this weekend, it's more likely to be Monday if I don't get it done today.

Headless Chicken - continued ...

Things are just as bad as before :(

Anyway, I mentioned that I'd bought a box of the Gripping Beast plastic Saxons and one of the Vikings. I've tried to get the Saxons together, but things being as they are not had much luck ...

I have taken some photos of the sprues that are in the saxon box to share and they are below. First, though, a word about the figures ... they are IMHO brilliant and the 'extras' that come on the sprues are even better - as an example:  there are 4 sprues with 10 limbless and headless 'bodies' on each - but there are 16 heads! how about that for choice!

Anyway, you get 4 identical sprues like this (front and back shot):

As usual the crappy photos don't show the quality of the faces/weapons/bodies/etc. I am very, very pleased with these figures.

You also get two of these sprues, each of which has the bits to make standard bearers, musicians or a leader (well a guy with a cloak and arm holding a sword up!):

The Draco standards are brilliant as well.  I've not got as far with the Vikings, but from what I have seen they are just as good.

Well, I'll try and get a more substantive post up soon, but am not holding my breath ...