Missing Pic and Progress

Another update - 3 in one week must be a record!! This time with a picture of the Commando mini's weapons that I missed from my new-toys-from-salute-2012-pt-1 post and an update on my progress with the Saxons I got for my SAGA warband.

So the missing picture - unfortunately not a good one, but it shows what you get. If anyone wants a better pic, let me know and I'll put one up

2 SLRs, Revolver + M203 GL

Now the progress with my Saxons, specifically my mounted 'warlord'.  Here is the original figure (on the right) with the foot figure I use for my Warlord. As I said before, I wanted to replace the metal figure's head with a spare plastic one identical to the warlord's.

Well I did that the other night and was surprised at how easy it was; here is a pic of the post head-swapping figure

Also, the sword and right arm were not in a very good pose I thought, so I decided to subject that to some of my amateur surgery as well, again replacing it with a spare from the unused components left from the assembly of my Gripping Beast plastics. Here are a couple of post surgery pics with the figure on the horse I'm going to use. Again I feel the change went well and I think the figure is much more warlord-like now

(Just as a note, the pic on the left was with flash and the right without; I prefer the right hand one tbh)

Also, just reporting with no pics for now, I've assembled all my Wargames Factory plastic Saxons. Comparing them to the Gripping Beast plastic Saxons, it is quite amazing how 2 companies can do what is apparently the same thing in such different ways ...

In a future post I'll give more details on both along with pictures.

New Toys from Salute 2012 - pt 1

So, as requested - nay, demanded! - here is the first part of my report on the new toys I got whilst at Salute.

To begin with, something that I found and had had no intention of getting - the first pack from Commando Miniatures 'End of Empire' range. These figures are designed for the various post-WW2 conflicts that the British Army was involved in - e.g. Aden, Indonesia, Malaya, etc. I succumbed to the temptation of them as this is another rarely gamed period/theatre (much like the 14th Army) and they had a launch offer of the 6 figure pack for £5 instead of £7. Now I've got the figures home and looked at them, I'm not ... overwhelmed with joy that I've got them ... the quality of the sculpts is not that brilliant - in particular, there is just something odd about the face of the guy in the middle of the first pic, and the left hand of the bren gunner is detached and just floating in the air beneath his gun ... but overall the figures are acceptable. When you buy the pack you get a choice of SLRs or Armalites as weapons - I went for SLRs, but forgot to include them in the photo - d'oh!  The final pic shows a couple of accessory packs I got - machetes and radios (£1/pack)

3 figs from pack - middle guy has Sterling SMG & odd face

other 3 figs in pack

accessory packs

Next up - Essex Miniatures Saxons (listed as 25mm, but matching my Gripping Beast 28mm plastics). I got these to add some variety to my Anglo-Saxon warband for SAGA. They are quite nice figures - nothing fancy, but nothing negative about them either. That said, they do have the smallest bases of any 28mm figure I've ever bought!

l - clubman, m+r - spearmen (spears are separate)

l-r - bowman, clubman, spearman, bowman (bows + spear separate)

Each faction is different in SAGA and has its own 'Heroes of the Viking Age' that it can select to give them a warlord with extra abilities, albeit at extra cost. The Anglo-Saxons can select "Aelfred the Great" for theirs who has several great abilities, but is weaker in combat than a 'normal' warlord. I'd like to try him out, so decided to get a mounted saxon to use for him (so he can runaway faster!). Surfing the net I found 'SK1 Mounted General' in Essex mini's list and the pic from their site (top left on page) looked perfect. However, when I collected him at Salute, I was more than disappointed with the 'variant' I'd got, and found that he didn't come with a horse! Anyway, the figure is in the pic below, along with the Gripping Beast plastic warlord I'm using. I intend to remove the metal figure's head and replace with a spare plastic head (from the GB box) identical to that on the plastic warlord below. I also have a horse I can use for him luckily. I'll put more pics up as the conversion progresses.

l - GB plastic Warlord; r - disappointing 'mounted general'

To round off the additions to my SAGA warband I also got the Wargames Factory Saxon Fyrd box. Long-term followers of my blogging efforts will recall that I have had previous experience with Wargames Factory figures, specifically their Zombies which I was quite disappointed with, to the point where I used quite a few as corpses rather than Zeds.

    (There are some photos of the finished figures on my Zeds-n-Stuff Gallery page)

So, it was with some trepidation that I opened the Saxon Fyrd box, but I'm happy to report that these seem much better than the zeds, and I've already started putting them together and will put pictures of them in a later post.

Finally for this post, are some scenic items I got from S&A Scenics. I got 8 of these trees:

3 of the pools on the left (to indicate patches of marsh) and 6 of the rocks on the right (to indicate rough/broken ground).

Very nice pieces that I'm well pleased with!

AWOP again, ME3, Dr Who Locations, the TARDIS and SAGA

Done it again, been AWOP (Absent Without Posting) once more. No intention to do so, but just seem not to have had the time ... mainly due to buying Mass Effect 3 and playing that; another great game, but so totally let down by its ending :(

Anyway, one of the things I have done, was go on a Dr Who location tour in Cardiff. I was a bit sceptical of it, but it turned out to be quite fun in the end. An added bonus was the guide learning where filming was to happen the next day so I got a photo of the real TARDIS in-situ

While in Cardiff, I went round Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch, both great places to visit.

On a wargaming note, I played my first game of SAGA last friday, mucho fun. A simple, but not simplistic system that needs a hell of a lot more thought than I realises! As a consequence, my Anglo-Saxons (in the first expansion book) got shot to bits by my opponent's Normans :(

Anyway, as previously promised, here are some photos of my warband. All the armoured figures are made from Gripping Beast's plastic saxons box, while the metal levy figures are from Black Tree Designs. All of the figures have been "magic-dipped" and I'm very pleased with them

Group shot of the entire Warband

Warlord (centre) and unit of Hearthguard

2nd unit of Hearthguard

3rd unit of Hearthguard

Example Warriors 1

Example Warriors 2

Levy 1 (metal from BTD)

Levy 2 (metal from BTD)

I'll certainly be at Salute this coming weekend and will post tomorrow about what I'm going to spend money I can't afford on!!

Saxons and Lace ...

Last time I promised some photos so here they are.  First up we have a picture of my dipped War of Spanish Succession (WWS ) 6mm British infantry from Baccus 6mm. These are lovely figures that - in my mind - really give an impression of a unit of troops rather than a figures on a base ... unfortunately, the photo is (once again) blurred. The figures are in 8 files, each of 3 ranks, on 40mm x 20mm bases, 4 bases making a battalion:

 This next photo shows an unfinished unit - again British - that I have put on their bases to dip when I've done all 96 figures in the unit:

 And now their opposition; this is a finished, but undipped French unit. At the time of the WSS the British fought in 3 ranks, but the French (and most others) still fought in 4 (or more) ranks. So in the Ian Croxall's Blenheim 04 rules (which I like, but have yet to play) the French are based in 8 files, each of 4 ranks, on 40mm x 30mm bases and a battalion is 3 bases:

 And here is a dipped French battalion:

I've nearly finished all the infantry I have so it will be the Horse and command bases next. Where Blenheim 04 is multiple bases to the battalion, C'est la Guerre (which arrived from Caliver Books yesterday) is a DBA-style set for WSS, so as I build up my armies, I will play using those rules.

I've also mentioned recently my Gripping Beast plastics, so here are photos (front + back) of 4 of the 32 I've painted so far. I've yet to do the shields though, as I decided to do them seperately from the figures. Once I've done the shields as well, I'll do some group shots of them.

 

 These are really nice figures that have been a joy to assemble and paint, and I am looking forward to doing the box of vikings who will be their opposition.

And the final picture is a shot of the plastic saxons (plus 2 metal interlopers at the bottom left) that I have left to do. Once more the shakes struck as I took the photo :(

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 ...