Back of Beyond - White Russians (1)

I've been putting together a White Russian force for Back of Beyond, using the lucky coincidence of the 20% off sale by Copplestone Castings when they joined North Star and my employer paying my annual bonus (which is based on the company's performance not mine!).

I've made good progress painting them and have got them all to the dip stage - where, having painted them, I apply Army Painter Quickshade (strong tone), which leaves a very glossy finish on the mini's.

Next stage is to 'decorate' the base, spray with some kind of sealant (not sure what to use at the moment) and then spray with a matt varnish.

Anyway, here are some pics of some of what I've done so far

Command Group in sabot base & Staff Officer

Field Gun with crew

Number 1 HMG

Number 2 HMG

How To - Sabot Base

Since starting going to Winchester wargames club, I've started a  new project - a force of White Russians for the Contemptible Little Armies rules from the Back of Beyond army lists.

Whilst at the club on Tuesday watching Jim's game against Andy, I was telling them about the White Russian command group and the sabot base I had created for it. I'm not sure I explained it very well, so I promised Jim that I'd do a post - with pic's - expanding on what I had been trying to explain. Here it is.

For my command group I'd got Pulp Figures' pack PHP 17 - Count Casamir's Trans-Siberian Renegades from North Star. As I also have the Pulp Alley rules I didn't want to create a permanent command group. I already had the bits I needed to create a sabot base for the group:

In the pic you can see 3 'Single Figure Circular Tray - (2mm Top Layer Only)' with a 2p piece in the centre one, demonstrating its fit, along with a 65mm diameter circular base, all of which I got from Warbases.

On the 'Single Figure Circular Tray - (2mm Top Layer Only)' page there are 3 dropdown menus that you have to select from- I chose: circular shape, 30mm diameter tray & 2p slot size.

A 65mm diameter base for the top layers is really the smallest you can get away with for 3 figures, as this pic shows:

I glued the 'top layers' to the base with ordinary PVA and once dry used polyfilla to disguise the step from the base to the top of the ring and painted it all with a sand colour:

I haven't got any further with the base as yet - I'm going to add some sand & a couple of tufts, etc, as you would with any other base

Here is the group itself in the sabot base

Hope this explains it somewhat better Jim!

A New Start ...

I did write a blog previously, but after almost a year of not posting decided to give that up and start afresh.

I have recently started going to the Wessex Wargamers Winchester club and, as a result, have one completely new project and made progress on another two that I had recently begun, so I have decided to start this new blog to record my progress on those projects and the others that are languishing without attention.

I've added a page dubbed 'Current Projects' which I will update as new projects are added, and maybe one day I'll add a page 'Completed Projects', if any are ever actually finished ...

A large part of the inspiration for this new blog is Jim's Wargames Workbench, an excellent blog by one of the club's members and I intend to shamelessly steal Jim's excellent idea of numbered blog posts for each project.

The first proper project post should be up soon, once I have some pictures for it.

Gladiators

Well, unfortunately the kickstarter I mentioned in my last post has been cancelled :(  Two good things though - I'm not spending money I can't really afford and they did say they plan to relaunch after some re-working of the project ...

On a gaming front, the launch of Zabadak's Gladiator World is the foundation of both good and bad news for me.

Bad news:- it led me to recollect just how much fun the Spartacus TV series was to watch, which in turn led to me watching it on Netflix, and again seeing the fantastic performances in the show (specifically John Hannah and Lucy Lawless as Batiatus and Lucretia). Which then led to me buying the 3rd and 4th seasons of the TV show on DVD, plus the boardgame! I'm getting the boardgame to: a) hopefully play with my daughter & b) perhaps use it as a campaign framework

These purchases qualify as bad news as I really can't afford them, but I've always been particularly susceptible to shiny-itis and I'm really looking forward to watching them!

Good news:- it's got me posting here again, gaming mojo on the increase and planning a foamboard arena using WorldWorks Games Arena Works package. If you look at that product's pictures on that page, it seems (to me anyway!) to be of a more medieval style than Mystic Mountain's Coliseum (which I also have), which appears 'properly Roman'. However, MM's Coliseum is a much more complicated build and I'm planning to use this arena for more than just 'roman' gladiator combat; I'm intending to use it for fantastical gladiators as well as small scale skirmishes ...

More about these plans if it ever actually gets built!  I have signed up to the Frostgrave Nickstarter and am hoping that perhaps those rules can be used in some way ...

In summary though, I'm glad that Joe has started Zabadak's Gladiator World and even happier that he's back blogging again - even if he is forcing me to spend money! :)

Kickstarter backed

As a follower of Wargame News and Terrain, I was very pleased to see they had posted about a kickstarter project called Z-War-One

Any zombie gaming fan should, at the very least, check it out. Unfortunately, I was too late for the early bird pledge, but have gone for the 'Total War' pledge level.

The 'comic book' approach they've gone for is really intriguing ....

Buying Bases

Long time no post, but I am still here!! Just not had the blogging mojo for months ...

Anyway, I've stumbled across something that I thought would be good to share, hence this post.

Until Salute this year, I've been buying plastic bases from various companies - mainly em4 miniatures who currently sell a bag of 10 30mm round, lipped bases for £1.02

While at Salute, I found the stand for The Troll Trader who were selling (IIRC) 15 of the same bases for £1

I now need some more of these bases - I'm rebasing most of my 28s on lipped bases so I can put a name on the figures - so I checked out Troll Trader's website.  They sell a bag of 15 30mm round, lipped bases for £0.95 or a bag of 100 for £5.95!

So, I'll now be ordering my non-MDF bases from The Troll Trader and thought I'd share the info with you guys.

RIP Sir Terry Pratchett

As you probably know, Sir Terry Pratchett died yesterday.  I wanted to publicly record the debt I owe him for the many laughs and hours of pleasure that reading his books have given me.

Rest in Peace, Sir Terry. I will miss the happiness I got from reading a new book by you.