WIP: 30YW Foot, The Green-Blue Regiment #3

Well, everything is done now for this regiment - matt spray varnished, basing gunk dry-brushed, tufted, flocked. So, here are some pics of the finished regiment, including some close-ups *shudder*

I've somehow managed to paint up 650 points worth of troops, which is plenty for an army as it stands - I just need some command groups to actually use them. Looking through the drawer with the rest of my 30YW lead pile, I've got the following to prep up:

12 mounted figures for command groups
12 Reiters/Harquebusiers
2 field guns
10 dragoons
casualty markers* - 8 horses, 8 riders, 8 musketeers, 8 pikemen
"ambush" markers - 4 herdsmen plus sheep, pigs, goats, chickens
Camp items - 2 wagons (plus 2 draft horses); religious group (altar, priest, 4 monks); farrier, assistant and horse; goods/cargo (barrels, sacks, crates, cannonballs, chests); foot officer figure
22 pistol armed "horse"** (late war) plus 2 mounted standard bearers
9 assorted mounted standard bearers***

* to be used as markers for Cohesion state
** not a priority for painting up right now
*** I might paint up a couple of these to go with the foot officer or on other camp bases

Obviously my priority for prepping and painting are the command groups, and I might as well prep the Reiters, artillery and dragoons as well. This will probably keep me occupied for a couple of evenings, then it will be a couple of days for priming (and allowing the gesso to fully cure) before I get to painting them.

In the meantime I do have a few things I can be getting on with as a break from doing prep-work - my Scythians are looking accusingly at me, as are the various SF figures I've started painting (battle bots, space demons, Chewks). I also need to do the basing on my Saga Vikings.

Back from the Club....

.... and my Swiss were victorious once again, this time over the French. Despite being heavily outgunned (well, out-crossbowed) and out-Knighted (my Lorrainers had gone off to scout for the elusive Burgundian army) my Confederation pikes managed to out-manoeuvre and outfight their opponents for another good win.

I did take a few pics, but this is the only one which didn't come out too blurry:

As you can see from the above pic, my skirmishers had managed to draw off half of Elliot's knights, allowing one of my pike blocks to make kebabs of the other two units (one of which broke - the one you can see running away). The other pike blocks were left with pretty weak opposition - 2 groups of medium foot crossbowmen. One of those broke in the final melee (and turned to red mist as it couldn't rout - it had suffered a rear charge by my mounted crossbowmen).

What you can't see is the other lot of crossbowmen I'd broken gradually with massed shooting a couple of turns before.

Some Facts About The Swiss

Overall a good game, and amazingly 2 wins in a row for me in the club tournament. Just one more match, against Seljuk Turks, to complete the group stage.

WIP: 30YW Foot, The Green-Blue Regiment #2

I actually managed to get these finished all the way through to gluing onto their bases last night, but it was slightly too late to photograph them and do a post. I've got my FoG Medievals game tonight (rescheduled from last Thursday), so I might not get any more work done on them tonight - I will be doing the basing gunk immediately after posting this though, so the last steps shouldn't take too long.

Anyway, here's a pic of them based and looking very glossy:

WIP: 30YW Foot, The Green-Blue Regiment #1

I made a decent start on this 9-base regiment yesterday:
flags painted with Dark Blue
black basecoat for armour, musket barrels and rests
dry-brushed above with Oily Steel
pike shafts, flag poles and musket stocks painted Mahogany Brown
stockings painted Pastel Green
faces and bare hands painted with Flesh Base
Officers' breeches painted German Dark Green

Once I've got my chores out of the way, I'll crack on with them and might even get them to the Klear/ink stage being done. Having learnt from previous batches, the steps will be in this order:

hair and troopers' breeches (as they will be using the same colours)
jackets
shoes and boots, hats and gloves
ground colour on figure bases
cuffs and other "blue" detailing
collars, feathers and drum skins
belts etc
dry-brush apostles, wash matchcord
metal details

Here's a pic of how they are now:

WIP: 30YW Dragoons #2

And she crosses the line, the painting is done, another win for Wargaming Girl....

Well, it is the Olympics fortnight ;-)

I finished the painting and did the klear/ink coat last night and also got them based up. I've tried something slightly different with these to see if it would work. Normally I glue the figures onto the bases, wait for the glue to dry and then add the basing gunk - sometimes that is very fiddly to do. So, I decided to splodge the basing gunk all over the bases and then add the figures. The gunk I use is pretty adhesive and if this worked it would actually save quite a bit of time.

It worked. The figures are securely attached to the bases. Today I did the matt varnish spray, added tufts and then did the flocking.

"Hang on a minute, did she forget to dry-brush the basing texture?"

"*cough* errmm, it's a fair cop guv'nor!"

Looking at these bases alongside previous bases which have been dry-brushed, there's not much difference. On more crowded bases I can probably get away with skipping this step, but I might not be able to for less crowded ones (eg, light foot).

I also decided to make up a scenic base for doing photography on. The 2' x 2' board I made up a little while ago is in fact a little bit too big to use for day-to-day photography, but I wanted something I could use so I grabbed a couple of sheets of 5mm foamcore, one to use as the base and one for the backdrop. The base board got the following steps:

painted with Burnt Umber on one side
sprinkled with sand while paint wet
sand shaken off
allowed to dry
spotted it had warped
painted reverse with burnt umber
spotted it had warped in other direction
painted sandy side with Cocoa Bean
dry-brushed original side with Cappuccino
splotched 50% PVA in large patches and flocked
dabbed small patches of 50% PVA and added "Meadow Grass"
dabbed small patches of 50% PVA and added "Moorland Grass"

Does it look OK, or is there too much bare ground?

And pics of the Dragoons:

Do you prefer them on the scenic board or on the normal white?

WIP: 30YW Dragoons #1

The crappy stuff that sent me home early from work yesterday kept me at home today. In between bouts of zonking out I've actually managed to get quite a bit done on this unit and only a couple of steps are left - I might even get them finished tomorrow. Gulp! Better start prepping some more figures....

Next up after these will be another 9-base foot regiment.

WIP: 30YW Artillery #3

Due to (I think) a combination of the current heat and the cold I've been carrying for a couple of days, plus the crappy sleep I've been getting over the last few nights, I found myself feeling dizzy and sluggish this afternoon at work, so headed home early and cancelled my FoG match. I've rescheduled it for next Thursday.

Anyway, after a choc ice, some cold drinks and a crash-out for a couple of hours I found myself feeling a little bit more human, so I finished off the artillery.

Last night I'd done the Klear/ink coat then transferred the figures and accessories to the gun bases. Big Mistake Number 1, as I realised when I went to do basing texture - they were quite tightly packed so adding  gunk would have been very difficult. Instead I decided to spread some 50% PVA over the base and sprinkle with sand/ore/gravel mix. Big Mistake Number 2 - it looked horrible and wouldn't have fitted in with the rest of the army.

So, this morning I'd decided to rebase the gun groups. After soaking the bases for a little while, I removed the guns, crews and accessories and gently brushed off excess gravel then set them aside to dry. I then glued the guns onto new bases and applied a thin layer of gunk before adding the figures and accessories. Once they'd had a few minutes to adhere I added blobs of gunk around figure bases and in other spots on the base.

This evening I dry-brushed the texture, matt spray varnished the groups, and flocked & tufted the bases. Finito....

....or so I thought. Clearly the gravel had ripped off some of the paint on one of the powder chests, so I've now gone back and touched it up.

In case you're wondering "why the heck is there a pikeman on one of the bases?", the answer is quite simple - he's going to be a standard bearer.
"OK, but why do you want a standard bearer on an artillery base?"
Well, in FoG:R artillery can be captured and turned on you by your opponent and you can recapture it and turn it back on them. Having a standard bearer will allow me to use flags to indicate current ownership.

Next up will be a 3-base unit of dragoons - 6 riderless horses, 3 mounted dragoons, 1 mounted standard bearer and 6 dismounted dragoons. I've done the whitewash for the horseflesh and will shortly be doing the saddle cloths as I've come to the conclusion that they are best done at this stage rather than later.

WIP: 30YW Artillery #2

I finished painting them tonight, and took a couple of pics before giving them their Klear/ink coat. A bit later on I'll pop them off the sticks and add them to the gun bases.

And a couple of close-ups to show the extra shading I've done on bare-chested-guy.

I won't get any painting done tomorrow as I've got my second game in the club's FoG medievals competition against Elliot's "Medieval French". Looking at the list, he will mainly have knights and Medium Foot crossbowmen, so I think I may have to revise my army list and adopt a more defensive strategy. I think an "Inspired Commander" may be in order to provide the "invisible aura of protection" from his shooting.

WIP: 30YW Artillery #1

Phew, it's hot! The last 2 days have been pretty bad for me. I don't like hot, sunny weather much - I'm a redhead so I burn to a crisp at the mere rumour of sunshine and the heat tends to make my chronic fatigue much worse. To cap it all, I've been moving a lab at work.

Last night I was able to relax over a couple of pints of shandy and 2 fun games of Saga. First game was a 3-point match against Mike. Unfortunately for my warband, my brain wasn't fully in gear and I made some tactical blunders which led to my warband being decimated very quickly.

The second game was a 4-player "Feast of Crows" scenario. Mike and Ian G both had Anglo-Danish warbands, Ian M was fielding Jomsvikings and I had my Vikings. I think this scenario would work better with an odd number of players as with 4 you tend to end up with 2 separate battles. My Vikings decided to take on Mike's Anglo-Danes and suffered badly from crappy dice. However, because the 2 of us did actually get stuck in, we ended up as winner and runner-up when the victory points were tallied. Yup - I got 2nd place despite only having 4 Hirdmen left out of my warband.

A couple of turns in - I've already lost a unit of warriors!

WIP: 30YW Artillery

I've made good progress on these this evening despite the heat making me lethargic. The carriages, wheel spokes, barrels and wheel rims have all been painted.
The crew have all had block colours done, just the detailing to do now, which I hope to get done tomorrow evening. I need to do some dry-brushing/weathering of the wood on the barrels and chests, and should probably do a bit of work on the flesh of the bare-chested crew figure.

Well, it's the pics you want, so here you go:

WIP: 30YW Green Reiters #4

And they are finished:
basing texture dry-brushed
sprayed with matt varnish
flocked
tufted

So, here they are, in all their glory:

Post #200!! WIP: 30YW Green Reiters #3

Yup, that's right - this is my 200th post. As this is my 204th day of blogging, that's only just under 1 post per day. I keep getting new followers and my page view rate seems to be going up still, so I'm obviously not boring the pants off you all.

Anyhoos, onto the important bit of this post - update on the Reiters.

Well, I've actually got a lot more done today than I'd thought I would. The painting is all done, the figures have had Klear/ink coat, been transferred to bases and the basing gunk has been applied. All that's left is the dry-brushing, matt spray varnish and flocking & tufting. Zoiks!

Next up will be the first group of my 30YW artillery - I'll probably do the basecoats on the gun barrels and cannonball stacks later on.

WIP: Swiss Handgunners #4; WIP: 30YW Green Reiters #2

The handgunners are finished - basing gunk has been dry-brushed, figures have had matt varnish spray, flocking and tufting done, pics of the finished bases taken:

30YW Green Reiters

I did a little bit of work on these last night:
cuirasses and gun barrels basecoated Black then dry-brushed with Oily Steel
saddle cloths and coats painted with Flat Green
breeches painted with German Dark Green
faces painted with Flesh Base

Today I'll be doing the carbine and pistol stocks, horse markings, horse tack, pistol holsters, belts, hair, boots & gloves, hats, metal detailing....

Oooh, that will just leave the Klear/ink, transfer to bases and all the basing bits left to do.

Anyway, here's some quick pics of current state.

WIP: Swiss Handgunners #3

Nearly there with these now. This evening I've painted the boots, turbans, hoods, belts and done metal detailing/touchups. I've also done the Klear/ink coat, added basing gunk (and some rocks) and matt spray varnished them. Tomorrow they'll be flocked and tufted.

WIP: Lorraine Knights #7

Finito!! For the flocking and tufting I went with "Spring" for the knights, as opposed to the Swiss where I will be using Moorland Grass and "Early Fall" tufts. I also used dabs of the red, white and blue to add a bit of variety to the "flowers".

Warning - lots of pics!