Prepping and Assembling

Well, my brushes have been cleaned. My size 1 is definitely past it and the size 0 isn't far behind. That's not too surprising really as they've both seen a lot of heavy duty. I've decided to retire both and cracked open new ones ready to go with my next painting project.

Last night I did a bit of assembly work. While looking for something else, I came across a bunch of 4Ground furniture packs and thought "Hmm, that's something I could make up reasonably quickly". A couple of hours later and I had some of them made up, after which I did get some paints out, just to go over the bare MDF on the edges to make it match the painted surfaces. Here's a couple of pics:

I've still got a few packs of chairs to make up, but as those are fiddly jobs I'll leave them for a day or two.

Today I've been prepping the extra Aztecs I bought. I've still got some weapons, the shields and the back banners to do, but they can wait until tomorrow. The figures have gone into a container of hot soapy water for a soak to remove loose metal and any mold release agent.

Finished 4Ground Cottage

Well, it's finished, as you've probably gathered from the title. Time for some pics:

At some point in the future I might have to buy some longish static grass to add to the floor as rushes/straw of this and the other 4Ground buildings.

In Sunday's post I forgot to mention that I'd ordered a few bits and bobs at the weekend. Not a lot. A few packs of Old Glory 15s from Timecast to fill out my Korean army; some Adler 6mm ACW strips to see how they match up with the Baccus figures (mostly command figures and odds and cavalry with firearms to provide some variety) and some bases from Tiny Tin Troops.

I still haven't done any actual painting, but my excuse is that the cottage was taking up my workbench. Now I don't have that excuse, I'll have to finish off those Mongol light foot tomorrow.

Dave over at One Man And His Brushes has just taken delivery of a spray booth kit which he'd ordered through Amazon. I've been meaning to get one but hadn't thought to look there. Now I know what my next purchase will be (unless I remember to order the extra Mongol heavy cavalry figures I need from Donnington beforehand).

Hopefully tomorrow evening - once I've finished painting the Mongol light foot of course - I'll do the AAR from last Thursday's game of Art de la Guerre. I've just signed up for a club ADLG competition so I need to get some practice in. I've picked Alans. My opponents in my group have picked Patrician Roman and 2 variants of Macedonian Successors. Not opponents that my horsey boys with pointy sticks really want to face head on. I think I might have to keep my lancers off to the flanks and occupy them frontally with a mass of light horse and shooty medium cavalry.

Sunday Workbench 2/11/2014

I haven't had a very productive week, but have made up for it this weekend, but still no finished figures to show off I'm afraid. The Mongol light foot are still hanging around waiting for me to finish them. I seem to have been hitting a bit of a funk on weekday evenings lately - I'll have to break that by making myself paint something every evening, even if it is only for 15 minutes.

On Thursday evening I got in my first game of Art de la Guerre, using my Swiss against Elliot's Yorkists. I must say I was impressed with the simplicity of the rules and how the game flowed. I was also impressed by how light my bag was compared to FoG armies. I'll do a brief AAR during the week, but here are two teaser pics:

When I got up yesterday, things weren't looking hopeful for finishing the priming of the Seven Years War Russians. Luckily while I was out of the house it brightened (and warmed!) up nicely so when I got back home I quickly got everything set up. As a result, the infantry are all primed now.

Having had my Swiss out on the table without any flags did induce a bit of a guilt trip. A long while back I had bought some of the flag sheets from Donnington Miniatures. After I'd done the spray priming, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get them cut out and glued. They've been removed from the wire now, ready to be added to figures.

However, I still need to trim the Confederation and special cantonal flags before adding them to command stands. That might be a task for tomorrow evening (after I've done some painting of course!). I also need to make up a load of smaller flags to distribute around the mass of pikemen. The extra flags will include those for cantons other than the eight on the Donnington sheets.

In another painting-avoidance effort, I decided to make a start on my Wars of the Roses army. Well, to be accurate, the camp. Rather conveniently, 4Ground's "High Medieval Cottage" is just about the right size for a 28mm FoG camp. I started assembling the building yesterday evening and it's now all but finished. I've done some more work on this today and everything is now done apart from brushing 50% PVA through the teddy bear fur to get the thatch effect right.

Eventually I'll stick it on a MDF base with some scenic bits to bring it up to the correct camp size. It should be quite useful as I can store bits and bobs inside during games to reduce clutter on the table.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully this week will see me post the ADLG AAR and some pics of finished stuff.

Goodies and Some Finished Bits

The missing Essex bits arrived today. Four packs of musketeers, two 2-horse limbers, two packs of dragoon command and one pack of hussars. Here they are on my workbench.

I've started prepping the Seven Years War figures today, so you might see the first units rolling off my table shortly. As much of their uniform is red, I am planning to use red car primer for the infantry and artillery (white or grey primer for cavalry; perhaps red just to keep things simple) but before doing that I need to check how the other colours work with it. I also need to work out which are the best colours for the uniforms - green for infantry and commanders; cornflower blue for dragoons. I also need to work out suitable buff colours for belts and cavalry uniforms. I sprayed a sheet of card with red primer during my lunch break and will be doing test patches later this evening.

The other evening I added a "baize" to one of the 4Ground tables I'd put together. It actually looks quite good.

I also finished the hovel - brushing the teddy bear fur with 50% PVA to make it better resemble thatch and fixing the smoke hole hood in place.

I know what you're all wondering. "But, what are those white-primed figures in the first photo?" Well, they're some Mongol light foot bowmen that have been prepped for quite a while. I need to get back into the swing of painting, and they should be quite a fast unit to paint up.

Made it to SELWG

Luckily my Amazon parcel got delivered just before 11.30 which meant that it would be reasonable for me to head down to SELWG. I ended up getting there just after 1pm.

First stop was the GZG stall - luckily the Evil Mr Tuffley was just heading off for a break when I got there, so I was able to keep to my shopping list and only buy the NSL power armour troops.

As I was heading away from there I bumped into Clint and had a brief chat. He let me know that the rejects were still around somewhere. After a catch up, Clint headed off home and I made my way around the traders and games upstairs before heading down to the main hall, having bought the Perry WotR plastics I wanted from Harfields.

I don't know if it was due to my late arrival, but it seemed emptier than previous years. A few empty spots where there are normally traders, some empty games tables and fewer attendees.

Downstairs, my first shopping stop was for some 4Ground bits from Colonel Bills. I bought a late medieval cottage and a bunch of furniture kits.

I also picked up a bottle of Army Painter yellow paint and strong tone wash, from Caliver I think.

Toddling round, I bumped into Big Lee and had a chat for a few minutes, then headed to the Essex stand to make my foray into the age of lace. As I hadn't spent excessively more than my original plans I decided to add a few bits to my planned order. A couple of packs were out of stock and they took my address and said they'd post them to me tomorrow.

Infantry

Cavalry - top = cuirassiers; middle = dragoons; bottom = hussars

Commanders and artillery

On checking my goodies when I got home, I found that I'd been given an extra pack of grenadiers, but am missing 2 packs of dragoon command and one pack of hussars. I've checked the credit card slip against the list I gave them and I was definitely charged for them, so have emailed to ask for them to be added to the items which were out of stock when they post them.

I also discovered that the hussars are in mirlitons rather than colpacks/busbies. I'll probably have to grab hussars in busby from another nation (half the Russian hussars were in busby, half in Mirliton).

While at the Essex stall Postie came up to say hello and we chatted for a while. He told me Ray and Fran were somewhere around.

A few minutes later I heard the dulcet tones of the Bromantics from behind me. We had a chat and discussed purchases for a while. Apparently the big fella is going to be moving to the Emerald Isle in the not-too distant future, so I've told them to make sure they invite me down to a Rejects game before he fecks off.

I did a bit more bimbling around looking at games and trade stands before deciding at 3pm to call it a day and head home. On the way out I picked up a green base cloth.

A Somewhat Productive Saturday

I've actually done something on my workbench today. Not painting or figure prep, but usefully productive anyway.

Yup, I've been putting together stuff from 4Ground - an Anglo-Danish hovel, some coffins and some furniture. The roof of the hovel isn't finished yet; I'll do the last steps tomorrow evening.

The furniture you can see consists f a double bed, a single bed, 2 tables (I'll be adding the printed "baize" tomorrow), some stools and a safety deposit box. The pack had said it was boxes 1-15, but it had the 16-30 box fronts in the pack. Drat - I'll have to buy another (and check to make sure it has the correct box numbers!).


Unfortunately my plans to go to SELWG tomorrow are a little bit up in the air. Amazon tried to deliver a book I'd ordered this morning while I was out, but decided to take it back rather than leaving it with a neighbour. They will attempt delivery again tomorrow, but there's no indication of what time that will be. Hopefully it will be early so that I can get down to SELWG.

If I do manage to get down to Crystal Palace, my shopping list will have expanded from that indicated in Thursday's post. A lot of people at the club play King of the Battlefield, a set of Seven Years War rules written by one of the members. The games always look fun, I do have a copy of the rules and had been planning for a while to put an army together for it. So, Essex will be getting some money from me tomorrow if I can get down to SELWG. Initially, I'll be buying enough for a small brigade of infantry, a few cavalry regiments and an artillery battery. Oh, yes, you want to know which nation I'll be doing. Russian. There are too many Prussians and Brits/Hanoverians at the club and I didn't fancy painting lots of white-clad troops (having already painted a Choson Korean army for FoG).

Broadside Loot and Finished Gangsters

Today saw me take a trip out of The Smoke down to Sittingbourne for Broadside. The hall was crowded and rather warm (now that's an understatement). A quick whizz around the first aisle and I was at the Rejects' table to say hello to the boys and to hand over the gangster figures to Fran and Postie. You've already seen pics of the figures, but here is a pic of them packed up (obviously I've cropped and pasted from two pics for this):

I did a tour of the games to take pics (I'll post those on Tuesday) before doing my shopping. Well, the first round of shopping. On my second round of the hall I found the black Vallejo surface primer I was after, which I'd missed before. On my third (or maybe fourth) round I discovered that Colonel Bill's had a tub of 4Ground furniture, so I bought some of those. At the end of my first tour I had picked up my pre-order from Ainsty.

So, the loots:

  

Stacks of sacks

Barrels and assorted piles of sacks and bales

Tea crates

A skylight - I guess I'll do the panes from OHP film

Stacked timber

 .

Rifle cases and boxes of produce

Various sizes of crates

A pigeon loft

Finished Gangsters

I got back early enough to varnish the figures. They all got sprayed with matt varnish, then some bits got coats of brush-on satin or gloss varnish.

For the guy in the leather coat I tried to "highlight" with gloss, but it didn't work right. I think the gloss had got too tacky. I've since gone back over it with satin and it looks OK now.

I'm really pleased with how this chap turned out. But what has he got in that violin case? Guesses in the comments please!

Now these wise guys are done, I'll move onto doing the "Named Gangsters". I won't be starting on them until Tuesday though as I'm playing Saga tomorrow at the club.