Sunday Workbench 03 September

Until today, I haven't done much on the painting front since my last post.

I did put an oil wash on the remaining Star Destroyers but managed to thin the paint too much which caused the pigments to separate out. That left a fairly bright blue in the recesses so I've soaked them in white spirit and scrubbed them with a toothbrush to remove as much as possible. I then washed them in soapy water to get rid of the white spirit. I'll try again with a thin black oil wash this week. I also took a look on Shapeways to see if anybody had made suitably sized TIE fighters and found some - I've ordered a couple of packs of TIE fighters and Interceptors.

I did play another game of ADLG on Thursday and suffered a big defeat against a Feudal English army led by Eddy the Oneth. My own tactical stupidity was as much to blame as my poor luck rolling for arrival of my flank march - the cavalry did arrive, but not in time to engage the enemy before my infantry were destroyed. I will write up an AAR this week, and one for the game against the Samurai which I meant to write up last week.

Discussing the game with my opponent afterwards convinced me that I should sort myself out with a Ming Chinese allied contingent. I've placed a small order for the figures I need this afternoon, and a pack of Korean spearmen to make up a couple of "pikemen" bases for ADLG.

At work this week I was helping with the clearout of a lab where the main researcher has moved to a new job in Germany. I spotted that they had some plastic aquarium plants which were destined for the bin, so I nabbed rescued them from that fate. I gave them a good soak in dilute disinfectant and rinsed them off. Quite a decent haul to add to my collection of foliage for when I finally start making the jungle terrain:

This afternoon I made a start on painting the combined grenadiers for my SYW Russians. I should finish them this week.

I should get these painted along with the dragoons by next weekend as I'm on leave this week. Then I might finally get around to the command groups I promised to the others in the SYW side duel during the last Challenge.

15mm SYW Russian Casualty Markers

I said I'd finish them today and so I did. As I expect them to get slightly rough treatment, I gave them a coat of Klear/ink to shade and protect them, then an extra coat of Klear (no ink) for additional protection. Once that had dried I airbrushed on a coat of matt varnish then flocked the bases.

And...piccies!

You will have observed that I didn't bother to paint the white cuffs. Well, as they're only casualty markers I didn't feel any great need to do so.


Once those were all done and photographed, I decided to do a quick test. A few weeks ago while I was browsing in the pound shop I spotted something rather cool on the HotWheels racks - some Star Wars bits. Among the fighters (which look to be X-Wing scale...) and some 15mm-ish scale speeders there were a bunch of First Order Star Destroyers. Hmmm, £1 for a Full Thrust scale Star Destroyer? I grabbed all five they had out on display.

However, the paint job looked rather plain so I though about how to bring out all the relief detail. I'd been meaning for a while to try out oil washes and this provided the perfect excuse. So, I bought a tube of water-mixable Paynes Grey oil paint.

Today i finally got around to doing the trial. I got a bit of paint from the tube onto my brush and then mixed in some water until I was happy with the consistency. I then slathered it over one of the ships, left it for a short while and then started wiping off the excess from the surfaces with a damp paper towel.

Here are the results:

Top side

Underside

I'll probably do another wipe-over, but it has definitely brought out the details quite nicely. I'm not sure whether to do a white dry-brush once the oil wash has dried.

Yes, five Star Destroyers

Paint bottle for scale - the ships is just over 10cm long

Now, does anybody know where I can get a load of suitably scaled TIE fighters from?

Sunday Workbench 27 August

I've had quite a productive afternoon and early evening today. I started off by doing some satin and gloss varnish detailing on the pulp merchant seamen I painted a few months back. And then I started something new - 51 casualty markers for my SYW Russians. Not that I envisage seeing me need 51 markers, but that's how many were in the pack. I've almost got them finished - just metals, whites, varnishing and flocking to do. I should finish them tomorrow.

Anyway, piccy time:

34 have been painted as infantry, 12 as dragoons/horse grenadiers and 5 as cuirassiers.

After these my plan is to paint up either the dragoons or the combined grenadiers.

On Monday my Koreans had another outing in the club tournament, this time against an almost-historical opponent - early Muromachi era Samurai. I need to sort through the pics and write up the AAR. I did have a game against a third Ottoman invading army the week before but forgot to take pics. That game was another close loss.

Finished: 15mm Korean Artillery

And they're done. I took them into work today to spray them with matt varnish during my lunch break, then flocked them this evening.

And pics:

Regimental Gun Markers

Obviously one of them needs a little touching up. Not sure how that happened.

Medium and Heavy Guns

I haven't decided yet what to paint next. I might go for some more 15mm SYW Russians - there's a big game at the club on the August bank holiday Monday and I have figures primed for the final dragoon regiment and two regiments of combined grenadiers.

Proof of Life

Errmmm, yes, well...

So, my re-emergence onto the blogosphere back in June proved to be very short-lived. Well, I'm back now and hopefully I won't disappear again. Let's just put it down to me getting sidetracked by DVD box-sets, playing some wargames at the club  and not having any mini painting to show off.

At the club, we're now into phase 2 of our ADLG competition - anything AD (or CE if you prefer) so long as it doesn't have heavy knights. I've opted for the Yi Korean list as it gives me a chance to get those yous out on the table. Unlike the FoG lists, the Korean foot is in separate bow/crossbow and melee weapon units, the latter being "mediocre pikemen" rather than medium foot heavy weapon. I might have to order a few more packs of Korean infantry to represent them properly (12 figures on a 40x40mm base) but for now I'm just using two bases of medium foot (6 figures!) for each element.

I've played three games so far - the first two were against Ottomans and were fairly close losses. My third game was against Teutonic knights and was a close win. I've got pics of the two Ottoman games and will post AARs this week (hopefully) but I forgot my camera for on Thursday so no write-up of that game. I've got another game on Monday and Thursday, against more Ottomans and then Ghaznavids - I will remember to pack my camera for those.

I have been doing a little bit of painting this weekend, some additions to my Koreans. They're almost done now - I just need to ink wash and drybrush the bases, matt varnish them and add some static grass. Here's a WIP pic to keep you going:

Yes, some medium and heavy artillery, some light pieces as "regimental gun" markers for FoGR and two spare cannons. The artillery crews and light pieces are Grumpys (ordered from Eureka and picked up at Salute); the heavier pieces are (I think) Blue Moon and were excess from my Buccaneers project.

AAR - Nubians vs Achaemenid Persians (ADLG)

Last Monday night I got back my Nubians into the club's ADLG competition with a game against Dave A's Persians. He won the initiative and chose to attack me in "plains" (roughly translates as agricultural).

Having won the initiative, Dave's army advanced rapidly, but stayed just out of shooting range of my massed bowmen.

In my turn I advanced so that I was just inside shooting range and loosed some volleys off - I did inflict some damage, but not as much as I'd have liked.

Unfortunately, being just inside shooting range meant that I was also inside charging range of the Persian cavalry and scythed chariots on my left wing and centre.

"Errmm aren't we meant to win dramatically against light-medium bowmen in the open?"

Meanwhile, my right wing archers were teeing up to get slaughtered by cavalry, swordsmen and an elephant...

I didn't have many troops not engaged in melee for my turn, so not much movement. However, I managed to destroy the scythed chariots (sadly not worth any attrition points) and do some more damage to the cavalry with the general. But one element of archers got wiped out.

On my left wing, the archers had killed off the light horse who had tried to sneak around the flank and were now switching their efforts to the light horse behind the cavalry. Yup, the cavalry who were getting beaten up by bowmen in the open. Actually, I forgot to say that the two units on the right (with white kilts) are elite medium foot swordsmen.

Over to the right wing where Dave's swordsmen and elephant had charged and wiped out a whole bunch of my bowmen.

In the centre he had disengaged his battered cavalry - which meant I couldn't shoot at them this turn.

Back to the left wing where one of his cavalry units had finally broken a unit of elite swordsmen.

On the right wing, I'd lost another unit of bowmen, but some elite swordsmen had hit some severely hurt cavalry in the flank.

On the left, some javelinmen had finally got into position to join the combat with the cavalry, sounding the deathknell to the end unit.

Sadly not quite in time as I'd lost enough units in this turn to break my army.

I'd lost 32 points from a 28 break-point army; Dave had lost 20 from 25.


Thursday's game was against Clive's host of Carthage. I lost spectacularly - 36 points from 28 vs 4 from 24. It didn't help that I'd lost the initiative and Clive decided to defend in "plains", that the only piece of terrain on my half of the table was a plantation right on the left edge, that I stupidly didn't consider that Clive might send his cavalry command on a flank march to come in on my right, that there were no troops facing my left wing so they would have to do a long march to get anywhere useful, that I had really awful dice all night and that Clive's flank march came in on his second turn, leaving me with no time to redeploy to deal with it. oh well, such is life...

Anyway, tomorrow they are facing andy F's Hebrews - hopefully I'll have luckier dice.

Breaking Silence

And I'm back to blogging. Sorry for the silence on here for the last few weeks. I've had various things keeping me occupied which have meant a distinct lack of hobbying, but that's all over now.

In the past week I have had two games of ADLG - I forgot to take my camera for Thursday's game but did get pics of Monday's game - I'll be writing up an AAR next and will schedule it to post tomorrow night. I've got games set up for the next two Mondays and Thursdays and will try to do AARs for all of them. These are for our club's competition.

This afternoon I actually got back to the paint desk - just putting a basecoat of burnt umber down on the dice holders I showed primed in the last post. I'll drybrush them and add some static grass on Tuesday night. I also need to do a priming session with the airbrush this week.


The Future of this Blog

During my absence, I have been giving some thought to my blogging and made some decisions. Rather than posting constant WIP pics, I'm going to do a single "on the workbench post" each week and will only do posts of figures once they are finished. I think that is better overall.

I'll also do AARs (when I remember to take my camera and take pics) and show reports.