Army Painter

I cannot tell a lie, I am an unashamed fan of Army Painter. For a self-confessed mediocre painter (compounded by the fact that I don't see in 3D!), it's a godsend. All I ask of my armies is that they pass the 'two-feet test' - do they look decent from normal gaming distance? I'm never going to win a best-painted army contest at a tournament, but... at least mine are painted, and you can tell what they're meant to be. So the Army Painter approach of blocking on the colours and letting the dip pick out some of the details is by far and away the best for me.

The small corner of my desk dedicated to spray cans has been growing of late, and for good reason - the current stash runs to:

• Matt Black - horses, character figures, sometimes Romans
• Human Flesh (had to buy this on eBay as Army Painter have discontinued it - c'mon, guys!) - Celts/Ancient Britons (man is THIS ever a timesaver!)
• Dragon Red - ECW
• Navy Blue - ECW
• Fur Brown - chariots, artillery (again with the massive timesaver)
• Army Green - WW2 Brits
• Matt White - everything else (I've flirted with the Citadal black and white sprays, but I don't think they cover quite as well, or dry as fast).
• Anti-shine spray - everything!

As I have some Normans and possibly some Parthian cataphracts coming up, I may well invest in the Plate  Mail spray as well. 

I'm also hearing good things about the AP superglue, of all things, from Trev at Rift, and their brush line. My one gripe is the dip does seem prone to dry up unless you're super careful with the lid of the tin, which means not wiping the brush on the edge, and using subtlety and a hammer to re-close the lid. 

Running out, and goop

Made a sizeable dent in the unpainted stash this past couple of weeks - a unit of EIR Auxillae (Warlord), as well as a start on an army of Brigantes tribesmen (and women) (mixed Warlord plastics and metals and Wargames Factory). The latter is for the narrative WAB campaign just starting at the club to replace the original planned Roman Civil War campaign (get well soon, Phil), It should be interesting since my army is a mix of the aforementioned Brigantes led by the much neglected Queen Cartimandua, with assistance from a bunch of Roman Auxillae. Usual last minute painting job - first session is tonight!

In doing this, I found myself running out of assorted stuff right, left and centre - black undercoat spray (horses), white undercoat spray (most other things), dark brown, red, grey, black acrylics, usable brushes, and worst of all the Tamiya dark earth textured paint I use for basing.

Most of this was no problem - Trevor down at the Rift in Peterborough is our Friendly Local Games Shop proprietor, and he usually has a decent stock of most things - but the only local stockist for the Tamiya paint is our other excellent local emporium, Trains4U. "No problem", I thought on Saturday, "won't need it till Sunday, can nip out and grab some after church tomorrow, and win Wife Points by having gardened today..." Imagine my unconfined joy to discover on Sunday lunchtime their Sunday opening is quote "winter months only."

Right. Time to cook up a replacement - basically the Tamiya stuff is a thick earth-brown goop containing sand-like particles. A quick trawl of various blogs suggested everything ranging from coloured Polyfilla to a mix of PVA, acrylic sealant, sawdust, paint and casting plaster, but in the end I plumped for a fairly simple recipe: roughly equal parts sand, PVA and dark earth paint. (The one downside of this is that the only dark earth paint I had to hand is a jar of Citadel Graveyard Earth, which is pretty much now an empty jar of Citadel Graveyard Earth - note to self to buy something suitable in bulk from someone other than Citadel).

And it worked - obviously, it does dry in the mixing pot over time (nothing that a surprisingly small amount of water won't stave off), but if you get the proportions right it's better than the Tamiya in it can be worked with a brush around feet and bases, and has the great advantage of containing enough PVA to allow me to dip straightaway in my favourite Javis Moorland Scatter.

All in all? Happy. And I'm done bar the last coat of Army Painter anti-shine, which I'll spray on when I get home from work and should be dry in time for club. It would be the same without an army smelling of varnish, anyway!

In the painting queue....

Just undercoated (in black, in the hope that a bit of careful drybrushing will bring out the rarher soft detail in the mail) 18 hybrid Wargames Factory legionaries with Warlord heads and shields. In the end, I went with a small piece of sprue and heavy application of liquid poly solvent to make the Warlord heads sit right.

Behind them in the queue are two Renegade ECW 9 pdrs and crew for my Royalist army, as well as two boxes of Wargames Factory Celts and a box of chariots - my son (who is 11) wants to wargame, so I figure some adversaries for the Romans seems like a good plan.

Also on the way from eBay are a box of WF Persian Cavalry, which I have designs on turing into the start of a Parthian army. I really need to get the master spreadsheet up to date just to prove how... erm... well I'm doing on reducing the stash? *winning smile*

EIR Legionaries with lorica hamata....

Given I have umpteen boxes of Warlord Romans, and a spare box of Wargames Factory Caesarian Romans which are a little out of period for the rest, I thought I'd have a play.

The detail on the WF bodies is a bit soft, but they are wearing mail (lorica hamata) rather than lorica segmentata, so I figured that a unit of EIR legionaries with mail (maybe for use as raw recruits) might not be a bad idea: the helmets, however, look wrong and the shields are oval.

So... take one WF legionary body and arms. Add either a WF Roman auxiliary cavalry head or a spare Warlord legionary head and a blob of green stuff, and a spare Warlord legionary shield (I have loads, due to buying a couple of dozen of their metal ones.

They seem to look OK - I'll have some pictures up when I get some painted.

In other news, I've painted 16 Warlord Eastern auxiliary archers and a couple of small bolt throwers and crew, and knocked together some movement trays for my two ECW Royalist pike and shot regiments prior to a battle on Monday. Also took part in the Norman Cross club's interclub tournament a few weekends ago with Grahame from the club - WAB pairs. We ran into a couple of interesting sets of opponents - the Danes+Assyrians were particularly lethal! Suffice it to say, we get trounced, but the club as a whole came second, and Dale won the Flames of War. 

I haven't forgotten the horses, and I will try and get the next article up soon. Work's been busy, and frankly when I get home, being a vegetable in front of the TV is about all I aspire to.

Battle Report - 11 Apr 2011

I aten't dead...
...just rather busy at work and home, with a musical project that sees me off to Germany over the bank holiday weekend. The next installment of "A horse of a different colour..." should appear later this week, though.

However, I do have time to catch up with a battle report from back in April.

WAB Ancients again, a warm up for our Roman Civil War campaign against AndyH's Romans - 1500 pts a side. I tested out an experimental rule we're using for the campaign where a limited allied cavalry can have Parthian Shot.

Fat lot of good that did me. Foolishly got the barbarians in question stuck behind another unit of cavalry which routed.

In general, this was a knock 'em down, drag 'em out affair - at this remove I can't remember the precise details, other than to note that the 4 points/figure extra for veteran legionaries makes a hell of a difference. We continued long past army break point (at which I'm pretty sure Andy would have won), with my veterans getting clobbered on three sides by Andy's troops, and just refusing to die or run away - that's them in the middle - all 6 of them at that point! This did include the die roll on the left, which was actually necessary for their continued survival at one point.

All in all? fun game, and Andy is a gentleman.

WIP (cont'd)

Just a short note to prove I haven't dropped off the face of the planet. Spent the weekend researching Norman castles (Castle Rising and Castle Acre) for future wargaming purposes, am now busy finishing off the ECW stuff - yesterday I finished off 40 pike and shot and a dozen firelocks bar the dip, assembled and undercoated 24 cavalry, and painted 24 horses....

Today, the rest has to be ready to dip by about 5pm, so any other blogging activity is going to have to wait :D

WiP

Ran out, in rapid succession, of Humbrol French Blue and EMA Plastic Weld over the past couple of sessions. The former easily fixed by a trip to Hobbycraft, the latter... some will be turning up on Saturday courtesy of Jacksons Models on eBay...

Note that I've tidied some more of the desk, and acquired another couple of feet of space where the figure stash was. Still needs a better tidy, but it's a start. And dear oh Lord, but that window blind needs replacing.

In the meantime, I've assembled and undercoated the firelocks, and assembled all 24 horses for the cavalry with the last of the Plastic Weld - all except for the saddle holsters, which are waiting on some more Plastic Weld, as the Humbrol stuff takes too long to set for such things.

...and, as you can see, I've run out of bottle tops.


Note also the new brush holder, and the bits drawers, currently full of spare Roman bits of various sorts, and in need of labelling.