Ladies Day

As promised, I've battled on through my bout of man flu (oh, how we suffer for our hobby eh?), and painted up some of the "ladies" from the WfG paint queue.
Here's the Vampire Countess, a Black Cat Bases mini, and the 'Lady Of Fernbeck House' alongside the Count (now known as the "Earl" of course)

This pair of witches (and their cauldron) are from Rapier Miniatures, I won't make any comment about the contents of the cauldron and the colour of the "cold run" from my nose!!!! (Oops, I just did!)

The Romany girls (camp followers who accompanied the count's bodyguard from Transylvania) are the Gypsy Girls from Col. Bill's I've mimicked Roy's colour scheme, but omitted the patterns - purely because plain material is more appropriate for the 17thC (Actually more to do with my lack of talent with the brush!!)

Short and sweet post, and before I go apologies are due to anyone who hasn't had any comments from me on their recent posts - I've tried to keep up-to-date with the goings on, but my nurse can be very strict at times!
Once again, thanks for dropping by and your comments and queries are most welcome.
Yes dear 'sniff',    no dear 'cough',   I've just put the kettle on for another Lemsip.........

Covered All The Bases

So I've ordered some more!
I was really hoping to crack on with some mounted ECW troops this week, but a couple of snags have cropped up. (sNAGS, CROPped, I think I missed a trick with the post title there!!).
First off, I've been working through my stash of Renedra and Warlord bases, and don't have any left that can be used for cavalry, and secondly, it's been so long since I painted any horses that I'm terribly 'rusty' and need some serious practice - especially if they're going to get painted quickly!
A stock of MDF bases have been ordered, and while I wait for them to arrive I'll be taking 'baby steps' in equine acrylic pigment application by painting up a mounted officer and some dragoon horses.

Of course, 'dragoon horses' need some dismounted dragoons as well, so I got two squadrons of those done first (they're the ones that do the fighting after all!), and here they've joined the ongoing "muster" along with the Colonel inspecting his troops.

Now, Tudor style half timbered houses visually help set the period on the table top, but there's just something about a windmill that shouts "Olde England" and puts me in mind of the famous Battle of Naseby etching.....

I got the Dapol (ex-Airfix) kit at the same time as the "Village Stocks" I showed in an earlier post, and finally got round to building and painting it!

I'm not keen on using Dungeons & Dragons "Hell Hound" mini's as "Barguests" as portrayed in the Witchfinder General rule book. (In Northern English folklore, the Barghest is a mythical monstrous dog with large teeth and claws), and I can't remember where I saw someone using Games Workshop LotR "Wargs" for the purpose, but much preferred them as an option!
Anyhow, that's what I decided to do, so all is not lost on the "four legged front" this week since this pack have been added to the collection!

Oops, I almost forgot - these two fire hydrants came as part of the Black Cat Bases order and were quickly painted up and added to the ATZ 'scatter' terrain.

Suffering with a touch of 'man flu' at the moment, so I'm off for a Lemsip! I'm still plodding on with the "Ladies" as promised for the mid-week post though but Winter Is Coming, so you should get wrapped up if you're going out - if not, stay indoors and get some gaming and/or painting done!!

(Footnote: STILL no sign of the Gringo40 mini's btw)

Every Little Helps!

After the last couple of eclectic posts, I've gone all single minded this week and focused on the 17thC stuff. This has come about for a couple of reasons - my Black Cat Bases order finally arrived (still no sign of the Gringo40 stuff btw) and I couldn't wait to crack on with a pair characters in it for 'Witchfinder General'.

The Vampire Count who fled to England from Transylvania to avoid the upheaval of the Thirty Years War,

and the vampire hunter who is on his trail!

 Secondly, I've set myself a HUGE task if I'm going to have two playable forces for a few games of "Victory Without Quarter" over the Christmas holidays, so the muster continues........

....... the six guys on the left on round bases will be 'dual purpose' and represent a single stand of Firelock muskets as a Trayne of Artillery Guard (no lighted match near the powder barrels please!) for VWQ, as well as giving me half a dozen musket armed troops for WfG.
The three stands of a second blue Regiment of Foote and two stands of ragtag Commanded Shotte brings the total up to five units, so I can move on to the horse and artillery next!

Short and sweet this post, and I just have to close by singing the praises of Colonel Bill's first rate service.
As soon as I saw the 'gypsy girls' on Roy's blog (Never Mind The Jankers!) I knew they'd be a great addition to the Count's entourage so added them to an order. The order arrived within 48hrs, and when I emailed Stu over a slight mix-up with one of the mini's, a replacement arrived the very next day.
Absolutely First Class and highly recommended if you ask me!!

Stocks and Shares

I mentioned earlier that there were several projects on the go, but flitting between them all was delaying getting anything finished - definitely a lesson learned and in future I'll be more focused!

"Stocks and Shares"?  First off, this set of "Village Stocks" are the old 1/72nd Airfix kit, now sold by Dapol. They're under-scale for 28mm mini's, but I thought they'd make a nice scenic accessory for the ECW project, where I'm using this scale of buildings for the larger battles.

"Shares"?, here's another shout out to Joe (of Zabadak's ZombieWorld) with a "Thank You" for sharing a tip about some cheap and cheerful 'Hummers'. These were cheapo-shop toys way back in the past, but I've kept my eyes peeled for some after reading Joe's post and was delighted to find some in a charity shop!
The toys are unglazed, but Joe very cleverly used thin card cut to fit inside the bodyshells - an idea I've shamelessly stolen.

So, with the punny title out of the way, here's the rest of the stuff that's been cluttering my bench! To accompany the Hummers, I picked up a box of Warlord Games 'Special Operations Team' and painted 'em up to represent National Guard troops since it's still "early days" in my ATZ campaign.

Typical! You wait ages for a bus (shelter), then two come along at once!

These are TTCombat models that come as a pair, and I've hardly laid a brush on 'em - deciding to try white and red oxide primer rattle-cans to spray paint the parts before assembly.

Here's another mini from my last "Reaper" order, a Grave Wraith from their 'Bones' range. 

I previously had five wraiths, so could only field three as a "reduced model unit" (each mini taking two kills before being removed) when I showed the Undead Warband last time. Adding this one brings the unit up to its proper strength and along with the zombie unit painted last month completes the warband.

Oops, the daylight bulb has pointed out that I need to give 'em a waft of "anti-shine matt varnish!
While on the subject of finishing off Dragon Rampant warbands, the Dwarf general still needed mounting on a 'proper' base incorporating his "Hit Dice" (to keep track of how many losses he takes as a single model unit) - and here he is...

The town folk for the 17thC campaign have had a burly blacksmith (Reaper Bones range) and game keeper (from the Warlord Games "Firelock Storming Party") added to their number....

... and the first two regiments of foote have been mustered. Very much a "Levee en Masse" (or 'film extras' painting as I prefer to call it), as I rush to paint enough units to try out the "Victory Without Quarter" rules.

So, fifty mini's, four vehicles and three terrain pieces - and I WON'T be doing so much stuff simultaneously ever again!

Interlude

I honestly didn't think there'd be any interest in my 'other' hobby, but by request (and since I've made one "off topic" post already today anyway), I've dug out some photo's of my little garden railway!

Before I continue, it might help to give you an explanation of the scale - the railway represents a Narrow Gauge line and I'm using 45mm gauge track (the rails are 45mm apart) to mimic a 2ft 6ins gauge prototype. This works out at around 1/19th scale, but because everything that lives permanently outside in the garden is built for durability, the scale is a little 'coarse' so I'm happy to work between 1/18th and 1/20th.
Here's a size comparison between a 28mm GW goblin and a 90mm railwayman...

The steam loco's are live steam, fired by either methylated spirit or butane gas while the "diesels" actually have electric motors powered by on-board batteries.
I reckon that's enough waffle (but obviously if anyone would like any more info don't hesitate to ask!), here's some photo's that hopefully give you a taste......

 .... and to finish off, here's a "real one"

with my attempt at a "look-a-like"

Thanks again to those who asked, and I hope those who didn't haven't been too put off by seeing some photo's of my "train set"  - normal service will be resumed in a couple of days ;-)

Lest We Forget

At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.

Not a gaming post this morning, but it is modelling - the war memorial out in our back garden on my model railway.

Serendipities

noun: serendipity; plural noun: serendipities

the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

It's always nice whenever Lady Luck smiles in your direction, and since I've not got much in the way of gaming or modelling topics to post this week (I'm stuck in a couple of those tedious projects that aren't worth posting until significant progress has been made!), I thought I'd share my recent good fortune.
First off, a big "THANK YOU" to Michael who, by chance made a comment on a previous post and brought 'Donnybrook' to my attention!
I'd completely overlooked them as contenders for 17thC skirmish rules (mainly because they're primarily aimed at the period 1660 - 1760), but as soon as I saw that they use a card driven turn system I thought they'd be worth a try - and reading through so far, they're now heavyweight contenders for my project!

Next up, whenever SWMBO sends me to town on the weekly "shop-pain" trip, I call into the charity shops to scour the toy sections looking for anything that might be useful (most of the toy cars I use are sourced this way!) and spotted this...

A quick check of the contents showed that it was 100% complete, so I parted with the princely sum of £1.99 - a bargain even if I only use the two droids in my Bladerunner campaign!!

Finally, and I've left the worst for last (but I still count it as a "stroke of luck"), my debit card expired at the end of October and I've just got round to registering the replacement card details with Paypal.
I very rarely have cause to visit my Paypal home page, so I had no idea that I'd received an invoice for £2.99 from Gringo40 (one of the two suppliers I mentioned in my previous post) - From what I can make out, their checkout page hadn't added the cost of postage when I paid for the items in my basket!
So, if I'm right, this would explain the non-delivery, but no direct email or even a note with the Paypal invoice by way of explanation is pretty poor in my opinion.
Anyhow, I've paid the invoice, so the clock is still ticking (or should that be "calendar  pages turning") awaiting delivery!

Now, after that and on a brighter note, as mentioned in the intro to this waffle, it's been a poor week for modelling output, but I did get this Reaper android done for "Bladerunner".......

.......and this mob of Warlord Games angry villagers for the ECW project.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable bonfire night (SWMBO made some "Toffee Apple Pie Cupcakes" - yum!)