Ancient Germans burst forth!

 

Well it turned out to be much longer then I expected since my last post! Generally speaking I had just lost my mojo for anything hobby related with moments of getting it back then losing it quickly again resulting in no posts and sporadic comments on other blogs at best so apologies to those I've missed. I think things are better now.  Let us hope 2021 is much better!

With the arrival of TFL's Infamy, Infamy earlier this year I knew there was one army I had to collect and that was Ancient Germans! Ever since seeing the Gladiator film with the Germans emerging from the misty woods giving their savage battle cries I was hooked and knew someday I would collect an army for it. Soon after that(or around that?) Wargames Foundry produced what I consider to be the best Ancient Germans ever so I of course began to collect them, but without any real purpose so they sat on a shelf for years until Infamy!Infamy was released giving them a new life. I had to repaint them as they were a bit dated and here are my first results. 

First set of warriors are the warlords Oathsworn Warriors which would typically be made up of nobles or elevated warriors of the tribe making up the fighting elite. They would usually be the best armed and armored warriors outside of those that may have served with the Romans as Foederati. This is easily seen as they carry rare and highly prized and valuable swords with the occasional piece of armor.

 

Next are regular warriors who will make up the bulk the army armed mostly with spears and shields with an occasional pelt for extra protection and perhaps a club for some head breaking!

 Second batch of warriors armed like there brothers with spears and shields.

The overall look of the army I went with subdued colors for both clothes and shields to better play up the more savage tribal look then you may find in Celts for example so lots of browns with some toned downs greys and reds here and there.

The figures themselves are a bit cartoonish which I like so I played on that making the colors strong even while still using subdued shades which I tend to do most of the time anyhow so was pretty fun.

The colors I used were mostly Foundry with some Vallejo. More Germans on the way and some Romans as well over the next few months as I expect my painting to pick up now that the annual Analogue Hobbies Challenge has started here! 

Merry Christmas and may your stockings be full of lead!

Miniature Company-Wargames Foundry

The rest of my Pennsylvania Provincials for F&IW

I just can't seem to get on track with posting and commenting lately as too many distractions, but I have been painting here and there so I do have plenty to post whenever I get around to doing it. My focus has switched from WWII back to F&IW at the moment as I want to have a collection designed for Sharp Practice and I'm about half way where I want to be.

This is my 3rd group of Pennsylvania Provincials giving my a complete set. So far I'm keeping the troop types more in tune with the border fighting so Provincials, Militia, settlers and rangers will make up most of the English forces and Compagnies Franches de la Marines, Indians and Militia making up the French. That's not set in stone as I may add Regulars at some point, but that's the initial plan to give me a focus to both painting and perhaps a small campaign. 

Part of the reason I picked Pennsylvania Provincials is I quite like the color green in historical armies and this was included in their uniform which I decided I wanted it to be a dark shade, but not to dark that the tones disappear. What's also quite fun to do is changing up colors in the leggings that's a great aspect of F&IW in allowing more creativity.

The figures themselves are from Galloping Major and very enjoyable to paint in part due to their large size and character the figures have. I mix Redoubt and Galloping Major as I feel they mix very well together. The paint colors used were mostly Foundry with some Vallejo and MIG pigments for some dusting on the stones.

All forces need leaders so I added 2 officers a drummer a sergeant. The sergeants I placed with their groups in my group pics, but included this one with the officers as well. I must say the sculpts for the 2 officers are just excellent!

It been great fun working on the project looking forward to getting a game in with them at some point!

It wouldn't be complete without a full group shot of them all on their sabot bases ready for action! The sabot bases are from Warbases if your curious.

I expect more French and Indian to follow. Also I will be building forces for that enticing looking new rule set from TFL "Infamy! Infamy!" Happy 4th of July weekend to all us Americans out there!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Galloping Major

AWI British casualty markers

Still here just falling way behind on photographing the things I've completed....well actually falling behind on anything blog related in general.

These markers for the British will cover me for a little while, but I still need to do some more, but until then I have some Hessian ones to do first.

The figures are from the Perry AWI range and the bases are from warbases if I remember correctly.The paints I used are mostly Foundry with some Vallejo.

This was just a quick post to say hi and I hope everyone is holding up well.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature company- Perry Miniatures

Sherman M4A3 with additional sandbag armored rack

I'm getting seriously behind on posting old projects as I have quite a back log building anyhow on to the subject at hand. I painted this M4A3 Sherman with a sandbag rack last year as I found it quite interesting looking with the sandbags.

It's my first attempt using an airbrush and I'm quite pleased with the result although the sandbags had to be done by hand or at least I did them by hand. For paints I used the MIG armor packs which I find are just fantastic especially for newbie airbrushers like myself! They come in packs to include shade, base, highlight removing the need for fiddly mixing which is great. I'm a super fan of MIG as I love the paints and pigments ensuring this product will become my go to armor product and no I don't work for them just really like the products!

Since my friend Nick has a lot of experience painting armor (fantastic blog here with excellent tutorials being just some of the superb things there) I played around with oil paints(Winsor and Newton) as he did for the filters and it indeed does give a very pleasing effect albeit a bit awkward when your not exactly sure of yourself or the process. This I then followed up with my much more familiar MIG pigments to add dust and grime which for me is the most fun!:-)

The photography still needs some work as there is a bit more reddish tinge in places on the model, but it's close enough. I would say after cleaning up miniatures/ tools taking pictures is my least favorite part of the process, but I like to share so not really any away around it although sometimes it's fun to set up scenes and take pics when the mood strikes.

The model itself is a Warlord resin kit and was pretty quick and easy to put together and I like the additional heft of the resin. I have some plastics kits to do but admit I have some trepidation as I don't like the assembly process of plastics or the ultra light weight, but there are some nice looking kits with extra detail that were hard to pass up so see how it goes.

Currently I have some German armor on my desk to give that a try and see how it goes along with two other projects. I usually work on one project at a time but right now I'm painting three different things as I cannot decide from each day which one I should do. I've been pretty busy and distracted so if I've missed commenting on your blogs my apologies, but I do at least try and look if I don't have time to make a reply. Lots of good things out there keep it up!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Warlord

Adding more Fallschirmjäger

My first submission in the Analogue Hobbies Quaraantine Challenge here. Although I'm still busy I wanted to join in on the fun. Still continuing on with my fallschirmjäger to get them up to where I can have options and this is my 3rd squad for this year, but my 4th overall for my fallschirmjäger force.

The figures are mix of mostly Crusader and Artizan, but I did also add some Foundry(MG over the back) in this unit as well, however a small note I think the Foundry molds are getting old as I had to do quite a bit of clean up which is unusual in that most Foundry products I've purchased over the years had very little of that.

I'm very surprised I as able to keep focused long enough to build a force that I could actually field. I'm not finished by any means, but I can play a game and have a couple options now which I'm very pleased about.

The paints I used were once again mostly Vallejo with some Mig pigments for weathering. Painting the figures was once again challenging but a pleasure to do at the same time largely do to the design of the figures.

I'm not sure what I'll do next as I'm beginning to get a bit jumpy which is usually a sign I'm ready to do something else, but even if I don't do anything right away Fallschirmjäger I'll for sure be back as there are some items I need to add.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Crusader, Artizan and Foundry

Fallschirnjäger leaders, radio, forward observer + AWI casualty markers

Last post of the challenge! I'm ending it by adding some leaders to my fallschirmjäger in form of a Leutnant and his right hand man an Unteroffizier in addition to a radio operator and a forward observer.

I'll probably end up using the radio operator as a pressed in medic for most games until I actually paint up one for it.

The figures are all Artizan which are my favorite WWII models as I like both the character and extremely painter friendly design. The colors were mostly Vallejo with some Mig pigments for the rocks and such.

When I decided to do fallschirmjäger for this challenge I knew I would struggle to meet my points goal and alas I didn't make it, but I'm not disappointed as I mostly achieved what I wanted to get finished. I still have some more left to go and would have liked to get them done as well, but I'm still content with my progress.

After fallschirmjäger I may take a crack on painting some British or move on to Germans and Americans to Italy, but I cannot just decide yet.

I also decided to add some much needed AWI casualty's for my AWI project. I already have 4 for my Americans but decided I needed at least 4 more. Later I'll add some British and Germans as well to my collection.

The figures are of course Perry miniatures which constitutes  a great deal of my AWI collection to include my entire American forces and likely the Germans and French as well in the future and my British are a mix of Perry and Front rank for those curious.

I painted these with mostly Foundry paints with some Vallajo plus the usual Mig pigments on the base.

As for keeping track of casualties I prefer to use a number system on the base where you can turn the complete base as a kind of dial if you like instead of a dice construct as I find it blends a bit more and you don't lose the dice picking it up.

Thanks for viewing!
Minature Company- Artizan, Perry