New Year ... New Goals!

It's a new year, 2017. The time of the year where many miniature painters put forth goals of what they want to get done in the year to come. I also have done this. Now I have realized that since I don't keep up the blog as much as I would like, although I will try to post occasionally. Hopefully my goal is to keep up the blog more regularly. Although I have also said this last year.

My goal for this year is to place another dent into the lead mountain. With GHQ Micro Armour being the first choice currently. I'm working on a Finnish group of troops for the Winter War, to use with Command Decision. At least 6mm paints up much quicker than 28mm calvary ;)

Last year I did meet some of my painting goals to complete at least some of the Samurai army. I'll probably return to that this year sometime. I also need to return to the Persians as well this year. It's a nice change to be painting 6mm instead of 28mm for a change. I feel as though I've burned out of 28mm a little. Although I still hear the siren song calling me back to finish the figures.

It's All Greek To Me!

Hi All,

This is another one of my semi-annual blog posts. I had been working on different eras of troops for a while and now decided to finish some of the Greeks which had been sitting un-based for quite awhile. The unfinished figures were sitting there leering at me to finish them, and eventually I caved into their demands.

I have primed another swath of both Persians and Greeks, which means in the future I'll have to finish more of the Persians to give the Greeks something to fight against. The decals were printed on a photo printer on the water transfer decal paper. It did cause the ink to deteriorate, even after the sealer layer was applied. The battle damage on the shields was applied with a metal file, this is another reason I like plastic figures. But I got to where I liked the worn look on the decals, especially on some of the Spartans. They still need a layer of dull coat, but I thought that they were "finished enough" to be photographed.

I tried getting some photos of my civil war figures, but decided to wait on photos until they are based and blackwashed, as the photos came out looking too flat for them. But so far I have painted up about seven regiments of figures for the south. I have 1 regiment of the Louisiana Tigers done, the striped pants were difficult to do but very rewarding in the end.

The Spaaaaartans!!!

More Greeks

The First Persian Unit.

Mostly what I do is paint, although occasionally I do get in a game on the tabletop. Shocking, I know. Here are some photos from a recent Check Your Six! game that I played with my gaming group. The Japanese camouflage on the Sally's were fun to paint. In this particular encounter, the bombers are trying to inflict as many hits as possible on the airfield, while the American P-40's are trying to defend it and shoot down as many of the bombers as possible. The US planes are my dad's work, while the Japanese planes are mine. We've divided the forces up, so he is painting mainly the Allies, while I paint the Axis.

Until next time!

Enjoy!

Kevin

Miniature Monday's: Into The Grey!

Hi All,

Another issue of Miniature Monday is coming your way!

I might be bouncing around between lots of different eras in the near future. This is due to my Confederate troops arriving for the ACW. They are 18mm Blue Moon castings. This is also my first time going smaller than 28mm for figures. I also want to start painting more Persians, as right now my nearly finished Greeks outnumber the finished Persians. Although a number of Persians have been assembled and attached to bases, just awaiting paint. It will soon be time to tip the scales more in the Persians favor. This will push the Saxon figures further back into probably next year sometime. Unless I burn out and want to paint something different.

I think I've realized that I really do enjoy the painting process more than actually getting games in with the miniatures. Because I find it is easier to find time in the evenings and weekends in which to prep and paint miniatures, but it is harder to get my gaming friends to agree on a time and place to actually set up a game. Although I feel that this is a commonality amongst miniature gamers.

Here are some photos of the American Civil War figures which are prepped, mounted to craft sticks, and primed. Now all that is left is to paint them and base them. The frightening thing is that it is just a portion of the entire force, I've not begun prep on any of the artillery, artillerists, cavalry, or commanders yet. And there is still more infantry to base. I think it's around 800 figures for the Gettysburg force, and in total I think it's over 1,000 castings.

Enjoy!

Kevin Meeks

Another post after a long time.

Greetings Hoplites,

I haven't posted much in the past two months, although I have been busy painting things now that work has slowed down some. I'll have to update the blog with some progress on my Greeks, currently I feel as if I'm burning out on painting the Samurai. Although I have sufficient to get to the table to play a game now, outside of calvary, as I've been painting the "less complex" figures and putting off painting the cavalry units as they are like two figures in one.

On a different note, the lead mountain has grown. I'll be expanding my miniatures hobby into the American Civil War, courtesy of the Blue Moon Miniatures. Both my father and I have an interest in the "Across A Deadly Field" rules. He the North, and me the South. So we've begun reading the rules and have ordered the lead. I'll be working on painting the South when they arrive. I'd better get my drawl ready!

For my ancients, a lot of the Greek Hoplites are assembled, just awaiting basing and paint. Although they've been that way for about half a year now. The same with the Persian infantry, only have about six Persians painted, and will need to get better pictures of them. I'll do a Persian update when I have a bit more of them done. I do know that I'll need more Persian cavalry down the road (Perhaps Warlord games will re-offer the calvary, as they don't seem to be available in their store anymore.) I still have to assemble the Greek Light Troops from the Numidian boxes. As well as get started on my Saxon force. I'm not sure what rules I'll use them with, I more just wanted to have some Viking-like Saxons in my collection. The Greeks at the moment I want to use with the Hail Caesar! rules, and I'm unsure about what rules to use for the Vikings at the moment.

Have a good battle!
Kevin

Greeks Awaiting Shield Decals

Greeks Awaiting Paint Detail

These are Spaaaaaartans!

Not quite 300 yet ... 294 more to go!

Decided to have some fun with one shield ...

Future Project

Will become Greek Light Troops

Miniature Mondays 06: Starship Chambers

In the past there once was a Star Wars miniatures game, up until WOTC lost the license and it was aquired by FFG. That being said, this edition of miniature monday's will take a different approach than the past ones. This month Paizo released a map pack for the game Pathfinder entitled Starship Chambers.

 

These map tiles have many possibilities beyond their namesake. You could run them with Star Wars Saga Edition, since the square tiles are just the same size as the maps for Saga. I however plan on using them for the Star Wars Miniatures Game, since it would be interesting to try a game that wasn't shaped like a standard map. Or by overlaying the tiles on to an existing map, we now have a installation in the arctic of Hoth, or a medical facility on the forest of Endor. Here's some ideas that popped in my head as I looked at the tiles, beyond just the namesake starship.

-- Imperial facility

-- Forest shelter

-- Defunct science station

-- Mad scientist lab

-- Hidden rebel facility

The possibilities are almost endless. This map pack has value for anyone running any sort of Star Wars game. Or any modern or near-future game. Just a short review this time.

Rating

4.5 out of 5.0

The hallways in this pack could be a bit mundane, but if you watch the Star Wars films, what you encounter more often than not, are long metal hallways that seem to stretch on forever. This map pack delivers a space station feel, in spades.

Miniature Mondays 05: Zulu Warriors

The Zulus have actually been completed for some time now. They were instrumental in the scenario "Into Darkest Africa" which I ran two months ago. The results of those games can be found earlier in this blog. The Zulu miniatures are manufactured by a company specializing in hard plastic miniatures, Wargames Factory.

These figures came with a lot more sprues than the zombies did. But came with the same number of figures, 30. The disassembled Zulu came with separate right and left arms, heads, bodies, and equipment. The equipment was an array of short spears, long spears, clubs, shields, rifles, and an arm holding a rifle.

The best part about these figures is the sheer amount of variations in assembly. The benefit to this is that no two figures will be identical. Between assembling and painting that means that these 30 figures will not be identical to another player who has bought the same set.

Another thing to note is that they don't come with bases, but I ordered some from Wargames Factory as well just to be safe. I don't know if they will be packaged with them in the future, but I doubt it. I must say that this was a great idea because the bases are made from the same plastic as the figures. The plastic cement that melts the figures together, ensures that they'll never fall off their bases.

The figures themselves took to paint very nicely after priming. The detail on the castings wasn't lost under the paint either. I could probably go back and change the skin tone to have more of a range of colors instead of just one dark skin tone. The most fun part of painting these miniatures were the shields and the white war paint. It gave me a great deal of joy to try and make each figure unique. I'll leave you with three pictures of the finished horde.

Until next time!

Cheers!

And have a great game!

Kevin

Miniature Mondays 04: Brains! Must eat brains!

As you can guess by the title. This weeks Miniature Monday will focus on the undead. Either that or we've found ourselves dining in the Temple of Doom. As the undead goes these are the plastic zombies from Wargames Factory. As far as scale goes, they are 28mm but a bit emaciated. Thinner than my Zulus which are made by the same company. They are perfect when you need a hoard of the walking dead. And when it comes to zombies who really cares if it is exactly the same size as the rest of their 28mm figures. 30 figures to the box, in a variety of sculpts. There is not as much variety as the Zulu pack, but enough to reasonably mass a hoard of undead.

My plans for them is to run a "Pride and Prejudice and zombies" themed game of In Her Majesty's Name. They're not Victorian in dress, but they'll work. I'm still in the process of figuring out stats for them.

Unboxing
They come in sprues with five torso sets and five leg sets, there is also a single figure in a long coat. I would have liked to have both arms separate to create more variety. But then that's what knives and plastic cement are for.

Painting the undead.
I use a mix of Vallejo Basic Skintone and Ivory which gives a slight green cast to it. The resulting mix gives the figure a human tone, but a very pale tone (ie dead). The blood is Black Red Vallejo. In order to get the look of wounds I used Ratskin Flesh and then added the blood color.

I'm still in the process of painting them up, but here is a shot of the beginnings of the hoard.

Have a great game!

Kevin