Darkest Africa - new project (doh)

Well it's been a while since I posted anything here. A combination of real life and being knocked off my motorbike by a newly qualified driver a few weeks ago has meant I haven't done a lot on the hobby front for the last month.

I'm slowly (very slowly) getting through the 15mm WW2 stuff for FOW I picked up cheap with my birthday money. In the mean time inspired by Chris Peers central Africa book from foundry. I took the plunge and picked up some cheap (well by foundry standards cheap) Darkest Africa miniatures in Foundry's clearance sale. I'm hoping to create an Arab slaver army with Bembe allies for Nyasaland.

I haven't actual done anything with the new miniatures yet but I did find these pictures of my old Darkest Africa collection before it went to the great ebay in the sky a few years back. Thought I'd share them.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of some of my late war US forces for FOW to post up soon.

Cheers Jon

Flames of war - Soviet Tanks

Well it was my birthday last month as well as a copy of the Hail Caesar ancients rules and a copy of the foundry Central Africa book I received a nice little windfall of birthday cash.

While I was deciding what to do with my money I popped down to my local Hobby Craft to pick up some modeling supplies. Well it just so happens hobby craft had dumped all their Flames of War (FOW) stuff in the sale bin. A little while later I emerged with a bucket load of Soviet and American kit (weirdly all the German stuff had already been bought), a load of books and a starter rule set.

Anyway here are my first attempts at painting some 15mm WW2 5 soviet IS2 heavy tanks and 2 ISU152 heavy assault guns. I do like the distressed look to my tanks so these have had plenty of ink washes and dry brushing to try and make them look battle worn.

The FOW tanks are very nice models in resin with metal extras. I have to admit I wouldn't pay full price for them though and any reinforcements will come from else were (like QRF or the plastic soldier company)

I'm now painting up a FOW Soviet rifle battalion box set which I know is going to drive me nuts.....

Cheers Jon

Grünanlage der Löwe ( The Lion Park) - Mordheim

Another piece of Mordheim scenery. This time an overgrown public park Grunanlage Der Lowe (The lion Park) so named because of the lion fountain in the middle of the park (donated by a local noble returned from the Arabian crusades).

Quite a simple piece to build. A hardboard base with some walls made from foam core (suitably ruined) with a piece of my textured wallpaper to form a path. The fountain is a resin piece, from the ever present ebay, mounted on a piece of cork.

Lots of undergrowth from various railway scenics, door mat and aquarium plants. The dead tree is made from wire and toilet tissue to complete the look.

Cheers Jon

Middenheim Warband

Well here is my second Mordheim warband the Middenheimers. Like my last warband all these guys, bar one, are based on the Perry Miniatures plastic WOTR mercenaries with a extras arms and heads from my bits box. The Champion with the two handed hammer is a GW metal Mordheim captain I had in my bits box.

The Middenheimers are in concept a mix of Renaissance Germans and vikings two looks that are quite hard to put together in my opinion. To try and make the middenheimers quite wild looking I've used plenty of bearded heads (mostly from Warlord Games Celts) and wolf cloaks. I stuck with bows and halberds for their main weapons with hammers for the heros.

These miniatures have been through the wars already. Having painted them at work in my lunch break I bought them home to finish the bases. Sadly I didn't close the figure case probably and so they got a very bumpy road home on the back of my motorbike. When I got home I had a twisted pile of broken limbs and weapons and damaged paint work.

They sat on my painting table for a couple of weeks before I could muster the energy to try and put them right lots of glue, green stuff and paint later and they don't look too bad. Although there are still a few slightly wonky weapons and heads on them.

Cheers Jon

House and stables

More Mordheim buildings. These two are resin buildings from ebay. They could have been painted and used straight from the box but this Mordheim so I figured a bit of Damage was in order. I don't know what resin was used but is was very soft and the buildings were hollow inside (probably why they were pretty cheap).

The top building is a barn which I put a big hole in the roof with a hammer. I added some balsa wood beams into the hole and painted the whole thing. Simply but effective (I think).

The second building is a house which I sawed in half (don't forget the dust mask). Although hollow the insides of the building was very rough with big lumps of resin. I sanded and cut away the worst and then added some detail like walls and floors to hide the rest. Plenty of rubble, balsa roof beams and a spare resin door where also added.

I don't think it looks to bad although the break in the house is a little to regular I think and needs to be more jagged. I still have the second half of the house so we'll see how that one goes.

Cheers Jon

River and statue

More Mordheim scenery this time a canal and a statue for a plataz.

The statue was easy to make a spare plastic Empire knight from my bits box mounted on a block of polystyrene carved to look like stone work. A hard board base and some more items from my bits box to imply a recent skirmish has taken place. Paint and jobs done.

The River is 12" long x 6" wide hardboard with a strip of 1" wide foam core down each side to make the banks. I added in a few bits of debris floating in the water (cart wheel, floating body). Then I added to crossing points a collapsed bridge and a make shift bridge across a pile of fallen masonry (a spare piece of lord of the rings plastic ruins). The bridge uses foam core and polystyrene scored with a pen to make stone work.

The river itself was smothered in thick PVA (coloured brown with cheap craft paint) left to dry a bit and then worked with an old stiff brush to give some texture. Some painting was done to give the impression the water was foul tainted effeulent. Finally the water was given some gloss varnish.

I've scaled my plans down a bit on my Mordheim project. Originally I was going for a 4x4 foot board but the scenery is very time consuming to build so I'm going to try and get one 2x4 foot board finished first so I can get some games going and come back to the second board latter (maybe after I've recharged my batteries with a different project). I have another warband almost finished (Middenheimers) which will hopefully but done by the end of the weekend which will give me both sides for a game.

Cheers Jon

Wizards tower

Well the summer holidays are proving to be very unproductive on the hobby front (I'm actually starting to think there isn't a time of year when I am productive to be honest)

However I have managed to produce some more Mordheim scenery. First up is a wizards tower. This is a resin piece I got of ebay. It was pretty nice striaght out of the box but I wanted to make it look a little more wizard like and less military watch tower like.

The battlements of the tower are a seperate piece so I decided to build an alternative roof for the tower (sutiably damaged for Mordheim). The roof is made of card and balsa on a hardboard base. the chimney (which you can't actually see in the photos doh) and extra window came from a pack of spares sold by the same company who made the tower and help to match my scratch built roof to the orginal building.

I can now have the tower set up with battlements or a roof depending on what I want the tower to represent. I have a few more buildings and bits finished for my Mordheim project which hopefully I'll get pictures of posted up in the next few days.

Cheers Jon