Castle Hertford

For my birthday I was lucky enough to be given one of tabletopworkshop's new plastic castles.  I have The standard castle set. Here's the parts:

I've built the gates and most if the walls.  I'm still not sure how to set the towers up.  I don't want necessarily a square castle but really not sure...

Already tempted to expand it with more walls...

Tyranids, part 1

I got a box of the new Zonathropes Saturday and promptly built them.  I really like the kit and the options and will fill out the unit with two more and a neurothrope.  Probably will get some more to make a brood of venomthropes too.  I got some paint on the first one yesterday.  I'm thinking of painting the claws darker, just to bring them out more.  Also I may wash round the mouth with some red.  Got to meditate on these...

And sort out the base...

On to the pictures:

Tau, part 3

A rescued ebay Hammerhead I'm working on.

Flat blocked in colours, red white and grey.  The battle damage.  Then gloss varnish, thick oil wash and a lot of scrubbing.  The right engine still needs some work and a lot of touch up may be needed after varnishing.

Tau, part 2

This is my Tau commander, a crisis suit with two missile pods, a drone controller and target array.  The head is from my Riptide.  The marker light drones are converted with spare crisis bits.  The arms are not attached yet so I can paint them separately.

I'm looking to get the base done tomorrow, then undercoat at the weekend weather permitting.

Tau

Recently I got the urge to paint some Tau.  I sold off the few models I had at the start of the year to a friend, so I went on eBay to get some more.  I kinda wish in retrospect that I had just bought Virgin boxes as striping the paint has Been painfully tedious and many are missing comms. 

The colour scheme is the old cities of death cover, red with white armour.

Onslaught Miniatures OTC, part 2

A little update on the OTC miniatures, a infantry test stand complete.  This is based on the excellent Trouble Maker Games bases.  Still need to add greenery but otherwise complete.

Progress on the test tank, it just needs basing.

Here's a picture of everything assembled so far.

I have a lot of tanks, suits and infantry left to assemble.  More updates soon!

Onslaught miniatures OTC

I've recently been building an army of the excellent OTC miniatures from Onslaught Miniatures.

This is the paint test mini!

More Warhound pics

Wolf Warhound with imperial knights.

Beware the beast!

My Warhound is back from the painters, a bit longer than expected due to the incompetence of Parcelforce damaging the head and head armour.  Still Golumn Painting Stuidos have done a bang up job. Thanks Mike!

Basing of 15mm Napoleonic Miniatures

Over the last year I have been considering the best way of basing these troops to best reflect the actual formations strengths. Ideally I would like to base in the following manner:

Infantry

British line companies - 4 man 20mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) bases. Ten companies is ten bases with a frontage of 20cm.
British Rifles, contray to popular belief, these boys in green actually fought in line during waterloo. They will be based as per british line infantry.
British Guards (and 51st)- These where the largest infantry battalions on the battlefield. Each company will be six miniatures based on a 30mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) base. A battalion will therefore have a 30cm frontage.
KGL Line - These where around the same size as a british infantry battilion, but had recently been reduced to six companies for Waterloo. Therefore each company will be six miniatures based on a 30mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) base, which gives a unit frontage of 18cm.
Hannover infantry - These where formed in four companies each of which consisted of 150ish men. They are therefore around the size of a british battalion, and will be mounted 10 men, in two ranks on a 50mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) bases. Four companies with a frontage of 20cm.

French line and leger infantry - These will be mounted 6 miniatures in two ranks on a 30mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) base, which gives a unit frontage of 18cm.

I haven't looked at the Fench Imperial Guard, Dutch, Brunswick, Nassau or Prussians yet. These will follow if I ever get that far on the project.


Cavalry

All allied and French Cavalry im looking at basing a company on a 60mm (width) x 30mm (Depth) bases. Two companies make up a squardon and several squadrons make up a regiment.

Artillery
Based on a large Flames of War base as per my British Foot Artillery Base.

Futher considerations

I need to decide how I mount commanders. I'm leaning towards seperate bases that can be put in frount or behind the units themselves.
Need to consider the time. I will probably start with smaller units than ulitmatley intended, just so i can get units built up quicker.

British Cavalry Test Figures

I've painted two test figures for the cavalry I recently received from Old Glory UK.  These are a light dragoon in a shako, and a dragoon/dragoon guard in a helmet.

The light dragoon is painted as a member of the 12th light dragoons for Waterloo.  These were in the 4th British Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo.  The regiment was three squadrons strong with around 430 sabres.  

The dragoon is painted as the 6th dragoons (Inniskilling) who fought in the 2nd British Cavalry (Union) Brigade.  The regiment started the day as the strongest of seven British heavy cavalry regiments with over 450 sabres in three squadrons. 

British 11th Armoured Division - Part 2

The first two Cromwells are done.  The gent poking his head out is the troop commander.  The third tank in well underway and should be ready soon.  As stated, the decals are from doms decals, they actually look the right size, particularly when compared with the Battle Front or PSC transfers.  I decided to standardise the placement of the markings.  Looking at old photos, the markings are all over the place, or not even present! So you will have to excuse the uniformity.

British foot artillery battery

I have finished a battery of 15mm 1815 british foot artillery equipped with a 9lb cannon.  These are Bluemoon Manufacturing miniatures mounted on a 2mm warbases large flames of war style base. 

I've tried a new technique for basing.  Valejo model pulmice, paint with two coats of woodland scenics flat earth paint, then flock, static grass and clump foliage.  Edges are painted black. I really like the style, so will base all my napoleonics like this now.

Imperial Knight, Part 1

So GW just released the Imperial Knight 'Titan', this has set in motion an set of events I feel I have no control over.

First up I have to say I LOVE this model. Absolutely LOVE it.

Then I saw the price and determined to get one... (stupidly off Games Workshop)

Then I bought another Three from the excellent Kirton Games.

The upshot is I have a 1500pt Knight army in the boxes. More worryingly I then actually have built and started painting one.

This is the model so far.  It an Imperial aligned Knight Paladin from House Terryn.

For my older daughter, I painted the spare helmet.

I've also started the build of a Knight Errant, again this will be from the same house.

I've heard the FW are going to release kits for these, so just in case, I've magnetised the arms.  Certainly want to get power fists for my Errant(s).

That's all folks for the moment.  Cya later.

A modern take on an old miniature, Part 1.

So in addition to building a few knights, I've decided to kick back off an old project.  These are to gets some boots on the ground to fill out my imperials a bit.  The project is based on this picture.

Copyright Games Workshop

Now back in the day, I loved the Imperial Guard.  I loved the absolute facelessness of the organisation.  The fact that they all dressed the same (based on STC no less).  They had land raiders and Rhinos.

Then they got generalised with the creation of "theme" armies, in my opinion, the whole Imperial Guard methodology fell apart.  Don't get me wrong, I like Elysian, Steel Legion and DKOK, but to me they don't fell like Imperial Guard, they seem like PDF / auxiliary units.  Land raiders and rhinos got ret-conned to sell newer shinier battle tanks and APCs and the golden age of Guard ended.

So I started to think what can I do to try and change this.  Now I think the Cadians are "not too bad" as opposed to "great", but with no conversion work, they will fit the bill.  With all this in my mind, I came up with this. A guardsman from the 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, C company of the 23rd Kaylark.

 

 

The helmet stripes will denote battlefield function:

Red = Tactical
Green = Assault
Yellow = Command
Blue = Heavy Weapon.

Platoon badges will be as per the above image.

I'm probably going to limit myself to 4 tactical squads per platoon (as per RT army lists).  I just wish I could get suspensors for my las cannon!

I'm hoping for a bit more return to the old school organisation in this new book coming out.  I hate the massive platoons in the current (soon to be superseded) army book.

I have close to 80-90 of the dam guys allocated to this at the moment, so enough to fill out 2 platoons.  I daresay depending on progress, this will probably double.  I see this as a mainly infantry force, but I may add tanks further down the order of battle.  I really hope to see plastic Cadian rough riders at some point.  Because If the sculpts are good, I could see me adding a platoon.

Anyway, that's the current grand plan.