More thoughts on gaming

I've not blogged for a while as I'm having a crisis in gaming thoughts. I've recently written on here about my magpie nature and it's not really good for either completing projects or the wallet!

I've painted the second unit of perry 40mm French and tried something different. I read a while ago an article about a chap who under coats in white and then uses washes to build up the colours he wants. So this is what I did. I'd tried it before on some space marines for my son , with an ok result. With the large figures it was really satisfying to see the shading appearing as I put the layers on. There where some bits I used paint for, mainly the white, but there I tried to go for the foundry 3 colour approach. Then I topped it all off with a really dilute black ink wash just to give the outline of the various straps etc. I still need to varnish them and in this heat I might be able to spray varnish rather than paint it on which will be quicker!

Inspired by this I've under coated some landsknechts that I got initially for WHFB but increasingly I'm thinkng of doing the Italian wars as then I can use the perry plastic renaissance cavalry, and it should still double as an empire army if needed. I've heard that Rick Priestly is working on a fantasy version of hail Caeser so I may have a set of rules to use.

More magpie gaming

I've just finished painting some rohan figures which came as part of a job lot. You can tell they are Perry sculpts as the features are perfect and they take paint really well. Now I've got two units of 12 foot and a unit of 5 cavalry. They are very dark ages like and make me wonder if I could use them in Saga. A quick search online shows that I'm not the first to have these thoughts. There are lots of posts on the studio tomahawk forum discussing which battle boards to use. So I might have to paint up some more to get a 6 point unit. I think I can use the Gripping Beast Dark age warriors as levy, and perhaps mix in some of their Saxon Thegns as hearth guard.

Painting Table update

So although I assembled the modern British I've not got them to the table yet as I thought I'd clear out some minor projects first. That meant some 15mm SYW British from Old Glory that I got from eBay very cheaply. Sadly the mix of figures leaves a lot to be desired with too many grenadiers and command. There were only enought Fusileers for three stands so at the moment there are 3 bases of 8 castings to a regiment. One base is of grenadiers and one of commad leaving only one of Fusileers . They're based on 60x40 as are my ACW, so this might be my preferred basing for 15mm, although I stil am considering doing the West Wind Ancients on 40x20 or even 40x40 dependent on the army. That way I can match facings but represent blocks of troops better.

The other small project was the Dads Army set from Warlord for Bolt Action. I have to say it was the civilian figures that are the selling point of the set as I already have the Foundry versions in uniform. These are good castings and will be great for VBCW, and can pad out my Meibion Glendwyr forces.