Paint Table Saturday

Crikey, it's been a long road. This is a slight expansion of the original War of the Roses project but I've now finished all the Perry Miniatures that were bought for me as Birthday presents back in January.

Here we have the Neville cavalry, rather neater and better equipped than their Percy counterparts. Again, I chose cooler colours from the blue end of the spectrum to help tie the forces together. 

The coloured lances, incidentally, are a detail I lifted from the ever useful Osprey publications. They were more prevalent than we sometimes think.

This is the one I did the major conversion work on, and I'm rather happy with the dynamic pose:

Like the ever Sainted Mr Awdrey I, too, have now to prepare for the new Academic year, so my painting will probably slow down. I am, however, determined to finish the human Blood Bowl team; so hopefully there will be at least one more completed project post before the new term.

Here comes the Cavalry!

Got the first lot painted up: a group of men at arms allied to the Percys.

The first issue was to decide the colour palette. Livery didn't work like uniforms, of course - after all, each of the Men At Arms was likely to be a landed knight in his own right - but you want to try and tie the various forces together.

So with my Percys being kitted out in quartered red and black, I went with things on the red side of spectrum; red, purple and yellow. Overall I'm quite happy with how they came out. Proper photos will follow when I've finished the Nevilles, hopefully tomorrow.

CHAAAAAARGE!

So last night I popped the rest of the Doctor Who story on the DVD that I was using for reference for the Third Doctor and Brigadier (The Green Death, fact fans) and made a final push on the medieval project.

The Perry mounted men at arms box is just as good as their other WotR sets; a massive amount of options and plenty of bits left over. The variation allows for some very dynamic poses and lots of potential for conversion.

So here we have the first Lion Rampant unit of 6:

And here is the second:

As an example, here is the only major conversion I did with these: 

all that was done was a slight reposition on the base - the posing of the rider, legs and horse-head was done purely with mixing and matching the different bits of the kit to get the desired effect.

The plan is to get these undercoated and done today and tomorrow.

Return to the Doctor

Just a quick one today. After looking at the pictures uploaded last time, I realised there was something missing from the Third Dcotor:



It took me a while to put my finger on what it was until I was watching some Who while doing something else:

I hadn't done the lining on the cape. That little splash of vivid colour that Jon Pertwee used to flash around with a flick of his cape.

So I cracked the brushes out today and tidied up the face and added the lining:



I think it makes a massive difference to how much the mini pops.



Again, quite happy with the shading on the black.

I also did the final glaze on Dr Hugh - incidentally, Heresy currently has a 25% off sale so there's never been a better time to treat yourself - and tidied up his face as well:




He still has the white toe-caps on his converse to add.

I'm in to the last stretch of the holidays now, so I realistically have time to get two things finished. My plan is to do the second Bloodbowl team and some medieval cavalry.

Stay tuned!

More Temporal Travellers - HAI!

This time from Crooked Dice:

Although you can't tell it from my paintjob - I'm going to have to revisit this one - the likeness is very good for Jon Pertwee.

He's joined by the ever faithful Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart:




And they're off for a trip to Cromer.



I also found, tucked away in the garage, the Heresy Doctor Hugh:

He needs another couple of glazes on the back of his coat to finish off.

Thoroughly enjoyed painting all of these and now trying to decide whether to go Victorian or Medieval for the next batch. Or maybe the last Bloodbowl team? What do we think?

The Two Doctors

I treated myself to some shinies from Heresy Miniatures and spent a lovely afternoon watching Doctor Who and painting.

Here's the results:




The Doctor Payne figure is probably one of the nicest miniatures I've painted in a long time. From a painting point of view I decided not to do the usual highlighting on the jacket but to instead concentrate on the weathering. I think the result does the job quite nicely.


The temporal northern vagrant was painted in a much more traditional fashion; the trousers and jacket were highlighted with different shades of grey and toned with blue and brown respectively. The different temperatures don't really show on the photograph but work in person.




The TARDIS is from Ainsty Castings. I have some decals to print and stick on next week (currently I have no ink for the printer!).

I am expecting some more shinies tomorrow so expect another post soon. In the meantime, if you like these two buy them from Andy at Heresy. He's a top bloke and a phenomenally talented sculptor. Now if only he'd get on with that Capaldi he keeps promising....

Spaceships and Victorian Vigliantes

First up is the Sol Fleet pieces from the Rex Boardgame. It seemed like an easy thing to just give them a quick going over as the rest of the game was so visually appealing:

The ships as they originally appear

Second is the matching piece to the Man Who Grins. Again, a lovely sculpt from Vermis on the Lead Adventure Forum merited a More Than Tabletop Quality paintjob:

I decided to go with the feel of an Inverness Cape, rather than something he'd had specially made. The brown is also more Victorian than black to my way of thinking. 

I am quite ridiculously pleased with the blending on the cape. 

And, just for fun, I decided to stick him in a Victorian Batcave.

Next up will be the Human Bloodbowl team and then some more In Her Majesty's Name characters.

The Man Who Grins

This was a lovely miniature so I took the time to paint it to slightly better than tabletop standard.

I've rather proud of how he came out. Obviously the basing is yet to be decided.

He will function as the boss of a nefarious IHMN Company; now I just need to find some goons to support him.

Post 100!

It's been a little over six months since I got back into the painting groove after the birth of my two kids. In that time, I've managed to do something that has eluded me a lot over the years - I managed to finish a project!

So here, for those people who have patiently waited since way back in January, I have actually completed my two Lion Rampant retinues. Annoyingly, they've already had their first road test but they're now ready for action at the school open evening in September.

Here are the Nevilles, resplendent in their neat white and blue livery:

And here are the slightly more rough and ready Percys:

Two fine bodies of Yorkshire men, I'm sure you'll agree.

Up next, another Project to finish off and then the start of some Victoriana.I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone for their support. It makes it a lot easier to pick up the brush and get cracking if you know there are other people out there who share your enthusiasm.

So thanks, and here's to the next 100!

Rex

This is not the game you're playing. Ish. 

One of those holy grails of boardgames, the old Dune game has a towering reputation. It's been 20 years out of print, though, so not really any chance of playing it.

Enter Fantasy Flight Games, who got the rights to the game system but - due to the usual intransigence of the Herbert Estate - not the Dune setting. The result is Rex; an updated Dune, reskinned with the trappings of FFG's Twlight Imperium universe.

I've wanted it for a couple of years and finally got it for my Birthday back in January. This last week was the first time I've managed to get a game of it together. As a game involving lots of diplomacy and backstabbing it works well with more players. It takes up to 6 but I had 4.

First things first, as you come to expect with FFG, the components are every high quality and the game is gorgeous to look at.

It's just a real pleasure to have this thing on the table.

Gameplay is very simple; you move your units around the city trying to avoid the moving bombardment; the winner is the person who holds 3 key strongholds at the end of a game turn - or the most at the end of Turn 8.

The complexity comes in the asymmetry; every player race has a different, game-breaking advantage. So one player has a lot of traitors tucked away; another gets all the money bid by other players for equipment; another wins automatically if no-one else has three strongholds at the end of turn 8 and so and so forth. The game comprises blind bidding, movement, resource management and wargaming in equal measure.

You also have the opportunity to create binding alliances with other players - and break those alliances at the moment of maximum convenience.

Moving your units into an area of this sci-fi Stalingrad that's occupied by enemy forces triggers a barney. Combat is done blind, with troops and resources committed on cunning hidden dials (the grandfathers of X-Wing's movement dials) with leaders plugged in. This is where the strongest hint of Spice lingers - there is a chance that your leader is, in fact, a traitor owned by the enemy; and if he is, then you lose automatically - no ifs, no buts. Just like Doctor Yueh.

Our game went very well; it all came down to a fight over one sector at the end of Turn 8. It was a real nailbiter that went down the very wire. A clever conceit of the rules system is that each race can achieve victory in different phases of the turn, so right up until the last moment, anyone could snatch victory.

This was a great evening's play which everyone thoroughly enjoyed - even She Who Must Obeyed, who cordially hates science-fiction. Basically - get it and play it. You won't regret it.