A Tale of Two Islands; Updated!

 UPDATE!

These items are from Novus Design Studios, who seem to be going out of business very soon. Orders dated prior to 30APR23 will be honored, so go get some while you have a chance!

 

 

Rustoleum Flat Black Primer, a heavy drybrush of Americana Soft Black, followed by a slightly lighter drybrushing of Americana Storm Gray, once that had dried I gave it a more selective coat of Americana Boulder with as light dusting of pure white to finish it off

        It seems the R.U.P. has caught on to The Housemartin's trick of casually leaving cool stuff around my workshop with the knowledge that my gnat-like attention span will light upon it and paint it "just to see what it would look like with a dab of paint".  No, actually he asked me to take a look at a couple of resin islands that he had recently purchased (I will try to get specifics about them and include it in an update) with an eye to painting them to go with his large collection of 1/1200 scale Ships of the Line. They were well cast (no bubbles making pits on the surface) and very detailed. I have just undertaken a large terrain commission for some terrain from a friend and needed to get my mojo refreshed before diving into that. These models seemed like the perfect chance for a bit of refresher/experimentation work, I dove right in.

 

once the paint had dried I added a wash of GW Gulliman Flesh at the base of the mountains with a tiny bit drawn up the sides of the steeper slopes,  I then wetbrushed Americana True Brown to fill the space between the hills and the beach, this was followed by a narrow band of Americana Honey Brown, once that had all dried I painted Americana Thicket into the areas that looked like they could support vegetation, this was highlighted with Americana Hauser Light Green

Game At Rich Uncle Pat's Place this Saturday at 6:30pm

Israel vs Egypt Jets and Greek on Greek Naval

Like the headline says, Rich Uncle Pat will be hosting this weekend's game, Saturday 6:30 pm at his place

Warlord Epic Scale ECW Cavalry Frame

        These little fellows showed up attached to my latest issue of Wargames Illustrated so I thought I would pass along to my good readers a quick look at the latest addition to Warlord's "Epic" series. These are cast in the usual firm gray plastic that Warlord has been using for years. There is no flash, but there is some noticeable mold lines on some of the figures. This is easily removed with a file or an Xacto blade. the poses are dynamic but suffer from being one-piece castings. This is particularly noticeable when viewing the cavalry figures, details get "blurry" as they approach the mold-line. That said these are wargaming figures intended for mass-battles not showpieces or skirmish minis. If I were not already in possessio of thousands of based and painted figures I might be tempted to buy these. The detail is fine for 15mm army level minis and the price will allow very large armies without breaking the bank. 

       Of course size matters when you are looking to add to your collection. These minis should blend well with the true 15mm figures such as Peter Pig, Khurusan or the old Minifigs range; rather less well with the scale-creep minis from other manufacturers that are now approaching 18mm. I took a couple of comparison shots to give an idea as to size.

 

cavalry sprue, side A

 

cavalry sprue, side B

 

 

old school Minifigs Turkish cavalry

 

Khurusan Scottish foot

       I don't think that I would mix these in with many other manufacturers products but I wouldn't hesitate to use units of Warlord minis next to unit from producers that have stayed true to size. If you are just getting into ECW or 30YW this new line is well worth considering.

All Quiet on the Martian Front

 

        Last month Tom from Texas and The Housemartin combined their massive collections of "All Quiet on the Martian Front" minis for a big game at Tom's house. This game took place in Tom's ballroom on a table eight feet wide by nearly twenty-four feet long. The scenario was the defense of Milwaukee against a Martian horde that had landed in the distant Yukon territory, and had recently been reinforced by a bunch of Martian cylinders landing just outside of Milwaukee. The invading Martian forces were intimidating in their numbers and power; the defending humans were forced to oppose this alien inundation with steam-powered tanks and a superabundance of guts (oh, and there were lots of humans)

       In an effort to keep the fighting as far away from the city as possible the human forces considered their options and decided to go with a layered forward defense, augmented by flank attacks from the east and west. The Martians decided to advance on a broad front to deploy as many as possible of their high-tech weapons right from the start. To the surprise of the invaders the humans had the assistance of a pair of dirigibles and some ultra-heavy guns to lend some weight to the soldiers fighting in the front lines. Also unbeknownst to the Martians some brave humans had volunteered to undertake a wide flanking maneuver using motorcycles and armored cars to speed their approach.