Hell's Bells - Return of the living dead.

 Again, it's way to long ago I placed something new on my blog. This year have not been an easy one. I 'm getting older, and work is not getting easier. On top of that, I still am doing my many hours of sportive activity, staying healthy or at least trying to. And when there is time left I paint some of the many miniatures from the hughe lead Mountain. 

In this first mail for the year (!), I present my Undead. I went through the Lead Mountain and painted all I had. Some are fairly recent plastics from Warlord Games. Others are metal from Wargames Foundry. And then there are the old scool Minifigs undead from Valley of the Winds and Aureola Rococo. For the younger readers here, some of those are among the first fantasy figures I ever owned. A few are more then 40 years old. While some are 'true' 25mm (VFW), others are 28mm. In the pictures they are all mixed up, and I don't think that is a problem. Make your own decision. 

As you see, it is not the largest army ever seen. The centre point is maybe something special: the Great Bell Tower from the Valley of the Four Winds range, Miniature Figurines (aka Minifigs). I don't think I've seen pictures of it somewhere else, but surely I cannot be the only one who ownes one of these? It is far from the easiest kit to build, being a multipart metal model from the mid seventies, and is quiet fragile. I'm not sure if I will ever use it in a game.

I also have a few undead 'freshly' rising from the grave. Most are from Wargames Foundry or their sister fantasy site Warmonger. But I also build two extra from some plastic left overs from a Warlord sprue.

Next, a few strange creatures from Minifigs. I don't know if they are from the Valley of the Four Winds range or Aureola Rococo. I've owned them like forever.

I wonder if these lovely looking fellas where an inspiration for early Chaos figures from Citadel? 

I think the next model is one of those early Citadel Chaos figures, but I don't think the horse was the original mount. It looks a bit late medieval. but hey, it doen't look bad.

That's it for now! Upcoming next are pictures of my expanding Macedonian / Hellenistic armies. It won't take another year for pictures of them. Promised!

More Aureola Rococo Knights.

I've been painting historical miniatures for a while now, so it is maybe time for a short break. A few months ago, I could finaly buy the few figures I was missing to build another two units. Many thanks to Dave from Caliverbooks, who owns Miniature Figurines (or Minifigs for short) for bringing them back into production!
I believe my Knight s of the Silver Rose army is now finished, having at least one of each of the produced miniatures.

The new recruits are a unit of spearmen.

As usual the flag is a free download, originaly from Perry Miniatures' Korean range. I painted a linear B symbol on it, to show the ancient character of these troops, as I did with all other units before.

The other unit is armed with the fearfull (and magical) double action blowpipe.

This is the only unit in the army that doesn't have a flag, I think they don't need one since they use a shooting weapon and normaly don't come into hand to hand combat. Or at least they hope so.

That's it, my fantasy army is ready for battle!
Maybe some pictures of the complete army?

I hope you like the look of the army. It was a great pleasure to paint them. I finaly have the army I dreamed of as a 15 year old! It's only that I'm now ...51.

As always, any comments welcome!

Aureola Rococo Knights army.

I now have finaly painted (almost) all the old Aureola Rococo Knights of the Silver Rose I own. And as promised here are some pictures! Sorry for the long wait.

First are the foot spearmen. there were pictures of these before on my blog, but here are some new ones, back in the "old" style.

Next are a unit with a weapon that I would call spear-axe. One end has a spear head and the other an axe head.

Followed by the "Guards". A 18 men unit. Other foor units are 12 men strong.

New units now, starting with a mounted unit of axemen. Although they also have a bow and arrows with them.

And another unit of mounted knights, now armed with a spear.

All flags are based on free downloads of  medieval Korean flags, but with a linear B symbol hand painted on them.

That's the army for now. Except for a general (soon to follow).

I would like to add one more unit, but need to find a few more miniatures for that. 

Maybe I should ask Dave at Caliverbooks. The miniatures I'm after are not currently in production, but you never know...

Foot knights.

Last time I talked about my old Minifigs fantasy figures from the Aureola Rococo range. I have managed to paint all the Aureola Rococo foot Knights of the Silver Rose I currently have. I don't have that many of them, but they are as good as done. They are painted in a simple painting scheme, so they don't take to much time to do. All are individual based, but the bases are not ready yet. I want to do them all in one go, when the cavalry is ready too.

Pictures!

The first unit is a 12 man strong spearmen unit, with a captain and a standard bearer. The standard bearer is a halberdier which was damaged. The top of his weapon was broken, so he became a standard bearer. One spear was also broken off, but I was able to repair it.

This next unit (above) is something in between spearmen and axemen, as their weapons have a spear point on one side of the pole and an axeblade on the other side.

The captain is holding a heavy axe without spearpoint on the other side. I only had one of this model, so he became captain too.The standard bearer is the same model as the first unit.

The last unit is a somewhat larger unit of 18 models, I had more of these halbardiers then anything else, so they can be the guards, I still need to paint the edges of the flags to make them look better.

Next for this army will be two cavalry units. I want the cavalry ready before I try to get more foot troops. I would love to have a unit of those "Double action blow darts".

Here is a link to pictures af all the models once made in the range (Thanks Rudy G. for finding this link!)

By the way, what do you think of the new style pictures? I made a so called light box. I still have to learn some things about lighting I believe. The halbardiers pictures are made with a flash , the others without, but I had to make them lighter with a photo retouche. Something I did not use before.

Historical gaming and High Fantasy miniatures.

It's been a while since my last post here. There are a few reasons for this. Non of it has something to do with our beloved hobby of miniatures wargaming.
First there was a new course I had to follow for work, plus tests.
Then only a few weeks ago, I became grandfather, which is something special, I can assure you!
In between things, my wife and me also went on a vacation. So there was not so much time for the hobby.
I have been working on my Napoleonic Nassuaers, but the "painting mojo" left me when we came back from vacation.. Seeing the same figures for too long on my painting desk was the killer for me (were are the helpfull gnomes when you need them?)

Then I found some very positive advice on a set of rules called One Hour Wargames, written by Neil Thomas. I bought them on Amazon, and read them through in one evening.
It is a book with a few very basic rulessets and 30 scenario's, which can be used with each of the different rules. An army consists of a maximum of 6 units and minimum of 3, depending on the scenario played. You cannot choose which type of units you have. Just throw a dice, and check on a list what you get.
I made a few small changes, and played the first scenario solo. It was fun, and indeed, it is possible to finish a game in around an hour.

I played the game using my very old 15mm minifigs Seleucids and a Galatian army of mixed makes. These armies are both  based for the DBx family rules (but mostly used for Armati, once they were painted).
I needed a few more, and knew I had some unpainted staked somewhere at the attic. And there I bumped into a long forgotten treasure. My very first fantasy army, made of the now mythical Minifigs Aureola Rococo figures. The Knights of the Silver Rose to be more precise.
These are at least 35 years old, and unfortunately, many were damaged and the painting was terrible, being painted by a young teenager (me...) with the only paints available then, humbrol enamels. It also seemd I used each and every different colour I had. So in a paint remover filled jar they went!

There were even some miniatures still packed, just as they were when I bought them. 

After the miniatures are fished out of the jar (I left them two days in), the once-painted miniatures are cleaned with an old toothbrush. 

While looking for a descent painting scheme, I discovered to my astonishment that they had the wrong horses! Mine were seated on the cool looking Elf horses (code ARH1), but they needed the much heavier and barded knight horses, code ARH4. Luckely for me, the correct horses are again for sale now, thanks to Dave of Caliverbooks fame (he bought the complete Minifigs range). 

So, while waiting for the horses to arrive, I 'm painting the foot knights. I used a simple painting scheme. I don't want to spend to much time on them, but they will be nice when ready.

Pictures will come when the complete "army" is ready. That is around 50 foot and 20 mounted figures. Looks like another Dragon RAmpant army is in the making!

 A few specials may follow after these, as I also have both the small and large dragon from this range and a few others.. So yes, I 'm painting again! but it is not Napoleonics for the moment...