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!

Just one!

January past really quick! I had several other things to do, and the result is I only painted one miniature, a Troll. But is is a big one.

I have it for so long I don't remember from what company it comes. I bought it new, I remember, got it out of the package and glued it together. Then I painted it in a black basecoat and left it as is for a few years. So I finaly removed the dust and painted it.
There is one more picture. To show the size of it, I made a picture with a normal sized 28mm figure (Footsore Miniatures) next to it.

I hope february will have a few more painted models ready. My Lead Mountain is now so huge, I don't know where to start. After the second part of my Saga warband, that is, which is only 16 miniatures. I need to start working again on one of my larger projects. Either ancient Greeks/Macedonians or Napoleonics, not decided yet.

Next weekend I hope to finaly play a proper wargame also. That still did not happen in 2020!
Saturday I will put on a small demo game of To the Strongest with my old 15mm figures at Warcon, a local wargames show. Who knows I will make a few pictures to show here next time.

Halloween - Bring out your ... lead?

Well, slightly overdue, but here is yet another update of me painting!
The title of this blogpost is obviously linked to the well known movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I must soon see that one again on DVD.

As it is that time of the year, why not have a bit of a scary subject? Somewere, deep beneath the dreaded Lead Mountain, I knew I still had some very old skeleton miniatures. I'm trying to kickstart my painting habit again, and simple, quick to paint miniatures are the best way to get going. To me anyway. So here are some +40 years old skeletons from Minifigs' Valley of the Four Winds range.

I had to put the foot skeletons on higher bases, as they are "true" 25mm figures. By doing this, I could put them next to the few skeletons I had painted some years ago.

Everyone knows that undead don't rize out of the earth by themselves, so I needed some kind of magic-user too. Yet another old model was used for this. This time form Minifigs Aureola Rococco range, which is also nearly 40 years old! His guardian on horseback is, I think an old Citadel Chaos warrior. I dod not have the apropriate horse, but had a spare late medieval Essex horse. Fits nicely methinks!

The skeletons raising from the earth are form Warmonger / Wargames Foundry.
That's my undead troops, ready for a small skirmish. One Page Rules skirmish will be tested later today with some of my friends. See you soon!

PS The plastic Napoleonic French are on the hold for now. I have some problems with my printer, and can't print the flags for now. Pictures will follow as soon as they are ready.

More Trolls!

I promised before to show pictures of more painted Trolls. Well, here they are.

They are also made by Mithril Miniatures, and as you see, they have a large range of different models of Trolls. They have even more variants then I show you here. Going from cave trolls to the smarter and much more dangerous Olog-Hai.

Here are pictures of all six I currently have:

Sorry it took so long to post, I have been sick for a whole week. The year just started and my painting schedule is already a week late.

I'm currently working on my 15mm Seleucid army again. The plan is to enlarge it to a proper To the Strongest army. I have a plan with them...

End of the year catch up, part 3 - fantasy.

Yes, I still "do" fantasy!
As most of my friends know, I have a soft spot for everything concerning JRR Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Next to a extensive book collection, I also own many miniatures based on Tolkien's mythology. That I have so much and painted so little of them has everything to do with finding a suitable rulesset. Do I base them as single models, or multi- based? This is something that got me strugling for too many years. In the mean time, the collection of unpainted figures grew over the years. I now could field huge armies of Men of Gondor, Elves, Dwarves, and of course huge masses of evil Orcs and the likes. If I only painted them!
About time to make a good start.

This is a Troll or Olog-Hai command group of Gundabad, the Iron Tower. Which is visible at the banner and shield emblem. The models are painted individual, so skin colour is not excactley the same on each of them.

Castings are by the famous Mithril Miniatures, sculpted by the talented Chris Tubb. They are not cheap, but worth the money. Most miniatures are multi-part, but hardly visible, even without using putty. And mould lines are also non-excisting.

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...