Boneblades!

 As previously mentioned, I picked up a box of Wargames Atlantic's 10mm undead (which they call Boneblades). I would describe the box as a unit set as opposed to any army. Tere are three identical sprues in the box with sword and shield warriors. There are also 3 casualties and 3 command stands with a war banner. (One per sprue). You get about 108 skeleton warriors and I think 117 total figures. 

I painted up one of the sprues (sans command), it gave me enough warriors for 3 bases so the box should yield 9 bases of warriors. 

Here is the rear view of these sculpts. They are very quick to paint. I primed black on the sprue, dry brushed with off white and then clipped them from the sprue, cleaned cut marks up with an exacto blade and mounted to popsicle sticks. I hit them with another dry brush to get to the areas I could when they were in the sprue. After the shields got some diluted paint on the fronts and backs. The final bit was to paint the metal on shield rims, helmets and swords. 

The figures next received an Army Painter Strong Tone wash. Normally I ink after a gloss varnish to prevent the ink from staining the paint too much but I wanted these little bone fellas to have dingey, dirt stained look. 

Here is an aerial overview picture. You can see the sculpts are a bit two dimensional. I imagine this is a result of the strip printing method and also the fact they are scrawny skellies. This 2D is less present on the orcs and the dwarves. To make them less 2D linear, I broke up the ranks a bit. Overall, I'm pleased with these fellas. Over a hundred figures for about $22 USD. They paint up quick and paint up well. 

Painting them brought back memories of my mid to late teens. Having just jumped into the GW hobby, my older brother would drive me to gaming stores and also fund some of my purchases. One of those early acquisitions was the Undead Army box sets filled with scores of plastic skeleton warriors. While they were fiddly to assemble, they were pretty darn easy to paint.

With those memories all coming back, the experience of painting these sculpts more enjoyable. As I get older, I have learned to cherish these old moments in time and enjoy the making of new moments that I will cherish now and later. 

Mission Complete!

I never really thought I'd purchase, paint, own a 10mm Orc army. Then Wargames Atlantic comes along and released 10mm Orcs for their Fantasy Battles range. So now I own a full army....all from one box that cost less than $50!

I finished the 6 bases of Orc archers (front row behind the command bases) which effectively renders this project complete. The box provided enough figures for me to field: 6 bases of sword and shield, 3 bases of heavy axe, 3 bases of spear, 4 bases of wolf riders and 3 command stands. I still have a dozen or so loose figures that I didn't need (yet). I ordered Copplestone Castings 10mm fantasy evil characters which should be compatible in size, theme and style with the Wargames Atlantic sculpts. The plan is to include a wizard/shaman command base to the army. 

I should mention that I was in Huzzah Games the other day and saw that they now have the Wargames Atlantic dwarves and undead. Since I have a box of each on the way, I opted to buy another box of Boneblades so that I can field a proper army once Wargames Atlantic released their undead cavalry. 

I might fiddle around with the Boneblades now, I imagine they will paint up quick (essentially prime black, dry brush, pick out details like shields and weapons and ink).

I also plan to work on some 10mm International Brigade for the Spanish Civil War. Let's see how these next projects come along....

Azincourt!

I'm quite excited, something I have been waiting with anxious anticipation for quite some time has finally been released (for pre-order anyway). Last year, when I attended Claymore, I purchased the Hundred Years War variant for Test of Resolve and after vacillating on what figures to use, I  learned that Wargames Atlantic announced they would be releasing box sets for the Hundred Years War battle Azincourt (which I always spelled Agincourt, but nevermind that..). 

I felt like I was checking in on updates regarding the Azincourt releases for about a year or so. In the interim, I purchased a box set of the Wargames Atlantic Fantasy Battle Orcs and began painting them up as practice run for speed-painting (well, no painting is "speedy" for me) the Azincourt armies. When the Azincourt armies finally appeared for pre-order, I took the plunge and purchased a Christmas gift for myself (if you can't love yourself, who can you love?). I added in a box set of the Fantasy Battle Dwarves (need an opponent for my Orcs) and also a box of Bone Blades (aka undead skeletons).

Box art for the English pictured above. The set includes: 

• 246 English knights/men-at-arms on foot
• 362 longbowmen (with both bows and melee weapons)
• 105 wooden stakes (in plastic)
• Casualty figures

Box art for the French pictured above. The set includes: 

• 351 French knights/men-at-arms on foot
• 108 knights mounted
• 246 Genoese crossbowmen with pavise
• Casualty figures to include horses

A picture from Wargames Atlantic above of the painted English knights/men-at-arms.

That is quite alot of figures...and not every battle of the HYW had similar orders of battle like Azincourt. I probably don't need all 108 mounted knights to be French and I think some could be painted up as English. Perhaps some of those English longbowmen can be painted as French archers and some of the longbowmen with melee weapons can be painted up as French rabble.

The box sets also include very nice plastic bases 40mm x 20mm in dimension. While nice, I doubt I will use them. In Test of Resolve, melee units are comprised of two bases stacked behind each other while missile units are two bases side by side. I am thinking of perhaps 60mm x 20mm or 60mm x 30mm...or even 80mm frontages. I'd like to have melee units deployed as either squares or perhaps a bit wider than they are deep. 

I have quite a few painting projects milling about so who knows when I will be able to put paint to plastic on these little fellas but I look forward to everything about this project. 

Moroccan Adventure

 

Work has unexpectedly taken me to Morocco. It's not necessarily a trip I had planned to take. Whenever I travel I look for military history related sites: battlefields, museums, wargaming stores, etc. 

While I have found some spare time to investigate various landmarks (some with some interesting historical stories behind them), I haven't really encountered much in the way of wargaming fodder.

I brought with me Conrad Cairn's wargaming guide to the Carlist War (Side Note: I met Conrad at Claymore last year and he is an incredibly friendly person, an interaction that will ne a cherished memory) and that got me thinking about a Spanish theme to a Moroccan wargaming venture... specifically the Spanish Civil War. The Moroccan Regulares of Franco's Army of Africa were heavily involved in the conflict and were considered some of the elite troops for the Nationalist cause. 

I had already dipped my toe in the SCW waters when I began (but didn't finish) a 10mm Italian CTV infantry company to fight against the International Brigade in scenarios based on the Battle of Guadalajara (1937). 

In fact, I even had primed and began to paint some International Brigade infantry as well. Those are still languishing on a popsicle stick someplace in my hobby storage....they have little crude dabs of grey and brown on them and look quite rough at the moment, but I digress.... A bit of research revealed that the Moroccan Regulares fought the International Brigade at the Battle of Jarama about a month or so before the Battle of Guadalajara. In fact the very lovely wargaming blog Baber on Wargames has an excellent scenario posted for an action between the British battalion of the International Brigade and some Moroccan Nationalists during the battle of Jarama.

With this idea in mind, I placed an order for some 10mm Moroccans in winter kit from Pendraken. Of course this means that I really need to paint up those idealistic fighters from the International Brigade and since the CTV are nearly complete, I might as well paint them up too...

UPDATE: Since posting this on the blog, I also purchased a few old Osprey books on the SCW forces and another on foreign volunteers in the SCW. I also stumbled upon a few good blog posts with painting guides and color plates to aid in painting the Regulares and other factions. 

More Greenskins...

 I've decided that I will paint up this whole box of Wargames Atlantic 10mm orcs before I resume my other projects. With that being said, I finished 6 bases of swordsmen and 3 command stands. The box set has two types of swordsmen: heavily armored guys without shields and lightly armored guys with shields. I decided I didn't need two types of swordsmen so I just mixed them together and I think that gives a better visual. 

Here you can see the 6 bases of swordsmen (above).

Rear angle of the same swordsmen showing off some of the casualty figures WA includes on their sprues. You can also see the Pendraken dice trays I added to the Litko bases. The basing was done with sand. I painted it medium brown craft paint, inked with Army Painter Dark Tone and then dry brushed with Vallejo Cork Brown. The static grass is a mix of several brands and give a nice bright green look. 

Here's a picture of the three command stands. WA sprues each contain a 3 man command strip and a 2 man command strip. The 2 man strip has a drummer and you will need to glue his drum to his chest. It's a bit fiddly but it looks good. I added some of the individual orc armored swordsmen as commanders. There are a total of 6 command strips on the box, so some of these will go in my extras bin. 

Lastly we have an image of the completed army this far. Three bases of spearmen, 3 bases of heavy axemen, 6 bases of swordsmen, 4 bases of wolf riders and 3 command stands. All that remains to be painted are the archers (about 6 bases worth). Overall, I would say it's heck of a bargain to get an entire army for $45. They include casualties and 40x20mm bases as well. I'm tempted to pick up the Dwarf army to face off against the green skins. 

Wargames Atlantic Orcs

I've had my eye on the Wargames Atlantic Orcs since their release. I don't play too much fantasy battle th se days but I was enamored with their resemblance to the orcs 1978 cartoon Lord of the Rings.

I saw a few boxes of the Wargames Atlantic Orcs at my local hobby shop and decided to support my local business with a purchase. 

I saw a video tutorial from Jim Morris aka "Mogsymakes" where he tackles the same orcs for his Midgard armies. I liked the look and copied his approach. The sprues were cleaned in warm soapy water and rinsed in clean water. Upon drying, I primed them black on the sprues and then removed them from the sprues and attached to popsicles sticks. Painting was done with dabs of paint allowing the black undercoat to provide definition. 

Here are the wolf/warg riders in all their glory. For the army, I decided to go with a limited color palette of grey, red, ochre, brown and black (and green for the skin of course). I drybrushed the wolves and that was it for them, there are three different drybrush tones but I managed to place all the grey wolves in the middle of each base even though I was basing randomly.

Three bases of orc heavy axemen, there are about 12 total figures on each 40x40mm base. I think 12 figures works, it allows me to get 3 bases gives me some space in the back for a dice tray. 

Here we have three bases of spearmen. These fellas all have shields and I couldn't just paint them black and leave it at that. I tried my hand at painting the "Red Eye of Sauron" on the shields but didn't like how they turned out so I went with the "White Hand of Saruman". I think they turned out good enough for hastily painted 10mm figs. 

I didn't really have a fantasy mass battle ruleset in mind but these are based to be compliant with Chipco's Fantasy Rules! and Nic Wright's Fantastic Battles. I have experience with Nic's Irregular Wars ruleset which have similar mechanics as Fantastic Battles, so I knew that I'd be placing dice trays on the back of these bases. Below is an image showing off the rears of those Orcs as well as the dice trays. 

I still have the swordsmen and archers left to paint, which should give me about 6 bases each. I think the entire box set will give me about 18 bases of infantry, 4 bases of wolf riders and also some command stands. I will probably purchase some trolls from another manufacturer to complement the army. Overall, I'm pleased with the figures and how much you get for less than $50 USD. 

Progress: Paint on Lead (and Plastic)

I've been trying to stay productive with my hobby, starting to tackle a 6mm Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth army to fight my Swedes and Russians. First up are enough pancerni for two regiments of cavalry. 

Only ones left to paint are the command. I will probably add a third pancerni unit and one or two winged hussars and some light horse detachments. 

There's nothing that I love more than a diversion to keep me motivated (and distract me from the primary task).  When I was over at my local hobby shop, I noticed they had some of Wargames Atlantic's 10mm plastic orcs in stock. I had planned to order some of these whenever Wargames Atlantic decides to release their 10mm plastic Azincourt armies. Yesterday I decided to take the plunge and support my local hobby shop. 

The box set includes three sprues of figures and 40x20mm bases. I plan to base mine on 40mm bases for either Chipco's Fantasy Rules! or Nic Wright's Fantastic Battles. I rinsed the sprues in soapy water and primed them black the following day. The image above shows my first go at these figures. Overall I am pretty pleased. The faces were les successful nut I am hoping to go back in and paint tusks, and perhaps a light ink wash will help with some facial details. These fellas will definitely be a speed-paint project so I'm not too concerned.