Clearing off the Paint Desk...

I often start working on a project or a random batch of miniatures, typically inspired by an impulse purchase, a movie or a book, and then I move on to something new...this means that I have several different batches of miniatures unfinished lingering on my paint desk.

Recently I started trying to work on those abandoned projects. I've made some progress but still have more to do. The first batch tackled were some 28mm Warlord Games WW2 Japanese veteran infantry.

Here's the squad. I added some plastic topiary  vegetation to make the bases more tropical and exotic. 

Painting 28mm isn't my wheelhouse, I am much more comfortable painting 15mm and smaller. I primed these guys and the primer was a tad fuzzy. I decided to push on. The uniforms are painted with Vallejo (or maybe Reaper?) Japanese Uniform. The undershirts are Reaper Stone Grey I believe.

I bought this pack as an impulse purchase. My local club played alot of Bolt Action. I bought these, let them linger and finally resumed painting them only to discover that nobody plays BA at my lub anymore. 

I think I am going to sell these guys off, I think I want to restart my Bolt Action Japanese army in 20mm. I still enjoyed painting these guys.

Next up are some 10mm ECW. I love pike and shot and renaissance armies but the ECW isn't a big interest. Lancer Miniatures had several 10mm ECW kickstarters that were awesome deals. I decided to jump in and over time bought some more second hand. Now I have a heap of 10mm ECW. I based these guys for Liber Militum's "Tercios" rules which look pretty cool.

This is a unit of Harqbusiers. I decided to paint them in a uniform look, based off of a color plate depicting Popham's Horse. Future units of horse will be much more ragtag looking. The base is 60x40mm.

And here is a unit of infantry in red uniforms. This is a parliamentary unit, as evidenced by the officer and ensign wearing orange sashes. Right now I have a "blew coat" regiment on the paint desk, half completed. I will tackle them and then probably paint a tawny orange coated infantry regiment for Essex.

I hope to make more updates in the future showing some more projects completed.

15mm Hundred Years War Project

Years ago I bought some 15mm crossbowmen because I liked the sculpts; they were crossbowmen with "butterfly" pavises strapped to their backs. The figures came from Donnington's New Era Hundred Years' War range, only two poses but very cool. I painted a few samples and bought more packs but nothing more because I couldn't find a ruleset and basing system that I liked. I finally got what I was looking for with Kings of War Historical. I have never played the rules but I like what I see from reading them and watching demos online. They are very simple but allow you to customize troops with "drop in" characteristics. I will tweak them most likely but they give me a framework to begin my project. Here are the first few units:

Genoese crossbowmen with pavises. These fiures are Donnington and some Corvus Belli with Corvus Belli pavises glued on to their backs. I came up with the pavise designs from online samples. The imperial eagles are transfers from Veni, Vidi, Vici in the UK.

A view from the rear of the base. You can see the other pavise designs. I will probably hand paint some eagle designs for the next batch of crossbow/pavise bases. The bases are 80mmx40mm and considered "regiments" for the KoW rules. Also, in KoW, the pavises give the crossbow units a defensive modifier against missile attacks.

I tried to go with a red, yellow, green and white color palette to tie in the figures.

And here are two units of English longbowmen. All of the castings are Donnington. In Kings of War, longbow units can have stakes to aid in defense against melee attacks. The stakes are brass rod cut to shape.

A better angle here. The sculpts are really nice and easy to paint. Some of the sculpts have longbowmen taunting the enemy with a two finger V salute. I painted red Saint George's crosses on their tunics. I also painted some of the sculpts in white or green and white livery colors for the Tudors.