A Roll of Linoleum Finished

Got this fella finished off last night

Musketeer Miniatures Late Roman (RB12, Unarmoured Infantry Standing)
Shield transfer by Little Big Men Studios
The base is the 'Eavy Metal 3B's recipe (Bestial, Bubonic, Bleached). Whole lot was then sprayed with Gloss Varnish and then Matt Varnish brushed on. Finally added some GW static grass and job done.


I've now started on another nine of his comrades and am making good progress. Intending to get the unit finished before Partizan, and then buy another unit there, however next weeks holiday will probably intefere with that timescale.

And now, because I'm pleased with myself, here's the same model against a white background. Not sure which I prefer.

Paint Yer Dragon

I painted this lovely beastie for the Monster Painting Competition over on The Warhammer Forum.
I actually wasn't going to enter as a) I missed the deadline and b) with all the high quality airbrushing and photography skills on display in that thread mine looked a bit Readers Wives to their Playboy.
But it wasn't about winning, and I'm very happy with the paintjob, so I entered anyway.

Click to biggify

I have a long history with this model. I fell in love with it when it first came out back in 1987 (I think) and was given one for Christmas - I have quite a strong memory of leaving the WD open at the page with it on around the house in late November.

I lovingly painted mine Blue (probably Enchanted) after first giving the white undercoat a purple wash following some advice in WD that suggested this "underwashing" was the new technique all the cool kids were doing - anyone else remember this? I don't remember it dramatically improving things.

For some years after this it was at the centrepiece of my 3rd Ed Warhammer Elf army which was filled with Jes Goodwin Elf models, including some of those that had the early seperate plastic spears, Skarlocs Wood Elf Archers (that I painted red!?), wardancers and the sea elf bolt throwers on wheels - a fantastic range of models. I didn't play many games as this was around the time of my "lost years" at university where sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll rather replaced tiny lead men in my affections. However my dragon did get a mention in White Dwarf when my college chum's undead army appeared in the magazine and he reported how he had just added a zombie dragon after a nasty experience against an Elf Dragon (mine!).

Sadly between house moves and storage and whatnot it got lost, or broken, or taken to a jumble sale by my Mum and sold for pittance. Whatever, I no longer owned it.

Fast forward fifteen or so years and in my then role as Head of Mail Order at GW I'm looking around for some great old models to add back into the range for the web store. Someone suggests some of the old dragons and I say "all right but you have to include the Dragonmasters model". There was some resistance as I recall, but as Mel Brooks says in "History of the World" "It's good to be the king" and so the model was included in the re-releases. So I bought one. (And you can do the same if you like, thanks to me).

And then it sat in it's mail order box until Storm of Magic came around along with the competition and I thought "somewhere in my loft I have the model I want to paint and I know the exact colour scheme, too".

So, here she is in all her glory and I'm very glad to have her back.

Almoravid Flags

Over on Don't Throw a 1 Ray has been kindly supplying Viking Flags for the use of all and sundry.
Viewing his latest offering I remembered I had some flag images I made for my Almoravids and felt that in the spirit of sharing I ought to post them up
So here they are. Feel free to print out, re-colour, re-size (they are quite big when you click 'em) to your hearts content.

I adapted these from a flag image I found somewhere on the interwebs (I forget where) some time ago. I've no idea what the wording says (hopefully something inoffensive) and I reckon they could probably be used for any Arabic/Muslim armies you may wsh to field with a little work (Sudan, Crusades etc.).
They're in big blocks of flat colour, so it's the work of moments in an image manipulation program (I use Photoshop Elements) to change the colour of the background or the lettering. I then print them out and paint over them before attaching to poles.
I used the top one for my Kamel Korps, the white one is my army standard and the purple one for my Black Guard. The other one I've used variations of for my Berber units.
Enjoy.

A Roll of Linoleum (4)

Now with added highlights (though I'm not sure you can tell from the pictures).

Not sure why the back is looking shiny - it doesn't appear so in real life.

Here's what I highlighted with
Main Garment:Scorched Brown
Flesh: Tallarn Flesh, then Tallarn/Elf Flesh
Trousers: Bestial Brown
Puttees:Dheneb Stone
Belt: Snakebite Leather
Spear: Desert Yellow
Hair: Chaos Back/Fenris Grey, then a Badab Black wash. 

Now all he needs is his shield adding and basing and we're done!
Obviously I've not actually prepped any shields yet, so there may be a short hiatus while I get on with that.

I'm pretty happy with the overall scheme, so I'll now get on with the rest of the unit. As I envisage these as a last garrison of Roman troops (from Petuaria, no less) I'm intending to keep them a bit more uniform than my Saxons, so they'll probably all have the same Scorched brown smock, but with variations in trousers, leg bindings etc.
Some of the models have cloaks, so that's another opportunity for variation along with some colour (I'm thinking red and/or green).
Pictures of the unit will follow as I get round to it.

For anyone wondering about the title of this series of posts, I hand you over to Mr Connolly for the answer:
(Warning: Not safe for offices, elderly maiden aunts or small children who like to repeat funny things Daddy has said. Answer occurs around the 5 minute mark, but it's all worth a watch.)

A Roll of Linoleum (3)

By the mighty power of the GW washes I have made progress!

Flesh: Ogryn Flesh
Trousers: Devlan Mud
Puttees:Gryphonne Sepia
Belt: Devlan Mud
Spear: Gryphonne Sepia
Metal: Badab Black
I suppose I could just leave it at that and base him, but no siree, not for me. A little light highlighting should bring him to a state I'm happy with.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that this evening, so there may be another update along tomorrow. Won't that be exciting?

A Roll of Linoleum (2)

Got a little painting done over the weekend. Not as much as I'd have liked as I had to wrestle with a recalcitrant toilet. Given my prevous plumbing based post maybe I should re-brand this as the web's only plumbing and wargaming blog. Opportunties for double duty with Greenstuff, obviously.

Anyways, here's some work on the Musketeer Late Roman.
GIven that my view is that Dark Age warfare is largely men in brown with sticks hitting other men in brown with sticks I thought I'd start from a brown undercoat. I used Plastikote Chocolate Brown because a) it's a good match for GW Scorched Brown and b) I already had a tin.
From that base he has, as follows (all GW paints):
Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
Trousers: Bestial Brown
Puttees:Dheneb Stone
Belt: Snakebite Leather
Spear: Desert Yellow
Metal: Boltgun Metal
Hair: Chaos Back

Pretty rough and ready so far, but extensive use of washes will make all the difference. (I hope)

A Roll of Linoleum

I picked up some of Musketeer Bill's rather wonderful Late Romans while I was at Gripping Beast Towers for Hot Lead. I've wanted them since I first saw the greens over on Bill's Blog, but forced myself to be sensible and purchase but a single unit. I got a mix of standing models and kneeling so I can have the front rank braced for impact! Initially I'll use them as allies for my Age of Arthur Early Saxons but eventually I'll build a whole 1600 point WAB army of them (at least that's the plan until the next shiny thing comes along).

However after several evenings of getting them out of the bag, admiring them, laying them out, then carefully putting them back in the bag (I can't be the only wargamer who does this, can I?) I decided to actually get on with assembling and painting them, only to discover I had run out of spears.

Fortunately it just so happened (honest, Mrs Tom's Toy Soldiers, it did!) that I was passing Northstar the following day so I popped in there and had a pleasant chat with nice Mr Northstar Nick and Mark Wheatley from Great Escape Games (who apparently is only a Great Escapist at weekends - Monday to Friday he is property of Mr Northstar Nick). I bought some Northstar spears and they're very nice indeed (and bloody sharp) and a little slimmer than the Perry ones I'd used before, I recommend them (as long as you're not a ham-fisted buffoon with a propensity to stab oneself with small spears - did I mention they're very sharp). I also picked up some of the Renadra 20mm bases for use with the Romans. I've decided to move away from the GW bases because a) I don't work there any longer, so they're harder to get hold of and b) most other ancient players seem to use thinner bases meaning mine sort of tower above their opponents. The bases are very nice and do the job well. I picked up the multi base set as I like to have my models on larger bases (so I can swiftly remove the inevitable deluge of casualties), again a recommended purchase.

Here's a picture of the spears stolen from the Northstar site

 

And the bases too

 

So with that could get on with assembly. As with all Bill's models they were lovely clean casts, no flash and very few, simple to clean mold lines.

Here's one on his nice Renadra base holding his painfully sharp Northstar spear.

Now normally I won't have a word said against Bill's models I think they're all great. However I kept looking at this one (and one of the other poses in the standing set) and thinking- that looks wrong. No one would hold a shield like that, and why has he got his hand open, dear, dear Bill what were you thinking). So I blue-tacked it in place just to check and confirmed what I thought - the Musketeer has lost it!)

So I was about to get the Dremel and greenstuff out and make a few alterations when I suddenly realised there was a reason for the open hand

Ah. Much better. Sorry I ever doubted you Bill!

I post this just in the hope that someone else has made the same mistake and I won't feel such a lonesome twit (and because I laughed at myself a lot when I realised my error). Of course I could just have had a look over on Bill's site and seen them all proper like.

So next step is undercoating and some hardcore painting action. Hoping to do some WiP's over the next week or so as the kids are banished on holiday with the Grandparents.

For anyone interested I also took a quick comparison shot with one of Soapy's Gripping Beast Early Saxon Killers that I also picked up at Hot Lead

Pretty good match I reckon.