Italian Condotta 25mm Venetian Reinforcements by Ral Partha

I added another few elements to my Venetian army for DBR using 25mm Ral Partha sculpts by Tom Meier.  These are fantastic old school miniatures from back in the 1980's, but also really show Mr. Meier at the top of his game!

Here is a link to another Post with the rest of the army, though I have apparently failed to ever photograph my Romaniole pikemen, resplendent in the red and white outfits typical of the landsknechte.

http://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2011/01/venetian-italian-condottieri-dba-army.html

A much needed additional element of heavy knights for the Venetians.

I added a few VVV decals to the horse barding to give it a little extra umph.

As far as I know Ral Partha only ever produced two variations of heavy knights for the Renaissance period.  I have incorporated a modest variety by varying the horses they are mounted on.

I Believe this heavy horse barding was designed to represent a metal exterior, but I have also seen period paintings of this type of armor with a close fitting tabard, so I think I could also paint this horse as if the barding were almost tapestry-like.

Crossbows were still in use, though getting rapidly replaced by hand gunners.

The simple and muted color combination of this unit I found surprisingly appealing.

The Venetians loved their eastern mercenaries, and here we have a unit of Dellis, stolen from the Ottoman line, also sculpted by Tom Meier.  Apparently they really did like to tack bird wings to their shields.

I'm looking forward to my next game with Terry, so that I will have a better chance of teaching his vile Milanese their place in the Italian states pecking order.

 

Celtic Auxilieries for the Marian Romans

Just a quick update this morning with some shots of what I hope is the last of the Roman Auxilia troops from allied or conquered nations.  Here we have some Gallic warbands fighting in Roman service.

Here are some links to other earlier posts about the Marian Romans.  As you can see the army is becoming quite sizable, for a DBA army at least.

http://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2017/05/dba-marian-romans-and-spanish.html

http://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2010/04/marian-roman-army-completed.html

The figures are 15mm Testudo Miniatures

Apparently the Gauls did lots of work on muscle definition, because these guys are jacked!

The shields are a fiddly combination of Little Big Man transfers and paint.  I would hate to have to do a whole army like this, because the decals must be pain painstakingly applied to each side of the central spine of the shield.  Frankly, though I love the fine detail you can get from the transfers, in most cases I think it would have been easier to just paint them.

 

40mm Miniatures for The Fantasy Trip Death Test

About a year ago I started painting 40mm miniatures with the idea of using them to play some of the old Metagames that were released as part of The Fantasy Trip.  Melee and Wizard were the first two microgames in this series and I have one of the self programmed adventures, Death Test II, that I would love to introduce to my gaming group.  

 As luck would have it, recently one of the creators of The Fantasy Trip, Steve Jackson, was able to regain the rights to the game and is re-issuing the series through Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying

This is the very first Kickstarter I have decided to back, so hope it will go well.  I have the original rules so don't really need it, but I wanted to throw in my support and it never hurts to get a nice new box of toys.  

Here is a link to some of the other miniatures for The Fantasy Trip I have already posted to this blog:

 http://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2015/09/mindstalkers-40mm-italian-medieval.html

No pictures, but I have also used a lot of the Lord of the Rings 40mm hex click miniatures to form the backbone of the dungeon dwellers.  I just pop them off their bases and pin them to either lead or plaster bases I designed and cast myself, to match the size of the Mindstalkers miniatures.

Below are some of the 40mm miniatures I have been painting to use with the game recently:

This is a Darksword Miniatures figure of a Game of Thrones lady in waiting.  Small for 40mm, as she only stands about 33+mm high, but not everyone is tall, so I thought she was well within the range for a smaller woman.  For what it is worth, I tried to paint her with a sheer fabric dress, but didn't want it to be obscene.

I picked her up a Nashcon in a bin of $1.00 miniatures, so she was a bargain, and then mounted her on one of my custom bases.

Needless to say she was fun to paint for obvious reasons, but I did have to take a lot of ribbing from my dear spouse!

As always, the sculpts by Tom Meier are full of character, and she is no exception.  The attention to facial detail in particular, is a hallmark of his sculpts.

The vikings are part of the VVV miniatures line and are cast in resin.  Beautiful figures, if a bit fragile.  The one on the right has already lost the bottom part of his scabbard to my ham-handedness.  The detail is really incredible though, so I have no regrets.

Most of the figures I have painted so far to represent player characters are heavily armored, so I wanted to do some more lightly armored figures to represent players just starting out, before they can afford those pieces of plate armor.

Here we have some bad guys.  The skeletons are part of the Heroes and Myths 40mm line of miniatures, which to my knowledge, is no longer available.  They are lovely figures for the Greek legends, so I hope someone brings them back to life.

The Troll is another one of Tom Meier's sculpts and is part of his line of 30mm Thunderbolt Mountain range.  These have also recently gone out of production, but I am certainly hoping someone has picked up the line to keep producing them!

The shields for the skeletons are actually from the plastic medieval Russians made by Fireforge.  I replaced the Greek shields to give them a look more suited for a western medieval setting. 

Lastly I am working on some scenery for the dungeon made from old Heroquest parts.  I have also purchased some of the Mantic Terrain Crate sets, which are a hair small for 40mm, but should fit in reasonably well nevertheless.

The 17th French Line Invade Mother Russia

Though no Grande Armee, the17e Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne, capably led by Colonel Louis Vasserot has made a tentative incursion into mother Russia, trusting that yous truly will send reinforcements along.  I sincerely hope the trust is not misplaced,  I have a lot of other figures and projects all clamoring for attention!

The figures here are all Der Kriegspielers, most from the esteemed Wellington Man of New Zealand, who was kind enough to send a battalion of figures my way.  The majority of the figures are DK 9s, with a smattering of command figures and I think the only actual drummer I have been able to find.  My other battalions will all have to have a converted artillerist if they want to advance to the pas de charge. 

 

 I have mounted the battalion on thick plastic card which I have painted a candy apple green Testor's spray paint simply called gloss green.  I have decided I like the contrast of the bright base with the more muted green of the figure's metal base.  For the figure bases themselves I use an intermediate green from Vallejo.

Once painted I spray the figures with Testors gloss coat, which seals the figures and prevents any inks from smearing, when I brush on the Windsor Newton Gloss Varnish.  I varnish the figures as a last step after attaching to the plastic bases with white glue.  My hope is that by varnishing after the figures are attached to the base, not only will the base itself have an additional layer of protection, but the varnish will act as an additional binding agent and help keep the figures firmly attached.

The flag is a pre-printed paper flag that I purchased from the "Flag Dude", with an eagle salvaged from a Minifig standard bearer I believe, and attached to the wire pole.  I highlighted the flag a bit with some gold, red and blue paints, but was essentially just as purchased.  The Flag Dude prints his flags oversize, and this 15mm flag was perfect for the 1/72 scale Der Kriegspieler figures.

Grenadiers in support of the eagle.  I have always liked the red flash of the French grenadier uniform!

The voltigeurs I decided to mount on smaller basses, to facilitate casualties, but also to give me the option of a combined voltigeur regiment down the road.

Like their elite cousins the grenadiers, there is something about these uniforms that I find quite appealing.  I love that you can use a little discretion in assigning yellow and green, or red and green combinations with the voltigeurs.

The line companies I tried to distribute amongst the bases so that most of the company pom pom colors would be grouped together and represented.  With 6 companies and 24 figures per battalion, that just leaves 4 man companies.  With four command figures I decided to just have three of the line infantry companies represented with light blue, violet, and orange pom poms (no green).

Lots of details on the backs of these figures with all of the straps, coat tails and backpacks to paint!

Colonel Louis Vaserot is a vintage Scruby figure and I was tickled pink with how well he turned out, for such a rudimentary casting.

Finally for those interested in a little history of the 17th, the Napoleon series has a very nice summary of the French line units serving in the Napoleonic wars:  http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/c_frenchinf2.html#17th

Project Updates - Old School Napoleonics, Romans and ECW oh my!

Getting close to putting the finishing touches on these elements of Gallic mercenaries serving with my Roman army.  These are the last elements that will make up an all options DBA Marion Roman army that has been a very long time coming.  In the spirit of never completing a project though, it seems to me I could easily add a few more legions and have all I would need for a nice Roman civil war!

 This is a painted English Civil War army that I picked up on the cheap at Nashcon this summer.  I'm re-basing and replacing old "spaghetti" lance made of soft lead with wire pikes.  I'm also touching up the painting and giving the figures a quick wash, which will be followed by a cursory highlighting.  The figures are from a variety of manufacturers, and though not a high end selection of figures or painting, should make a quick and easy opponent for my New Model army.

Not a lot of progress on the 17th regiment of the line, but any progress at all is always a good thing.  Their painted brethren are clamoring for support, so I'll get these to the top of the queue before too long.

These chaps were a major source of distraction over the last couple of weeks.  They will be the next French infantry battalion to be painted, the Middle Guard Grenadiers.  Here we have the command figures: First is a DK 24 artillerist converted to a drummer, next is a recast of a Hinton Hunt Old Guard sapper (cast by the esteemed Jon Cunningham), with a head swap from a DK 16, then a DK 7 officer with yet another head swap from a DK16 that was surplus to my needs and with a broken bayonet, and finally a DK 168 Italian I think, being converted to a standard bearer.  I may keep the backpack and think of him as a fusilier stepping in to keep the colors held high.

I'm considering using this lovely modern figure from Art Miniaturen to act as Colonel.

Finally we have the Grenadiers - DK 16 which are supposed to be chasseurs of the Middle Guard, but to my knowledge the only real distinction in the sculpting would be the chevron shaped cuffs, which you can't really see anyway.  Nothing a little paint won't fix.  These guys were heavily painted and required quite a bit of effort to strip.

Lastly, I could use a little help with this fellow.  I am guessing a Jack Scruby French command figure, but would love confirmation from the experts.  I was thinking I might choose him to represent Colonel Louis Vasserot, who served with the 17th from 1809 until 1813, having led them during the Russian campaign where he was wounded.

 

Nashcon 2018 Napoleonic Smack Down

Our yearly convention in Nashville, Nashcon, was last weekend and I ran a game using my favorite Napoleonic rule set which is loosely based on DBA and is fast and easy.  Its available and described here:  http://www.dbnwargaming.co.uk/   I'm using a hodge podge of 28's from the very first figures I ever purchased, Hinchliffe Miniatures, through the ages from Minifigs, to Foundry, to Front Rank to Perry (So far the Perrys are my favorite!).  So apologies to you shiny old school players, I brought out the collection and off we went.  Somewhere in Spain the battle ensues.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but it was a well balanced battle with the French pulling out a narrow victory in the end.