54mm AWI Plastic Indians

 Here are some shots of Plastic American Indians based on some John Jenkins designs figures.  I got these from All the Kings Men, and though the poses are interesting, there was a lot of flash and undercuts that had to be trimmed away and the type of plastic used was particularly unforgiving.  The figures are also a tad bigger and a lot beefier than typical 54mm sculpts.  I think if I had to do it again I would consider the other brand of AWI Indians that they sell.  54mm is difficult enough to paint, and I must say I found the additional challenge of painting plastic figures quite difficult and am only moderately pleased with the result.  By the end, I was mostly just trying to get them finished and off my painting table.  They'll work well in a game, but no painting awards for these!

HotT Samurai elements

Here we have a hero going through a scratch built Torii.  The figures are 15mm Eureka samurai.

Another hero element taking in a panoramic view of the battle from atop a small hill.  The rocks are modeled from Hackberry bark that was treated and dried.

Here we have the mystic shamans summoning fire.  These are also part of the Eureka line of samurai.

And lastly, what army of Samurai would be complete without a few ninja thrown in.  These figures are by Essex.

54mm DBN Barker Marker

 Here are some shots of a 54mm Barker Marker for DBN made from Tom Meier's excellent resin pieces from his Thunderbolt Mountain range of Napoleonic figures based on period caricatures.  The snow turned out to be problematic and I lost most of it during the shoot and had to apply with a different technique (gluing and then spraying to be sure it was firmly attached.)  These are on an 80x80mm base since I use non standard sized double basing for my 28mm DBN armies.

 

Easterlings Debut at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Tournament

The Easterlings were painted for an army to play in Terry Webb's Good Bad and Ugly HotT tournament held recently in Nashville as well as Coventry? England.  The theme was Lord of the Rings so I did my best to honor Tolkien's description of these servants of Sauron.  Fortunately or unfortunately his descriptions leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  

 

Tolkien mentions wain riders and brazen plates for armor as well as a formidable group of axemen.  Sauron being fond of mechanization, well at least Saruman was, I thought the inclusion of a massive ballista would be appropriate.

The Rider General in his Chariot is pictured below.  I tried to give the army that consists of figures from various manufacturers a unifying color them.  Red equipment and clothing with bronze armor and olive green cloth as an under layer.

Donnington Sarmations as the knight and rider elements.

 

Testudo Celts as the shooters and hordes.

 

Khurusan Tang Chinese with Ji Halbards serve as the axemen.  The halbards were originally extraordinarily long so I cut off the blades and remounted them on shorter wire poles.  That took a lot of precision drilling!

 

The Testudo Celts given alternative weapons and shields to make them look less Celt-like and more of a fantasy Asian look.

Lastly some shots of the stronghold, meant to represent one of the fortresses of Mordor.  This was originally a small aquarium piece that I won at last years Good Bad and Ugly tournament.  I fashioned a more elaborate base for it and added the pointy crenelations and rivets on the turrets.  I gave the castle fots of washes, the last of which were various shades of green to try and give it a sickly pale color reminiscent of Minas Morgul in the Jackson films.

 

Of course no fortress of Mordor would be complete without the severed heads and discarded equipment of the enemy.  At the bottom right is a shield of Gondor, and just for Terry Webb who painted the Riders of Rohan, a shield from a defeated warrior of Rohan top left in the background.

Many thanks to Terry Webb for organizing the tournament and to all the players and sponsors who made it such a wonderful event.

 

WIP - work in progress

Buildings for a 10mm DBACW army which is slowly taking shape.  Maybe I misread the rules, but it seems like you need 30 or so elements per side, which is a lot of painting when you are putting 7 10mm infantry figures on a base!

Couple of Barker markers for 15 and 25mm games

These are some plastic Indians that I picked up from All the King's Men a couple of years ago.  I'm painting up a dozen for their 54mm American Revolution game.  The indians are slowly coming together, but will make a nice addition to the regular British and Hessian infantry.

I'm still working on my WWII skills.  These are a tad too green I think, but for 30 hard plastic figures from Wargames Factory for $20 how could I say no.  Most of these figures are really quite good and the Russians are even better!

Yet another Barker Marker in progress.  This one was a tongue in cheek present from my daughter, but I must say I am having a blast with it!

Ken at All the King's Men was selling these at Nashcon, but since our gaming shop happens to be right next door to a cigar shop I decided to make my own.  It was a fair amount of work and given Ken's very reasonable prices I would recommend just buying them from him, but I was able to customize my box a bit which was nice.

And lastly I have a HotT army for Terry Webb's Good Bad and Ugly tournament coming up in November.  This year we have a Lord of the Rings theme, so this is meant to represent an Easterling army.  The Cavalry are Donnington Sarmations, the axemen and artillery are Khurasan Tang Chinese, and the wain rider and hordes are Testudo Celts.  Surprisingly they work well together.  I painted them with a limited palette to help the cohesive look of the army and am hopeful once the basing is done they will be an even more impressive looking army.