Catching up!

Wow! It's been 2 months since I last posted to this blog! It's pretty much been work and other RealLife(tm) factors that have kept me away from blogging, and gaming too, in fact! Haven't played a wargame for quite some time now...possibly as far back as the last post bout MTS! I've managed a few boardgames in that time and have also managed to direct what little time I've had to painting and that has actually been quite nice. Been brushing up on my skills, if you will! :)

So, thought I'd kick off the blog again with some stuff I've managed to do and then start a 'work in progress' series of posts as I paint a fantasy Dwarf figure that I picked up and intend to try out a range of techniques that I wouldn't normally use on a wargames figure, namely feathering, non-metallic metals and 5-colour highlights!

So, first up we have the last of the foot for the FoG Roman starter army. This is a battlegroup of Campanian hoplites from Magister Militum with Veni Vidi Vici shield transfers. I must say, although the unit looks good enough, it was a real bore to paint! All those browns! Sheesh!

Next, I painted some more of the British WW2 troops up that I had lying around. I actually did these just to re-energise myself after the hoplites nearly broke my spirit! I had also found a palette for the uniforms that comes straight out the bottle that I wanted to try as it doesn't need any mixing (it's from this blog Crac des Chevaliers). The colour triad is Vallejo Chocolate Brown, English Uniform and Khaki Grey. I think the results are pretty good although someone might come along and tell me that it's a little too light, at which point I'll tell them the uniforms are faded! :)

Finally, we have some plastic Caesar German Fallshirmjaeger for Crete. OK, it's a little late now, but George (from the club) and I are adamant that we are going to play the SkirmishCampaigns Crete books and this little lot will go a long way to meeting most of the OOBs. I have some SHQ stuff to add, like mortars and MMGs, etc, but it should all be ready for the game in a couple of weeks. I have to say I was quite impressed with the plastics! I must admit that I was a little bit snooty about buying them, but they painted up quite well, despite a bit of a slap-dash approach (don't have time to do a proper job on them). Also, 2 boxes cost about £12! How much would 30 metal figures have cost! Plus I have a bag full of left overs (mostly carrying FG42s, so inappropriate for Crete).