Some Recce for the NSL

Got some Team Yankee Lynx Recon vehicles on sale a while back to use for my 15mm NSL platoon. 

Just need to keep an eye out for some tracked/wheeled APC's to finish off the full platoon, I'm thinking BMP, BRDM or maybe just some M113 types if I spot them cheap as still don't have rules to play them with.

Smaller scale from the backlog.

 So the smaller scale stuff getting cleared off the table ready for new projects.  First up 15mm security fences, I have another 3x Straight and corner sections to paint and assemble.

Dark Angel Terminators for my epic force.

That's the space cleared for next project, cleaning up SLA Industries Shivers so we'll see how that goes.

Prydian Lances

So finally finished off the other lance (Platoon) for my Prydians, I've had them sitting around for a while, but with us trying out the Patrol Angis rules finally it became a thing to get them finished. 

Next for this I have a squad each of Khanate Legion and Maligs that I'd got for using in FireFight, but having read through the Khanate book I can use my Ikwen as Saurads and with the new Ikwen due to be released sometime this month, there will be more of them in the future maybe just not for a bit as the painting queue got dramatically bigger recently with the remainder of Stargrave, the last Burrows and Badgers kickstarter arriving and a bunch of Draugr as well.

Ikwen Pics and Buildings built

So I finished basing the Ikwen a while back but never got round to taking pics, so that's now been done because I have also finished some buildings. Ikwen up first, this is just a small sample as they are the unlimited force for the games but I have about 2 platoons worth in total I think.

I purchased a set of 15mm pre painted buildings from 4Ground and despite them being an utter pita to put together.  (I think the instructions would be far better served starting with the smaller buildings and working their way up to the biggest fiddliest building as the last one.

They went together okay in the end, but I did make a couple of mistakes along the way, some of the bits are really small and the labeling on the cutout sheets isn't the easiest to read and I did end up having to pry some pieces apart before the glue dried because I'd misread the label or what it applied to. The example being those little vents/air con units that you can see are 7 pieces and should have been 8, but I didn't successfully get the last piece out of the sheets for any of them.

Regardless these are all for use with Tomorrow's war/ambush alley/Force on Force Asymmetric warfare, played on a 2'x2' board in 15mm. Brigades polish force vs the indigenous Ikwen. I've still got bits to make up scenery wise, but I have forest bits, buildings, and I want to finish off more barricades, fencing, junk piles etc.

So 15mm done for a bit. back to bigger things for a bit.

Brigade's Polish Platoon

 So rather than getting birthday money and heading to Claymore as has been the norm for a while now, it was spend it on online orders instead, and this little group arrived and finally got finished a month and a bit later.

 

Brigades 15mm Polish infantry Platoon and an Indonesian APC as well as a small hover truck.

They'll be used for Ambush Alley/Tomorrows War engagements up against the Ikwen insurgents.

Next up will be some more Burrows and Badgers miniatures as I work through the remainder of the last Kickstarter. (Another 2-3 batches to go I think) But the painting table has the last of the cultists from Midlam on it, (casualties, Throne and beasties) as well as a chunk of Aztec styled scenery.

What A Tanker 15mm Canadians.

So I've had What a Tanker since it came out and played it a handful of times, I already had some Stugs in 15mm from a brief foray into FOW. So I wanted to pick up some Shermans to oppose them. A query on the club facebook got me some unassembled ones so I picked the Canadian 2nd Armoured division to paint them up and here they are, they got their first outing this month for the Club AGM.

I have a tiger to assemble as well that's been lying since the FOW foray, so hopefully soon.

15mm Prydians

The colour scheme for this batch are based on the Blood Pack from Mass Effect. The models are Prydian army from Alternative Armies Ion Age.  I've used them before for Firefight (an ages old game from AA) But they will also be used for Tomorrows War and anything else that comes along.

It was really hard trying to get the pictures for these and the NSL troops, the yellow and red of them seems to pick up and reflect the light really badly for the camera.

15mm Ikwen

The low tech insurgents/rebels/downtrodden natives for our Ambush Alley games, we chose not to play the rules in the modern era as per the rules but to set them in a scifi setting.  I need to paint the scenery that I've made to go with this game but here is a quick shot of the Lizard Ikwen.

15mm NSL force

Well It's been a while since I started these guys and I still need to get round to buying them transports and finish off some of their supports (Bikes and combat drones) So here's some of the pics.

We're using them as the higher tech force in Ambush Alley, with some low tech dudes in the form of Ikwen from Alternative Armies to provide the asymmetrical nature of the game. We are preparing to use Tomorrows War, but this version is simpler to learn and read.

Eclipse Mercenaries

So giftmas this year involved a bunch of 15mm Scifi figures, a Platoon and extras from GZG of their new sculpt NSL troops.  I also got a platoon and extras from the Ion Age range from Alternative Armies as well.  The first batch of GZG stuff I wasn't sure what colour scheme to go with so I did 4 of them up in the colour schemes of the Mercenaries from Mass Effect Universe.

Cerberus, Blue suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack.

 I settled for Eclipse for the GZG troops and I'll do the Ion Age stuff as a modified Blood Pack. And here's the first couple of squads done. Basing as always will be done at some point in the future once everything is finished off.

15mm Seven Years War (In Canada)

I just hauled these out because they happened to be in the box next to some of the other stuff.  I have had these in my collection for decades and only got round to re-basing them last year, There had been talk ages ago (probably a couple of years) now of doing a Maurice campaign on the back of the Long street one. but things got sidetracked with CoC I think. Either way, I'd looked these  guys out and based them a bit better than the cardboard they'd originally been attached to.

So here's the Boss man and his troops of the French La Reine regiment posted in Canada. (So I was told)

They'd need filled out to make a proper force, but I'd been thinking Canada just so I could add some Indians to the force, replace skirmishers for Artillery/Cavalry in the ratios thing.

ACW Finished Regiment

Okay finished the first regiment with it's flags, North Carolina and a Blood Stained Banner.  Bad pics as always but I will nab the wifes daylight lamp at some point once I have more actually finished.

Started touching up the other 3 regiments of stuff I had painted about a decade ago and had stuck onto thier new bases. Progress pics once they're as done as I can manage. I will need to investigate some varnishing for this stuff I think as there is much more handling of the figures than there is with my 28's.

ACW Painting Guide

I have no idea if this will be of any interest/use to anyone at all, and to top it off, the pics are from my mobile so aren't very good.

Anyway, this is how I have gone about painting up my 15mm ACW confederates.

1. Start off by gluing the models to the base with superglue, once dry pva up the base and add sand, clean the edges before it all dries.

2. Spray them black.











 3. Drybrush with grey, (may want to use blue for union) This is just to pick out some of the detail as if you've ever tried painting base colours on a small/busy matt black model, you'll know how hard it is to figure out what is what.











4. Paint on the base colours, start at the bottom of the model and work up, and from the bottom layers up. take your time here, do it in batches when required, all the shoes, all the trousers, jackets before belts etc.











5. The idea is to get the hard to reach areas before you do top layers so that you don't mess up on the outer layers trying to get into a deep area. Remember that the black undercoat can show through in the hard to reach recessed areas, that's fine as it creates a natural shadow anyway.











6. Dry brush the base with some browns to pick out the texture of the sand.











7. Ink it; The obligatory Devlan Mud wash to add shading to the model, this adds depth to the flat base colours and if you're careful in your application, the last bit you'll need to do on the models themselves.











8. Paint the base edge green to match the gaming mat/board/tiles etc. PVA areas of the base around the bigger bits of sand then add a sand/flock/static grass mix. This will leave your base with a mixture of drybrushed brown base material, flock and sand, this takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't look so good to you, chances are you're just being picky.














9. Lastly some of my older painted models, added to a base that was painted brown with green edging and PVA'd up with a mix of flock and sand.













Colours used. Snakebite Leather (Boots, belts and pouches), Calthan Brown (base, guns, beards and hair), Goblin green (base edge), Sobek Green (trousers, it's blue!), Tausept Ochre, (Butternut jackets, hats), Dheneb Stone (Blanket roll, hats), Tallarn Flesh (skin), Astronomican Grey, Adeptus Battlegrey (Hats, a couple of jackets), Mithrill Silver (Bayonets) Chaos Black, Skull white (bits on the officers) The Butternut jackets was something primarily associated with North Carolina regiments as far as I'm aware, I read it in one of those random articles somewhere and it'd been mentioned elsewhere so I figured there must be some truth to it.

ACW Base Test

Okay testing sizes of bases, in the blue uniforms, arrayed in 4 x 1  1" x 1" bases with 4 figures to a base. with a seperate commander base on a 2p, will probably be made to a 1" x 1" base as well if I go this route.

In the greys on the right, arrayed in a 3 x 2  40mm x 20mm bases with 3 figures to a base. Commander integrated for blackpowder, can be seperate for Warmaster variant (Still to be tested)

I'm not sure I like the one on the right so much, I can't get 4 wide on that size base, and 2 deep doesn't quite fit either, however it will leave enough space along the back of the base to put unit details on if I want to go down that route.

The ones on the left, looks a lot tighter and more regimented, but not sure how I want it all to look. Loose or tight ranks.  The ACW wasn't as tightly regimented as say the Napoleonic era where the left one would be a no brainer for the look of it, but at the same time, does the one on the right look too loose.