Sunday, November 30, 2014

Gaston Crosse and his Vanguard

For my Christmas present this year, my good lady wife has bought me a place on a Meg Maples Painting Masterclass, which runs next weekend. I am very much looking forward to this, and for the class, I have a list of things we will be learning, so I have been going through my minis selecting a bunch that should be good to use. One set of minis I plan to use are Gaston Crosse, and his personal Vanguard.

I had originally bought this extra Vanguard to be built as a Khador Jack, as part of Zerkova's theme force the Hunting Wolves, where she has the ability to take re-purposed Llaellese Vanguards as Khador Jacks. I never did get round to that, though this project may inspire me to do another personal Vanguard for her.

Gaston takes vanguards at 1 point less than their normal cost, so it's pretty much a certainty when I take him I'll have at least one of these with him, and likely a Mule, given his skill set. However, since he gives Jacks longer range, I stuck the extra part from a Cygnar jack upgrade onto the barrel, to give it a more imposing look. Gaston is from a less than noble background, so these guys will have a much dirtier colour scheme than the rest of my Ashlynn Highborn list, but should fit in none-the-less. We will have to see what techniques I am practicing on them to know how they will finally turn out, but expect to see some 2 brush blending at least!

 


Mean looking little bugger isn't he!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

91st Highlanders Piper

I have been looking for a long time for a piper for the 91st Highlanders, and I thought I had found just the model in the Foundry range in their Highland Infantry Command blister. When I found I could order this through my FLGS, even better.

Now, I am fully aware of scale creep, and indeed that the Spartan miniatures are on the top end of the 32mm range, some might even say heroic 32mm. However, I have a Reaper colonial figure that fits in quite well, so I thought this would be a similar size to that, smaller, but not noticeably so. I had not taken into account the age of the Foundry line. These guys are from back when 25mm really meant 25mm, so the piper I wanted from the pack really is quite diminutive when compared to the rest of the section. I think I'll paint him up anyway, after all he's just the musician, and not one of the firing line, but I think he may have to be raised up on some kind of mound on his base to make his height, or lack thereof, a little less noticeable. Maybe I'll hide him behind some sandbags.


On the Foundry website, some of the minis look rather heroic in scale, and maybe some of the non-trooper minis are a little taller, but this guy is the same height as a kneeling Spartan mini. This is going to take some thought. Still, I do love the mini, and he comes with pipes and pith helmet, which means no conversion is needed to make him fit with the section in any other way.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Colore ton Monde Novembre: Veronique Dubois

This month's Colore ton Monde challenge was to paint a non-combatant. This aligned perfectly with me painting minis from the Iron Scorpion boxed set for the new v2.0 rules of Dystopian Legions. The thrust of this campaign is the struggle between two sisters, Monique and Veronique Dubois, both of whom have the MAR non-combatant, meaning they cannot be targeted/killed in game, but if the rest of the unit is gone, so are they.

So, may I introduce you to the sister who sides with the Republic of France, Veronique Dubois, medic, and unit attachment for the Armoured Marines.



 Please excuse the bleaching in the photographs, I can't find my normal camera, and the flash on this one seems to be a little overpowering.

I have played one game of the new version of Dystopian Legions, with this lady on the table, and she more than made her pints worth, as her medic skill allows a 50% chance that any on my marines that get killed in any given turn can come back. This star quality is one of the reasons she jumped to the front of the paint queue. If only I could hire her for my Britannians.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Forgotten and Glorious Franco-Prussian minis

FG MiniZ Forgotten and Glorious are starting to release French Infantry for the Franco-Prussian war. They have posted their planned releases here. If the plate they posted with this is anything to go by, these will be perfect to boost the numbers of any Republic of France army for Dystopian Legions.

I have reviewed these guys before, and the mini I have is large 28mm, so the scale of the larger Spartan minis should not be an issue.

Even if they are armed differently, there shouldn't be too much issues in GS-ing the guns, either by making a cast from a Spartan one, or just adding a bayonet, as really, no-one looks that closely, especially if they are all painted and based in the same theme.

I am particularly looking forward to the supporting minis they may release, like the command and musician minis, the Vivandière and the infantry kneeling dishing out cartridges sounds like someone who can act as artillery support very easily.

Also, any graphic artists out there looking to help out the company, they are running a contest to design their logo.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Dystiopan Legions: French Legionaires WIP

I am getting through building the pile of minis that comes in the Iron Scorpion boxed set, there are a lot to get through, many of which went together really easily. many, but not all.

I have not quite given up on building the Antarticans, but the automata are in 6-7 pieces each, and are a pain in the ass to build, so that's going slowly, and the Warmaster limited figure needs a whole bunch of cleaning up, due to flash at his feet, which really must be removed to put him on his special base. With these points in mind, it was much easier to start with the Frenchies.

I've put together all of the French models that came in the boxed set, and have moved on to painting them, finally. The first WIPs can be seen here. The scheme is pretty much the studio scheme, as I've stuck with the historical background for my KoB army and figured I'd do the same with these. The Covenant figures, being completely fictional, can obviously be done as I please.




More painting hopefully this evening.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Colore ton Monde November: Armistace

Halloween is past, and the clocks have been turned back, and we enter into the last part of the year, however, we still have the Colore ton Monde painting challenge to occupy us as the nights draw in!

Last month's challenge, inkeeping with Halloween, was to paint a monster, or a monster hunter. Mine is here, and the rest of the entries can be found on facebook here. A hoary bunch of monsters indeed!

This month's challenge is as follows:

* Armistace *
Le 11 novembre 1918, les Alliés et l'Allemagne signe l'armistice de Compiègne, qui met fin à la première guerre mondiale. Pour souligner cette date importante, nous vous suggérons de peindre un modèle non combattant. Nos jeux demeurant des jeux de guerre, ces figurines ne pleuvent pas; nous étendons le thème aux modèles de support et aux aide-soignants (medics).

* Armistace *
The 11th of November, 1918, the allies and the Germans signed the Armistace Treaty, which finally put an end to the Great War. To underline this important date, we suggest you paint a non-combatant model. Our hobby being about wargames, we are not showered with these models, so we extend the theme to support models, and medics.

Easy peasy. One Dystopian Legions nurse coming up (both a medic, and she has the rule non-combatant), leaving plenty of time to paint up some other DL Frenchies, with their devilish moustaches for Movember, then maybe a sauropod or two for Dinovember, theme months are all the thing, are they not?