Zulus, Fasands of 'em!

Source

Well, 3 of them at least, but every horde has to start somewhere. These guys were a blister from Reaper miniatures, and are a little larger than 28mm, so are therefore the perfect scale for Dystopian Legions. I bought them at the same time as this guy who you may have seen popping in this blog up as a re purposed DL sergeant, but they were wasting away in the bits box till recently, when they were pulled out, re based and painted up. They made a great little break from the redcoats of my KoB army, whilst still being relatively 'on theme'.

I don't know if Spartan Games have any plans to provide rules for use of this type of warrior in DL, but I'm sure it wouldn't take much to Home-Brew some rules to match the minis. Getting piles of Zulus is not an issue these days, with there being plenty of plastic boxed sets on the market. Just the odd tweak the one of two of the recovered rifles these guys hold and we're good to go. I must say, there's a gap in the market for Steampunk Zulus that I'm surprised has yet to be filled!

How would these hordes fair against the steampunk fuelled forces of the world? Sturginium powered rifles can only do so much, when the wielders are outnumbered by thousands of Zulus. I feel a scenario coming on.

There are some touch ups to do, since I've seen the pics of these guys, but they're otherwise good to go!

Convergence of Cyriss Servitors

A new PP Insider article that was posted this week, talks about the Convergence of Cyriss, and their support solos, called Servitors.
To quote the article:

"the majority of the army’s solos are comprised of servitors—autonomous clockwork constructs designed to fulfill a single battlefield role. Cheap and numerous, servitors quickly became a defining aspect of the Convergence army."

I am very intrigued by how this unique miniature type will affect the playstyle of this new faction. I really like the sound of these guys. I have been keeping an eye on this emerging faction, and I do like a lot of what I see, although I am yet not completely sold on the 'jacks. I see them as a little too bulky for my tastes, and they don't really mesh with what I see as the Art Deco esthetique of the 'casters and units.

I also really like the concept art (click on the above link to see them). I'm sure these guys will have uses as minis for other games and scenarios, either in RPGs, or in Dystopian Legions. Also, since they're smaller, that also means they'll come in at a very affordable price range (one can hope).

Colore ton Monde: Avril/April Cleaning up the Clutter.

The results from March's painting challenge are now online (post of my entry here), and can be found here.  Also, this is a call out to anyone who wants to participate. The Club Chaos blog and Colore ton Monde challenge may be based in Montreal, but they are open to anyone who wants to enter. So, if you want to join in, please do!

This month's Colore ton Monde is a play on the spring clean from a year ago:

C'est le printemps, on fait le ménage dans nos vieilles traîneries

Pour le mois d'avril, nous vous invitons à peindre un VIEUX modèle. Fouillez vos tiroirs pour la figurine la plus ancienne de votre collection, ou à défaut, au moins celle que vous possédez depuis le plus longtemps.

It's spring time, time to clean out the clutter.

For the month of April, we invite you to paint an OLD model. Rake around in your drawers for the oldest figure in your collection, or at least one you have had for a long time.

The oldest figures I have in my current collection would be those I brought over with me. These include the starter box for Khador, and Eiryss, which I bought at Claymore a long time ago. Of those, Sorcsha and Eiryss are only half painted. Otherwise, on the same outing, I bought these Samurai. Don't ask me why, I have no gaming use for them, and I didn't the either. It's just an era I'm interested in.

They came as a box of 6, and I don't remember what company made them, but of the 6, 3 are undercoated, and at least one will be painted this month.

So, here we go...

Alexia, base WIP

This mini has been on the table for a while now, but I thought it was about time to post a few WIP shots of the base, and mini for Alexia. I had the mini painted mostly up for the Longest Night event, but I had held off on the base, as I wanted something a little more special for this lady. In the end, I opted for this base by Secret Weapon.

Here, Alexia's base all but done, some muddy water to add, and some touch ups to the mini after all the man-handling required to remove the horse from its previous base and pin it to this one.

I went on to touch up the paint work, and fill in the base with some water effect, stained with Secret Weapon's Sewer Water wash. Perfectly named I feel, and the colour works great as swamp water. I dumped some grass and leaves in the mix at the last minute, as I was too eager to get the water in there, I completely forgot how I had actually planned to place these before adding the water effects.

Furthermore, I had also planned to varnish the model before I put the water effect in, as I didn't want the spray varnish I use for a dullcoat clouding up the base! This will have to be worked around, as already the paint job has chipped again where I repaired it last night. I guess I'll have to paint on the 'ard coat, then mask over the base to spray with dullcoat.

Allegiant of the Order of the Fist conversion

In an interruption from my run of Dystopian Legions blogging, I bring you something that has been floundering in my bits box, but I brought out this week to finish off.

For my Amon theme list, I can take multiple Allegiants. Amon can have 4 monks, but I can't see myself ever running that many, but then again, I have yet to test them in MKII. I have one miniature based and undercoated, but the stock pose is uninspiring to say the least. I have therefore been looking for conversion ideas for the other two I have. So that I might differentiate between models on the field, and also, as I don't like fielding duplicate minis especially for solos.

With that, out came the bone-saw, and off came his leg!

starting point

point of no return

into position

bit of greenstuff

After that, all that remained was to place the fists in a realistic position in regards to the new leg position. I didn't like the way the left arm sits, it doesn't fit with the new leg position, as it looks like he'd be unbalanced. That seemed easy enough to fix with a little light filing and a pin wire to give it a new position. I filled in the space with some liquid greenstuff to complete the elbow.

And here's the original sculpt, for reference.

All that remains is a little more green stuff to round out the elbow, then it's into the paint queue for these guys.

For inspiration for other modifications for these figs, please refer to the following links. I may be following one of these for the 3rd and 4th monks.
Monk 1
Monk 2
Monk 3

Posted on the PP forums here.

Kingdom of Britannia: HMG

Not the cleanest paint jobs, and there will be some touching up to do on the faces in particular, but here are some shots of my Kingdom of Britannia HMG team, as they will be entered for this month's Colore ton Monde (it has wheels, so it fits).

They are painted with yellow/buff facings so that they may be added as a support option for my yet to be bought 3rd Rifle Section, the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers/South Essex, although, this may require the green-stuffing of three feathers, and or an eagle on the pith helmets, just to really make them stand out. It was a choice between this, or to paint them as actual artillery copsmen in blue. I decided to go with more red-coats for now, as I still want red to be the main colour of the force, at least to begin with.

Yaum the Machine

We will now take a break from our usual posts for this public service announcement.

My friend and opponent Yaum, has decided to offer his extremely impressive painting skills out to you, the general public.

Go check it out, the page is in french right now, but the minis speak for themselves (the man himself speaks English though, so do not hesitate to field questions/requests to him in either language). Having seen some of these minis 'in the flesh' so to speak, I can certainly say the photos here don't do them justice, it is a pleasure to lose to such finely painted miniatures.

I'm already looking out what I want to have panited by him...