Kingdom of Britannia: 91st Highlanders

Or, to give them their full title,  91st (Princess Louise's Argyllshire Highlanders) Regiment of Foot. A little bit of touching up of the boots, and basing done last night, and these guys are as done as they're going to be.

Hopefully their musician, will arrive soon as 6 guys alone on the table doesn't do much in Dystopian Legions.

WIP 91st Highlanders

An update on the nearly finished 91st Highland Regiment of foot. Two nights of painting in a row, and I have all but finished these guys. Not my first time attempting tartan, that was a long time back, but the first time I've finished a unit, never mind a model, with all the tartan done. It looks fine on the table, but messy as hell in the close-ups.

Before the tartan:

After the tartan:

Only the hair and a bit of tidying up to do, then they'll be based and finished. I'm still waiting for the piper to arrive, and maybe with a little conversion one of the other minis in the Perry command pack I ordered can do as a Sergeant, or another Lieutenant for my Dystopian Legions forces.

Then it's on to the table with them.

Sir Guy, the Red

The perfect mini for the "Paint it red" challenge is obviously this guy (pun intended). Anyway, he was mostly finished last week, but a painting session last night let me get him based (in a very simple manner, there's not much space to play with on a 20mm base) ready for use in a Bretonnian army (at some point).

I'm way ahead of schedule for this month's challenge, but I hope to get a couple of better pics before I sent off my entry.

I also all but finished off the section of 91st Highlanders, with only the tartan to do (what a surprise), so I hope to post them soon. They're good practice for the coming Black Watch section.

Paint it Red

A couple of shots from last night's Oldies session. WIP of sorts, as both minis are very close to completion. I was struggling to find the mini I wanted to paint for this month's Colore ton Monde, as most of the minis I started to paint at the beginning of the month were blue (more on those in a later post).

In the end I decided to take these two minis with me (and the rest of the Section for the Rifleman, but they were not completed to the same level). I had quite a productive evening, with the knight starting the evening as bare metal, and the rifleman having but a base-coat. I'm especially happy with the way the tartan turned out on the rifleman's trousers. That was mostly down to having good lighting. I may have to invest in a good lamp for painting at home. Of course, the imperfections the camera pick up at this level of zoom are not really all that noticeable to the naked eye, but for a first attempt, I'm happy.

You can read about the conversion and scheme of my 91st Highlander's Section here and  here. Of course the knight will likely find a home in my fledgling Brettonian army.

Blog Pimping

There are a couple of blogs I would like to draw your attention to. First off, from of the Oldies group, who I spend my Tuesday evenings with. The blog goes by the imaginative title of 40K with Blackjack and Hookers. There are no real post yet, but go to the links down the side to see some of the wonderful conversions and greenstuff work this guy has done. I'm not a 40K player, but I am very impressed.

Blogging old-timer Big Lee's Miniature Blog has reached 1 squillion hits, and is therefore running a superb give away. As the custom goes, sharing increases the chances of winning, by adding to my times in the draw, but of course takes away from my chances by increasing the number of people who know about it! Still with 1million hits, I'm sure there's enough folks out there already who know about this blog that my little advert won't affect my chances to greatly to the negative! ;)

And finally, not wargaming related (at least not directly), but I direct your attention to this wonderful article written by a friend of mine (who is a gamer), I seem to have some wonderfully talented friends! Why we'll never quit Star Wars.

Colore Ton Monde: July

June's challenge was to paint something unfinished. They don't get any more unfinished than the Napoleon Vignette I've been moving around my painting bench for over a year now. I mean, he was all but done.  Well, now he is finished. I may go back and do some touch ups here and there as I'm not 100% happy with him as I didn't do too much on the lacing for Roustam, but he'll do for now.

On to this month's challenge:

Fierté nationnale

Pour le mois de juillet, nous vous invitons à démontrer votre fierté nationale en peignant un modèle aux couleurs de la nation, ou en peignant un étendard. Par contre, pour varier un peu, c'est le côté fédéraliste que nous soulignons cette fois-ci, alors la couleur thème en question est le rouge !

National Pride

For the month of July, we invite you to demonstrate your pational pride by painting a model in the national colours, or by painting a standard. However, for a little variation, we're underlining the federal side this time, so, the colour-scheme this time is red!

Just for Canada Day!

Red and White it is. I think there may be something I can do for Dystopian Legions that will easily fall into this category. As an added bonus, KoB models not only need red and white, but they count towards my own nationality (in a way). Double win!

Dystopian Legions: Kingdom of Britannia Armstrong 14 Pounder Cannon

As the second of my recent purchases (the first is reviewed here) I bought the Kingdom of Britannia Armstrong 14 lb cannon. I have been eagerly awaiting this mini, as I love the overall 'historical' look of this mini, whilst it's still clearly a fantasy/VSF piece (although less so than the Prussian Tesla weapons).

The mini is a mixture of resin and metal parts, with 2 metal crewmen. The overall quality is good, with there being no flash or seams on the crewmembers, however, the gun, and especially the wheels suffer from a common problem with Spartan vehicles, in that they have a large flash/chunk of metal where they have been snipped from their sprue. With one of mine, the clippers had also caught the edges of the wheel. This is not the end of the world, as this part of the wheel can certainly be used to stick the gun to the base, and therefore be completely hidden. This was slightly more of an issue with the Bassett Tankettes than it is here. Another issue I found was that there was a crack in the resin of the main part of the gun. I'm not sure what could have caused this, other than a flaw in the resin at casting, but it was easily filled with a dab of liquid green-stuff, and will be completely invisible after painting.

Gun parts

Crew

 

The infamous Spartan Wheel Sprue issue





Crack in the resin



The last thing about this kit (and all the artillery pieces for the other factions) is that it is released with a Spartan custom base. This base is perfect for creating little dioramas on to spice up the battle field. I think this will be the perfect place to use up the bags of Secret Weapon sandbags or bricks I had bought for the bases of the Bassett's, until I realised there's no space on their bases to add anything but the mini and a little mud. 

The assembled gun on cool base.

Overall a pleasing model, with rules that may have to wait until I am playing against a bunch of Ironclads, so there's no real rush for me to get this guy painted yet (my opponents don't have any tanks that need killing. Yet). I give this guy 7 out of 10, as the casting flaws were easily remedied, and the crew were of a very high standard.