Civil War Weather

Weather like this it’s time to crack out the Civil War hat. As I role play my way through life, this hat could either be a Confederate slouch hat or a lowly musketeer from 1643. Everyone else just sees a wet muggle stomping to work but in my head there’s either some military marching tune going on or a drum beat.

It seems what ever I’m painting and researching at that time starts to influence the rest of my life in some way. I have to walk two miles to and from my station every day and some nights I’ve set off car alarms with the horn blasts of five hundred heavily armoured Dwarves from the Iron hills and made grown men weep with my humming of Cromwells’ ’rejoice in the North’ soundtrack (quietly of course).

 I see a walk in bad weather as a little bit of a soldier’s experience and try to put myself in their shoes...or hats.
 War gaming is an infectious weird way of life that creates a strong historical passion in all of us that feeds our imagination.
 However to most people that see the strange humming man walking home in the dark, with a very well timed stride and smiling to himself, it’s just another weirdo to be avoided. If only they could see the standards, hear the bagpipes and taste the rainbow. There’s a lot more to Wargaming than pushing lead around a kitchen table, it’s a way of life. PEACE!

Wolf Rider Shield Designs

Trip back to 1985

 Time is a funny old thing... time to go back to the Eighties. Eat your heart out Stranger Things. After messing around with the new Oathmark goblin riders it was time to dig out some more old Chronicle wolves. I remember loving these when I was younger, They were big and chunky and used a lot of lead for the time, then again, I think most Chronicle figures did.

 These later Chronicle wolves are even bigger and chunkier, I think they were 1989 remakes of the popular wolf rider range. By that time Chronicle Black orcs had become a thing and their characters had grown in size, along with their mounts. This lot was kindly given to me by a friend and now they will be put to good use. In fact it was the same gifted collection that started me painting Fantasy again...look how that ended.

 A snap shot of my young teens right there. £5.95 was a lot of pocket money!

Now finally the moons are in alignment and all the Loopus have been gathered in one place, nice.

Extra cloaks

 I grabbed some time tonight to sculpt some extra fur on the new Wolf riders. This was done to hide the arm joins which seem to be more prominent on these new sculpts.

This should of been done before I started to paint but hey ho.

Wolf Army

Tonight has been a night of basing and trying to finish old projects. This is half of the Wolf/Warg army and it has sat on my work shelf for long enough, one last push should see them finished.

 I finally made a decision on the Wolf riders, I went for the old Grenadier wolves with the new plastic Oathmark goblins. The best of both worlds there I think. I’ve always loved the old lead wolves and it’s nice to get some paint on them and get them in the army.
They have instantly taken on the look of Orc raiders with their bags of blunder and trophy heads. The heads may make them look like fierce warriors, but you know they have just raided farms and ambushed lonely caravans to gain them.

 I have stuck on a few extra plastic heads onto the wolves to help with the raider look.

Oathmark Goblin Wolf Riders WIP

 My box of wolf riders arrived today and to kill my curiosity I made up three of them. One thing that I’m not too keen on is just how smooth they are. I thought I would try a bit of liquid green stuff to create a slight texture on the model. It’s not great but looks so much better than it did before.

 The Goblins are nice enough and very handy for extras for converting. Talking of converting, I couldn’t help tweaking with the riders, swopping heads and weapons with other makes.

 They are certainly Wargs as classed in Middle Earth. They are larger than all my warg models bar one ( Reaper Warg). So being Wargs I painted them black to match my others, this makes them stand out from the smaller grey wolves.

 Of course there is also another option...using old Grenadier wolf figures instead of the plastic mounts. They are slightly smaller creatures in stature but have a load more detail on them. I do have quite a collection from the Eighties so two units of six would not be a problem. It’s a tough one and deserves a bit more thought.
 I would never of used my old Nick Lund wolf riders for my new army, but a mix of Oathmark and Grenadier could work. The new plastic goblin riders are a lot more dynamic and have many weapon options. I see Warg riders as being mounted skirmishers so would arm most of them with bows.

Basing ECW

 Tonight I thought I would try out the Vallejo mud for the good old wet British countryside. The results are Okay and it does look like broken muddy ground.

 Reference from my walk to work.

Luke APS basing

 Well after trying this product of my Sci-Fi troopers I thought I would give it a go on my fantasy bases too. These poor Elves have been waiting for months to be finished and within a couple of minutes they were. I chose the Arid Grassland mix to match my sandy fantasy bases. To my delight the basing material was a good match and the new bases fitted in well with the old. The old base is on the left above.

The only thing I needed to do was to paint the large pebbles ‘granite’ grey and dry brush them. After these pebbles were washed with green and tufts added, the bases were hard to tell apart. Again, very pleased with this as painting these large detailed bases were a real pain. Trying to dry brush between the figures feet was no fun, hence the reason they sat for months waiting to be finished.

 This will make life a lot easier and the huge fantasy armies waiting in the wings should be a breeze now.

 The officer has been dipped into Luke’s basing product, you can see here it is a little more subtle than my mix on the bigger base. I mean the name ‘Arid Grassland’ seems to cry out Zulu to me... I might need to buy another bag.

Luke APS Basing Material

 As I watch Luke on YouTube most evening I thought I would take a look at his shop. A couple of things caught my eye, one of them being his all in one basing mixes. Readers of the Blog know that I kind of do the same sort of thing for my AZW and ACW but Luke’s ready mix is better.
Well after trying it out on some waiting Sci-Fi troopers I was really impressed and it saved me loads of time and messing around with paint.

 As well as the Arid mix I bought the ‘Rugged Field’ mix which I plan to use with my ECW bases.

Above is the Arid Grassland mix, this should be fantastic for my ACW bases too.

 The patrol heads out to find some Blue bellyNortherners.

 The Starship troopers bases were done before but the new Heavy troopers mixed in perfectly. A few tufts and they were finished, no painting or dry brushing!

Above, I put tiny amounts of the basing mix on my troopers done previously, to help blend the two groups together. Great stuff and a good price too. I’m a convert.