Third Company of Lindir

Here is the new Elf captain, I have to say I think he's my favourite so far. His torso is from a Fire Forge Byzantine set. His shield is also from Fire Forge but this time their Sargent box. It has a lot of green stuff on it but the shape is good. His sword arm is from a GW High Elf and his head is from a Oathmark Elf sprue.

Here are the new guys, straight out of the merk of Merkwood.

I was having trouble trying to decide who to put on, in the end I thought I would add a seventh figure just for luck. The herald to the company who refused to be left behind, who am I to argue.

I had originally thought all the Elves would have those snazzy shields from Scibor. However, I enjoyed making the green stuff shields so much, they have become quite numerous. Their detail and colour help them match the Scibor ones, with the added bonus of them being unique as well. Those Elven Smith's have been busy in their underground smithies.

The whole 1st 'wing' of Elves, Lindir's companies.

Hopefully they all gel together, I did want to paint them all in browns, but they insisted on turning up in their own clothes. I found them very fussy people to work with, but we got their in the end 

 

Resin Explosions!

Everybody needs explosions in wargames, I saw these resin ones on eBay and took a chance.

Weird things really, more like alien plants than bangs. However, I pressed on, it was a good excuse to try out my new orange Contrast paint from Games workshop. For this reason I sprayed them white, so the yellows etc would look brighter.

Can't see much yellow...

Once the orange and yellow Contrast paint was dry, I dry brushed it with grey and then pure white.

 These were done to go with my ACW armies, so I had to do a little research into shell explosions. I was really tempted to put black smoke at the top, but black powder explosions are white.

" Let's get out of here!"

I based them like I would a figure with various grits and flocks. Do they work? Well I suppose they do a little bit. My wife doesn't think so, but I can see past the alien thing.

I wanted something as tough as nails I can throw in a box when not needed. These certainly fit the bill.

 

ACW shell explosions. The one below is actually quite close to these resin ones.

UPDATE... I added some packing foam to add some whispy smoke to the bases The Perry's also use a similar foam for their packing and this makes great musket smoke.

This whispy foam helps to blur the edges of the explosion and make it look more realistic.

I think they look a lot more like explosions now with the extra smoke. 

These will look good with earth flying up from the blast. I will do this when I flock them. After I will cover them with hair spray to give the foam a bit of hold.

I'm sure there's a war game in here somewhere

I knew that weird plant in the garden would make a good backdrop for something...
 This fascinating story of an English Lt Colonel sent to Africa in 1998, to oversee the construction of a bridge. The bridge was being built by 3000 workers imported from India. Being unused to the country, they slept in canvas tents, unaware that two male lions had decided to change their diet to include man. Patterson goes from royal engineer to big game hunter as he tries to track down these two big cats, who seem to be blessed with magical luck. Stories differ at the number of people actually killed, but 135 is generally stated. Two lions in nine months, that's a lot of attacks. It's a famous story, written as only a turn of the  century Englishman could write, which i think adds to its charm. It became a best seller instantly across the Empire and even Teddy Roosevelt became a huge fan, wanting to know every detail.

It has been made into a number of films, probably the most famous being ' The Ghost and the Darkness' in 1996. I watched this film last week on Amazon and it lead to me ordering the actual book of the story.

 I'm pretty sure a 'One hour wargame' could be made out of this epic battle between man and beast. The events are quite unbelievable but true.

There are some good documentaries on YouTube too, well worth a watch.

Adding Extra Details

Over the hundreds of gaming years I have collected a wealth of scenery bits and bobs. These woodland bases are great, but I will just add a few touches to tie them in with my figure bases 

Tiny leaves and my usual mixed herbs make for great leaf litter. Also, some twigs from the garden make for effective fallen trees.

Clumps of dry moss from Geek Gaming make great undergrowth and brambles.

The fallen logs covered in leaves etc work well.

I did buy some Bracken Tufts for my Elven bases, they also get an outing here too.

I dug out my bag of old green Lichen, the smell of which takes me straight back to 1984. I used to use it for my old Warhammer battles and the smell is full of nostalgia for me. I only stuck a tiny bit on the actual tree bases, as I normally just scatter it about.

I then wash the leaf litter in water and wood glue, this makes it wargame proof and stops bits from getting knocked off.