Medbury Miniatures

After being impressed with the look of these sculpts I ordered some more. I have to say the figures are glorious and have a very Tolkien feel to them.

This wolf rider had his blade snap off, so I replaced his whole hand with that of a plastic Goblin.

My big worry though is the Eco plant based resin is very brittle and snaps very easily. Every order has arrived damaged, even though they are very well packaged. This axeman lost his axe while being dry brushed. The idea of these in a Wargames table fills me with dread.

To help strengthen the resin I coated the thin blades and shafts with super glue. This gives it a very nice Orc feel when dry brushed. The axe was replaced with a Goblin sword, making sure I put as much surface of the hilt onto the resin hand for strength.

 This Orc arrived with no mace, but a blob of super glue soon fixed that. These figures look great when painted and have a brilliant feel to them. However, I will have to make sure they are tucked away from the edges of my bases for fear of damage. The tall standard will be another story, let's hope the super glue holds it together. The extra glue actually looks quite good on the shaft and makes it look a bit more like a tree branch.

UPDATE: A new package has just arrived, let's open it together.

I think the best thing to do with these is to replace the whole hand. The Oathmark Goblin sets have a wealth of options. Maybe a spear would be good.

The weapon replacement is annoying but the sculpts are still very good.

Right, so I ended up swoppng the hand of one with a Oathmark Dwarf, the other I went for a complete arm swop. The last figure I just made sure his sword was coated with Super glue to make it more robust.

I also added a quiver of arrows from the Dwarf sprue just to add some variety.

Lastly a bow was added from the Warlord Games Orc sprue.

Bonnie Blue Flag Rules

Well, what a great day! I have just found out that Bonnie Blue Flag and the Regimental Fire and Fury rules use the exact same figure ratio to size their regiments. My plan was always to use the Fire & Fury army lists for my battles in Bonnie Blue Flag, but I didn't realize they would match up exactly. It's a small thing, but it's made me very happy. 

It means the massive wealth of research and detail of the Fire & Fury lists and maps can now be used effortlessly with the Bonnie Blue Flag rules, my chosen rule set for the period.

There are a couple of differences but not many.

When I saw lists for the battle of Port Republic in Fire and Fury, I thought I would compare it with the one in Bonnie Blue Flag. I was amazed to see the exact same sized formations in both rule sets.

 Bonnie Blue Flag only has one factual scenario in the book, so this is a real boon! Not only for the detailed maps and background, but also the regiment sizes for basically all the battles that Fire and Fury cover...which is a lot. This means that Bonnie Blue Flag shares the 1 base =40 men ratio with Regimental Fire and Fury.

Port Republic maps in both rule sets. One of the weak spots in Bonnie Blug Flag was the lack of scenarios, with lists etc, I feel this now has just been fixed. Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag!

A close up of a detailed map from Fire and Fury.

I feel inspired again, where's my blue paint gone?

 

Another great find was the Regimental Wargame Scenarios by Brad Butkovich. I took a chance on eBay one day and was completely won over after receiving one of them. It wasn't long before I had collected them all. Again, these are perfect for Bonnie Blug Flag, filling the gap in scenarios.

Brad Butkovich has come up with a clever way of creating the forces involved. There are multiple choices of figure ratios for each unit, to tell you how many bases to use, depending on your figure collection and style of playing. As my bases represent 40 men, I track along the ratios until I get to 40 to see how many bases I will need for each regiment. These lists have been painfully researched and worked out. Also, the weapon the regiment carried has been researched ( where possible) and listed. This too is a great touch for giving character to different units. These scenarios are worth tracking down as they cater for any rules and are a great gaming resource.

  

Painting Black Uruks

These Black Uruks have been painted using a Dark Elf paint triad from Reaper miniatures. The second, midtone colour is perfect for a black wash.

These were painted quite dark but we're also given a Dark tone wash from Army Painter dip.

These large Orcs are a mixture of Ral Partha and Reaper miniatures, they are obviously sculpted by the same artist, Bob Olly, which is pretty handy.

I have been collecting these big powerful Orcs for sometime. It's nice to finally break them out and make up units of them.

This guy is a new thing for me, a digital 3D sculpt Orc from eBay, they are quite fragile but very nice sculpts. I love the helmets! The chainmail is particularly good.

After the Orc is painted with the Dark Elf paint, a really nice tip is to dry brush them with a light, sandy brown. This really helps to pick out the details and give a very nice natural skin look. The Dark dip also helps to tie everything together. I dry brush the entire model like this, it also helps weather the dark clothes and armour 

This guy above is carrying a crude shield, created using blobs of gel superglue.

Another printed Orc from eBay, I'm am quite taken with these.

A Rings of Power Orc.

 

Black Uruks

Creating a standard for these elite fighters. Green stuff was rolled out, then roughly cut into shape with a scalpel.

Once attached, the banner was twisted to look like the wind was catching it.

Once dry more skulls and heads were added to the grizzly structure. Even other orcs were not spared and their heads cast up in display. What the story is with the other Orc is, I guess we'll never know.

While I had my resin skulls at hand, I thought I would try this classic film look, of the skull on top of the helmet.

The Uruks were then rounded up in a field and bombed with black paint. It was nice to see all the green stuff start to merge into the sculpture once covered in paint. The new chainmail looked much better undercoated in black.

The next step is to grab five at a time and paint them up. A few very large Orcs were added to the line up from Ral Partha. These big well armoured Orcs will act as leaders and champions.