Trooping the Colours: a 2014 Review

Hoi,

Since it's December 31st over here I guess it's time to review 2014. In order to keep the rambling at a minimum, I'll limit myself to analysing the amount of figures I have painted this year and the projects started/ finished.

Let's started with the painted miniatures, so here's the count as it stands at this moment.

Napoleonics (1:72)                       141
SYW (1:72)                                   43
AWI (1:72)                                    13
Colonial (1:72)                               14
WW1 (1:72)                                  19
West End Games Star Wars           33 (+ 1 vehicle)
X-wing Miniatures                           6
Fantasy                                          10
Ancients (1:72)                               71
WW2 (1:72)                                   23
Vehicles (1:72)                                  6
CBT                                               22
Sci-Fi                                               6
Dystopian Wars (terrain)                 30
Scenery/ Terrain                              11
28mm Historics                               11

Which makes for a grand total of 460 miniatures I've painted this year. Not too shabby I'd say, yet by far not enough ;-)

So let's take a look at the projects I have going and their progress so far.

- The Salamanca 1812 project: ok let's agree that the less said here is the better choice. This project has not progressed any further than the basecoating of the tiles of the landscape and a few miniatures. The problem is I really would like at least one day in which I could work non stop on them but this has been hard to accomplish. Maybe 2015 will bring some change in this regard.

- Finished projects: well there's really only one project actually finished this year and that's my 1:72plastic Sumerian army. I painted it up and have sent it over to a friend who actually does Ancients. The amount of figures you see in the list above stated as Ancients are these Sumerians, so I have painted up some 71 of them.
Now there's one project only a hair away from being finished and that is my SYW Austrian army(1:72) I still have one regiment of foot and a Cuirassier regiment left to paint up and that's that for the Austrians. Thank God because I do not know how much white uniforms I can take.

- Half finished projects: I've got quite a lot of those. I am almost halfway through my Star Wars miniatures. I have painted up pretty much of the Tatooine based figures, which leaves the "space-based" mini's.
Another half finished project is my Bronze Age Miniatures John Carter project. Some 12 miniatures currently reside on my to-paint desk, awaiting to be finished  for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. With those painted I will call this project finished for the moment.

- New projects: Only one project deserves mentioning here. I have recently started a big "Victorian-(sci-fi) fancy" and have quite a lot of figures lying around for this or in transit over here. This project entails two separate sub-projects for me: first is the (biggest) Ripperstreet sub-theme. I am a big fan of this TV series and have decided I want to game some scenes from the series in miniature which means getting loads of mini's and even more terrain.
The second sub-theme is centred around the magnificent Space Captain Smith books written by Toby Frost, more on these later.

So there you have it. This is where I stand at this moment, with Old Year's Day usually being one of my most productive days I will probably get some more mini's painted before the day is over. Rest assured I wil keep you posted.

Cheers Sander

Watching: "The Knights of Bad Assdom"

Painting Challenge update

Hoi,

Today's update will bring you my latest entries in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. First I have posted some pictures on Bronze Age Miniatures John Carter Martians

LINK.


The second contribution is of some HäT Bengal Lancers (29th Deccan Regiment) which are my first entry for the Duel I'm fighting out with Mr Rosbif himself.

LINK

That's it for now cheers and have a good Old Year's Eve!

Sander

Listening t: "Fratres" by Arvo Part

The Painting Challenge Progress so far.

Hoi,

Just a short update on my progress so far. I know I've said I'd put posts up in this blog as well, but to keep the interest in the Challenge at a maximum I think it would be more fair to put up links to my contributions here and divert you to this marvellous place of wonder and see, not just mine but all participants entries.

Here's my first entry, which is also my entrance fee. For this I chose a Freebooters vignette of two Snotlings beating...well...the snot out of each other. They were my first attempt at Non Metal Metals and it's a pain I can tell you.

Link

The second entry, is my contribution to the first Bonus Round, themed "Cold". These are West Winds Star Wars miniatures called "Encounter at Hoth".

Link

At the moment I have finished 4 John Carter of Mars figures, I believe by Bronze Age Miniatures. I have also half finished my first 1:72 plastics entry for the challenge duel I have going on with Ben from Mr Rosbif's blog. I hope to make pictures of these soon.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "The Empire Strikes Back" Soundtrack by John Williams

Boardwalk Empire, of sorts

Hoi,

In order to supply at least some form of terrain for my new Victoriana project, I have obtained some boardwalk tiles. These are for sale at the local Gardening Store as a part of those Christmas villages one sees popping up all around in this time of the year.

The first picture shows the unpainted and painted versions. I had to chip the stones in order to give them a more weathered look. I am not sure I really like the end result but it will have to suffice for now.

The second picture shows the inclusion of a column for posters which I obtained at the same store and duly repainted.

More to follow in due time.

Cheers Sander

In with the new..

Hoi,

If you've read my Crisis report, you'll have noticed that my newest obsession is the Victorian Era. Using several different rule-sets, I will try to reproduce scenes from both the TV series Ripperstreet and the Space Captain Smith books written by Toby Frost.

In order to do this I've invested in several sets of North Star Miniatures and Foundry Figures. Ever since buying them,  I have been looking for decent ways to base them. I wanted suitably civic yet not modern scenic bases and while I could perhaps have them lasered or even make them myself, I have found a very nice range of resin scenic bases from the 36 Chambers. They have brilliant service, are not expensive and very detailed indeed.

Here you can see some of my mini's prepped for the Analogue Painting Challenge

 When painted these figures will be presented to you of course so watch this spot!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Steal This Album!" by System of a Down.

And we're off!

Hoi,

Yesterday, on December 5th, the 5th Analogue Painting Challenge has started. Since this date coincides with a Dutch holiday called Saint Nick's Eve (our equivalent of Boxing Day) I've had near to no time to do any kind of update.

Today I can finally post some progress on the matter of the challenge and it's preparations. In an earlier post I have stated some of the figures I intend to paint for the challenge, but have yet to base and add many others to the list. As of this year posts of the painted submissions are to be shown on the special Challenge blog and only then on the owner's blog. For a link to this blog see the banner on the left of my page. Regarding this I will post pictures of the unpainted mini/ units along with pictures of the painted miniatures whenever I can. Seeing that I still owe you guys some of those pictures, here are the first shots of my preparations.

This Freebooter miniature I am going to paint up for Curt as my entrance fee, if this doesn't depict a pair of anti-heroes I'm a wossname for sure!

Next up the stuff I have provided with bases and in many cases also base-coated already.

Some "closer-ups" show the 1:72 plastics I am going to paint for the challenge offered to me by mister Rosbiff to see who's the first one to paint 200pts worth of Plastics. The second picture also includes some metal West Wind Star Wars minis and some Rall Partha Classic Battletech miniatures. Some 28mm white metals are prepared and ready as well and will probably be my starting point.

Here you can see my preparations for one of my bonus-round entries.

There you have it: my kick-off! Since we're going to be busy this weekend with all kinds of "real-life" stuff painting will be limited. You know I really have no idea how this will work out but just the preparations are great fun!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "the best of John Foggerty"

Preparing for the Big One!

Hoi,

Jump for joy! I have finally managed to enter the Fifth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Finally I say, because I have watched it being announced several times these past years and never had the courage to apply myself. I guess I was always afraid of committing myself to painting a certain amount of figures up to a value of points, and failing miserably IN PUBLIC! Now the die is cast and I'll have to live up to it. The Challenge is being run by Curt at his blog and a great happening it will promise to be.

So what are my plans? To start off I have committed to painting the minimum amount of points possible which is 500. This may sound chicken, and I'm sure it is, but never having participated this far and mainly painting 20mm figures (which don't really give you large amounts of points anyway) I thought I'd take the safer side of things. Besides up-scaling is possible during the event, or so I have understood.

To do this I have set myself the goal of painting up all the regiments I have either already based and/ or basecoated which now reside in my showcases unpainted. Those include:
-  a regiment of Bengal Lancers
- a 7YW Prussian and an Austrian Infantry Regiment
- a 7YW Scottish Regiment of Foot
- a 7YW British Regiment of Dragoons
- a Napoleonic French Regiment of Infantry
- a Napoleonic Bavarian Regiment of Infantry

Besides these there are the themed Bonus Rounds which I hope to participate in. The following ideas are playing in my mind:

1st Bonus Round: Cold (14th December): I am thinking of doing some 28mm figures for these, won't tell you what make or period though!

2nd Bonus Round: Mounts and Riders (28th December): I have a Wargames Illustrated figure of Lady Godiva still lying around which I think of painting up for this round.

3rd Bonus Round: Victorian (11th January):  As you might have read in my Crisis post, I have obtained rather a large amount of Victorian figures so won't have any trouble filling this post with some nice 28mm figures.

4th Bonus Round: Myth (25th January): Now if you look around the blogosphere you'll see quite a lot of posts of people entering this round with "true" Mythological subjects but I will be taking up the word "myth" a bit less literal... again I will not reveal too much but preparations for this bonus entry are already on their way!

6th Bonus Round: Comedic (22nd February): For these I really have no clue what to do so I'll have to keep you informed along the way. The only "humorous" figures I have currently in stock are Hasslefree's Mystery Inc gang regular style.

7th Bonus Round: Anti-Hero (8th March): The final bonus round has me desperately searching for a decent Anti-hero, I have a Discworld Rincewind mini and some Flashman mini's lying around here but can't decide which to paint up for this since they're all brilliant!

The biggest challenge I set myself is the strangest; last Analogue Challenge had some sidebar challenges by competitors going on and in a good natured way I threw down the gauntlet at the delectable feet of one of those Grand Dames of our community in order to both paint a Femme Fatale to our best abilities and let the audience decide who wins. The winner receiving the losers miniature. I will not disclose more at this time but will tell you all that I settled on a Freebooter miniature for my entry.

For now that's all and I wish all the competitors in this Great Challenge all the best for attaining their goals!

My the brushes be ever in your favour!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Sing Loud, Sing Proud" by the Dropkick Murphy's

Crisis 2014

Hoi,

Even though I am a bit late, I'd like to say something regarding my visit to this year's Crisis Convention in Antwerp last Saturday. That said, this post will be devoid of photo's, since I forgot to bring the camera along and the pictures I took with my phone are too awful to use.

Luckily I didn't have to go there all alone, I was accompanied by my brother and old gaming buddy A-M, we didn't arrive any later than 10.30h yet still there was a pretty large cue at the entrance! We're not used to that at Crisis, but I do guess it's a good sign!

Unlike most years I had a rather themed wishlist and even some pre-orders in. So up and at them I went. The TSA guys and girls did a stiling job of clearing the cue asap and the goodie-bag we got was filled quite well indeed as has been stated on many other blogs around the bloggosphere where picture-reports abound as well for the more visually inclined of us.

Lately I am all taken in by two more or less fictional Victorian flavoured series, one being the "Space Captain Smith" novels by the ever esteemed Toby Frost and the "Ripperstreet" TV series.Therefore my search was up for some decent Victorian Sci-Fi mini's. In the end I bought more than enough of those to get me started, these include:
- two "In her Majesty's Name" startersets from North Star Miniatures (Scotland Yard and the Commune sets) and two of the "Tea-Time" series of figures from North Star.
- a blister of Wargames Foundry Western twon folk which inlcuded some bare-knuckle fighters and ladies of easy virtue to complement the street scenes in Victorian London.
- 4 sets of Ironclad Victorians (my first pre-order by the way).
- two Mini-art buildings: The goods shed and the Railway Station for my 20mm WW1 games.
- A small case of KR multicases X-Wing foam trays to store my X-wing dials and stuff and the Rebel Transport, I was kindly helped by boss Darryl himself with whom I went on a trip down memory lane since we both attended Crisis 5 years back for the first time and many things have changed since then.Their service cannot be beat!
I also bought the new Osprey "Steampunk Soldiers" book, which is well worth the hefty price.

All in all a very decent list I'd say, as every time I visit the Crisis I meet up with friends and also fail to meet up with others! Uwe where were you?!

Anyway it was a great day and I can't wait to attend next year!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "El Camino" by the Black Keys

The Red Lancers

Hoi,

After reading a period diary, written by a Dutch Red Lancer Captain, I thought it time to include this illustrious regiment for the Garde Imperiale.

The figures, of course are Zvezda's Polish lancers of the Guard, but they can double as the Dutch Red Lancers anyway. This is the 3rd regiment I'm depicting using these figures and they are a delight to paint.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Roots" by Sepultura

Oxford and back again...

Hoi,

The last week I was away from my keyboard due to a school trip to the Oxford region. Our schedule included a visit to Canterbury on the way to Oxford itself. The cathedral there houses a load of memorial stones dedicated to soldiers lost in wars from the ECW up to WW1. I made some pics but have to figure out how to get them off the cell phone.

We then stayed near Oxford for two days, including a visit to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studios, now even though I'm not a fan, these were mightily impressive!

A visit to Bath and Stonehenge were next and on the day before we left the UK we visited London. I will try to post a more full report soon with some pics as well.

For now here's the Booty books wise!

Cheers Sander

Listening to:  "the absence of 60 teenagers" by nobody!

Something different...

Hoi,

Today's post brings you two entirely different kind of mini's. First up are some Infinity Ariadna Highlanders. I have painted these up to resemble Northwind Highlanders for my Battletroops games, or rather skirmishes set in the Battletech background. But I also am going to use them as groundpounders for the British Star Empire from the Toby Frost books featuring Space Captain Smith. I am at the moment looking into a suitable Smith model to supplement them.

So here are the Highlanders:

These truly are very nice figures and when at the Crisis I might be tempted to buy some others just to paint.

Second is a rather more unusual set of figures. These are firemen included with a model fire truck my son got for his B-day. They were factory painted in red and silver. My lad picked them out the package and said: well real firemen aren't red Dad, the fire is red... and since he's Fireman Sam fan to the core, Dad went and took his brushes.

Before:

After:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "To Megatherion" by Therion.

Mystery Inc. Part II

Hoi,

While these figures already partook in the battle at the Ducosim and are thus shown in the batrep of said battle, I will show the Mystery Machine and the ladies here in more detail. Partly because Anne specially asked for the pictures ;-)

First a group-shot:

Here are Daphne and my all-time favourite Velma.

Some separate shots of the van. The model is from Armour Cast and most of the bits used to upgrade it are GW and Ainsty vehicle parts.

Somewhere on the unpainted pile are the regular, unarmed, Mystery Inc team, but I will be painting other stuff before I start on them.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Royal Blood" by Royal Blood

P.E.W.-P.E.W. Game 2

Hoi,

As promised, here's part 2 of our Pew-Pew game at the Ducosim games convention. While we played the first game with only 2 players (Jan-Willem and me), the second game had a 3rd and later 4th player. This gave J-W the chance to play the roll of games-master. I had the chance of playing my Mystery Inc gang. That said the other player (Mark, a great and sporting chap) and I, were having quite a lot of fun running round each other trying to snatch the much-vaunted container, which by the way, Mark and his Cannibals had. J-W. played Plisskens Commando's and his para-drop put one of them right in front of Scooby-Doo, who had an extra move and an attack-modifier... I charged Scooby right in, to be shot down for his effort in turn one!

After this I had to put 3 of the team members together to kill off the lone commando. As the Mystery Inc gang only entailed 5 members I had to find a 6th. As my Post-Apoc miniature collection is 5 figures large, I included a Freebooter Lara Croft mini as final member and she made short work of the commando in the end.

The chief of the Cannibals, carrying the case, foolishly came too close to my gang and with all might I tried to take the container from him but this only resulted in Freddy getting killed.

From this point on the 4th player, a woman with great enthusiasm, joined in the game. And strangely all the actions she wanted to make were approved by the GM and succeeded even if  they would have been impossible had Mark or I tried the same. Her mini's jumped across entire streets, she drove a camper down a street ramming down no less than 3 of Mark's mini's and more of tis kind of silliness.

Due to bad luck in shooting I conjured up some zombies which took a lot of my fire-power to put down and the T-Rex conveniently conjured up by another 1 on to hit rolls from the lady, made it even harder to gain the objective.

In the end the lady did kill the Cannibal leader and got away with the booty... well done that missus! Afterwards J-W made this "brilliant" picture of me, I couldn't keep it from you.

Cheers Sander

Listening to:

P.E.W.-P.E.W. game 1

Hoi,

Yesterday I played two participation games at the Ducosim game convention in Amersfoort. Jan-Willem put up a demo-game using his P.E.W.-P.E.W. ( Pijlie's Everyman's Wargames Protocol for Every War) rules. The game was set in Post-Apocalyptic Amersfoort where a team of Commando's had to drop in and get away with a container full of valuables. The team was led by Arie Plissken and consisted of 6 troopers. The link above gives you a lay-down of the scenario and part of the rules. In today's post I'd like to show you a BATREP of how the first game went.

Even though I had brought my own Mystery Inc miniatures we decided to let me play with Plisskens team because, well there was nobody else playing along. Therefore J-W played 3 (of the 6 available) gangs to whit: bikers, Gangstas and Cannibals. The bikers had taken the container and the other gangs had to get it and exit on the diagonal opposing side of the table.

So let's take a look!

The table showing the demo-clock (designed for TAZ but usable all the same)

J-W dropping the commando's by throwing Army Men Para's down on the table

The photo's are all a bit sketchy because I couldn't get the git to stand still...

The dropped Para's looked like someone had covered the table in garbage bags...

The game gets under way

I tried to concentrate my spec-ops team in order to get to the bikers, but on half was dropped on the other side of the table so I sent them round to head off the bikers on their way out of the combat zone.

I lost a lot of troopers to fire from the Gangsta's, bikers and Cannibals who all targeted them repeatedly.

Plissken and my sniper (his 2nd in command)  cornered 3 of the bikers including their leader, who carried the container in a crater.

After shooting down the two thugs protecting the leader, things got tense on the other side of the board where the cannibals and Gangsta's where converging on my poor troopers.

my troopers tried to find some hard needed cover in nearby buildings. There they were besieged by the gangsters.

The silvery thing is a kiwi container J-W painted silvery to represent a drop-pod. My troops used it conveniently as cover from the Cannibals.

When rolling a 1 to shoot players need to draw a disaster-card from a specially made deck, and just my luck that I drew the awakening of an nuclear altered giant lizard in the next building...

Somehow the Gansta's managed to get hold of the container by shooting down the biker-boss while Plissken was in hot pursuit.

 Plissken and his sniper (the only survivors of my team) shot up the remaining gangers, those not eaten by the Dino or shot down by the Cannibals and also eaten.

Plissken called in de evac chopper and they made good their escape!

A great game with some deceptively simple rules, beautiful terrain and a lot of fun.

Meanwhile on the table next to us, Michiel and Toby played an Epic Game of X-wing, which I would like to have partaken in but I had too much fun playing PEW-PEW.

After our first game 2 other players turned up and so we played a second game in which I used my Mystery Inc mini's more of which in Part 2 anytime soon.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: