Tribal Award by Galloping Major

As a thank you for completing my massive charity sale on behalf of a deceased chum I awarded myself an prize comprising of a tribe of Huron warriors for my new French & Indian project.

They are by Galloping Major, 5 packs of 6 figures at a tenner each plus postage and measure in at 31-32mm from foot to top of head so I would consider them to be heroic sized 28's. I also received a 'freebie' character figure.

http://www.gallopingmajorwargames.com/

 

 

These will form the native allies to my French forces for the French & Indian War but will have to wait for painting as I'm just about to pack up for a month in the sun.

 



My Day at Carronade 2016

Yesterday I visited one of the best of the Scottish shows, Carronade in Falkirk.

I ran, with the help of a couple of friends, a trade stand some of which was in support of charity.

After a slow start we did manage to clear away a fair bit of the goodies that we had on view raising about £140 for charity, £20 of which went to a neighbouring charity stand in support of Motor Neuron Disease and another £20 to the Falkirk Club for their own charity so about £100 was added to the Combat Stress fund.

I also sold a few of my own un-needed items which went towards my AWI project, my 10mm WW2 project and my new Sharp Practice project.

The AWI project saw the addition of 6 packs of Kallistra British regulars at £30.

My 10mm WW2 project gained some MDF buildings from the Pendraken (or was it Minibits) Bargain Box, £42 worth discounted down to a tenner.

My new Sharp Practice project saw the purchase of the new edition of the rules at £25 (holiday reading).

I also snapped up a unit of French infantry for the French and Indian Wars which I could sneak into my AWI project as well. The figures are by Crann Tara and cost me £30 on the day.

Finally my supplies section received support from Magnetic Displays at £8.

A nice but exhausting day out so I'm sure all of you will not mind that I'm off to the Sunshine State next weekend. A month in the sun, no kids, no family, no wargames, no problem.

Cart Blanche or in this case Cart Vert

I recently agreed to preview some newer products from an MDF company (whom I'm sure you know). A fairly hefty parcel landed on my doorstep soon afterwards and here is some of what came to follow. They are all suitable for 28mm figures.

I first looked at the Engineers Cart, a Warbases production endorsed by Two Fat Lardies (hi Rich) and priced at £6.

The kit comprised of a couple of sheets of laser cut MDF and a lump of resin cunningly formed into a wagon load of engineering goodies.

The MDF easily broke down into a number of components.

These parts went together quite easily but I did spot one little hiccup (which is the bane of many MDF models). The planking of the cart sides could be visible from both inside and outside the wagon body. I put the planking detail to the inside as this is the most visible at tabletop height.

The kit comes sans chevaux but that is easily solved by the selection of one of several suitable horses available from Warbases. This adds another £2 or £2.50 depending on your choice.

A coat of paint transforms them thus.

Note: The planking is only on one side of the MDF so I marked the blank side in a similar fashion with a lining pen.

I painted this one in French Artillery Green as I expect it to join a friends Napoleonic French Army but it is sufficiently generic to enhance many armies and periods.

So, what do you think of my Cart Vert?

The next pack I looked at was a French 6 pdr artillery piece including a limber in the Gribeauval style. It is priced at £4.50.

This glued up very nicely, only took a few minutes.

I made one small addition to the gun. I added a couple of little brackets over the trunnions. I made these from spare pieces of card from the other kits. It adds just a little bit of detail which improves the appearance enormously.

The gun and limber paint up nicely.

(Painting Tip: I basecoat bronze gun barrels in a chocolately brown before dry brushing with bronze and highlighting with gold)

I'm not sure yet whether I am going to complete this model as limbered or unlimbered.

I'll need to source some gunners. I think there are some in the Perry range.

I also added a couple of horses as you do!

All in all a nice little kit. (Wonder if there are 12 pdrs in the pipeline?)

Of course Artillery doesn't last long in a game if you don't have an ammunition supply.

A problem easily solved with an Ammunition Wagon (£3.00).

Or even some Caissons (£4.00 each).

Of course you'll need some more horses (£2.00 to £2.50 each).

All these horses need a bit of shoeing from time to time.

No problem! Call for the Blacksmith.

Sorry, but the Blacksmith isn't quite available at the moment but his Field Forge (£4.00) is.

I made a couple of little changes to the kit. I changed the screen between the bellows and the coals from a rectangular shape to a curved shape. All the illustrations I could find supported this. I also added a few small pebbles with a cunning little paintjob to suggest a hot coalbed.

A nice little set which can be modelled both limbered up and deployed ready for forging.

Since the Artillery get all these nice support vehicles the rest of the Army also gets into the act.

There is not One:

Not Two:

But Three different Baggage Wagons (all at £4.50 each).

Again, they are an easy build.

And, they paint up nicely.

All the based models above are on MDF bases, from Warbases and are 50mm wide and a variety of lengths from 100mm, 110mm and 120mm.

The paintjobs are very simple (apart from the horses). None of the MDF was primed or undercoated. A straight basecoat of French Artillery Green (Howard Hues), metal parts base coated black, dry brushed gun metal, canvas in, well, canvas colours, everything washed in Army Painter Acrylic Soft Tone and matt varnished with Winsor & Newton Galeria Artists Matt Varnish.

My painting style for horses is detailed here:

http://jim-duncan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/a-troopers-tale.html

Gravel and Sand from a wee box in my bottom drawer and static grass from Kallistra.

Now is a good time to browse the many new products which many of the trade suppliers and manufacturers are diversifying into. There's a whole new world out there. A good place to start would be Warbases, I'll be at their stand first thing this Saturday morning coming at Carronade.

Rolls Royce for Size (Scale or Whatever)

This is a quick size comparison: (for a webfriend)

 

The Rolls Royce Armoured Car here is 1:56 (or 28mm).

 

The figure (Valiant Miniatures) is 1:72, often equated to 20mm.

 

 

Gamewise these are just about useable together, particularly if you base the figure appropriately.

However, I do understand that Valiant Miniatures are large-ish compared to other 1:72 manufacturers so the size mismatch may not improve.

Can anyone help here?



Your Car Is Ready M'Lud

Here's a preview of a new release from Warbases. It's a 1:56 scale (28mm if you like) model of a Rolls Royce Armoured Car and is an absolute steal at £9. Have a look at others offerings in this scale and you will soon rush to snap this one up.

One of my chums wanted one to add to his 'Dads Army' collection so I finished this one off in a green and black camouflage scheme reminiscent of World War Two. You could use this model for early World War One in north west Europe before the trenches got in the way, the Middle Eastern Front out Palestine way or even the Easter Rising in Ireland. Purists will say that you need wire wheels for WW1 or a different turret for the Middle East but that doesn't bother me.

The car comes as an MDF kit complete with resin turret and, like I say, a snip at nine quid.

The kit breaks down into two lasercut MDF sheets, two sheets of lasercut thin card and a resin turret. An instruction sheet can be downloaded from Warbases. I would recommend studying the instruction sheet for a minute although I found that the actual build was mostly a doddle although I did make a couple of little boo-boos along the way.

Construction starts with the three largest pieces of MDF which can be released from the sheet with a little bit of encouragement from a sharp hobby knife. Do this over a cutting sheet or a piece of hardboard and not the dining room table (Mother/Wife will not be happy).

OK, what bit goes where? It's actually quite hard to get this wrong as very often the pieces will only fit one way round, think of it as a cleverly designed 3-D jigsaw.

There now, that wasn't difficult, was it?

A couple of end plates go on this end.

Then a couple of side bits.

And two bigger bits on top. These form the arches for the rear wheels.

Put that bit away to dry and find the bit that looks like a robots face. (Psychiatrists can ignore that statement)

Turn it over and add the bits that make a box and a V-shape.

Now find the buck-toothed robot with the big nose and stick it on top.

I sometimes worry about my sense of humour, you shouldn't.

This cunningly shaped piece gets covered in a skin of thin card and then glued onto the chassis which you put aside a short while ago.

If I was to admit to a boo-boo here it would be that I should have got the card skin flush with the top surface but I didn't. I fixed that bit later.

The next two pieces adds the distinctive Rolls Royce radiator shape which is comforting as up to this point the model is literally an abstract 3-D jigsaw thing-ish shape.

The addition of the bonnet skins and the rest of the bodywork skins confirms the illusion.

Be careful with the flaps over the radiator as they are slightly fragile. I toughened them up with a touch of brushed on superglue down the angle of the hinge.

Turn the whole thing over and add the axles and the chassis ribs which beefs up the whole rig.

Add the running boards.

The mud guards and the roof and the spare wheels. I filled the inadvertent gap between the side and the roof with some modelling paste.

And the headlights and the toolboxes.

I built the road wheels but kept them and the turret separate for painting.

At this point I will pause and talk about glues. MDF kits are traditionally associated with white PVA glues. I'm not a great fan of PVA, it takes a long time to dry and I will normally use a different type of glue if I can manage it. However PVA is water soluble and you will never glue your fingers together with it.

Impact adhesives are useful too but can stain or otherwise seep out and interfere with painted surfaces so I try to minimise their use in MDF kits.

My current favourite is brushed-on superglue. It comes in a little bottle with a brush attached to the lid (don't ask me how the brush doesn't clog up), it stinks a little bit, will glue your fingers together but it does dry fast. You do have to be careful in that you have to be very sure that you have the right bit in the right place at the right angle as it is difficult to change your mind after a few seconds.

This is the kind I use.

I know this is a Rolls Royce armoured car but I took a leaf out of Mr Fords book here and painted it black.

That phase didn't last long and the final finish looked like this. I don't want to go into a lot of detail about painting (you will have your own style) but I used a variety of dry-brushing, some wet-brushing, some ink washes, and some highlighting.

How do you think it looks on the tabletop?

The buildings in the background are scratch built by me.

Please comment on this and do not feel afraid to ask questions.