Excellent short on battle of waterloo (only 2 weeks to the bicentenary!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDZGL1xsqzs

Really enjoyed this and frankly can't believe it has so few views -  if you enjoy, please spread as then they may make some more!

I recently ordered the new Blucher rules by Sam Mustafa with the Hundred Days card pack, so look forward to coercing a friend to play a game with me on the weekend after the battle.

Also, although I haven't really posted anything of much late I have actually been doing a fair bit of painting. I now have 2 of the Langton 1:1200 ships complete, pushed along by inspirational reading from Patrick O'Brian (and beautiful models they are too); have made a dent in a few 28mm AWI for Muskets and Tomahawks or Black Powder (I have a great love of the uniforms of this war and am enjoying the excellent Rebellion scenario book recently published by Warlord) and am picking up the brush again on an experiment I started off about 6 months ago - 6mm napoleonics -  starting with, you guessed it, the Allied army at Waterloo.

BSG Centurions Indiegogo - Fornax

Don't use the blog for this often but think this is a cool project worth a bump -  check it out and think about pledging https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/centurions-from-fornax-33mm-sci-fi-miniatures

Kiss Me Hardy Ship Cards (1:1200 Naval Napoleonics)

For some bizarre reason I enjoy making the data cards that naval and spaceship games tend to use. My latest offering is attached -  attractive (and more space efficient) ship cards for the Too Fat Lardies ruleset Kiss Me Hardy.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jfp1peT1x8x-bjL5Fd3E2ddTov-7rcndtftMRl_lFZs/edit?usp=sharing

So far I have only done a card for a 3rd rate 74 but if you want to use them for other ships just do a bit of dragging, dropping, and pasting and find a picture of the ship you need on google. Its all editable with powerpoint and was done on google docs, so is accessible to everyone for free, although you may need to save your own version as I have disabled editing on my 'master copy'. If you're confused about what any of the images etc mean then post in the comments and I'll explain -  too lazy to make a full key.

I haven't finished rigging my Langton ships yet but I like how they're looking (and for the price they better look princely!)

Maybe I'll even post a picture? Haven't been much into my blogging since the pulp flurry a while back...

Firefly figures for Pulp Alley - Alliance Lt and new free trader crew.

More painted up firefly figures for the Pulp alley project. These were actually completed last month but have taken a while to make their way through to the camera.

I'm thinking of running a four player game for my girlfriend and housemates using these and a few of my Pulp figures (I reckon I can get away with using some of my 30s/40s gangster figures as 'space gangsters'). Just need to stat them up and choose a scenario. We've been playing a lot of D&D recently so I think a miniatures game would actually go down pretty well as there's not a huge different (except for PA having much smoother and more interesting mechanics than D&D combat).

The last four figures in this post form another rival free trader crew (like the Firefly crew). Who do you think should be the captain of the crew? I haven't decided yet so leave some thoughts.

The Lt to lead the Alliance Feds faction. Converted from Hasslfree's colonel Michaels with the head from an Artisan Nazi. The uniform is an approximate match to the series. 

I arsed up the piping by painting it straight...

I think this may be the best I've managed to paint a figure so far (bear in mind this image is about 2-3 times the size of the actual figure). I tried some new ideas with the white i.e really subtle highlights and transitions, using very thin layers. The face came out nice (good sculpting more than anything) and I managed to pull off some nice freehand on the armour and gun. There's some shine to kill with a varnish though. 

Another Hasslfree figure. Kev White (the sculptor for HF) is a genius. Easily my favourite sculptor. I tried to go for a high sheen faux leather jacket by painting it with extreme white highlights. Works slightly better IRL.  I found a good jeans colour on this figure so will no doubt use again. 

Heresy figure - shame its not a HF! Still not bad. 

I think the shiny black leather boots came out nicely. Getting the hang of this technique (painted this after the figure above). Sponge chipping effect on the kneepads. 

Skin's not bad either. Flesh and black are still my two big hurdles to overcome. I think, with trepidation, I can say I can paint white now though. 

I don't think the firefly universe has intelligent robots but when I saw this figure on the Lead Adventure forums I had to get a few! I figure its semi-intelligent (so not sentient like the Star Wars droids) and gives the mechanic (still to paint) some technical computing backup. 

More Firefly (pulp alley project)

I finished painting up Zoe over the weekend. I now have the core of the crew in terms of the 'away team' painted up (Mal, Jayne, Zoe) and some opposition - 8 Alliance troopers (I did 3 more at the same time as Zoe) with an Alliance officer well on the way.  This puts me in a good place to play a game once I've finished putting together a bit more of my battlesystems terrain (some of which you can see in the background to the shots).

I've used a Reaper fig. Its not a dead ringer for Zoe but its close enough in my book...

You'll notice that I've 'penned' the edges on my card terrain to help it blend - you can see this nicely on the air duct here. 

The place you don't want to be -  staring down the barrel of Zoe's gun!

The gang together. They scale well - no complaints from me. 

Traditional sepia shot...

Surrounded! but not cowed. 

You can't take the sky from me...

I've been a bit distracted from my pulp project by a certain space western that had an unfortunate case of Kurt Cobain syndrome...

Pulp Alley is a very flexible ruleset and I can see it fitting the firefly universe perfectly, so buckle in for some thrillin' heroics as I run through the first few characters I've painted up from the show. 

Mal and Jayne bite off more than they can chew as they go head to head with a heavily armed squad of Alliance Feds.

Malcolm Reynolds. Browncoat, captain and all round goddam hero. 

From Heresy,  not a bad sculpt but a bit of  shock after all the Copplestone and Hasslefree I've been panting recently. Its Malish but not a dead ringer and the boots for example are a bit crude. 

I went for colours reminiscent to those in the show but adapted for the scale.

Jayne Cobb. Foul mouthed mercenary looking for his cut. (Reaper)

Again, not the greatest sculpt in the world -  the face is pretty basic. But, then again, it exists, so yay!

The shirt is meant to say 'blue sun' as in the blue sun corporation but I think the e turned out looking more like an r. So, ironically, now its 'blur sun'! Not quite sure what happened to Jane's eyes either...

Alliance Feds aka 'Purple bellies'. The first 5. These are from Rebel minis (who I think has bought certain rights from Mongoose). As Firefly fans will know, the Alliance feds from the series used left over gear from the Starship Troopers movie. 

The sculpts are a little basic and a bit vague in places, especially the faces. I painted these using a different approach to usual (as they are goons I was less bothered that about them being neat) so used lots of drybrushing and a very limited palette to speed things up. 

Close-up of some of the little bits of detail I bothered to do on the feds. The upside to this approach is that these 5 took me about 3 hours, which is very fast for me. 

Mal posing in front of my new Battlesystems card terrain.  Should get some good use out of this to represent salvage missions, boarding actions etc. Looking forward to popping it all out at some point. 

The smell of cordite hangs heavy in the air. 'Get on the horn and call for reinforcements!'

I've become pretty fascinated by the new ruleset from Ivan Sorenson (five parsecs from home) which merges miniatures wargame and RPG. I'm not a huge fan of the 5 core system the supplement builds on, it looks a bit basic and the lack of stat lines is a big turn-off, but I really want to do some kind of mash-up of pulp alley, 5 parsecs, the firefly boardgame and then mix in RPG elements... just need to find the time to write it...

On the plus side my boardgame group just progressed to RPGs (first game of D&D last week -  which we thoroughly enjoyed) so I may be able to tempt them with the Firefly RPG in time.

Well, until next time - I'll be in my bunk.

Thrilling Adventures: More Pulp figures painted up and ready to throw down.

Without much ado here are some more pics of my painted pulp figures for pulp alley (still haven't gotten round to playing, although close on terrain now). They're done using the Dallimore 3 colour method, which gives good results for the time invested - around 2 hours per figure.

Two's company; five's a crowd. Indy and Miranda get to the dig site only to find Santora waiting for them with hired guns in tow. Let the lead fly. (Artisan and Copplestone). 

Faithful companion to Dr Jones: Sallah. (Artisan Figures). 

Hired help: Akhmed. Whether you need a hired gunand or spade, her's there...for a price. (Artisan Figures).

Sabrina Adler: unscrupulous assistant to Dr Reiter (forthcoming). (Hasslefree). 

Originally I painted this figure up with much lighter green combats. It looked way too washed out with the white top and blonde hair so I repainted them much darker, as above. I rarely go back and change things on figures but I think this solved the problem. 

Miranda Radcliffe: Cairo nightclub singer. Her father, Dr Radcliffe is chief archivist at the museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. (Artisan -  shame the sculptor didn't pay as much attention to the face as he should). 

My first attempt at painting stockings/tights. Getting the flesh to grey mix is tricky. Next time I think a little less flesh for the highlight. 

"Nazis. I hate these guys." Dr Jones and companions come face to face with Adler and her nefarious henchmen. 

If you liked these -  leave me a comment. I really should post more but sometimes its hard to find the time...

Copplestone Gangsters (Pulp Alley)

Superb sculpts, superb casts and really easy to paint. Will be getting more copplestone gangsters for sure!

There is a fourth member of the pack -  but I seem to have mislaid them somewhere in the painting process...

I love the brooding menace of this figure. The facial expression is superb and a real pleasure to paint -  if only all minis had such well sculpted faces! I went for quite subtle highlights on the dark suit (rule of thumb -  never paint anything black, just very dark grey) and like how it turned out. They're slightly brighter in person.

As you can see on these figs, I've had a bit of a breakthrough on eyes (basically, I finally used a decent sable brush...) and I really like how it brings them to life.

I was really pleased with how this suit came out. He's a rather dapper fellow. As I've built up confidence with cloth I've started adding in extra folds and creases where I think they should go. The creases on here are about 30% made up.

The gang together. In pulp alley terms they will be the core group (leader with 2 allies) and then I'll bolt on additional allies and followers to match the setting. First adventure is in Egypt, so they need some hired help to make sure they get through the desert ok and don't have to do any actual digging when they get to where their client said the artefact would be...

Need to put a date in the diary with my housemate for the first game. Pretty much there now with figures and terrain. Just a few things to finish up (and the rules to re-read, and story to write).