Trudging along with the 2nd Batallion of the 6th Legere

2nd Batlallion of the 6th Legere's Command

Just a quick little snap shot.  I got my shipment from GMB Flags just yesterday! I was like a little kid at Christmas!  This was my test base for my light infantry.  Today I will spend a good several hours of solid paint time now that the Thanksgiving holiday has wound down for me.  I had to cater a small feast for 13 people.

Anyhow stay tuned.  I will have some more updates shortly.  I even started to put a bit of paint on one of my 13th Chasseurs.  I have opted for the Elite Company models for these.  I just love the Colpacks on those models.  I do have the Cylindrical Shako's as well. I can make that final decision later.

The Guns of April and my French Leger

The Guns of April Project coming to AdeptiCon 2012!

 Greetings all! I am still alive and yes I am still painting.  I have just been somewhat lazy.  Well not really lazy.  Just different priorities.  The wife and I are in the process of buying a house which is lengthy and stressful.  And to top it off I have returned to school in my spare time.  Throw in overtime at work and I have been a busy boy!

BUT, not too busy to continue my great hobby!  Painting toy soldiers!  I have signed on with a very talented pool of hobbyists to bring a nice bit of Historical War-gaming to AdeptiCon this upcoming year.  We will have more details on the where and when but we have space reserved for our project which will take place one evening there.  With the personalities involved, just watching the game should be great fun.  I know I am excited to participate in it.  But I must also point out that there is some serious talent among the painters and I an honored to be a part of this.

I have been volunteered by my fellow commanders to take the lead on the French Army.  So be on the look out for more work in progress shots and maybe even a few how to's.  If you want to follow this project have a look at The Guns of April.

My first unit of French Leger (Light Infantry) will be lead by these fine fellows!

Up for Auction this week...

Sadly it is true.  I am listing some of my Napoleonics up for auction on Ebay.

 First up is this fine fellow.  General Sir Lowry Cole.  

This fine fellow can be found here:

Sir Lowry Cole Auction

 And here is the centerpiece to my auctions this week.  My 95th Rifles.  I have had this unit painted up for just about 2 years. Not my best work by far but I am still proud of them.  It actually pains me to see these lads go.  But I figure they would be better off in a good home, constantly fighting battles against the French.

You can add to your long range firepower and accuracy by adding this lot to your army! The auction can be found here: The 95th Rifles

Soo close! Damn your eyes!

So here they are. Soo very close to being ready for basing. I just have to paint their water bottles up. Maybe touch up the colors on the pom-poms. And a slight touch up on their cuffs and they are good to go. From there I will proceed to finish out the unit for LaSalle.  I have a few others in great coats I have been putting some base layers on as I go.

I don't have much more to collect for the army.  They are part of a Peninsular French force from LaSalle, based on 50mm bases.  From there I have also begun to add an Organic Brigade of Light Horse as well.  After all, what are the French without more Cavalry and Artillery?

On a side note, my copy of Warhammer Historicals: Waterloo arrived today in the post.  Upon handling this heavy tome of hobby goodness... I was in awe.  Honestly I haven't read any yet.  But I have slowly devoured every photo of incredible miniatures in this book.  And managed to browse the hobby section on painting your troops.  All good stuff so far!

3rd Armored Division perhaps?

I am currently playing around with quickly(HA) painting up a US Armored Company for Flames of War.  I still have yet to fully finish painting an army of mine over 1000 points.  This is just a little test work in progress on one of my Stuarts from the list I came up with.  I have taken more of a sharper highlight approach which I don't normally do on 15mm.  And then tried to dirty the tanks up a bit.  I dunno, just pristine armor doesn't do it for me.  I like the look of some mileage on the boys.

Now if only I could find a 15mm Telly Savalas chewing on a stogie... I would be a happy man!

Slight touch up..

So I did a little touch up on the base of infantry I am testing out. All of these are dipped. I touched up their skin and added their eyes and prepared the muskets for the metal.  More to come. And caution, the image is huge!

Currently on the workbench...

As the Heroes of Armageddon winds down to it's last few days I have taken back up the brushes to work on my Napoleonics. My true passion in miniature painting at this time. Here are some French Fusiliers I am playing with.  All but 2 are dipped for their base coats. I've had a hard time finding my groove on these guys. For some reason the British were easier.  I guess white is just an intimidating color for me to paint as I never feel I get it right. More to come.  I will put up some pics of my Flames of War Polish from Nationals soon as well.

Steel Legion Complete

As you can see both of the command squads have been finished. Actually they have been finished for a few weeks now and in the care of Dave Taylor.  I had to rush these bad boys out as I had 5 days until the US National's at HistoriCon for Flames of War and I had a whole Polish Army to paint.

Anyhow, there are only a few weeks left for us to take donations for Heroes of Armageddon. So please if you can, dig in to those PayPal accounts and try to give at least $5. More if you can. And make a donation today!

Heroes of Armageddon - Steel Legion Update

Just wanted to drop a quick update on the Steel Legion for my portion of the Army. I need to highlight up the tunics some more, touch up the black areas and highlight them, highlight the weapons, and clean up and highlight up the leather.  After that it's on to the fiddly bits light the arm patch, plasma coils,  and base details.

I spent a large portion of the day airbrushing the base color on 350+ Polish Infantry. I will add a pic later on of their progress this week.

Flames of War - Early War Nationals Army

So here is my big project behind the Heroes of Armageddon.  1750 points of Early War Polish love!  This will be the army I bring to Nationals at Historicon this year.  What's that you say? It's in just a little over a month? Oh and I haven't started painting the 300+ infantry models and 19 guns? Yup.  You are right!

I have the HQ with Mortars, 3 Piechoty Platoons with Light Mortars and AT Rifles, 1 HMG attachment, 3 platoons of 3 AT Guns, 1 Light Gun Platoon, 1 Light Howitzer Platoon, and 1 Infantry Gun Platoon.  Oh and I have to add limbers for the heavier gun teams...

Yeah, I need to go paint some more.  So keep an eye out and wish me luck!

Small Steel Legion Update

I just wanted to give you guys a brief glimpse on where I am at with the Steel Legion for the Heroes of Armageddon project. I have 2 command teams I am painting up.  I am still in the base coat and shading phase but I have also been adding an additional layer here and there as I go to see how things will look.  My deadline is tight on this project as I have this due at the end of the month.  One week after that I have a MASSIVE project due as well I will be documenting heavily here on the blog...

Stay tuned to find out what it is and see updates on the Steel Legion.  And please donate!

The Steel Legion

As some of you know I am part of the team that brought you the Stormwarden's project last year. Having painted the Chaplain and Librarian for that army. It's that time of year again when I put aside my stuff one work on some 40k for charity.

This year I am on Dave Taylor's team for the Steel Legion. What am I working on this year you ask? I have 2 Command Squads for the Infantry Platoons. Nothing fancy this year and no major conversions from me. But above is the 2 commands prior to priming. I will be posting weekly updates to keep things moving.

Remember to dig deep and donate this year! With all of the disasters happening around the world, Doctor's Without Borders is a great cause to help support!

Shermans 99% Complete

So I thought these were completely finished. But then after loading the pictures up into Photoshop I noticed the cable on the Sherman in the middle is not painted. So that will be finished this week. Sadly this shot doesn't give the pigments on them any justice. I am currently working 12 hour shifts at work so I am dead tired when I get home. No time for painting until Thursday. All I have to finish now is the rifles and webbing on the US Riflemen and static grass their bases up along with the Grenadiers. And then I can finally start on my Early War Polish Infantry for Nationals.

What's on the painting table?

Just a little visual update. I will have the Grenadiers 100% complete this weekend along with the Shermans and US Rifle Platoon. I will post a more in depth update then.

Now to finish basing

I am in the home stretch on the grenadiers. They are all painted up and just need some basing. I started to use my Vallejo basing pumice but after a mishap when I dropped the entire command base in I decided I needed to roll with regular fine sand. :( Luckily I ran to the bathroom in a mad dash to wash them off. And I believe I scared the hell out of my wife when I screamed too.

I will put up a pic when they are all finished up and get some nice close ups for you all.

Meanwhile this Saturday is another FoW Tournament that I will be playing in with my Fallschirmjager for Late War. Except I am trying something new and bringing emplacements and defensive structures. I will be sure to post some results up here and try to get some pics. I am really stoked about this list so good luck to me!

Grenadiers are almost done...

Here is a shot of some of this week's progress on my painting table. I should have the whole platoon finished by Saturday. I need to finish up the weapons and do a wash over them and the pouches. And finally their helmets. And of course basing!

And yes I know they are out of focus in the front and back. I am still playing with my new camera that I got and it's settings :)

A little test paint...

So tonight I decided to throw a little paint on one of my Plastic Perry Miniatures French. I have been doing nothing but working on flames of war for some time and I let my Napoleonics suffer. After seeing my friend Dave Taylor actually put up a post on his blog of the progress he has made on his Napoleonic British (see it here), I decided to test out a basic job on one of my French. I originally had started on a British Army, but the more I look around, everyone local in my state has started (or plan to start) a British Army for LaSalle. Being the lunatic that I am, I have slowly been building up the French. So now I have 2x 28mm Napoleonic Armies in the making... And I realize that is well over 500 models to paint. Dear god what have I done?!

As you can see Dave has done some wonderful conversion work on his army and it has inspired me. I am anxiously waiting for my first box of the Victrix French to begin chopping up and converting. I have done it with various other plastic kits in the past like my Stormwarden Librarian.

Anyhow below is the basic outline for the French. I may roll with Foy's 1st Division at Salamanca. I need to do a little more research. But you get the idea...

Nothing special...

As the title says, nothing special, just some progress from tonight. This is just shy of half of the grenadiers on my desk. I am happy with their skin, now I am going through and painting all webbing and pouches black. After that I will start painting all of their accessories and weapons. And finally add highlight or two on their uniforms and base them up. More to come!

Another tournament down...

This past weekend I played in the Early War Tournament at Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD. Sadly it was supposed to be a National Qualifier, but only 4 people showed, including myself. Out of the 4 only 1 was from the local gaming club. The rest of us were from The Icehouse Warriors.

So this was my 5th Tournament. And I still keep placing in the bottom 50% :( It seems to always be because I get soo wrapped up in certain points in the game that I go out of order and ruin my turn. This happened to me several times in my final game against a British Matilda Company and it cost me horribly. I went from being in 1st place over all on the tournament to failing 3 platoon checks in a row in the final turn, only to then fail a command check and lose the game in my turn 8 as the defender in fighting withdraw. :( such is my luck.

A big thank you to my good friend Dave Taylor for letting borrow a bunch of his panzers. I was diagnosed with Carpel Tunnel Syndrome in both of my hands the day after my last post about getting ready. So under Dr's orders I was not allowed to hobby for some time. But I am back at it!

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17 Days, 1500 Points, 1 Tournament...

And nothing is painted! HA! My kind of challenge! Usually if I push my self with these last minute projects, this is where my hobby magic mojo kicks in, and I finally get things done!

There is a 1500 pt Flames of War - Early War Qualifier Tournament being held at Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie on Saturday the 22nd and I will be in attendance with my good friend Rob. I have yet to play a single game of Early War. In fact I will soon be approaching my 1 year anniversary of playing Flames of War. So I am still relatively new. But I have played enough games this year to know what I like and have a much better grasp on my play style.

So what list will I be fielding? I know I will have my Stuka's, PzIIIe's, PzII's, and at least 1 Leichte Pionier Platoon. Possibly supported by a Kradschutezen Platoon, Heavy Panzerspah Patrol, or even a Schutzen Platoon. Now if you haven't seen Blitzkrieg this is all probably Greek to you. But I will start posting updates on my assembly and painting process tomorrow. My thoughts are you will see one extreme or the other as far as army composition. Either primarily armor based, or the opposite with giant hordes of infantry. I typically prefer a mix of everything.

Currently I am awaiting some replacement bits for my Panzers for Early War. Along with an order of all the motorcycles and troop transports I will need which will be here Friday. Otherwise the bulk of my armor is assembled and ready to be primed and painted. The kicker is the infantry. I have been cleaning and preparing some "Pioniers" for early war.

Tonight's goal - Finalize the army list. And if I have all the models built in time, maybe play a test game with them this Sunday!

Wünscht mir Glück!