French Fusiliers and a In the Heart of Africa Game

Hello,

I haven't posted in nearly a month, but I promise to post more often.  I was busy though.  I finished a 20 man group of French fusiliers for Sharp Practice games.  They're a mix of Perry plastics and Front Rank metals.

Here they are standing in a block.

Here they are going the wrong direction.

These are some of the Perry plastics.

Perry plastics in great coats.  I'll be painting more of these in the future, super quick with no uniform details.

Here's Front Rank advancing.

Here's some Front Rank guys in the marching pose.

I gave them a Foundry officer.  He's a little shorter than the rest of them.  I'll call him Aalis, which is short for Adelais.

I painted one Grenadier too; he's Front Rank too, I think.

I did play a game of In the Heart of Africa, put on by our great game umpire Dave.  I controlled the Colonials versus a bunch of natives and Arabs.

I had one group of native spear men, four Sudanese rifles, a group of Askaris with muskets, a leader (Dr. Livingston) and two white men friends, and some Sudanese soldiers.  Our goal was to protect the four baggage tokens.

I felt that their best plan was to swing around and attack one flank.  They could avoid alot of gunfire damage prior to swarming my guys and massacring them.

Once they had committed to the flank, I moved the troops into a new line facing them.  I

Here's the troops forming their new line; you can't see most of the enemy.

My plan of avoiding contact and slowing move my line backwards together with their slow movement worked great.  The ragged line was terrific at focusing fire on one enemy unit at a time and wiping them out.

Here's the final shot.  The colonials only lost maybe one or two Askaris, when the attackers had suffered such brutal fire, that they had no choice of but to retire.  The native Arab force rolled terribly for movement and probably should have attacked the shorter distance straight accross the table with a skirmish screen.  I thought their plan was great, but it just didn't work out this time.

Here's some random pics near the end of the game, I kept forgetting to take photos with my crappy Barbie camera.

The French men earlier were posing on my first attempt at teddy bear fur terrain.  I ump'd a large Sharp Practice game at the local game shop Twin Suns, but only remembered to take one Barbie cam pic.

Till next time, cherished viewer, when I should have more French voltiguers, mounted Dragoons, 40K Mordian Imperial Guardsmen, and a couple post-apocalyptic survivors completed.

love, 

Baconfat

Reaper Nova Corps Bones, Fallout Vault Surviver, Nun with a Gun, Paper Tank, and Fuzzy WAB

Hello Dearest Viewer,

I didn't finish very many minis since the last post, but I will show you what I did.

I bought some of the Reaper Bones, that I've seen on the internet.  I thought they would be resin-like, but they were more of a softer plastic in feel.  These are some of Reaper's Nova Corp trooper.  They have no fluff, so you have to make your own.

I mostly stole the paint scheme from "ErikB" of Lead Adventure Forum fame, but he stole it from "Froggy the Great".  Both gentlemen painted their models better.

If you you look at the rear of the models, you'll see how the plasticy bones can show up bent.  I can't figure out how to fix it; they might be the same plastic as Clix or the awful mageknight models.

The guy on the left is metal, the three on the right are supposedly identical models.

Here's a comparison pic with other sci-fi models:  Prince August, Reaper, Khurassan, Reaper, GW

Two very nice metal Reaper models.  A female, which I assumed to some sort of martial arts expert, with no shoes and fingerless gloves; A nun with a large pistol.

I tried to paint the first model like a Fallout surviver from Vault 7.

Here is a paper copy of GW Predator tank.  I didn't make it, but I did buy it, un-smash it, add some pieces and paint it.    The blue prints were in an issue of White Dwarf, I just can't remember which one.  I wonder if one could use it to play 40k in a GW store.  

The smoke stacks and plastic screw anchors.  It has a plastic gun, hedgerow cutter, and back door stolen from my bits bin.

Rear view, so you see how bad the tracks look.

Group shot of everyone together.

I did get in a WAB game with a friend, but you only get three pictures as they were the only ones that were not too dark or blurry.

We used Armies of Antiquities 2 with 2500 points each; I took later Medieval Hungarians and the other general took Italo-Normans.  Hungarians: 4 crossbow units, 1 bow, 1 handgun, spearmen, halbards, and the atrocious mercenary knigts.  The Normans had 3 bow units, two units of mounted knights, and 3 dismounted knights.

The Normans decided to perform a frontal assault and crush my weak forces, but the 57 skirmishing crossbowmen were causing too many casualties.

Hungarians                                                                                   Italo-Normans

The Normans pulled back and attempted to attack the Hungarian wings, but it was too late the continual 4' long crossbow line was slowly destroying his smaller units.  

Here's the valiant Normans charging toward my right.  My handguuners ran away, but the spearmen kept the enemy held long enough for my knights to charge back at them.

Norman foot and mounted knights nearing some useless handgunners.

I probably won't use this army list again; it didn't seem fair to the other player.  He said he felt, "like a dog trying to bite a porcupine".

 I was curious to how well an army of over 60% skirmishers would do.  The do well, too well, the killed all but five of the Normans and only suffered eight casualties.  

Rest in Peace, my non-valient warriors.

I wonder how an army of all crossbow men with a general would do.  I may have to paint another 90 crossbowmen.

Till next time, when I hope to have a bunch of French Napoleonic Infantry finished.

love,

Baconfat

Female Zombie Killers, French 3rd Hussars, Prussian Officers, Lady Spies, Fall-Out Vault Surviver, Blofeld, Mechwarrior, Citadel Robot, and a Dacian

Hello Dear Distinguished Viewer,

I have an assortment of painted miniatures for you this week.



First are some female zombie killers.  They're from Wargames Factory's "The Women" boxed set.  I had every intention of making the African American lady out to be Mishan from the Walking dead, until I had realized I had glued a shotgun to the wrong model.

Here are some French 3rd Hussars.  They are Perry plastic models and a pleasure to paint.  That said I may never paint another damned Hussar.  They took forever to paint.  I'm not sure their uniforms are to blue, I read their uniform was Argentine blue, but everybody else on the internet paints there's gray.

Their sabertaches (French for man purse) won't stay glued on.  I would glue them on before painting next time.

Hussars running around pointlessly

I've only now realized, that I forgot to give them carbines and I didn't paint the horn blower's sword hilt.


Here's two Perry metal Prussian Officers close to vegetation that is not historical, but livens up their boring bases.   I think the Perry with only one arm must have sculpted these on a bad they.  One's face is ugly like Chunk from the movie Goonies.  The other has a huge chunk of metal between his head and his raised sword.  There the only two Perry miniatures that have ever displeased me.

More Reaper models.  The bald chap looks alot like the James Bond villian Blofeld and there's a couple female spies from Reaper, they'll probably get eaten by zombies.

A couple monsters from the out of print Doom Boardgame, by Fantasy Flight?  I'm painting their bases black until I come up with a decent theme for more Doom monsters in the painting cue.  I didn't paint their irises yet, because I forgot.

Here's a old Mechwarrior toy.  It has to be probably a 1/72 or smaller scale; at 1/56 or 1/48 it should between 6-8" tall; I know I have some; but, it is about the same size as a Games Workshop space marine dreadnaught.  I didn't spend much time on it doing things like removing mold lines.

That's a 28mm clone trooper head on his base.

An old long out of production Citadel robot.  I apologize for the dull paint job.  The ones in the old White Dwarf adds were so colorful.  I have five more to paint some day, so I may paint them up correctly like clowns.

the cild is included for scale, an adult may have been a better choice

And lastly a group of random miniatures.  First a Reaper model, who I tried to paint up like a Fall-out video game vault surviver, but the yellow stripes came out awful.  A Reaper cat lady.  A Wargame Factory plastic male surviver.  A Dacian leader with a sword, who somehow snuck into the painting cue.

could the second from the right be Mrs. Blofeld?

Till next time when I hope to show you some futuristic Nova Corp troops and a few Burgundian archers.

love,
Baconfat

Gameday 2014

Hello,

I didn't get a chance to post any painted mini picks this, but I did attend one of the two local miniature conventions, Gameday.  Here are a few pictures from some of the games a friend took.


A Darkest Africa game from the master of scenario design Dave.

A 15mm Napoleonics game with lots of well painted eye candy.

A medieval Japanese skirmish game with an incredible selection of buildings.

Part of a large WW2 aircraft battle, with amazing models

A well designed Sword and the Flame that had the players cheering.

A suprise for the players, zombies unexpectadly appear.

 A pulp action adventure with an exciting prison break.

 A really large sea battle, with untold quantities of ships.

A couple scenes from the biggest Flames of War game ever.

 I used my trench table for the last time.

 You can't tell but the burnign smoke clouds have flickering tea lights inside, to make them look like they're really burning.

Till Sunday, when I hope to have miniatures to show you.

love, Baconfat

Voltigeurs, Heritage Rebasing, and the IG Steals a Clone Speeder

Hello Dearest Humans,

Today I have more minis painted.  When a couple local gamers decided to finally try Sharp Practice, I realized I did not have very many single based French.  We needed French, so I painted some.

First are some plastic Perry voltigeurs.  They were a pleasure to paint.

 Here are some Front Rank (I think) voltigeurs.  They're repainted used minis.  Some are still on round bases, because I couldn't pry them all off they're coins without breaking them.   I know because I'll because I'm having having a funeral/burial in the back yard tonight for the guys that died during the transfer.

 I love repainting other peoples minis; it's as if the primer is my painting guide.  I did not repaint these used Heritage minis.  I was happy with just getting them off their huge washers (seen below).  I prefer square bases, as they're easier to form up into tighter units and they take up less shelf space.

They haven't eaten in awhile.  The guy in the middle is even delirious, thinking he is carrying a flag.

Highlight of the post.

A couple light French troops from Foundry.  I don't know why I painted them, they're the only two I have.

Here's the comparison pic that the world has been clamoring for.  Front Rank (once again probably), Perry, Heritage.

Front Rank, Perry plastic, Heritage.

 While painting and re-basing French, I was distracted by something shiny.   When I awoke from my wandering, I realized that I had painted a GW flagellant.  I think he's actually for the Mordhiem game, but he'll fit in just fine with the rest of my crazed religious zealots.

The eye paint is bad, he's got cat eyes.

Here is a Infantry Support Platform speeder my Imperial Guard models stole from the Empire.  After beheading the previous soulless owners (clones) the Imperial Guard motor pool guys applied a quick paint job to hide the theft.

Zoom

Here's what it use to look like, complete with bent gun barrels.

I stole this picture off Google Images

Here's a picture comparing it to other speeders.  I don't know why I didn't use guard model head with eye protection.  They're going to have a hard time seeing if they drive very fast.  I will keep them on a shelf separate from the Guard Ground Safety Monitor or I'll probably have to fill out some hazard identification reports.

Space Marines, Stolen ISP Speeder, Ancient Imperial Army Speeder

Here's a picture of their rear ends.

How do these stupid things land?

Till next time, I have no idea what I'll paint.

love Baconfat