Rumors of rebel troops looking for shoes

Brigadier General Solomon Meredith, commander of the Iron Brigade, with their color bearer. 

As Blogger's wonderful automated process publishes this update, I'll hopefully be asleep on a plane from Baltimore to Chicago, getting in some last minute zzzzzzzs before the hustle and bustle that will be Adepticon 2013.

This year, as in previous years, I'll be on site to cover the event (well, the historical gaming aspects of the event) for Wargames Illustrated. In addition to the Flames Of War Nationals (Early War), and other Flames Of War tournaments, there are bound to be quite a few folks pushing around historical toy soldiers. Included amongst the latter group are our little band of hobbyists, The Guns Of April.

Friday night we'll be playing our "What if?" 1st day of Gettysburg. I'm not sure where in the venue we'll be, but if you are at the show drop by and say "Hi". We'll be playing from around 7pm til late, after which I'll be taking some more photos for our WI article to appear later in the year.

The miniatures are from the Perry twins, and the flag is from GMB Designs.

Cheers
Dave

Building Better Worlds.

Well, my friend at Secret Weapon Miniatures continues to surprise and delight! If you haven't seen their Tablescapes Kickstarter yet, then head on over now. I'll wait until you get back : )

Misterjustin and the crew at Secret Weapon put out a load of great, top-quality products, and this one promises to be no different.

I've pledged for the 4'x8' set, and was only seconds off getting the early bird deal. That'll teach me to pledge to a project before an hour has elapsed.

"Crowdfunding" is a very interesting thing, and I had told myself that I wouldn't pledge to anther one before anything arrived from the other three I have pledged to arrived. One of them will hopefully be on time (Dream-Forge wave three next month), one is slightly delayed (Free Mars) and one has seen considerable delays, but is now hopefully arriving in a month or so (Massive Voodoo artbook).

This opportunity though, to help out a friend and perhaps get some more gaming in, was too good to resist, and now I'm hoping the Trenchworks board funds....

Cheers
Dave

Starting on the Relic Hunters

In between other projects (and boy, aren't there too many of them) I decided to start blocking out my colors on the Malifaux Relic Hunters I was tempted to purchase last month. Usually I'd have a clear idea of scheme for all the models and then I'd work on them in batches, starting with the darkest colors and layering up.

Most of the scheme has been decided for me (I'm sticking pretty close to the Wyrd "Studio scheme" for this group), so I'm going to have some fun with it by starting with mid-tones, highlighting up, then pushing in some other colors for shades. Fingers crossed it'll work alright.

I couldn't help myself and just had to start highlighting and shading the coat of this Guild Rifleman. Such beautiful models : ) I also enjoyed the detail on the gaiters.

And here's my tester for the bases. I think the freshly laid wood is going to work well against the black, blue, grey, and white scheme.

Cheers
Dave

If it's a war they want...?

After a lot of modeling and painting, our 2013 Guns Of April project is finally nearing completion!

Personally I've converted and painted around 175 models, as has Rob Chandler (whose Confederates you see below). This is a lot of models, and I'm glad to be done.

Here's a quick taster of some of them. Sometime in the next few weeks we'll get a lot more photos up on the Guns Of April blog : )

The 7th Wisconsin in firing line

The 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, dismounted

The 14th Tennessee, who lost over 90% of their men at the Battle of Gettysburg

Brigadier General James J. Archer, born just up the road from me in Havre De Grace, Maryland. 

Studied at Princeton, and also Bacon College in Kentucky. Who knew there was a Bacon College?

Worth the wait?

With all the other fun stuff going on (like finishing off over 170 Union soldiers!), it has been a little tough to get some of my recent Mechanicum constructs painted. Finally, though, I was able to finish this chap. I hope he was worth the wait.

Originally I was thinking his ride was based on some sort of spider body, but now that it's all painted up, I think it more closely resembles some sort of nasty silverfish, or another creepy-crawly that likes to nibble away to the clothes at the back of your closet.

Cheers

Dave