Working on a warehouse for "Welcome to The Big Smoke".

I've been working on a few different things recently (well, four or five different projects - I'm obviously a hobby butterfly). While the washes dry on my Dracosans, and I wait for my bases to arrive for my thudd guns, I've been working on tarting up a great 4Ground Victorian Warehouse.

I got this beast from my friend Nigel while I was visiting the Oldhammer weekend last October, and at the event Rusty challenged me to make it "not look like it's laser-cut MDF". I've been thinking about how to do that, and after finishing up the Sarissa/Warlord La Haye Sainte just before Christmas I felt it was time to get started. I've been working on it over the last week and am now writing up an article for Wargames Illustrated (with photos) describing the things that I feel can be done to enhance an already spectacular building.

But more on that later...

Here's a quick WIP for my first Infamy "kingpin" - The Toad! I hope you like him.

Cheers
Dave

Wargames Illustrated presents The HISTORICON Painting Competition - Year Two

Here's the Public Service Announcement to let you all know that although I'm no longer working full time for Wargames Illustrated, I will be running the Painting Competition at HISTORICON 2014.

Last year was the first year that WI had been involved in the running of the event, and with the promotional and logistical support of the HMGS crew (particularly Heather Blush and the Hobby University team) we had a very successful showing, around 130 entries. For coverage of the 2013 event, check out this link here.

This year will be more of the same (or hopefully more AND MORE), with the categories remaining the same and the medals ready to be draped around the winners necks. The competition will be run on Saturday July 19, between the hours of 9am and 6pm. At the moment it is unsure whether we'll be at the Flames Of War booth in the Vendor Hall, or in the hallway near the event registration.

Entries will be accepted from 9am until 12 noon. Judging will be complete by 4pm and entries can be collected (along with any awards) from 4pm until 6pm. Please note: entries will NOT be accepted earlier than 9am on the Saturday as we have no control over the security of the cases and will not accept liability.

For a rundown on the categories (and other rules) you can check out the Wargames Illustrated website here.

In addition to the custom medals for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places in each of the ten categories, we have three additional prizes:

• Best of Show - the best painted entry into the competition will win this prize.

• Best of Theme - the best painted entry that fits with the theme of the convention (2014 is Big Wars, Little Soldiers - World Wars throughout time) will be judged by the HISTORICON convention director.

• The Iron Cross - sponsored by Battlefront, this will go to the best painted Flames Of War entry, and will be judged by the Battlefront representatives at the show.

I hope to see you in Fredericksburg in a few weeks from now!

Cheers

Dave

Michael Jaques - Chasseur au Cheval

Painting Competitions... Oh My Goodness!

Ten days ago, in my capacity as US Editor of Wargames Illustrated magazine, I ran the "Wargames Illustrated Presents The Historicon Painting Competition". Thanks to all the wonderful promotion work done by many folks before the event, we had 130 entries! That's more than the Crystal Brush had in 2012 (and they were offering $13,000 in prizes). While certainly not all our entries were the same quality as the CB comp, we had plenty of lovingly crafted miniatures in our cases. So many we had to build our back-up case just 15 minutes after entries opened. It can only grow from here : )

Anyway, to take a look at the winning entries, just click HERE.

Then, last Friday, I went on down to Memphis for the North American Games Day for 2013. After some calculations and reminiscing, I worked out I've attended 39 Games Days in my 40 short years (5 in Australia, 2 in Canada, 3 in England, and 29 in the US). I've only missed to of these cool events since I've been in America (both in 2005).

This year the event promised to be a wonderful reinvention of Games Day, a re-imagining if you will.

It was much like the other 38 Games Days I've attended. Was I disappointed by that? No. In my humble opinion, if you're promoting all the various aspects of "GW Hobby" at a GW Games Day, then you're probably doing it right. Cycle out some of your older events, introduce some new ones, bring back the old ones in a few years, once they have a champion to make them fresh again. Ebb and flow, that kind of thing.

Amusingly enough, I had half a dozen GW staffers ask me what I thought of the new Games Day. I don't think they were too surprised when I expressed the opinion above.

But you all know I go to GD primarily to catch up with old friends, meet new friends, and talk all day about cool toy soldiers. That was all achieved this year, so a win in my book : )

Additionally I was lucky enough to pick up a Silver Demon for my Lamenters Contemptor Dreadnought. It was nice to get another Demon. After my drought the last few years I was starting to think I was "over the hill". 

UPDATE: HERE's a link to the photobucket of my friend Brice, who captured many of the entries on camera. 

And now, it's back to the grind ; )

Cheers
Dave

Crazy Busy, and a few promos...

Things have been pretty crazy around here lately, lots of work, lots of summer family fun, lots of hobby, and lots of travel! It's been so busy that I haven't actually completed anything. I had to pull the plug on getting the Riptide finished for Golden Demon. It was looking close, but I just knew it wouldn't be completed to my standards in time. I'll still be finishing it, just a few days "late".

Anyway, on to telling you about a few Facebook pages you should check out. The first is the brand new Wargames Illustrated Facebook page. Started just over a week ago, Dan and I were busy over the weekend, updating it pretty constantly from the largest historical gaming convention in the US - HISTORICON. If you are on the Facebooks, head to the page, "like" us, and check out our photos and videos : )

Another page I urge you to check out is the Grindhouse Games Facebook page. A few years back I painted up a bunch of the wonderful INCURSION miniatures and auctioned them off for charity. You can check out all the Incursion posts here. Well, Jim and the Grindhouse crew are putting together a Kickstarter to re-launch Incursion (and the supplement SNAFU) the way they always pictured doing it. The Grindhouse Games Facebook page has been filled with lots of info and very cool new art! I suggest you head over there and keep up to date.

Hopefully posting might return to normal next week, after a fun-filled weekend in Memphis at Games Day. Wish me luck on my Armies On Parade entry (or if you are there, be sure to vote for me).

Cheers
Dave

Wargames Illustrated presents the HISTORICON Painting Competition!

This is to tell/remind/point out to you that Wargames Illustrated (the wonderful magazine I work for) will be running the Painting Competition at HISTORICON 2013 (and into the future, should things go well).

That's right, Heather Blush and the wonderful team of the HMGS Hobby University have welcomed us on board to put some extra weight behind this potentially great event. We'll be taking entries at the Battlefront/Flames Of War booth in the dealer hall on the Saturday of the show (July 20), judging, awards, and collection of models will all be done on the same day.

There are quite a few formats for painting competitions out there, but we decided to stick with the simple "podium" format (three prizes per category - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). Categories have been worked out with the help of the HMGS (Historical Miniatures Gaming Society) board to cover as many aspects of wargaming as we can (with an obviously historical bias).

Details for everything can be found HERE on our Wargames Illustrated site.

For prizes we'll be handing our custom-created medals we've had specially made for the event. As soon as I have one of the medals in my hand I'll make sure I post it for all to see.

In addition to these custom medals, we'll also be providing custom plaques for three additional prizes:

• Best of Show - the best painted entry into the competition will win this prize.
• Best of Theme - Each year Historicon has a particular theme (this year it's The American Civil War - 1863: The Year of Decision), and this prize will go to the entry that best exemplifies the theme.
• The Iron Cross - sponsored by Battlefront, this will go to the best Flames Of War entry at the competition.

I know many of you aren't likely to be at the show, but those of you who are I strongly urge you to bring along your best minis to put on display.

My goal for this first year is to get 120 entries over the 10 categories. Obviously this can only happen with your help : )

Cheers
Dave

Public Service Announcement #3

Man, are May and June busy months, or what?

First up, I need to remind everyone who can make it out, that the Dropzone Games One Year Birthday party is fast approaching! On the weekend of 7-9 June, Tom, Dan, Terry and the guys will be hosting another massive shindig at the best FLGS on the East Coast! Click on the link to find out more about the fun they have planned.

I wish I could be there, but work commitments are dragging me across the country to another big wargaming event - WarGames Con! This will be my third time attending this excellent event in Austin, TX, and run by none other than Jon Wolf!

Make sure you're at one event or the other (or that you at least get to do some painting that weekend), as I know I'll be having fun photographing toy soldiers for Wargames Illustrated! : )

Cheers
Dave

Back from Adepticon, setting priorities...

Well, it has taken a little while, but I'm finally caught up on things after arriving home from Adepticon on Monday. Sleep was, of course, the big one, and I'm pleased to say that crashing out on the couch each night after the girls were in bed has been very nice. Adepticon is a long show, with long hours and terrible pillows, so sleep isn't always the best. The greatest thing that I find that helps me power through such a great event is the interaction with my fellow painters, gamers, vendors, and enthusiasts of all stripes. Conversations about all manner of toy soldier related excitement can only be a good thing, right?

I spent four days taking photos of various types of historical gaming action, covering: Flames Of War, Black Powder, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar, Warhammer Ancient Battles, and SAGA. Over 220 photos that will end up illustrating at least four (possibly more) articles for Wargames Illustrated! Very pleased with that result.

I also had four entries for the Crystal Brush painting comp. Originally I was reluctant to enter, but decided to take a shot at the last moment (ie: I found myself splashing blood on the bases of my Lamenters at 11:00pm Wednesday night before leaving on Thursday). I entered my Lamenters Sergeant on Sci-fi Single, my Mechanicum in Squad, my Dreadnought in Vehicle (shown above in one of the CB official photos), and my Bridge Guard in Sculpting. Sadly none of them took away a trophy, but it was heartening to see a significant increase in the number of entries this year (200, over 125ish last year). Congratulations to all of those who took a trophy : )

We also ran our second Guns Of April game, our First Day of Gettysburg "what if?" scenario. I've just written up a report of the game for our GOA blog, you can check it out here. It was a lot of work, and not without its issues, but we all had a great time and are already looking forward to next year : )

I also took two seminars. The first was by an old friend from Australia, Victoria Lamb, the owner of Victoria Miniatures and the primogenitor of Object Source Lighting (so that's the class I took). The second was by Roman Lappat (aka Jarhead) from Germany, co-author of the wildly successful mini blog Massive Voodoo. I've been enjoying the MV crew's work for years, s I couldn't pass up a chance to sit in on his theory class. So many wonderful things were covered in the class, I just hope one day that I'll take the time to apply all the lessons learned to a competition entry.

On my way home I started sketching out a diorama I have been wanting to do since Games Day last year. Thankfully I hadn't already started because the things I learned in both classes have meant that I'm going to have to put A LOT more time into it all. Here you see the genesis of the piece. Perhaps I'll have it ready for Adepticon next year?

It should be a lot of fun to work on.

So, priorities then? Over the next two months I'm going to be working on:

• My Mechanicum army - my 2013 entry for Armies On Parade
• A FOW army commission
• The Malifaux Relic Hunters crew

Then for July I'm going to work on:
• a couple of Golden Demon entries
• possibly a Tau commission

And in August I'm going to work on:
• a Primarch for a friend of mine attending the Horus Heresy Gaming Weekend in Warhammer World.

Stay tuned for the progress ; )

Cheers
Dave

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

Finding time...

Gotta love that smile 

In one of the comments, a reader asked me how I find the time for my hobby, family, friends, and work (and presumably blogging). Sometimes I wonder how I do myself. I thought a bit more about it, and realized that it isn't really about "finding time", it's about "making time". I'm not talking about building a time machine (although that would be cool), but making the most of the time you have.

Prioritizing is, in my opinion, the way to go. Obviously family comes first, that goes without saying (although I've said it here for added emphasis). We have a nice little routine going. From the moment I wake up until I take my daughter to daycare, that's family time. From the moment my wife brings her home until I tuck her in bed, that's family time. Weekends while she's awake? Family time. Of course, sometimes my wife will take Emily shopping or to the movies, that's a bit of time for me, which I usually spend hobbying.

For me, work comes next. Without work there is no money to keep the food on the table or a roof over our head. Simple really. I'm also "lucky" that I really love my job. I say "lucky" in that I decided I wanted to work in the toy soldier biz, and my wife supports that decision.

A new Empire army and her favorite models on the table were my 5-year old Knights 

After family and work comes friends and hobby. Those two are kind of on par. Fortunately most of my friends are hobbyists too, so hanging out with them generally means doing something hobby-related (gaming, painting, Games Day, Adepticon, etc etc). Also, the part of the hobby I love the most is the modeling and painting, something that's very easy to do by myself, at my desk, once my family has gone to bed.

Married...with Children. My wife and daughter made the trip to 

Chicago with me for Games Day (and sightseeing obviously) 

Apparently this Ogre Bellower was yelling "Peekaboo, I love you!"

My wife is a morning person, I'm a night owl. It took us a little while to get used to that, but we've got it worked out by now. So, on any given night, I'll usually be able to get in three or four hours of hobbying (or blogging). Add that up over a week and you're looking at 21-28 hours. If my wife has given me a few extra hours on the weekend, things look even better.

But let's get back to the "making time" thing. The following ideas typically work best if you have an army project you are working on. You can more easily keep your models/materials in a tray (like the one on the table above) and keep that handy in the kitchen, dining room, office etc. Try:

• Clip your bitz from their sprues ahead of time into a small plastic tackle box. If you have a desk job you can clip during your lunch break.

• Once you have everything clipped, you can do the basic assembly at any time you have a few minutes (like when you're on hold with your phone/electricity/cable tv company). Gluing legs to bases is a fairly menial task that doesn't always require all your focus.

• Do your basing/base painting in the morning while the coffee is brewing. A simple task like gluing on flock doesn't take too long and you can get a squad done in the time it takes to brew a pot.

If you are feeling the crunch of family/work/friends on your hobby time, look for opportunities during your day/week to make time for your hobby. Oh, and things like watching TV and playing video games are a complete time sink. Cutting back on both, or cutting them out altogether, is another great way to "make time". Although I often have the TV on while painting, I rarely look at it. There are movies I've heard a hundred times, and I'm often surprised by things I've never seen ; )

So, that's how I "find time" for the four most important things in my life (family/work/friends/hobby), I "make time" wherever I can, without compromising the most important things. I'm sure that's how many of you do it too.

And just so we're clear on what I do for a living, I'm the US Editor for Wargames Illustrated. That means that 95% of the time I'm liasing with contributors, planning with our UK team, photographing cool games/models/tables, and laying out 40+ pages a month. I enjoy all of it. Sometimes, however, I also get a chance to work on a modeling or painting project for a particular article. The last one was the frozen French battalion (seen here). And this 18th Century Massachusetts farmhouse is the latest.

I converted up one of the Perry's plastic American Farmhouse kits to loosely match a few buildings that probably dotted the countryside during the turbulent times of 1775. Look for the full article in our January issue (WI291).

Of course, my daughter loves it when I bring my projects up to the dining room table. Above you can see her impression of the Big, Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing and trying to blow the farmhouse down. How cool is that? : )

Cheers
Dave

PS. Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it before, we have another daughter on the way. She's due in late November. I'm hoping she'll be just as intrigued and delighted by this toy malarkey as her big sister is!

I'm back from foreign places!

Well, I'm back from my week in the UK on a business trip to visit the Nottingham office for Battlefront and Wargames Illustrated. I met a bunch of guys I've been working with for two years (and discovered one of them used to serve me beers, lots of beers, in Bugman's back in the day), caught up with a few old friends over beers, met some folks in the historical gaming "industry", and had a rather nice time at Salute. No problems with erupting volcanos this year, thankfully. The trip was great, but it's lovely to be back home again.

Anyway, the Heroes of Armageddon Charity Project is well under way, with build teams coming together across the country (my IG team stretches from Massachusetts in the east to Hawaii in the west). If you haven't yet heard my interview with Carl and Geoff from The Independent Characters podcast, head on over and check it out. I talk a lot about HoA!

As we don't have a lot of work completed I thought I'd mention a few things:

a) the regular prize draws begin tomorrow night. Head to the Heroes of Armageddon blog now to find out more about the very cool first prize donated by Mike and the company he works for, Bay Photo.

b) I thought I'd let you know who was on my build team. There's a pretty wide variety of folks (spread far and wide), so here's the roll of honor (wit a link to their blog or site if they have one):

• Chris Borer

• Justin McCoy

• Jonathan Lindgren

• Brien Dulaney

• Joe Marshall

• Marc Raley

• Matt Boles

• Mike De Boer

• John Dickerman

• John Stiening

• Pat Ohata

• Bob Weiss

• Jordan Carasa

• Matt

• Jeff Wilhelm

And here's what 60+ Steel Legion and Stormtrooper models look like taking a bath in Simple Green : )

Cheers

Dave

Freezing French

A little while ago I posted some conversions for a unit I'm working on for an upcoming Wargames Illustrated article. The Napoleonic French are from the Perrys, with a few greenstuff additions by yours truly. You can see the original post here.

Well, I'm working through the painting process (or at least I was in the middle of it before I flew to the UK for work) and snapped a few shots of the first few stands. Above you can see the Voltiguers, spaced two to a small base as befits their "skirmisher" role. Below are is the Grenadier stand, six tall and hearty men rugged up against the start of the dangerous Russian winter. Hopefully I'll finish painting the unit by the end of next week, then I'll spend an evening or two finishing off their snowy base. I'm looking forward to seeing the vision fully realized : )

Cheers

Dave

As promised...

Well, I finally had the opportunity to photograph all the Napoleonic British I've been painting over the last month. Above is the "group shot" of all that I've painted so far. Almost 250 models, that's a lot of red! Here's a link to the shot of what I had finished by December 16 last year. It'll give you a bit of an idea how much I've painted in the last six weeks or so.

So the army now stands at:

• 2nd Regiment of Foot Guards (Coldstream)

• 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards

• 60th Regiment of Foot (Royal American Rifles)

• 74th Regiment of Foot

• 79th Regiment of Foot (Cameron Highlanders)

• 1st Battalion of King's German Legion

• 2nd Battalion of King's German Legion

• 2nd Battalion of Caçadores (Portuguese light infantry)

• Battery of Royal Artillery

• Battery of Royal Horse Artillery

• Commander and Sub-Commander

Here's the new Battery of Royal Horse Artillery. After finishing work on the "Artillery Through the Ages" issue of Wargames Illustrated (out in late Feb), in which one of the articles covered Napoleonic Horse Artillery, I felt it was only right I get my battery painted up. With much less red and white to paint than the standard foot regiment, these guys painted up wonderfully quickly. I was just putting the finishing touches on the officer (pictured above with drawn sabre on the Howitzer base), and I thought I'd check out a wonderful piece of art from Karl Kopinski.

What you see here is a very small part of a wonderful painting by Mr Kopinski (formerly of GW fame) called No Retreat. He painted this picture as part of a pair for the Waterloo Collection. These paintings are a major part of the fundraising for Project Hougoumont. If you are interested in cool art and preserving history, please check out the links.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Just as I thought I was done, I noticed - tucked away in the background - two gunners with their back to the artist. There was some fairly elaborate brocade (I think, although it might be called lace) work on their uniforms, work that was obviously a bit too elaborate to be sculpted on the 28mm Front Rank figures I was painting.

I just couldn't let it slide, so I free-handed the brocade/lace onto their rather smart jackets, highlighted and left it at that. You can see it above on the backs of a couple of the gun crew, but it does appear on all the figures in the battery (except the officer, who's back is covered by his over jacket).

Next time: More of my recent British paintjobs, plus a look at the expansion of the Armies on Parade competition at Games Days.

Cheers

Dave

Blitzkrieg! It has begun...

It was about a decade ago, whilst visiting a wargaming convention in Wellington, New Zealand, that I was first introduced to Flames of War. A lanky Kiwi by the name of Phil Yates was running a demonstration of a set of rules he was close to completing, and he was using a very cool collection of 15mm tanks on a lovely table to showcase it all. I stepped up to try it out (mainly as I'd recognized Phil's name from a 40K adaptation he'd written called Warhammer: Panzer Aces, or something similar).

10 T-34s against 4 Panzer IVs. I knew enough about WW2 to know that the Soviet forces relied primarily on their quantity to overwhelm the Axis armies they faced, pummeling them with simple yet (eventually) effective hammer blows. As I'm an Imperial Guard/Empire player through and through, I took control of the T-34s and proceeded to hammer away at the Panzers.

I found out soon after that these tanks were made by a company called Battlefront. I started collecting a Soviet force for the Mid-War period (the siege of Stalingrad to be precise), and over the next eight years I tinkered a little here and there, eventually painting up around 2000 points of infantry horde (and tank support).

Despite owning this sizeable force, and the rapidly growing popularity of Flames of War over that period, I really didn't play. Why's that you ask? Well, to be honest, I've never really been a gamer, or had a head that assimilates and retains rules very well. I had my three rulesets already embedded over 16 years of gaming (40K, Warhammer, and LoTR) and learning something new seemed like a big chore.

Almost two years ago now (my how time flies), I was fired from GW and three months later came to work for Battlefront, focused on the best selling historical wargames magazine, Wargames Illustrated. One of my strengths in this position is my breadth of knowledge of historical periods, allowing me to talk to many different contributors to the magazine and draw upon their knowledge to help evolve the magazine to where we have over the last 18 issues.

Our Flames of War Studio team in NZ have always provided our FOW content, so there really was no pressing reason for me to dive head first into the core of our business, someone else was taking care of that.

No reason, that is, until now. In August of this year Battlefront released Blitzkrieg, the first of their "Early War" books covering the German invasion of Poland and France in 1939-40. Although the rules are all Flames of War, the unit types/strengths/weaknesses make it essentially a new game, just perfect for someone like me, ready to get in on the ground floor.

Over the next few months I thought I'd do a bit of blogging about my adventures in the world of Flames of War. It'll be a mix of gaming, modeling, painting, and a dab of philosophy and history all rolled into one place.

PART ONE: The Light Panzer Company

I selected the German Light Panzer Company list for a number of reasons:

• Fighting with tanks is a great way to learn the FOW system, I can add in infantry later once I'm comfortable.

• Assembling and painting 15mm tanks is pretty straightforward, which means I can wrap my head around the scale a bit more easily before really getting some good results on infantry.

• There's a really nifty Army Box available, reducing the number of potentially confusing decisions I have to make early on.

Above you can see my roughly 1500 point army, 24 vehicles. The unpainted stuff is all from the one starter army box I mentioned. The other two primed vehicles are "on loan" from a friend, until my back-ordered "Bunkerflak" models arrive. While all my Panzers are great for taking out infantry and light vehicles, they lack the punch for easily dealing with the medium and heavy tanks I might come across. The "Bunkerflak" are essentially 8.8cm guns on the back of massive halftracks, just great for busting any tank that might roll into my line of sight.

Above is a size comparison shot. Left to Right: a Panzerbefehlswagen (command vehicle), a Panzer I, a Panzer II C (early), and a Panzer III E.

I took me about 7 hours to clean and assemble all the tanks from the box, including putting in rare earth magnets to allow the turrets to rotate, something that is apparently quite important in the game.

Next up, painting the Light Panzer Company.

Cheers

Dave

What's in the box?

One of the fun things about being a toy soldier hobbyist that a) works from home for a toy soldier hobby magazine and b) has quite a few friends with great toy soldier businesses, is that a really cool box of goodies turns up on my doorstep two or three times a week.

Over the past few weeks there've been some great boxes indeed.

Just last week I received a lovely box from Jim and John Bailey at Grindhouse Games. It was the freshly printed copy of Incursion that I pre-ordered back in November. The reason for the delay? The guys had to establish a significant commitment from their customers before laying down the vast amounts of cash needed to get a board game of this quality printed and assembled. I know the Baileys do good work, so I was more than happy to pledge my support for this project.

I've seen lots of great pictures of their Incursion range of minis online, so I order the complete package which included two of their limited edition tins, the Allies (US Ape-suited raiders) and the Germans (exciting characters and Nazi ZOMBIES!). Very cool. Go and check out their stuff here.

My friend Ronnie Renton, the driving force behind Mantic Games, sent me a little package after I asked a couple of questions about their new ghouls. In the package were two sprues of the new Skeletons (which you can use to build 20 Skellies). While I wasn't too keen on the styling of their Elves, I am loving the look of these undead warriors. Loads more detail and clever ways of assembling the models (usually tricky with Skeletons) make these very impressive.

Ronnie has always been a big fan of big armies and big games. These Mantic miniatures seem like the way to achieve that consistently.

Here's a back and front shot of the ghoul sprue. With two leg parts, two torsos, three heads, and three alternate hands you can build ghouls 36 different ways, although I'd recommend some more extensive conversions (arm repositioning would be best). Apart from using them as ghouls in an undead army, you could easily see these models serving as Battle Psykers in an Imperial Guard or Traitor Guard army, particularly using the two bald heads (one of which is somewhat bulbous).

Every month or so I place an order with Jeff Wilhelm at Dragon Forge Designs. He makes some great resin bases and is close to adding some great new products to his line (keep an eye out just after Adepticon). This box was full of bases for me and just a couple for some commissions I'm finishing up.

About a month ago I received my order from Romeo at Battlefoam. I tried out their funky little design app, and created this custom tray for my Napoleonic British, each tray will fit roughly one division or support brigade, so I should be good for a while with the four trays I ordered.

I should fit roughly 140 models per tray, not bad.

And one of the boxes that arrived recently contained my "staff samples" of the first six packs from our Wargames Illustrated Exclusive "Moments In History" vignettes. If you click on the link you'll get to see the six sets, sculpted by Gary Morley, assembled and painted by Matt Parkes, in their full glory. Each set is available for sale, but we're also giving you your choice of two sets when you order a one year subscription!

As I said at the start though, it's pretty cool to have lovely free toy soldiers land on your doorstep!

So, let's wrap up with some models that will soon be heading back into a box and out my door. The Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children army I started showing you last post has reached it's conclusion. 50 Tactical Marines, 6 Rhinos, 9 Phoenix Guard, 1 Sorcerer/Librarian, and 1 Land Raider, all done now.

My client sent me a Forgeworld Pre-Heresy Land Raider Kit to assemble and embellish a bit. I usually love Forgeworld's kit (see the Hellblade I assembled in less than 30 minutes), but I'm yet to find a MkI Land Raider kit that hasn't had problems.

This particular kit was a real doozy. The front section (sits above the assault ramp doors) and the rear section (replaces the standard engine pieces) were a full 2mm slimmer than the standard pieces. This meant they could only be used if I was willing to trim 2mm off the width of the floor, the lower assault ramp, the upper assault ramp, the internal bracing piece, and the top (which straddles both track sections, requiring it to be trimmed from the center of the piece). I decided not to go down that path, instead choosing to adapt the standard pieces.

I created a new housing for the heavy bolters, and a new set of panels for the rear section so that I could still mount the two large exhausts that come with the FW kit. In addition I added plasticard trim around the side and top panels. When my client paints the Land Raider in the Pre-Heresy purple, this trim will be painted gold and add really rich, detailed look to the tank. This was topped off with the Legion number (III) and the Legion symbol (the winged claw) tying it back in with the Rhinos.

And finally, here's the Librarian. He's a fairly simple conversion, tied in with the rest of the army, but pushing the styling progression. When I decided to use the High Elf banner for the Phoenix Guard, I thought this guy could also use a piece from the High Elf sprues I had. Hence the phoenix familiar perched on his backpack. He'll look great painted gold.

Until next time, have fun!