Finished 8th Army

8th Army Platoon

Well, it took slightly longer to paint these then anticipated but they were still quite easy to do.
They still need a spray coat of dull Varnish to take of the sightly shiny look.
The 'ground' is a blanket I found on ebay. It needs lightning to look more 'deserty' so I'm going to try bleach.

8th Army painting

Base undercoat with dip

The first stage in painting these figures was to undercoat. Stage two is a quick coat of Vallejo Iraqui Sand (70.818). After that dried another basic coat but this time with Coat d'arms Dark Brown Super Shader. I prefer this to other 'dip' types because it's water based and is easier on my brushes.

8th Army

After having a few games of Chain of Command (Western Europe) I could not resist the Perry's 8th Army box set.

Box contents

They went together very easily. Most just need the arms and helmet attaching and the flash was very minimal. As you can see from the above image the box set has enough for a full Platoon. My box also had an extra command sprure so I was able to make three LRDG figures as well.

My basing system is as follows:

• SMG's on hexagonal base
• Rifle on round (2p's)
• LMG large rectangle (two figures)
• Pistol and 'special' on square

I undercoated them with GW foundation yellow (whatever the name is).

And, of course, they need someone to fight so the Afrika Korp box is on its way!

UK Game Expo Winner!

About a month ago I attended the UK Game Expo in Birmingham and had a really great time (I know this blog post is a bit late - bad blogger).
Well, while there I took part in the Sails of Glory demo being put on by Wotan Games and won games on both days (Saturday and Sunday). My prize for each game was a Wings of Glory WW1 plane. But I was also entered into a prize draw for a Starter set and won that as well (on the Sunday)! Unfortunately, I had to go before the presentation so Wotan Games very kindly offered to post the game out to me and yesterday it finally arrived.

My prize

Carol playing her move

Carol and I played a quick game (she managed to get behind me!) and this is her winning finish.

My response

Obviously, beginners luck (although she has played before!).

Ah well, thanks for a great prize Wotan.

Plastic Norman Infantry

Unit of Norman Infantry

Plastic Norman Infantry

These are some of the plastic Conquest miniatures. I picked 16 unarmoured figures to represent a lightly armoured unit. Not sure but I’ll probably ungrade the leader figure to an armoured Knight later on as I think that would fit my theme of a retinue raised by a poor Knight better.
Once again they are mounted on pennies and a Warbases base (with rare earth magnets holding them in place.

Republican Roman Velites

Velites

I've always wanted to collect a Punic Wars army but never had the courage to start one because of the cost (and the large number of figures involved). I love the idea of a Carthaginian horde with their mixed forces (including elephants!) facing up to the ranks of Romans.
Now along comes Agema miniatures with their plastic Velites (released at Salute 2013, although I missed them!). Sixteen plastic figures for around 9 pounds (I paid eight at Phalanx). I quickly assembled and painted them in a similar style to the box art but with them all in the same coloured tunic. Not sure about the shields yet, I might up grade them to Little big man ones later.

Sprues (8 per box)

Slingers

Dark Age Slingers

These are made from the Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors boxed set. You can make about half the figures with slings but I've just assembled six to see how they look.

Dark Age Warriors

Dark Age Warriors

Some of the Gripping Beasts Dark Age Warriors. These are ment to represent any poorly armed, quickly raised group of warriors in the Dark Ages and do a great job (IMHO). I bought a box of these at Salute 2013 and quickly painted some of them up. This is a unit of 20 spearmen with a a few extras for the next unit!
Fabulous figures, very easy to make up and paint. As always (well from now on) these are bases on UK 1p's then placed in a Warbases base. I added some 3mm Rare Earth magnets to the base to keep the figures in place.
I liked these so much I picked up two extra boxes at Phalanx so I can add more of these generic infantry to my Dark Age armies.

4 Dux Bellorum units worth of Warriors

And here are those warriors painted up and ready to go.