Pirates!

This post covers my 15mm Pirate army.  These figures have traveled a long and arduous path to being completed.  The vast majority of figures are from Peter Pig, with a scattering of Museum Miniatures.  I purchased the PP figures at Brookhurst Hobbies in Los Angeles while visiting my brother for Christmas in either 1997 or 1998.  At that time, my gaming group was into 'Fantasy Rules 2', and I intended to build an army for that system.  I painted around 25% of them in the early 2000s, then set them aside.  Meanwhile, FR2 lost its allure and my group switched to the 'Hordes of the Things' rules.  I have never been a big fan of HOTT for various reasons; it just isn't quite what I want out of a fantasy game. 

So the Pirates sat in my closet until 2009, when I pulled them out of storage and decided to finish them.  The last figures were completed in November 2009 and I built the stronghold in December 2010.  I do still have a plastic ship model to use as a HOTT Airboat that I've assembled and put a basecoat on, though I still need to finish painting the details and build a stand for it.  The ship may show up in a future post.  The army is based for HOTT, although I rarely play.  Perhaps they will see action at the HOTT tournament at Siege of Augusta in January 2010?

Click on the pictures for close-ups.

First is the entire Pirate horde.  The entire force consists of 3xHeroes, 2xArtillery, 2xLurkers, 5xShooters, 1xBlades and 9xWarband for a total of 50+AP in HOTT.

Here are the 5 stands of musket-armed pirates (Shooters).  The front center stand could serve as a General if necessary.

Two stands of ship's cannon (Artillery):

 Blackbeard, accompanied by a female pirate, serves as a Hero General.  Blackbeard is taller than all of the other PP figures which makes him suitably imposing:

Another Hero stand.  These are both Museum Miniatures.

 The left-hand stand is another Hero; the right-hand one is a Blade and could serve as the General if so desired.

I photographed the nine stands of common pirates (Warbands) in groups of three.  Here is the first group:

The second group of three:

And the last group of three:

Two stands of shipwrecked pirates with sharks circling (Lurkers):

Last is the Stronghold.  Long John Silver has retrieved the buried treasure and dealt harshly with his untrustworthy shipmates.  The parrot on his shoulder is a nice touch.

 Thanks for Looking!

Jason

Scots Isles & Highlands

This post covers my 15mm Scots Isles & Highlands army,  1050-1493 AD (III/77  in DBA).  It was painted over the summer/fall of 2010.  All of the figures are from Feudal Castings, now sold by QRF.  They have an excellent range of figures for dark age/medieval Scotland and Ireland.  A few of the figures are from other FC ranges such as Vikings.  I purchased some of these figures from Rudy Nelson at Time Portal Hobbies and the rest directly from QRF.  Although almost all of the figures are armed with an axe, there are a lot of variations among the figures and they have a lot of character.  Of the 48 heavy foot, there are 2 poses with 6 or 7 figures and the rest of the poses have 1-4 figures each.  That made them a lot more fun to paint.

The Scots Isles & Highlands army covers the medieval Gaelic areas of Scotland.  For a great historical article on the army, see: http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/III77.html

The DBA army list consists primarily or entirely of blades and is: 1x4Bd (Gen), 8x4Bd, 3x4Bd or 2x3Bw and 1x 3/5Wb.  These figures will also serve as galloglaich for a project I have wanted to do for a long time, the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce in 1315.  I have been working on a scenario for 4 DBA armies a side, and the number of galloglaich I will need is 12, exactly the number in this army.

Click on the pictures for close-ups.

First up is the general's stand (1x4Bd).  Although this is a foot stand, I used a mounted figure for the general.  This is the first time I have done this in a DBA army; I got the idea from a Visigoth army I have that was made by my good friend Mike Demana (see his web page at: http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedemanagames/index.html).  I think it looks good and helps the general's element to stand out from the mass of similar-looking elements.  As a fan of Celtic music I couldn't resist putting a bagpiper on the stand!

Here is the first group of 4 highland warriors (4x4Bd):

The second group of warriors (4x4Bd):

And the last group of warriors (3x4Bd):

Here are the clansmen (1x5Wb on the left, 1x3Wb on the right).  The base on the right is borrowed from my Pre-Feudal Scots army.

Next are the 2 stands of highland archers (2x3Bw).  The base on the right is borrowed from my Pre-Feudal Scots army.

Last but not least is a picture of the entire army assembled.

Thanks for looking!  I'll be adding more posts over the holidays: 15mm Pirates and 28mm UNIT for my Doctor Who project.

Doctor Who Project - Cybermen

The second force in my Doctor Who project to appear on this blog are the Cybermen.  One of Doctor Who's oldest and favorite villains, the Cybermen were once humanoids who gradually replaced their worn-out body parts with robotics, ending up as emotionless cyborgs.  They first appeared in 1966's The Tenth Planet, the last story of the First Doctor , and have appeared often since then.  In some stories, they convert prisoners into more Cybermen.  I would love to have some 'partially-converted' figures to use in games.  If you know of any suitable miniatures, please let me know!

My Cybermen force consists of 32 figures  They were painted in 2008-2010.  Eighteen of them are 28mm Black Tree Design and 14 are plastic figures from the 1980s Citadel Cybermen & Daleks box set.  The BTD figures are a mix of different models, as the Cybermen have changed in appearance over the 40+ years of the show.  It doesn't bother me to use them together though.  The Citadel plastic figures are slightly smaller, but once based I think they look okay in separate units.  I have included a comparison picture.  This force is rather too big for a normal-sized game, so the plastic ones serve to bulk out the force for larger multi-player games.  The difficulty in getting BTD figures nowadays makes the plastics a reasonable way to have a larger force.  All of the figures are on slottabases, with metal washers underneath for use in my magnetic storage system.  The washers also give the plastic figures some weight so they don't tip over. As stated in my previous post on the Sontarans, I use the Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG) rules to play scenarios set in the 'Whoniverse'. They are available at http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/ and there is also an active Yahoo group.

Click on the pictures for a close-up.

First is the merciless Cybercontroller:

The 1st squad of 5 Cybermen (1980s Earthshock era figures):

The 2nd squad of 5 Cybermen (3rd-4th Doctor era figures):

The 3rd squad of 5 Cybermen (3rd-4th Doctor era figures).  The front center figure has part of his helmet painted black to indicate he is a Cyberleader:

Next is the 2-man Cyberlaser team, the Cybermen's heavy weapons support  These figures are not on Slottabases, but have had their tabs removed and are on a GF9 base.  They are earlier figures from the 2nd Doctor's era, as can be seen from their more primitive design.

These are the 14 Citadel plastic Cybermen.  They are unfortunately all in the same pose.  The one in the front center has had part of his helmet painted black to indicate that he is a Cyberleader.

Here is the entire force of 32 Cybermen.  The 3 BTD squads are lead by the Cyberleader, with the Cyberlaser team and the Citadel Cybermen supporting from the rear.

This is a comparison shot.  The figure on the left is one of the Citadel plastics; the one on the right is an Earthshock-era BTD figure.  The difference is apparent when they are next to each other, but separated into different units I think they look okay.

 

Thanks for looking!

Jason

Doctor Who Project - Sontarans

This is the first in a series of posts on a project that I have been working on in fits and starts for years: a set of forces based on the long-running BBC program Doctor Who.  My preferred rules are the excellent Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG) which are available on the internet for free at: http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/.  The website also has a lot of scenarios for both classic and new Doctor Who, and there is an active Yahoo Group for the game as well. 

The first force to be posted are the Sontarans.  The Sontarans are a warrior race of clones.  They are one of the older villains on Doctor Who, with their first appearance in 1973's The Time Warrior and their most recent appearance was in 2008.

My Sontaran force currently consists of 2 squads of 6.  Each squad has 5 clone soldiers, one armed with a laser rifle, and 1 leader.  All of the miniatures are 28mm from Black Tree Design.  They are mounted on slottabases, with a metal washer underneath for storage on magnetic sheeting.  All were painted in fall 2010.  Click on the pictures for a close-up.

1st Squad front:

 1st Squad rear:

2nd Squad front:

 2nd Squad rear:

The entire Sontaran Battle Group:

Next up: the Cybermen!

Hittite Empire

This post covers my 15mm Hittite army.  It includes enough troops to cover both variants of the Hittite Empire DBA list (I/24 a and b), from 1380 - 1180 BC.  The Hittites ruled most of Anatolia and at times parts of Syria, Phoenicia and Mesopotamia.  They fought many wars against the Egyptians (most notably at the battle of Kadesh) and other near eastern peoples.  Their kingdom came to an end in the 12th century BC with the onslaught of the Sea Peoples.

The Hittites are the third and last of my biblical army trio to be posted to my blog.  They were painted at roughly the same time as the New Kingdom Egyptians and Canaanites (see earlier posts) in 2004 or 2005.  The Hittites are my favorite of the three for several reasons.  I find their history very interesting.  There are some spectacular ruins of their capital, Hattusas, at Bogazkoy in modern Turkey that I'd love to visit.  Plus, their rulers had great names.  My favorite is Suppiluliumas (reigned 1350-1322 BC).  How cool is that name?

Click on the pictures for close-ups.  Figure manufacturers are noted in each picture.

First is the usual picture of the entire army.

These are the archers (2x2Ps) and the subject levies (1x7Hd) from one of the many Anatolian or Syrian cities the Hittites ruled.  The archers are from Falcon UK and the levies from Old Glory.

The spearmen (6x3Sp) are the backbone of the army.  These are my favorite figures in the army.  They are a mix of Essex (the ones with shields) and Falcon UK (without shields).  The Falcon figures come with separate shields, but I chose not to attach them because they are holding their spear with both hands and I like how they look without the shields.  They are wearing the typically bright clothing that the Hittites preferred.

This is the general's chariot from Essex Miniatures.  The Hittite 3-crew chariots can serve as either a light or heavy chariot depending on which army list you're playing.  The early period features all light chariots, with a mix of light and heavy chariots in the later period.

 Here are the other chariots.  The one in the middle is from Essex and the left and right ones from Falcon UK.  As I noted in the post on my Canaanites, I often use one of their chariots as a Syrian subject when playing with the Hittites.

Last is the camp.  This is one of my favorite camps that I've made and is newer than the rest of the army.  I painted it in the winter of 2009-10.  The Hittite king Suppiluliumas is being attended by scribes while in front of the royal tent.  In the background, a column of slaves is bringing up supplies.  The tent is from Baueda, the king and scribes from Museum, the slaves and the royal guard from Essex, the slave guards from Old Glory, and the ram's head standard from Irregular.