Dwarf Project for Dragon Rampant

I had so much fun playing my first game of Dragon Rampant with my friend Mike at Historicon that after returning home I started thinking about painting a second army to go with my Dark Elves. While I have plenty of humans from various eras that I could use, I wanted another straight fantasy army.

Who doesn't like dwarves?  After looking around a bit, I settled on using the plastic Dwarf infantry sets that North Star makes for their Oathmark rules. They have three different infantry sets with varying amounts of armor. I bought the Heavy & Light Infantry boxes from Griffons Lair via Ebay.

After experimenting with assembling a unit of heavy foot, I bought the Infantry box from Badger Games. I also got some shield transfers, flags, a pack of 3 North Star metal dwarves (king, wizard, & musician), and a wizard and burglar set by Gripping Beast. How could I resist having Gandalf in my army? I am pretty disappointed that the top part of Gandalf's staff was already broken off. It looks too thin to pin back together, so there may not be a Gandalf after all.

So far I have:

Painted 10 of the heavy dwarves, they are waiting for their bases to be finished.

Assembled and 50% painted 12 archers.

Assembled 12 infantry and have painted the armor.

I like to have multiple groups at different stages so that there is always something to do. I haven't forgotten about the dark elves, I've finished touching up 8 of them and am doing the basing today.  I want to make sure I like how the bases look before doing any more.

Dark Elf Project - Fixing Up An Old Army

My new project is fixing up a very old (antique?) Dark Elf army. I bought them at a Games Workshop store in London in 1992, back when my gaming group played Warhammer 3rd edition. I painted them shortly thereafter and they have been in a box in the top of my closet since the late 90s.

When my friends started playing Dragon Rampant and fielding a variety of new and old armies, I got them out to see how many there were and what kind of shape they were in. There were 91 Dark Elves in the box, a few with chipped paint, a few missing (what happened to the mounted general and mounted wizard?), but otherwise in good shape. There were more than enough to make a large army for DR. I got to play a test game against my friend Mike's Orcs while we were at Historicon and had a lot of fun.

I'm adding a general and 2 wizards by Reaper you can see here.  I also got a Reaper troll and griffon rider at Historicon. I haven't decided how closely to try to match the original style for the new miniatures.

I do not want to do extensive repainting. Besides, my painting style has changed, and I like to think improved, in the last 30+ years. I plan on starting with a couple minis at a time to figure out how much I want to redo. There are a lot of colored metallics which I want to leave as is.  I haven't decided if I want to redo the eyes. They would look better, but it might be difficult to match the skintone, and it could start me down the slippery slope of "just one more thing". I am going to apply a matte finish to replace the current gloss finish.

I decided to rebase, getting rid of the old, accursed 20mm square plastic slottabases and switching to 25mm square plywood bases from Litko. Here is the first group I rebased. Painting will start this week. After I finish a few I will post some photos.

Stargate Project: SG-1

For years I have wanted to do a project based on the Stargate movie/tv shows, specifically Stargate SG-1 which aired from 1997-2007.  It is available to stream free on demand at PlutoTV.  Over the years I've collected miniatures for this project.  When I was considering what game to run at Historicon 2025, I decided that I was finally ready to take the plunge.  I will be using the 7TV rules, one of my favorite rulesets which is perfect for this type of large skirmish game.

I decided the first task was to paint the forces of Stargate Command, based under Cheyenne Moutain, Colorado.  I painted them during the winter of 2024-25.  I used green uniforms with black equipment as that is the most common uniform worn in the show, though they occasionally wear khaki or black.  Part of my research is rewatching the entire series.

SG1 (l-r): Teal'c, Daniel Jackson, Colonel Jack O'Neill, General Hammond, and Major Samantha Carter.  You can't do a stargate game without the stars of the show.  Hasslefree makes these and as usual with their miniatures, they did a good job depicting the actors.  I did have to paint the Apophis symbol on Teal'c's forehead freehand and I wish he was carrying his staff weapon.  All of these were one piece except for Daniel's pistol arm.

                                                    A close-up of O'Neill & Carter

Teal'c & Daniel Jackson

General Hammond in his most frequent pose, exasperated that SG-1 isn't following orders.

I wanted more teams of 4-5 miniatures each so started looking at modern 28mm manufacturers.  Then I remembered that I had 2 sprues of Warlord/Wargames Factory Modern Military.  I bought them years ago during a $1 sprue sale along with some zombies and had nearly forgotten I had them.  Warlord marketed them as part of their Project Z range which has disappeared from their website.  Each sprue has 4 miniatures so that would give me 2 more teams.  They are not the most detailed miniatures, but I already had them and there are a lot of weapon and head options on thesprue.  I painted one team with black helmets and one team with green helmets to make them visually distinct.  With the limited color palette, these painted up quickly.  I painted the badge with their team number on the upper right arm but it hard to see in the photos.  There are several websites that list the various SG teams along with known members as they appeared on the show.

SG-3, a Marine team led by Major Castleman.

SG- 6, an Air Force team led by Lt. Colonel Barnes.

I used some Crooked Dice X-Commando miniatures for a 4th team.  I have more of these that I painted in black uniforms back in 2017.  I got them out and touched them up so that I could use them as well depending on the size of the scenario: Old X-Commandos.  I haven't given them a team number, perhaps the second iteration of SG-10, whose original members were lost in a black hole.

The full SGC force.

What will be next in this project?  The villainous Goa'uld.

28mm Moderns

Today's post features some miniatures that I started painting at the end of July 2024 and finished in fall 2024.  I recently got them out for photos on a sunny winter day.  I will use them primarily for my 7TV games.

Three American Agents from Brigade Games Cold War era Spies and Patriots range.  These will be part of my Miami VIce collection, hence the bright colors.  I didn't have any female undercover detectives, so these are a nice addition.  I think the one on the right is a good match for Gina Calabrese, one of the original cast.  I am still on the lookout for a miniature to use as Trudy.

Three Female Armed Civilians from Brigade's WW2 range.  These are useful miniatures that can serve in plenty of modern to post-apocalyptic scenarios.

 Two miniatures from Crooked Dice.  On the left is a police officer or well-dressed criminal, on the right is a post-apocalypse raider.

 A giant post-apocalypse mutant also from Crooked Dice.  It is hard to find size XXXXXXL shirts in the apocalypse.  He will smash you with his mighty fists!

The entire group.  You can see how large the mutant is compared to the others.

Fall Doldrums & A Return to Painting

So after a lot of painting in September I came to a sudden halt.  I had no desire or energy for any hobby activities for almost 2 months.  In the middle of November I started trying to get myself going again.  I checked out some history books from the local library and read a few gaming magazines.  As Thanksgiving approached, I started looking at the sales offered by different companies.  Over the next few days I ended up ordering 2 4-point SAGA armies from Footsore (Irish & Romano-British), a MDF secret base and a couple miniatures from Crooked Dice, 9 miniatures from Hasslefree, and some stuff from Litko.

Litko won the postal race, arriving in 2 days.  Below are the contents of my package: a magnetic sheet I use in my storage boxes, some steel base bottoms and 4 bottles of Army Painter paint.

Afterwards I finished placing my orders, I got out a few figures and cleaned , assembled, based and primed them.  From the left are a mad scientist in a wheelchair (Black Cat), 2 Failed Experiments (Crooked Dice), a large Zombie/Mutant (Warlord), 2 modern adventurers and a martial artist (Hasslefree). 

Since this photo, I have painted the bases and started on the metal, hair and skin.  I hope I am back on track.  I am interested in hearing how you beat the wargaming doldrums.