New Scav Alert! Part 3: rafting Store Floral Dept. Finds

It's that time of year again where I discover some great finds from my local, neighborhood dollar store.

If you're in the continental U.S. there should
be one of these babies in your neighborhood

Just a serendipitous find. As usual, I kept my eye peeled for any potential item that can be used for all my gaming needs. Case in point, I looked at these plain, unobtrusive objects with a miniaturist's eye and always imagined how they can be utilized as part of a scene on my gaming table. 

I saw these seemingly innocent items at the crafting,
floral aisle and I immediately thought of moss covered
boulders perfect for any period / fantasy skirmishing 

A bit of an imagination goes a long way for creating
our gaming scenes and I'm always on the lookout
for 'eye candy' opportunities. 

28mm metal Viking figures are from my Gripping Beast

collection with rune stones from Fenris Games and the odd

bits of trees I've collected through the years 

One on one

Incidentally, those pines trees were an earlier purchase from same Dollar Tree and was featured in an earlier post: New Scav Alert! Part 1

Going a-Viking! Part 2

Upcoming battle royal and rumble that Mikey and I were getting ready for at OwlCon 2014 held in Rice University, in Houston. That meant getting new units painted to supplement my existing Huscarls as well as getting Mikey's long ship out of mothballs, painted and weathered to transport his Vikings. While mine were at the final stages of completion he was frantically doing the same. Gotta love them shield transfers...

(click on the pix to enlarge)

More detail on the just finished units of Warriors from Black Tree Design.

My Huscarls from Wargames Factory on review and deciding which ones to make the team and get to travel. Archers on the ship stay home this time around since I'm not using missile troops.

Practice session at Mikey's where we combined our terrain on his Hexon.

A close up shot of my two scratch built hovels and attached wood shed. Wooden barrels and various trade goods from both our collections.

Mikey's Warband.

Mikey's Warband going out for a test drive.

Scratch built haystack in the background with Rune Stones from Fenris Games in the foreground to add some Viking flavor.

Mikey's round huts.

Some jockeying for position on both our parts in this practice game.

I painted Mikey's Long Ship from Old Glory.

Some weathering.

Both of our warbands with their Long Ships ready for transport to OwlCon.

Onto Rice University for OwlCon!

My Warband heading down the river for the brawl.

Mikey's Long Ship has grounded with his troops ready to disembark.

My Berserkers charging across the meadow against Welsh bowmen.

My Warriors charging a Welsh warrior unit across the street by the hedgerow.

My Huscarls springing into action and eventually eliminating the Norman Cavalry unit.

In conclusion, out of 6 Warbands, I hacked and slashed my way to a bloody second place! I lost to a Welsh unit. Mikey's unit was the third unit taken out by a combination of Welsh bow fire and Norman cavalry charges. Better luck next time, Mikey!!

Going a-Viking again! Part 1

A few months back I was getting ready to attend OwlCon 2014 at Rice University here in Houston. One of the battles I was looking forward to participate in was Saga. It promised to be a real brawl and dust up with a potential of multiple chieftains hacking and slashing away at each other.

So it was time to dust off (literally) my long ship and Vikings (Wargames Factory plastics). It turned out to be a meeting engagement of 6 chieftains with their accompanying warbands. I look at my boys and noticed that I was still lacking in the 'warriors' (i.e. non-huscarl / armored units) and 'berserker' categories.

(click on the pix to enlarge)

"A-Viking we will go..."

Hmmm, if memory serves, I have some unpainted Vikings from Black Tree Design stashed away somewhere...

Turns out that my list needed 2 units of 8 Warriors each and 1 unit of 4 Berserkers. I looked in my unpainted minis box and Voila!

I mounted them on pennies and used my slurry mix (also used in my Incursion 3d board project for creating pre-cast concrete walls) for basing. 

After the prerequisite black primer, I dry-brushed with a sand color by Anita's Craft Paint, a cost effective (read cheap) paint from Hobby Lobby. 

Apply watered downed base color.

Dip into some Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone.

Apply dry shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios.

Spray with Testors Dull Kote.
Front row: Beserkers
Back Row: 2 units of 8 Warriors each

My Warriors in a shield wall

The full contingent: Bjorn tobe Wilde, the axe and spear wielding Viking Cheiftain with his bodyguard of 4 Berserkers,
6 units of 4 Huscarls each from Wargames Factory plastics (of which only 3 will be selected for this upcoming fight) and
2 units of Warriors (in the long ship)

Next up: the battle royal or in this case, the brawl!

Delving into 'Descent'

Happy Holidays!

Lately, I've been delving more and more into Fantasy and I LIKE IT!  Whilst working on my various projects to flesh out my historical armies I still feel the need to game. My buddy George introduced me to Descent.

So rather than paint the minis that come in the box, I just raided my collection to populate my Heroes, the side characters and the villains and monsters of the scenarios. In this case, I've been running a thief and a cleric on this campaign.

Left to Right: Mongol Foot Standard Bearer from The Assault Group to represent my Cleric, Reaper Thief figure as my Thief, The Wargames Factory Viking Huscarls as Militia stand-ins and the Dragon from Super Dungeon Explorer painted by George

Back to Hacking and Slashing with Command and Colors: Ancients

Being the self-styled 'Historical Miniaturist' plainly states that I delve into miniatures and history. It also implies that I'm a gamer (primarily historical) and like most gamers I'll play anything provided that it has drool-worthy eye candy.

'A Viking we will go, a Viking we will go...'

A diorama of my Roman Cavalry being supported by allied
Numidian Elephants sometime during the Punic Wars.

Since I like well designed board games and the 'look and feel' of miniatures my gaming group's latest foray into this hybrid gaming world has led us to the Command & Colors family of games. After a few games with the actual board game we were hooked. It was only a matter of time that we would substitute the game blocks with our minis played on a larger 4" hex map from Hotz and terrain features.  

 

Vassal screen shot of an epic scenario: Battle of Dertosa.
This classic Punic War matchup between Hasdrubal (Hannibal's brother)
and the Scipio Brothers make a fine minis conversion 
as all the battles in the C&C boardgames.

I can now reuse my Republican Romans (built for Field of Glory and was gathering dust) and game this army to my heart's content. Of course, I have to supplement this army by acquiring a few more units and some repainting of the shield colors to represent unit types used in the game (see pics at the bottom of this article).

Numidian Elephants from Corvus Belli bringing up the rear with
the blue shielded Triarii and green shielded Hastati in the fore.

A Roman Fort from Baeuda is the backdrop for the Hastati with
more Corvus Belli Iberian troops in the fore.

Corvus Belli Iberian troops

Corvus Belli Numdian archers painted as generic Greeks
screening the Iberians.

Someone tell me what manufacturer these Velites are. It's been a
few years since I've put this FoG army together and the brand eludes me.

A Roman Fort from Baeuda with Numidian Elephants and Numidian light cavalry both Corvus Belli. 

'The Elephant of Surprise.'

Roman Cavalry from Corvus Belli and another forgotten manufacturer. 

My command stands featuring my two favorite Consular Generals: 
Nefarious Purpose on the white horse with Crismus Bonus on the black.

All you need to play is to follow this recipe: 

One box of Command & Colors (Ancients or Napoleonics)

One 4x6 Hotz Mats w/4" hexes (your choice of green fields or dessert)

Obligatory terrain: trees and hills

6 mm or 15mm miniatures (6mm for Napoleonics and 15mm for Ancients in our case) 

My re-purposed Republican Romans with repainted shields and ready to go:

Rear rank Legionaries: Triarii and Hastati Heavy Infantry (4 per base: RED)
Allied Italian States as Auxilia Light Infantry (3 per base: GREEN)
Velites Skirmish Light Infantry (2 per base: GREEN)

Coming soon: Roman Medium Infantry (4 per base: BLUE)