Mongol War Machines

This post is my recently completed heavy fire power for my fantastical Mongol collection.

The crew are a combination of bits. Heads from FireForge Mongol plastics with Bodies from Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors. Just something I thought I would try to see how it would look. As crew they look fine in my opinion. In 'Kings of War' crew are purely decorative and have no game/rule function. The long pole they have are intended as the winding device but perhaps I could place an arrow head on them for the next reload.

The large iron bolt throwing machines are actually from the Goblin range by Mantic. They have a perfect space for a Mongol shield rather than a Goblin shield or symbol on the front. They are both mounted on 50mm square bases. These are a great model and are metal and it's been a long while since I constructed something metal and of this size. A little cleaning up and a little filing and they go together reasonably well. 

Cheers from Brendon

Arab infantry at the double

By at the double I mean more 'double ups' with two to each 25mm base. Gripping Beast plastic Arabs. All with hand painted shields. I am very pleased with the shields. These are for two different unit types. Spear armed unit and a Sword armed unit. One base has a sword and spear (unit leader waving the sword). His arms are actually from the Arab Heavy Cavalry set with shoulder armour. The body came with the shield arm so that had to be cut away to create this option. The curved sword arm is also from that set. The red Arab with the low sword is an arm from the Dark Ages infantry box also from Gripping Beast.
I challenged myself to try going much brighter in colours for the four figures on your right with swords. For the first time in a very long time I actually reached for pure white paint. A tricky colour to work with. In my mind I see a sword armed unit as perhaps a bit more regal than the rest so having some brighter colours may help them stand out a little against the spear armed infantry but only a little as this army is very colourful which is really it's uniform so to speak.


 

Cheers from Brendon

Arab Archers, Dark Age Archers and 3 others

This week is a variety of 28mm plastics with one having a rest.

Mounted on a 25x50mm base makes for a great filler on a Cavalry unit. Perhaps he fell off his horse?
I didn't paint any blood or indication of a reason for his little lie down. Maybe he got knocked unconscious or perhaps he has crippling belly ache. Too much food in foreign lands.

Next is 3 double ups and a single. Plastic Arabs from Gripping beast. Sword waving dudes are traditional unit officers. The Shields are hand painted designs. I had a great time painting them and painting shields becomes a project within itself. I felt I had finally found my groove again. It's taken a while to get my eye back in but finding some painting Mojo is great. Variety really helps.

Below is another bossy looking boss for a Red and Black unit. His companion on his base was painted a while back but was torn asunder from his previously completed base. Re-basing is a pain but I am determined to create more double ups. This one is destined for a Pike unit and as I already have Flag waving dudes he will not be getting one though he looks like he should.

More plastic Dark Age Archers from Gripping Beast.
One of these was a carry over from my previous weeks painting who needed a base buddy.
Devoid of armour and not having a uniform colour these take more painting than higher value troops.
Helmets can make painting heads easier. Chain mail means less choices for colours.

 


Below I thought I would show you why I double base. This universal unit tray is for a 'Troop' infantry size in 'Kings of War'. That originates from 10 in 2 ranks of 5 on 20mm square bases. As you can see 4 on a tray looks great for a skirmish unit but the double bases thicken the unit.

Cheers from Brendon

Arab spear armed double ups.

6 x Gripping Beast Plastic Arab Infantry. Three of them have shields with LBM decals and the others are hand painted. Painting the script is really interesting.

I completed these a while back but didn't post them here. I have doubled these up on 25mm bases in order to make my units look a lot 'fuller'. I have a lot more of these that I had prepared prior to the Painting Challenge but they have been sitting waiting for a couple of months as project Goblin jumped in front of them.

Cheers from Brendon

Arab Army Kings of War Historical 28mm

I have been thinking about Army lists for Kings of War Historical recently and this prompted getting my Arab collection out of storage. These are all Gripping Beast plastics.

'Heroes' including an 'Army Standard'.

'Spearmen horde' that is not Minimum Model Count compliant

Cavalry

'Horse Archers' from behind

I used the generic Army options and came up with the following.

3 x Cavalry Regiments160 points each
3 Horse Archers Troop 90pts each
Bowmen Regiment 180pts
Spearmen Horde 200pts
Army Standard 50pts
General and Horse 100pts
Hero 50pts
Hero and Horse 65pts
Total = 1395 points

The rules is allow for some 'Veteran' upgrades which can add a few more points to the total.
I have the option to reconfigure the units but this was just an initial 'see what I have' layout. I am sure the layout above is very close along the lines of what I originally built them for.

Now I am thinking about future purchases and unfinished projects.

Cheers from Brendon

Dark Age Normans and two Anglo-Saxons

Dark Age warriors on horse and on foot. Cavalry from Conquest Games Normans and foot sloggers are Gripping beast. One of the foot soldiers has arms from a FireForge set.  All shields are hand painted and so is the banner. 

Not very well photographed so apologies for that rushed effort.

I actually had these completed before my previous post. Cheers for now from Brendon.

Dark Ages recruits

Getting these 28mm mostly Gripping Beast infantry completed seemed to take a long time. Probably because I was also dabbing away at other in progress miniatures at the same time. A few more didn't get completed in time for the weekly deadline so there will be some overlap with other miniatures in a future post. Like how the lone Conquest Games Norman overlaps from the previous ones painted. He was 80% completed at last deadline.

All shields are hand painted except one (not the Norman one). The LBM decal shield had extensive weathering applied in any case.

Many years ago I created a handy army board out of the lid from a large plastic box that I usually used for storing and transporting scenery. That's what these miniatures have been placed on for this photography session.

A little shine on these miniatures was probably from over illumination when taking the pics. The light may be too close to the subject perhaps. They had plenty of Anti-Shine painted on them.

There are some bodies here from FireForge. I even added some arms from a Perry kit.

As at writing this it is very Monsoonal here in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. We may even get a Cyclone soon in this region. Crap loads of rain makes for great painting weather though.

Cheers from Brendon

Some Dark Age Dudes

Converted Griping Beast with bows to make them Archers and two Conquest games dudes with big axes to bolster the ranks. 100% plastic. Except the sand on bases and the flock.

Not the greatest photos. Will try harder next time.

Cheers all. Brendon

Re-Basing some Dark Age miniatures

I re-based some of my single based Dark Age collection. Removing them to replace with two on  the 25mm round base. I made many of these with Saga or Lion Rampant in mind when first created but I decided to re-base to help make my 'Kings of War Historical' units look a little fuller. Among these below is a couple of freshly painted Dark Age Gripping Beast warriors but it's mostly older ones.

Hacking these dudes under the feet among old sand, paint, glue and flock requires patients. Some wargamers have said that re-basing is something hobbyists should eventually do and it's been a very long time since I have done anything brutal like this.

The chain-mail wearing dudes make for a great Shield Wall look and feel when based like this and I have painted a whole stack of new ones which I will show here soon when they are completed.

For Kings of War I use custom made trays (Warbases UK) using the dimensions for those rules. Below are 'Regiments' which are based on the old 20 soldiers each on 20x20 bases in 4 ranks of 5 across.
Each tray has 3 of the new double based warriors. This takes the total up to 12 (not 20). I think a rule/guideline may exist for 50% +1 as a minimum for a unit of 20. I don't care much for that myself as I prefer what looks good or just the fact that someone has turned up happy enough to play a game. Even better if they have painted miniatures.

"We are angry and confused!"......."Are we Viking or Anglo-Saxon/Danes?" 

Cheers from Brendon

Viking bits swap plastic fantastic

These generic Dark Age Vikings in progress are rank and file to increase my marauding hordes ready for Kings of war Historical. I have been working on them for what seems an entire ice-age. Built at glacial speed months ago......it took a long time before any paint got clumsily splashed on them. I started painting them recently to break up a period of painting a lot of 28mm horses for a very cool project for a certain Canadian citizen. I don't usually like to stall or interrupt a project but it just started to feel a bit production line and I didn't want any of that to affect the painting. Anyway these rank and file sword fodder are made up of a variety of kits to get slight variations that will likely go unnoticed once in a unit.
Anyway on with the images....

'Shield Beater'.

Gripping Beast Viking Head, Saxon Arms, Body GB Dark Age Warrior,

Shield from Conquest games Normans, Slightly larger than GB shields.

'Resting Balls Stabber and Face Stabby Sword dude'

GB Saxon Bodies, Viking Heads, GB arms with hand/weapon swaps.

'Brace for impact dude'

 FireForge arms on a GB Body

 'Mash your face with Pommel and Make you duck dude'

 FireForge Bodies, GB every thing else

'Spliiting headache maker'

GB Body and Head, FireForge Mongol Arms, GB Axe

Anyway cheers for now from Brendon and hope you don't mind the fact that these photos I used the crappy setting with colour, focus and light.