More building than painting

I actually enjoy building war gaming miniatures. Recently I have done a lot more building than actual painting. At the table I very rarely build then paint in the same sitting. It is usually one or the other. Sitting down to paint or sitting down to build. Anyway I don't have one thing that I am working on at the moment I have many. Lately I have been on a build binge.

I have a few units completed for my Kings of War Dwarf army but I have been slowly gluing together a Dwarf Berserker unit in a every now and then approach. The box set by Avatars of War is highly detailed and full of character. Character like the hand flipping the bird and beer mugs. It comes with a lot of cool bits for the unit standard. As you can see my standard is a lot more understated than what you could create with the bits. I kept some of those bits for Army Standard heroes. This keeps the unit as a better fit with my existing army. I have also used some parts from my Mantic Dwarfs on the banner so they tie together visually (Beer mug and Rune plates or whatever they are).  I have swapped some axe heads for mantic hammers as well.

Another project was making some plastic Cross Bow armed warriors for my Norman Saga force. I have a box of Conquest Norman Infantry and I recently acquired a box of Fire Forge plastic infantry. The Fire Forge set comes with a crossbow option (Conquest infantry has no crossbow option) so I did a bit of chopping to get some Conquest figures with crossbows but I also used some straight Fire Forge figures and gave them the crossbow option. They seem like a good fit and they even have two heads per sprue that have pointy Norman like helmets on. It's a little hard to see whats going on with them in this image but you get the idea. I have gotten so far as basing them and black under coat spray. Head swaps, arm swaps, experiments with poses and so on.

After getting super excited about 'Tour Of Duty' I ordered through my local games supply shop some MII3 plastic kitsets. Despite looking complex with so many parts on the sprues they are very easy to build. I would highly recommend when you build these to place the rear side on first as a part of the top piece overlaps the rear wall. I have to say as well that I found these to be incredibly well engineered. Snug fits everywhere. If you take the time and apply a little pressure when you glue the top piece on I will be surprised if you get any gaps anywhere. A sharp blade is required to slice off any connection areas as best you can. If this is not done it will affect the build. I am super impressed at the quality of this product. They build quick and I found them way less hassle than resin and metal tanks. Price is OK as well. 40 Australian dollars is what they sell for so 10 dollars each = great value. My only gripe is that I would have liked the box to have some figures in shooting poses to operate the side MGs. It comes with commanders and Mortar crew but no riders or MG figures. Not a biggie really. Below is 2 Zippos already with base colour on and 2 ACAV in progress.

Last nights efforts had me keen to put some new Gripping Beast Plastic Warriors together. Another recent acquisition but the source for an Anglo Saxon Levy unit for starters. The box does not come with a Bow option but it does have parts for slingers and that's good enough for me. Round bases are also another purchase as the box has square bases. Below are all the body types you get on each sprue. Five bodys but more heads. The slings come as a fist with the sling so chopping off hands with weapons from the available right arm options gets you an army with a sling. I will be able to get loads more figures from this box for many Saga options. They could make for good Warriors or Levy for many warbands such as javelin armed Pagan Rus Levy as they come with Shields and lots of spears/javelins and a few swords and axes. Unlike the Plastic Vikings/Saxons the left arm is part of the body and not another part to glue on. Makes them a little quicker to build as I am also unlikely to add extra bits like swords/knifes/pouch to the belts of these lower ranked individuals.

That's it for now. Looks like I will have a few painting projects in the near future.
Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)