Captain Kronos WIP

A quick WIP of the next Hammer homage…

 

Very happy with these even though my greenstuff is pretty much off. Just not sure when I’ll have a painting mojo moment…

Butcher, Baker and…

When I shared the butchers stall last month, I mentioned on a Facebook group that a baker was in progress, so tada… 

Mix of resin bits from Iron Gate Scenery and greenstuff. Jam jars plastic tube and squares of paper.

And, of course, someone had to suggest a candlestick maker just to complete the rhyme… and I couldn’t not after that…

 Candles are plastic tube, candlesticks and boxes are resin. The classic British joke under the table are also plastic tube.

more Silver Bayonet recruits

Some extra options for the Silver Bayonet, all from Black Scorpion. First a highwayman…

Unaltered from the original model. The slight height difference in Black Scorpion alongside historical 28mms isn’t overly noticeable with this chap. Lovely figure.

And a sailor…

As the Perry sailor in the landing party has an odd little head a different option was required. The height was an issue though, so a cut mid thigh and a mm removed.

Next, well another sailor, but as he has a blunderbuss he’ll work as a coachman…

Another bit of leg surgery needed here. Not sure why a coachman would have a telescope though… 

Quick paint jobs, job done.

Wallpaper streets

 Wallpaper again - but a decent result. Well I committed. This was an Easter weekend project, posting now though as real things got very real for a bit there. 

Anyhoo, this is Seriano Pietra Wallpaper, from here: https://ukwallpaper.co.uk/products/seriano-pietra-wallpaper-silver-1102.html

Although looking at the picture on the site, it doesn’t look like what I have. But works. It used to be available from B&Q for about the same price, so £2 a metre or so. It could be done cheaper, but wouldn’t look as nice and I don’t want to waste time with individual cobbles or anything like that. But it works and isn’t in the £100 plus range of some really good embossed wallpapers. I finally got round to covering the reverse side of my skirmish board. I couldn’t match the pattern for the life of me, so added a gutter and manhole to avoid that. Works for me and an underground access point could be interesting for scenarios. If I ever have the space for a proper sized table, I’ve plenty to spare. 

Market Hall finished - more or less

Finished Market Hall - well pretty much finished. Anything else will just be furniture and not bolted down.

Windows added. One day I will add them before any painting as they are a bloody pain and if you look closely some are bent and very knackered looking as I forced them in place.

I added a pamphlet about trials to the outer landing as that seemed apt. 

There is also an odd dead space above the outer stairs, so a Crooked Dice chest fills that nicely.

Father Shandor

For some reason, after the Van Helsing heavy and Dracula absent sequel Brides of Dracula, Hammer decided to bring back Lee but not Cushing for the second sequel - Dracula Prince of Darkness. They still needed a vampire hunter and so came forth the character of Father Shandor (annoyingly called Sandor in the credits), a wandering gun-toting father that knew exactly what evils exist and what is just paranoid superstition wonderfully brought to life by Andrew Keir.

Well, just as I brought forward the introduction of pagan beliefs on Summerisle for my Silver Bayonet unit, I’ve done a bit of a smaller shift and brought the good father into the available roster. Passable as a Veteran Hunter, Supernatural Investigator, Occultist or Champion of Faith, I’ll see what fits best.

The character went on to live beyond the single cinematic outing and appeared in a regular comic strip as Father Shandor: Demon Stalker, in the House of Hammer magazine and then reprinted and continued in Warrior. Here, banished from his Abbey by a less understanding Abbot, he roamed Eastern Europe armed with the Talisman of Megistus and the Sword of Archimelsus fighting demons and evil, even running into the Brotherhood of Gustav Weil (Peter Cushing in Twins of Evil) before ending up in Hell.

I hadn’t given it much thought until I stumbled across a Celtic Priest from Gripping Beast’s Saga range who bore a more than passing resemblance. I extended his cassock bits, replace both hands and added a suitably heavy sword. I didn’t go full great sword as that was too ungainly for the pose I wanted. My greenstuff isn’t the freshest, but I’m happy with the end result.

Ah, and just have to throw in the ever brilliant Barbara Shelley.

Sharpe Bayonet

Obligatory Sharpe reference. A mix of Wargames Atlantic and Perry bits and a Victrix hand for Sweet William, although the arm needs more work.

 

Lord Summerisle’s ghillie…

 Not overly happy with the paint job, didn’t want him in uniform, figured some earthier colours would work, but couldn’t get a brown tweedy look, so went with blue. The tartan is made up, because they all are, but again with more countryside autumnal shades.

A bit satiny, but it’s been damp here so had to use brush on varnish. May redo the jacket.

Mind The Oranges Marlon!

 Yep… I bought some trees from Temu. They were utter poo of course, but some may be useable with some pimping.

These are orange trees. The original flock is awful, so I just reflocked them with my own blend while avoiding the oranges which were on the whole very securely attached.

Bit of paint on the trunk and based. For the pence add on to the order from China, bargain. Perfect set dressing for the Peninsular.

I have no idea how big orange trees are, but they’ll do…

Wagon Wheels… and the Wagons

I was casually searching for useful bits for the Silver Bayonet and found that Warbases do a Napoleonic Wagon pack for Sharp Practice, which includes a carriage, an engineers wagon, a water wagon and an ammunition wagon. All MDF with some card as that’s their bag, but with some resin bits for the water wagon and engineers wagon. 

This is the carriage, apparently it’s a Clarence carriage which is from the 1820’s, but looks close enough for my liking. 

It was a little tricky, but I think it would be worth doing another having learnt lessons. I used some corrugated card to fill the windows and save doing the interior, hey presto curtains for added mystery. The kit has holes for carriage lamps, but didn’t come with lamps, so I cobbled together some from plasticard.

Yellow seemed apt and lashings of mud to hide the MDFness of the kit.

I’m happy with it and might do another down the line. I have some horses for it, but want to find some dead ones as well.

The engineers wagon is just MDF, with a resin cargo load. Very straight forward build. Nothing exciting, I kept the load separate to vary stuff up a bit. And more mud.

 

The water wagon is a bit poo unfortunately. The resin barrel isn’t great, the build is meh, the axles broke while building due to the nesting cut being too snug. I built it and didn’t bother after. I’ve not attempted the ammunition wagon, but will. I will get another carriage and engineers wagon at some point.

Warbases also do some carriage horses and draft horses with appropriate tack which I have and will need to get round to when I have some dead ‘uns. They also do a pair of Napoleonic drivers, but the carriage is the only one with a seat and they don’t fit on it, so not sure what they’re for. The horses are good, but skip the drivers if tempted.

3D printed ruins

So, the end of last month was my birthday and I got a load of Amazon vouchers. Aside from the inevitable DVDs or books, although never my preferred gaming store, it’s sometimes worth a look. I’ve had some 3D printed barricades from Amazon before - painted for my stalled MC-1 project (not sure if I’ve ever shared them anywhere), but they’re decent for the price, as are these ruins which easily fill a gap in my terrain options.

Are they perfect? No. Could I make my own? Maybe, but I’m not replicating those pillars and arches over and over again. So these are decent. Layer lines are an issue close up, but they will look fine on the tabletop.

This large single piece is one set, the puddle base adds a bit of rubble, but the layer lines are a bit more obvious when you’re looking at higgledy piggledy blocks. So that was pimped with some texture paste initially and then with some Grimdark scatter from Krautcover (via Bad Squiddo). I used the dead static grass I’d used on the marshland to give a decayed “all is not well here” feel…

The vines were added to hide a frankly lazy bit of 3D sculpting present here and in one of the other pieces I got, where two elements form the corner and the arches bleed into each other. If QP3D should ever read this, you really should clean that up. You manage it on the T and X walls, but not on the L shaped walls.

So, the second set was a set of four, a straight and the aforementioned X, T and L walls. These are the same to all intents and purposes. Aside from the bleeding arch, the only real flaw is the straight isn’t very stable and the joy for me of these was the minimal basing. One nudge of the table and that will topple, so I added my own puddle base, tried to replicate the one on the large L and it’s nice and sturdy now.

As said before, the L has that bleed, so vines again.

And completely absent from the T and X.

And finally, a look at the tops. The sculpts had a kind of broken  mortar effect, which is a little visible in places, but the tops got hit with Grimdark cover and the dead grass. Quite happy with the final pieces.

As I said, available from Amazon or their own website (https://qp3dwargames.co.uk/) where these appear to be part of a nice pseudo Osgiliath range.