SAGA Welsh Army project WIP#5 - Priodaur, Teulu and unit bases

I'm pretty old school in my wargame purchasing habits. I like to see what I'm buying, and with the dearth of actual bricks and mortar establishments, this means I do most of my purchasing at shows. One such show, which I attended recently was Reading Warfare. I've been a couple of times before, and It's always been one of those 'just right' events. It's well attended by traders and has a decent bring and buy. I had a nice chat about all things SAGA with Andy of Gripping beast, and he was kind enough to feature some of my Welsh on their Facebook page.

Anyway, I digress. For the purposes of this blog, this is what I bought:

Top left, unit skirmish bases for 2p based troops (which I inserted for this shot, not more troop purchases) from Warbases; 

top right - Conquest Norman Knights box, which will be mixed with upper bodies from Saxon Thegns to make two units of mounted Hearthguard;

upper middle, going across the shot - log fort from the square;

left middle - two packs of logs from the square;

right middle - Maredudd ab Owain from Gripping beast;

left bottom - pack of oval cavalry bases and 60mm round bases from Warbases;

Centre bottom - some very cheap (£2.50 a sheet) tufts from Gamer's grass;

Centre bottom - welsh banner and shield designs from Little Big men;

Bottom right - Welsh SAGA dice from Gripping beast. 

So on to what I've been doing. Another unit of Priodaur (Warriors) and the first unit of Teulu (Hearthguard) were assembled in short order, sprayed with Halford's grey, then a light overhead spray of white for a cheap zenithal highlighting effect.

I set about painting the Warriors first, using more Browns than before.

I sort of had it in my head that the Teulu could double as Hearthguard in another army, so I decided to keep their shields as simple geometric patterns without too much widdliness. 

Next, I highlit the clothes with white, then ink washed. Added faces and hair. Painted javelins and metals. More work on the shields.

Did some basic work on the Hearthguard as I was doing the Warriors, testing out the skirmish bases. Decided to do the skirmish bases when I do the bases for these troops.

Basing commenced before completion again. Shields almost complete.

I've decided to do a tutorial on how I do the skirmish bases, so expect that in WIP #6.

Laserburn project WIP13 - Justice Department vehicles

So I've finally finished these three vehicles. Here they are:

Of course they're technically 'not-quite-finished' as I should probably do some detail on the underside of the truck, and the air/raft needs its crew completing. They'll do for now though. Enjoy.

28mm Spartan Greek army WIP04 - finished mercenary hoplites

New unit finished, mercenary hoplites

 

Some of the shields are freehand, most are decals from the immortal miniatures box.

So that's three units completed so far, and here they are...

And a general's eye-view whilst I'm at it.

There's another unit of hoplites to do, then probably some slingers and some Spartans.

Laserburn project WIP11 - finished buildings, started buildings.

These astoundingly cheap Amera buildings have been a joy to paint.

In this post, I'll run you through how I did them, start to finish:

1: Purchase buildings. These are vac-formed, £1.50 for the small ones, £1.75 for the larger.

2: Raid your bitz boxes for suitable add-ons. Halford's grey primer.

3: Drybrush white all over, then follow that with a yellow ochre wash (Americana yellow ochre, thinned)

4: Brown ink wash. (Vallejo Game Color Smokey ink). Black inks pin washed into the windows and painted into shadowy areas (Chromacryl Black).

5: Highlight/drybrush with a mix of yellow ochre and unbleached titanium (Liquitex Heavy Body unbleached titanium)

6: More brown washing with smokey ink. Further highlighting with unbleached titanium

Paints I used in this process so far

7: Yet more inking

8: And here's the selection of paint markers I used to finish off the detail. I also scoured my decal envelope and added a selection of further details. Most of the decals are from old 1:100 Macross kits, the numerals by each door are from an original land raider.

Here's Building 1. The doorway effect is black and two brown tones. The paving slabs are all done with markers. The water effects is clear granular gel with an ink wash. The aircon (?) unit is from an old USS Grissom miniature

Building 3. I wanted the buildings 'the same but different'. Turning into a bit of a motto for me, that.

This building sports an alternative roof protrusion, and an odd solar panel thing with branding in an alien script. The alien decals are from Macross Zentraedi models.

Building 5 has something industrial going on at the top of their steps. The 'No step' decal is from some aircraft kit.

Building 7 is fairly bog-standard apart from that massive unit strapped on the side. It's an old Klingon d18 that got cannibalised at some point. The rear stairs feature a raised fin for some reason.

A view of the home improvements

Compare the stairs, the hilarious new game show.

Side walls

That's the finished buildings, now for the one I've started, you saw it flat packed in the second photo.

Phase one, make it, and stick more bits on.

Not sure about the green cap. I haven't stuck it yet, and I may mount something else there.

Phase 2: grey undercoat, ready for a similar treatment to the others.

Whilst we're on a Laserburn tip, some of the decals I got to complete my vehicles

So, four things off the painting table, which is looking a bit crowded at the moment.

More soon, lilliputian aficionados.

Laserburn project WIP10 - terrain and more

So I've done some work on the terrain pieces I bought at Salute. A quick raid on my bits boxes and the four cheap Amera buildings got some tech.

They've been undercoated with Halford's grey primer and then dry-brushed with white in this picture. Next, I used a cheap Americana (read folk art) yellow ochre to provide the basic imperial khaki base colour...

You can also see the matchbox imperial ground attack aerodyne getting the same treatment in the corner there. Here's how that one got to that state too.

Other recent acquisitions have been some transports for the redemptionist forces in the form of republic gunships:

They're 1:172, which is more 10mm than 15mm, but I think they will work. A snip @ £4.99 from The Works (a UK based retailer that sells off bankrupt stock). More on those later. 

I'm still looking for the right decals for my other vehicles, but I'll update you all when they get sorted.

It's Sheffield Triples in a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping to find something suitable there.

Laserburn project WIP04 - Judges!

So my judges side project was too much fun, and I've finished them. All of them.

These are old laserburn miniatures. The riot judges truncheons did not survive over the years, but they're not necessary

Riderless and mounted bikes, a red redemptionist, a giant robot (plastic freebie), two wall-e gzg droids, the judges

Whilst in a justice-led frenzy, I pretty much finished the two judge vehicles. I think there should be some red on there too. You'll see.

chevrons from venividivici, other decals from old anime kits

The only problem with how good this 4 looks is going to be replicating it with another number if I do another one :)

Still work continues on the table.

Dystopian wars: 1:1200 Covenant of Antarctica fleet additions WIP01

Just a quick shot of something that's been on my table for a while, and a welcome break from painting hundreds of 15mm SF.

New additions:
~ long-unfinished Prometheus, going for the final push on this. Still need to insert turret magnets and superdetailing. White on funnels
~ Annonax assault sub. There are so many propulsion units I'm going to have to work on them to make them stand out. Superdetailing.
~ Fresnels. The amplification will need some work. White on funnels. The turrets need magnetising. Superdetailing.
~ Thales'. Superdetailing.
~ Galens. White on funnels, superdetailing.
~ Plutarchs. Superdetailing.

After that, decals for all. Varnishing. More photos.

The Plato at the back and the Diogenes at the front are previously finished miniatures I keep handy to ensure consistency of style.

See you next time.