Orcadians.

The last of my Claymore Castings Men at Arms painted in the livery of the various Earls of Orkney:

Sinclair. Earl of Orkney & Caithness

Sinclair, Earl of Orkney.

Swedish Man at Arms, House of Baath.

Enjoyed painting these before the festive season descended upon us, but not had chance to photograph them until now. Merry Christmas all & a happy new year.

Scottish Men at Arms

Still making steady progress with my (not so) recent purchase from Claymore Castings. In order to have a change from painting Lymphads on a yellow background I have skipped a little further east into the Earldom of Mar for this weeks offering:

The Mormaer of Mar & Retainer.

I have no idea if the Mormaers of Mar ever allied themselves with the Lords of the Isles, but to be honest Scottish warfare & internal politics in the 14th/ 15th centuries is so incredibly byzantine anything is possible.
Final offering this week is another Macdonald retainer, in yellow.

A Few More West Highlanders.

A bit more progress this week on my burgeoning Isleman army for Lion Rampant.

Clan Chatton Man at Arms.

Another Scion of Clan Chatton

Clan MacDougall Command

Progress so far.

Really happy with how this project is shaping up. I wasn't too sure about painting heraldry by hand but for a small project like this it is manageable. Not sure I would want to tackle it on a grand scale though.

Rumours Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Its been a while now since my last post here & longer still since I actually laid brush to miniature. The reasons for this are long & somewhat tedious to relate but briefly come down to a lack of enthusiasm for wargaming in general & a renewal of interest in roleplaying; GMing is a very time consuming business.

Anyway with the lengthening evenings of Autumn upon us I laid out some hard earned cash to complete the Lion Rampant army I started back in 2014:

A few Highlands & Islands Fierce Foot. 

West Highland Men at Arms.

MacDonald Lord of the Isles.

Clan Chatton, strictly speaking not West Highland but closely affiliated.

Flemish Mercenary bearing the Arms of Ghent.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, painting Heraldry is a Royal pain in the arse; but not nearly so bad as applying transfers, a Dantesque torture in my book.
Almost as bad is researching West Highland heraldry, there are a few common elements scattered through it ( Ship, Eagle Rampant, Red Salmon, Red Hand) but these can be put together with a bewildering randomness, where they are recorded at all. Quartering arms! what a good idea, lets dispense with the expensive business of marrying then including the wife's heraldry on our kit, lets just bung a bunch of stuff on there in the first place.
You could look at this two ways I suppose, on one hand it gives you carte blanche as a painter to well, make it up; but that deprives one of the enjoyment of researching a subject & thus expanding your knowledge which is the approach I like to take. Could be why it takes me so long to finish projects, thank god for the internet, there's always some one out there who's beaten you to it; try typing in West Highland Heraldry, you'll be amazed.

A Small Corner of Palestine.

Have been suffering from burn-out in the miniature painting department since May, it will pass eventually, more than likely when I find something to inspire me sufficiently. In the meantime I have updated one of my old Panion boards for use in a planned game of Chain of Command, being as this is a skirmish game I have cluttered things up a bit to reduce sight lines.

I intend to add some scrub to the hillside prior to gaming & have some more wall sections ( in reality no more than stones cleared from fields & stacked round the margins) in production so nearly there, just need to set a date to game now.

Cheshire Yeomanry. British Cavalry for Syria.

Indulged myself with a rare painting session last night & finished off some more figures for Chain of Command, these will be used as markers for the Patrol Phase:

These come courtesy of Perry Miniatures & they are very nice, particularly keen on the horses, the anatomy is spot on. Depending on work commitments the next post may actually feature a war-game!

Morris 15cwt with Porteed Bofors.

The last vehicle for my Chain of Command platoon is now complete, its been a marathon build even by my slow standards but I'm fairly pleased with the result:

God knows what the health & safety executive would have to say about lying on a gun trail with the breach recoiling past your shoulder.

Its been an interesting project not least because of trying out a few new weathering techniques. This explains in part the extended nature of the build, I'd forgotten how long you have to leave spirit based paints to dry between coats.

British Empire Platoon & Support.

Finished these guys off yesterday evening, a little later than projected but rather appropriate for St. Georges day given that they will be fighting the Vichy French in the land of his birth.

This will form the basic force for use with Too Fat Lardies Chain of Command rules which use the platoon as the basic unit with a number of additional supports depending on the type of scenario to be played.
I still have a few more add ons to complete including a portee'd 37mm Bofors anti tank gun & some Yeomanry:

Should have a game sorted soon, report to follow.

More Carrier Madness.

Just a quick update on the Syria project, this week a caunter-less bren gun carrier:

I didn't want my carriers to look too uniform hence the decision to go with a simple desert yellow scheme, I did experiment with weathering powders though. Not sure if it comes out on the photos too well but in the flesh they do add a bit of depth.

Bren Gun Carriers in Caunter. A short tutorial.

I don't know where the time goes these days, it may be an age thing but more likely my customers start coming out of hibernation after the clocks go forward. This is one of the bonuses of working outdoors, you do get to appreciate the diversity of the British seasons.
Regardless, I have been busy progressing the WW2 Syria project in my rare moments of leisure& thought I might share my method of reproducing the sometimes controversial Caunter camouflage pattern. I don't pretend that this is by any means a definitive guide, but the colours do scale quite well to  the 1/56th that Perry miniatures produce their vehicles in:

The basic raw materials, MIG filters 400 & 405, Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Rubber & Tracks Primer, Model Colour  Desert Yellow, Iraqi Sand & Medium Sea Grey.

Base coat of Desert Yellow (hull) & tracks primer over Halford's red oxide primer.

Running gear blocked in with Iraqi Sand.

Dark rubber applied, don't worry about getting the lines to straight, this camo was applied in the field with brushes  without the benefit of masking tape.

Now the Sea Grey has been applied, after allowing the whole to dry for 24 hours the first layers of filters have been applied, you can see it collecting in the cracks & crevasses of the vehicle doing a nice job of simulating dust.

The finished articles with crew & stowage, Perry's supply ample quantities of the latter.

Work is also progressing on the infantry platoon featured previously, only a few figures to go now; next up will be a Bofors 37mm AT gun porteed on a Morris truck & some members of the Cheshire Yeomanry. Interestingly the Cheshire Yeomanry were the last unit of the British Army to mount a cavalry action, routing a Vichy French infantry unit out of a village in Syria; it isn't counted as a charge because apparently they didn't raise their swords!