Off the Painting Table (May 2015)

May is the second month in a row that I have done next to no gaming! This month I have been hit by ‘man-flu’ which laid me low for a week or so, and then I took a short break in Prague. This is a lovely city with much historic interest. The beer is good but the cuisine seems to revolve around dupplings. We were very fortunate with the weather and visited many of the tourist sites. My interest in the Hussite movement has been re-ignited, and perhaps it is time to get my Hungarian and Ottoman armies out again and let the war-wagons roll!

At the tail end of April I visited Salute. This show is just overwhelming, and the temptation to spend and start new projects has to be resisted. I contented myself with buying a few essentials (paints, bases, transfers etc.) and then wandered around admiring the wonderful demo games. In my opinion the best game was the AWI naval landing game inspired by the Cornwall novel, ‘The Fort’ – wonderful terrain, figures and especially the beautiful ships! The theme of the show, Agincourt, inspired many games but the HYW period is not one I want to indulge in myself. There were naturally a few Waterloo based games as well, so any French visitors would feel most put upon! I am not going to attempt a full review of the show because there are many posted on various wargame sites which do the job much better.

This month I have focussed on painting up my Teutonic forces. I assembled all the figures required using the FireForge range of figures. This was most satisfying, I really enjoy putting the figures together, adding variations in weapons and poses. I then primed them using a grey primer. I next decided to paint the white cloth components on all the figures in one go! This process took many days and I almost got snow-blindness from all the white I was using. Anyway once done, a major part of the total painting job was complete and would not need to be repeated. I next painted the two 6-man units of knights. This was completed fairly quickly, there were few colours to add, most work was metalics for the armoured parts of the figures.

Once the figures were painted they looked fairly ‘anaemic’ but now was the time to apply the transfers I had bought at Salute produced by ‘Battle Flag’. Application was a time consuming business, with each figure requiring at least 8 different transfers. Those applied to flat surfaces (e.g. shields) were easy, but those going on curved, moulded surfaces (e.g. cloth horse barding) were much more fiddly. The instruction sheet does suggest using a transfer application solution, which I don’t have, and I would highly recommend using such a product in the future. Anyway, after two days of work, and much swearing, the task was complete and I must admit to being very happy and impressed by the results. The transfers really bring the figures to life and represent one of the best buys I have made, because I doubt whether I could come close to achieving the same quality if I had relied on my own brush skills.

The next painting task is the first 12-man unit of Teutonic foot spearmen, which I hope to complete in the next week or so.

Number	Scale	Period	Manufacturer	Notes:
97	15mm	War of the Roses	Peter Pig
16	15mm	Pony Wars	Peter Pig	Casualty markers
12	28mm	C17th British Cavalry	Wargames Factory
20	28mm	C17th British Infantry	Wargames Factory
12	28mm	ECW cavalry	Warlord Games
14	28mm	ECW pikemen	Wargames Factory	Conversions
8	28mm	Jacobites	Col. Bill’s
1	28mm	Napoleonic Rifleman	Bicorne Miniatures
1	28mm	Horse and cart	4Ground
6	28mm	Mounted Baltic Pagans	FireForge
6	28mm	Baltic Pagan Bidowers	FireForge
36	28mm	Baltic Pagan Foot	FireForge
6	28mm	Baltic Pagan MAA Foot	FireForge
6	28mm	Baltic Pagan MAA Horse	FireForge
12	28mm	Teutonic kights	FireForge