Off the Painting Table (June 2018)

Looking at my Teutonic collection I realised that I had no non-order troop types. I therefore ordered 2 packs (12 figures) of Town Militia produced by Fireforge. I did not appreciate that the figures would be cast in resin rather than the usual hard plastic. I have only painted resin buildings, not figures, so this would be new to me. The resin is more flexible than plastic and felt rather ‘greasy’, so I washed the sprues in soapy water and allowed to dry. Assembly was a pain because the usual polystyrene glue would not work, so I had to use super-glue instead. However hard I try I always manage to get super-glue on extraneous surfaces (including my fingers), and the flexible nature of the resin meant the joins were not as firm as I would like (much swearing was involved!). Next I tried priming the figures black and immediately found the primer would not take; it just ‘puddled’ on the surfaces. After some head-scratching I decided to pre-prime the figures with thinned PVA glue, which I hoped would provide an adherent surface (and strengthen the glue joints). Once dry, I used primer again and there was still some ‘puddling’. I was now getting annoyed! So, I added some PVA to my primer and carried on. Finally I finished prepping the figures; most surfaces were reasonably covered but not to the standard I would normally aim for. Overall, I hated the process of getting these resin figures ready for painting, and I will strenuously avoid buying any more figures cast in resin (unless someone out there can provide a better way of working with such material).

The figures actually painted up OK. I used muted tones, with little decoration on the tunics etc. I felt this gave a better militia-look, and I left the shields as plain wood with no heraldic devises (although I could easily ‘pimp-up’ the shields at a future date).

In parallel to painting the militia figures, I painted a pack of metal Warlord Games farmyard animals to add to my collection. These models quickly add ‘feel’ to any terrain set up, and subtly make battlefields more visually appealing. I am also tempted to play some Border Reiver scenarios where the livestock will play a significant role.