The Lead Painters League 2011

The Lead Painters League is over for 2011, and all that remains is for the judges to collate the points. In the past ten weeks I have painted a staggering 59 miniatures and 5 tanks, which has gone a long way to reducing my lead mountain and finishing of some half finished projects that, in all honesty probably wouldn't have been finished if it weren't for the competition.
Score wise I think I haven't done as well as last year. I was unfortunate enough to be drawn against some of the big hitters early on, but I made a better show of it in the later rounds- I won 4 and lost 6 rounds. I will post the final results as soon as they are available.
This years competition saw some remarkable entries from many people. I was particular impressed by two painters known as Hammers and Frank on the LAF. They consistently amazed me with the quality of their work.



Round 10's entry was themed 'From the Movies'. I opted for The Great Escape. Most of the figures for this round were from Ebob, but a couple of the Germans were from Artizan Designs. I was in a bit of a panic when my figures hadn't arrived a week before I was due to start painting them. I contacted Bob, of Ebob, and he said they were out of stock, and he was having difficulty getting more due to Salute 11. Eventually they arrived, and I managed to get all 10 painted in just five days, which I thought was quite an achievement.
I envision the Germans getting used for Pulp-era games, or perhaps a weird world war 2 theme. The British airman and Steve McQueen will get pressed into service somewhere in my VBCW armies, as air crew, mechanics and drivers.

Rooftop Rumble for Pulp City

Skyline Looking Cool

Leon and I fought another Pulp City game yesterday- but one with a bit of a difference. We styled this one a Rooftop Rumble, as all of the action took place on the tops of the high-raised buildings in Pulp City. All the heroes and villains had to swing, jump or fly from on rooftop to the next. The big clock tower in the middle effectively limited lines of sight, to make the game a bit more strategic.

I was on the side of Justice two of the big hitters in Pulp City's hero community, taking the newly reworked Solar, the brilliant Dr Mercury. I also took the two rooftop vigilantes, Jade Hawk and Skyline (Obvious choices, given the terrain we would be fighting over).

To counter my force, Leon opted for Supreme Zed (a zombie supervillain!), The Avatar of The Jaguar, and his side kick, Stalker, and then, for a bit of long range poke, The Gentleman.

We both opted to take a reporter covering the story. I took Jane Summer, from Channel 4 News, while Leon opted for Channel 1's notorious glory hound Lance Waverly.

Now, unfortunately most of the pictures came out bad, so You will have to use your imagination a bit.

The Good Guys started out with an aggressive move from Solar, who flew across to the Villains building, ready to perform some serious beat down on Supreme Zed. Unfortunatly, Supreme Zed charged him and pummeled him out of the sky. Before he could recover The Gentleman took him out with a shot right between the eyes. This was a bit of a shock result, given how tough Solar is, and threw my battle plan into chaos.

Stalker and The Avatar of the Jaguar advanced across the rooftops on the opposite side of the board, and as soon as Avatar came in range he was pounced on by Jade Hawk and Skyline.

Normally the two level one heroes wouldn't have been a match for The Avatar and Stalker, but up on the rooftops Jade Hawk and Skyline are in their element, and they managed to take both villains out. Jade Hawk was badly wounded in the attack, but survived.

Elsewhere The Gentleman and Supreme Zed overpowered Dr Mercury, leaving Supreme Zed free to race across to the Hero's building, where he attacked Jane Summers, the reporter. She was no match for his brutal attack.

Skyline took out Lance Waverly, but not before the reporter could bag some impressive footage of the roof top vigilantes in action. Skyline then tried and failed to take out Gentleman, who had remained in the Villains building, and so the game ended with a very close result: Villains won by 1 Agenda Point because of Lance's film!

Argh! Zombies!

Reports are just in of a new outbreak of what experts have named the 'Z-Contagion'. It seems that police were called to an incident in a kebab shop is Sparkbrooke, Birmingham, when one of the customers reportedly 'went bazerk' and started biting other customers. The Z-Contagion soon spread, affecting another four customers before armed police could 'contain' the outbreak. Experts from the Department of Health and the Ministry for Zombies have been on scene, and say it is too early to attribute the Z-Contagion outbreak to a 'dodgy kebab'.
These rotten fellows are another Lead Painters League entry. I got them of Leon, who was chucking out some old lead. They are by Copplestone castings, and like all Mark Copplestone stuff, was a pleasure to paint. I have now got a hoard of 15 zeds, if I include those Christmas themed ones form studio miniatures I painted for Christmas Madness 2010. I plan on using them in my supers campaign, but also for a proposed zombie invasion Pulp City game, as some paint in the future- expect to see more zombies in 2011.

Operation Ratcatcher Part 2 -Battle Report

Belatedly, I have managed to get around to writing up the battle report for the second battle of Thaunton Le Moors, our last VBCW game. we fought this battle on the same day as Part 1, but with the Lead Painters League and going on holiday, I just didn't get round to posting it until now.

If you would like to see it, pop over to the Gentleman's Wargaming Parlor (Link), the home of all things VBCW. Post a comment here, or on teh forum, to let me know what you think.

First FOW Tanks

My Flames Of war army continues to progress very slowly. I added Five StuG III panzer to the list of completed minis as part of my Lead Painters League entry. The StuG Assault Gun was a workhorse of the German tank companies, even if it was not as respected as the bigger tanks. I just had to have some in my German army after playing Company of Heroes on the PC.

I am rather pleased with the paint job on the camouflage, which involved a lot of blending and so on. I painted on the badge, as I hate using decals, especially tiny ones. The tracks I am not so happy with, however; I might dry brush some weathering onto them to finish them off.

I have found that painting tanks for FOW is much more fun than painting infantry, and on the plus side, you don't need to paint so many either, as they cost more points value.With this in mind my FOW armies in the future will probably feature a lot more armour, and minimal infantry.

Confrontation War Band Begins

Lead painters league, the annual painting competition on Lead Adventure Forum, is always a good excuse to paint some projects that have been half-finished for some time. This latest lot is a perfect example of that. Me Old Pal, Leon, encouraged me to buy these guys, which are now out of production. I had to source them on Ebay, which is all part of the fun. Leon's idea was that we would each build up out war bands and duke it out as an alternative to warhammer etc.
That said, I didn't need much encouragement, as these are lovely miniatures, as all of the Confrontation minis are. It's a pity they are no longer being made.
With these five finished, I have the beginning of a war band. I think I will need about 15 models in total. As yet, as far as I know, Leon hasn't even started his yet, so perhaps this will serve as some encouragement to him.

These miniatures are produced by the now defunct French gaming company Rackham, for their game Confrontation. This faction is a human faction known Griffins. They are stunning models, and a joy to paint.
When painting them, I chose a tight pallet, drawing on the ecclesiastical purple to reinforce the idea that these guys are holy warriors. Following a style I ready about in an old White Dwarf 'Eavy Metal article I added the same purple, in tiny amounts, to all the other colours on the model, including the metallics, leather and even the flesh. This adds to a cohesive pallet that makes the models very eye catching. In addition I deliberately chose the same highlight colour (Bleached Bone) for the entire model.
I think that these might be the best figures I have ever painted.

Shield Wall

No posts for the last couple of weeks because I have been enjoying the sunny climate of Orlando, FL, and the general madness of Disney. I have, however, continued to post entries in the Lead Painters League, having been painting like a furious monkey prior to going away. Week six saw me post something a little different, namely a dark ages shield wall. I am not generally a player of historical war games (VBCW being something of a exception, because it is part-fictional and part fact based) but I really enjoyed an article in Wargames Illustrated which described making a scenic base for you figures, and fancied giving it a go. I love the Gripping Beast Saxons, and as I am a big fan of Bernard Cornwall's Warlord Chronicles trilogy, I thought why not?

I know me old pal Leon was a bit suspicious of the Saxons. Perhaps it's because he's half Finish, so there for something of a Viking himself, or perhaps he thinks I will be lured away to the dark side of historical wargaming. Anyway, he needn't worry, because although I enjoyed painting these guys, I think I have got it out of my system, for now at least.

I have painted them to represent a mixture of Pagan and early Christan Britons, circa 5-6th century (the so called Age of Arthur). I know they might not be historically accurate, but I don't care that much. I based them individually on the usual 20mm bases, but then made a scenic tray 11cm x 6cm, which is an odd size, but happens to be the size of the unit bases in Games Workshops War of the Rings. I figured if I ever get round to painting up more I could use that rules set, and it has the added advantage of giving me loads of room to artistically pose my miniatures on the base.

Anyway, I hope you like them. I really enjoyed making and painting them.

Evil Clowns!

Every villain needs henchmen. That is just one of those facts of life. They are going to need some nameless lackey to do their leg work: robbing computer components; engaging in theft to finance the villains operation; building and maning their secret lair, and obviously battling superheroes (or at least just long enough for the villain to make his escape).

All that most henchmen need, by way of a return, is access to high-tech military hardware, and a snazzy uniform. Some villains go for jump-suited thugs, others for robbed cultists. Only the deeply disturbed villain goes for the one thing almost guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of good and honest people: Evil Clowns!

These Evil Clowns have been given access to some serous hardware, in the hopes they might soften up the heroes enough for their boss to take them out. These minis are made by Black Cat Bases, and I painted them for the Lead Painters League competition.

I was acutely aware that I have been blogging a lot about VBCW of late, and so thought to readdress the issue by doing tome thugs and henchmen.

I am very scared of clowns, and thought that painting these fellows might be in some way cathartic, but alas, as these are clearly evil clowns, it has only served to reinforce my previous stereotypical ideas of evil clowns.

It was something of a relief to paint bright primary colours since most of the things I have been paining of late have been drab camouflage green or muted 1930's colours.

Manchester Regiment

The Very British Civil war of 1938, like all civil wars, turned brother against brother. This was also true of the regular and territorial army, which, torn between loyalties to the people of Britain and to an unpopular King and a fascist government, found itself split between the various factions.

By an large, the Royal Navy sided with the left wing militias of the dock yards, where as the RAF tended to side with the Royalist factions supporting King Edward. The army, however, found itself torn apart. In Liverpool, the King's Own Liverpool Regiment was ordered to shoot on anti-fascist protesters who refused to disperse. The officers refused to follow out the order, and soon the majority of the regiment was in full mutiny, and sided with the socalist mayor of Liverpool. This act lead directly to the formation of the Liverpool Free State.

The Manchester Regiment, however, remained loyal to the crown, despite misgivings about the fascist Prime Minister and his black-shirt BUF paramilitaries. The Manchesters now fight as part of the 'Northern Army Command'. They are currently on the front lines of the siege of Liverpool, or acting as flying columns maintaining the supply lines between Manchester and the troops fighting in merseyside and Cheshire.

Two companies of Manchesters have been garrisoned in Chester, and placed under the command of the Duke of Farnham. The represent the solid backbone of the defence of Chaster, and when the time comes, will be ready to take the fight to the Liverpool Free State.

These models are the plastic Tommy's produced by Bolt Action Miniatures/Warlord Games. They are nice models, with interesting and characterful faces. I converted a few to have their respirators in the 'ready position' to make them look a bit more early-war.

Operation Rat Catcher Battle Report (Part 1)

Operation Rat Catcher began as a reconnaissance in force of Thaunton le Moors, North of Chester, when the BUF Forces under the command of Captain Webster, ran into stiff resistance from the Wirral Socialist Volunteers. You can read a full, in depth narrative battle report at the Gentleman's Wargaming Parlor (GWP3);

Here's a Link.