54mm Colonial British

Not too long ago I finished up painted the Armies in Plastic British and German imperial cavalry units in addition to the 4.7s I had acquired recently to bring the combined collection up to "table-ready" status.

This includes me converting (quite nicely, I think) some BMC-type cheapo American Civil War artillery crew members to British and German crews with a simple head swap and a little exacto knife carving (the lower crew in the below photo).



The cavalry along with the new artillery crew conversions are not gloss-coated in a "shiny toy soldier" style and I have admit I am now rethinking that look because I am quite fond of the final look.  I used my "as few paint colors as possible" plan for these as with the others which moved things long quickly.  If I had just done the horses in the same brown I could have cut probably the total work time in half. In occasional 20 minute bursts I painted 18 cavalry in about 3 weeks.

The only other thing missing is a field marshal or similar commander in chief.  My cheapest and therefore best bet is probably a BMC ACW General Grant fig that could be head swapped easily. Hesitant because I tried such a conversion before and was not satisfied with the result.  

I'm looking at setting this up as a Black Powder game because its just so wonderfully absurd.

LizardRat War

I swear I've either been painting this army on and off forever or finished painting it forever ago, but as the fall wargaming season lurks upon us I finally played a game of Dragon Rampant, Dan Mersey's fantasy spin-off of Lion Rampant.  I was running a Ratpeople army of figures by Games Workshop, Black Tree Design, and Reaper Miniatures.  Gabe was running Lizardmen from a similar field of manufacturers.

We started off playing the 'hunt-for-crystals' scenario but using sheep instead of crystals, but quickly realized that my preference for 4'x3' play-spaces caused that objective to be accomplished with absolutely no one getting in combat at all - not even any harsh language!

So we just added the 'Bloodbath' scenario objectives on and kept playing.

My big moment then finally arrived! My summoner conjured the demon Orcus to appear on the battlefield!  I had not told Gabe that I had purchased or painted this model so that was a fun surprise!

Less fun but also a shock to both of us was that greater warbeasts like Orcus and a hydra can kill each other really fast or weaken each other really quick!  The hydra dispatched Orcus back to the helldimensions, but some determined ratpeople managed to eventually slay the hydra.

Many slayed figures later, Gabe cakewalked to the win, having achieved the bloodbath objective and several self-imposed objectives as well. Me? Well the ratpeople stole more sheep so that's something!