Hail Casear Casualty Markers

Some dead horses - block painted, to make some dice holders to act as casualty markers for HC. These are from the Napoleonic range - but I think will work fine for Fantasy and medieval armies.

First dead horses I've seen painted up, they look good. 

Looks like those will work particularly well Fred !
Cheers - Phil

Ta chaps. I've made the little retaining wall a bit a higher on these to keep the dice in place, the horse itself works well  to retain the horse on the other size.

Hate to say it, thought these were dead rocking horses on first glance!  Actually really good job on those! 

Hah! Hah!

Not sure what a live rocking horse is though...

British Armour
More decals applied to assorted light vehicles - this is remarkably fiddly and tedious work - I now know why I have so many unfinished vehicles in my boxes and drawers!



Did some windscreen painting - I have been avoiding this for ages, but found a few sample photos on the web and gave it a go - it was good fun to do, and I think looks OK (it has come out very bright with the camera flash).

In the corner of the photo is my new painting palatte - part of my Valentines pressie from my amazing wife  (she also got me a few Really Useful box inserts, assorted double sided tape, and some chocolate!! - proper useful gifts not some commercial tat)

Quite frankly I'm shocked at the vehicular 'skills' of the drivers in the photo.
At least one of them seems to have crashed into the tree in the background !
Windscreens look really good Fred !
Cheers - Phil.

Quote from: Techno on 15 February 2012, 07:09:47 AM
Quite frankly I'm shocked at the vehicular 'skills' of the drivers in the photo.
At least one of them seems to have crashed into the tree in the background !

Cheers - Phil.

Damn RASC drivers - couldn't care less! 

Probably could be avoided if they didnt paint their windscreens black.


Very nice paintjobs Fred 

Quote from: Techno on 15 February 2012, 07:09:47 AM
Quite frankly I'm shocked at the vehicular 'skills' of the drivers in the photo.
At least one of them seems to have crashed into the tree in the background !

Good eyes there Phil.  I'll have to do more background items!

Quote from: goat major on 15 February 2012, 09:44:08 AM
Probably could be avoided if they didnt paint their windscreens black.

I'll have you know they are dark blue!

Quote from: Hertsblue on 15 February 2012, 09:38:19 AM
Damn RASC drivers - couldn't care less! 

Hadn't decided which Arm of Service markings to put on these but it will have to be RASC now.

Thanks chaps

Missed lots of diary entries - and have done lots of hobby stuff in the last week!   


Friday - Played Hail Caesar Fantasy - this week my High Elves vs Steve's Demons. Started badly for Steve when he realised that he'd left 4 units at home. So assorted proxy-ing of my evil figures ensured. A good battle with many turn to turn swings of fortune. Steve finally conceded after a blunder forced his last full brigade back into a damaged brigade causing much disorder, while my elite infantry smashed through the other side of his force.

Weekend - Took lots of photos of my British Armour for the painting comp - and have still to finish sorting though them. As this is barely 1/3 of the vehicles and none of the infantry, and they quite happily filled a quarter of the table, I started to wonder if I have too many...

Started to paint a couple more units of WM High Elves to even up the number of WM units for HC. Strip mounted figures are quick to paint, but it is a bit of a production-line rather than fun.

Took advantage of the sunshine to cut up some lumps of insulation foam into two hill/cliffs and a tall hill (like the motte of a norman castle) - even done outside this was very messy especially as the slivers of foam stuck by static electricity to my fleece. Looked like a bad snow storm.

Also made a start on some castle walls from blue foam. I'd ordered a few A4 sheets from Antecentics Workshop over christmas and made a start at cutting them up (this created less mess as it was linear cuts rather than shaving off bits to make slopes). Had a go at making a "press mold" to do the stone work. This sort of worked. I scored a wall section with a pencil to give the impression of stones - both linear and curved, which seemed to look OK. Then made up a big ball of fairly wet Milliput, which took ages, smoothed this on a piece of hardboard, and then pressed the wall section down into the milliput. Applied lots of pressure (by standing on it!) The left overnight with a heavy book on top. The next evening I tried to separate the parts - which proved tricky as my oil release agent hadn't really worked. This left a thin layer of blue foam attached to the mold. I tried to dissolve this with acetone with limited success, some picking away with a sharp point and then a scrub with a nail brush removed most of the foam.

Using this positive master was then pretty quick and easy, but the results are underwhelming - it makes a decent impression on one side of the blue foam wall, but its just lots of small holes, rather than a stone pattern. Its probably OK as it breaks up the smoothness of the foam, and a few extra brick lines can be scored in. I wonder if the foam was the wrong material to create the initial "sculpt" in as it has a hard surface but is softer below, which leads to narrow grooves that are wider beneath. Or maybe my extend clean up had damaged the master - but I don't think the bits that needed cleaning look any difference from the other parts.

Tuesday - a box of plastic 28mm normans arrived for Saga. Being plastic they are easy to convert so I intend to make some into Anglo Saxons with bits from other boxes. I've put together 3 so far, and have made magnetic bottomed riders so that riders can be swapped as there are an extra few rider bodies compared to horses in the box.

Now I need to focus to get a few more figures finished for the painting comp.

So many project, so many distractions

Another week - and only writing a diary entry at the end of the week 

Plastic Norman knights - assembled all of these, 12 horses and 15 riders. Did slight conversions of 4 with Saxon heads and weapons form the GB box set, the heads need necks creating, and as I made up far to much miliput I made a sand-bag barricade for a 10mm MG stand.  Sprayed the horses brown and the riders black - but have now parked these for a bit.

Completed the 2 units of WM High Elves - which gives me 8 spear and 8 bow units.

Based and painted the first 3 sections of castle wall - these look pretty good, so need to make battlements for 2 of the sections, and texture the bases.

A largish WM Empire vs Lizardmen game is in the offing in a few weeks time, so I've been cleaning Empire figures to get a few more units on the table, so far got 2 Halberdiers, 1 Knights and 2 skirmishers cleaned and on painting sticks. Have another unit of knights to do, then hopefully get these sprayed if its dry tomorrow.

Photo's.....NOW ! 
Looking forward to seeing them Fred !!
Cheers Phil.

Photos of anything in particular?

If you keep shouting like that we'll start calling you Ian