Lord of the rings: Rohan warriors

Hi, here's a new post about some mini's of my LOTR-collection from GW. This time I will show my Rohan warriors, a fierce and horse-liking nation of men (Viking/ medieval).

Their homelands are known for their immense plains and their well trained horses (there are even reports of orc-raids to steal this precious animals of war, the ringwraiths are mounted on stolen black horses tortured with dark magic of Sauron, Lord of Mordor).

Still no riders painted but I have some painted men on foot,

A close-up of some of the figures.

The entire unit.

Greets,

Lord of the rings: Ringwraith

Hi, here's a new post post about some of my painted mini's, this time GW's metal ringwraith. This was the second metal figure I painted.

For the peoples who don't know LOTR: the ringwraith is a sort of evil ghost which can spawn again and again after been killed as long as the dark heir rules the realms of Middle Earth.

The miniatures was painted as followed:

1) Basecoat of Chaos black.

2) Highlight of a dark grey.

3) Highlight of a lighter grey.

4) Paint the sword of boltgun metal and highlight with mithril silver.

5) A black wash.

6) A light drybrush of brown for creating a muddy look.

7) A final drybrush of another lighter brown.

All paints used are GW-paints, easiest to get but expensive!

Another photo of the ringwraith.

Greets,

Lord of the rings: Moria goblins

Hi, here are some painted miniatures from my collection. This time I will show you the miniatures which opend my eyes on a new hobby: wargaming!

My mate was already collecting the BGIME-serie of Deagostini from a local shop I think. I visited him and saw his elves and goblins (packets 1 and 2) and liked them.

So I went to my local "journalshop" and bought the introduction-set including some paints, dices and 12 plastic goblins.

The first of my large LOTR-collection and the first steps into wargaming,...

The unit, the bases are decorated with pieces of slate.

Another photo of the unit

The unit exists out off: 4 archers, spearman, swordmen

Paints used for the goblin-unit:

- Mithril silver

- Goblin green

- Bestial brown

- Scorched brown

- Chaos black

And a last photo of the goblin "horde".

Greets,

Some scratchbuild trucks

Hi, here are new post about my terrain anf other wargame related stuff, this time some scratchbuild trucks.

The trucks were ment to be used as some transport for my upcoming BCW (Belgian Civil War) militia "VWA" (Vlaamsche weerstand Avelgem or the Flemish resistance Avelgem) But they came out the make a little bit outscale! They are really huge!

The link to the mainsite of BCW:

http://www.tsoa.be/html/titelblad_to_arms.html

The 2 trucks on a row, an openback truck and a closed truck.

The trucks were made out off:

- Corrugated cartonboard

- Thick cartonboard

- Wooden circles (wheels)

- Hotglue (for the assembly)

- Balloonsticks

- Thin pieces of wood

An other shot of the trucks.

Greets,

VSF-project: some technology

Hi, here are some new pieces to add to my ever growing VSF-project. This time i builded some walkers still not convinced on these, they don't look like victorian enough.

So what can I add? Some exhaust pipes? Some rivets? I really don't know so if any of you LAF'ers has an idea, please share it.

The "walkers" will be used as support for my British soldiers against the natives hordes of Atlantis and Mbuij Mayi.

Construction

The walkers are made out of little christmasballs and some pieces of iron wire as legs. The eyes of the walkers were made out of little pieces sprues. The base is made out of a piece of hardboard covered with filler.

The walkers with an 28mm Ral Partha figure.

The three walkers on a row.

Greets,

Kallistra Scifi miniatures

Hi, here are some pictures of my 28mm Kallistra scavengers who will terrorise and compete with my "chaos on the red planet (2225)" gangmembers alias inmates.

The scavengers were drybrushed with different sorts of brown and will recive a wash (inkt, but I'm not sure which inkt to use black or chestnut?). The figures aren't ready yet I still need to paint the flesh and highlights on some of them.

The figures of Kallistra are a bit heroic 28mm such as the GW warhammer 40k ranges. I think they would match up quit good but I don't have GW 40k figures so I can't compare them.

All these figures are armed with armorpiercing harpoons made out off bare and rusty metal scavenged from deserted cars and other trash!

For easy painting all the figures are attached to a piece of hardboard.

This figure has already a painted face.

The three figures on a row.

Greets,

Bastion: Ex illis

Hi, here's a review about a new kind of tabletop wargaming, Ex Illis created by Bastion. This game combines tabletop gameplay with computersoftware to resolve diceresults, automaticaly measures ranges and movement.

I have played this game once but I found a lot of other usable information on the internet, I was informed about this new game through a French wargame magazine I bought on a holiday in the Ardennes. The magazine included a cavalry miniature and his gamecode. This gamecode is used to control your miniature throughout the software and is able to store his stats, battle experience and upgrades!

Ok, enough talking now some facts and information.

General information

Ex Illis is played with 2-100 hard plastic miniatures which are moved around a 36''-45'' gamingmat, everything is controlled through a computerprogram which you can freely download from their website, the avaible platforms are Mac, Pc and even Ipod!

With this software program you can automatical fight, move and fire armed weapons. So you are able to skip the endless measuring and dice rolling, and finish rather large battles in a fraction of the usual time!

The game's setting is based on medieval Europe during 1309, which was a very chaotic periode for Europe, warring states, political intrigues, assasinations. so really a huge source for creating different factions such as France, Scotland, papal states, etc ...

The also game combines fantasy and historical elements, so you can now charge monsters and wizards with your knights or billmen! this combination also allows to create a new dimension to the game, you now also need in account severe magical attacks and other blasphemy!

Gaming information

To play the game you must first of all buy some miniatures and download the free software from their nice website. All new modification to the game are also free to download from this website which is updated on a regular base.

The starterkit includes the following;

- 54 really nice miniatures.

- Gaming software.

- Intro booklet.

- Gaming mat.

Price: 63 euros

Now you can decide try the game with painted or unpainted miniatures, this is off course your chose so we continue. The needed materials are their nice miniatures, a gaming surface, a computer, Ipod or Mac, terrainfeatures and off course a partner. This last thing actually bothers me why in earth do you want to play with your mates togheter in front of a computerscreen? It would be easier if could fight your battles online with people from across the world with some sort of webcam feature. But that said, now you need to divide the miniatures in to coherent armies and create your battlefield on the table and on your screen.

Gaming sequence

With that done, you can finally start playing using the following gaming sequence:

1) Movement

2) Charges

3) Melee

4) Shooting

5) Fatigue and veil

6) Moral

Nothing more that I can say, everything is software controlled so you're not able to forget to move this and shoot that big thing that's marching toward your defenseline.

Unit variation

Each army is equipment with a range of light troops such as nymphs, bowmen and a assotment of cavalry, heroes and magicians! This variation really adds to the medieval and fantasy like experience.

Another really nice feature of the game is that every type of unit such as hobelars, billmen, longbowmen, ... have a variation of 3 unique attacks for exemple for a hobelar it's possible to harass the enemy, lure and canter. this really add a different approach for as well the player as his enemy!

The miniatures

Now I will tell a bit more about the miniatures, first I wasn't a fan of the range which is entirely made out of plastic. When I opened the magazine and saw the knight-miniature I was really disappointed about the detailling! But after a closer inspection I was struck with the conversion possibilities!

But second to that I was surfing the internet when I saw a review of Ex Illis by "beasts of war" of the starter kit which really suprised me, the miniatures were really nice and the packaging and supporting material was really great.

Check out these longbowmen, pity they are quit similar posed but they certainly don't lack any details. But these aren't the nicest figures! Check these Archangels, well these are awesome and breath taking! Very dynamic posed and full of character.

Opinion

Well to express my opinion about this game will sum up some pro's and contra's. First of all I'm very pleased to know that you dan't need to buy an expensive rulebook and armybooks. Also I'm quit a fan of no manual dicerolling and endless discussions about the exact measurement or visible enemies. Another useful feature of using software is the recording ability this allows you to upgrade your miniature stats and actually see your own hero becoming deadlier!

On the other hand you always need to turn your pc on when gaming which is a real shame. And if you want to wargame on your computer, just play an online or offline strategic game!

Online sources

The nice website, you must certainly check following stuff:

http://en.ex-illis.com/

- The youtube-clip of "beasts of war".

- The pictures of the painted miniatures of the starterskit!! Amazing!!

- ...

Greets,

The start of Chaos on the red planet (2225)

Hi, I'm just kicking of another project! Not a big project but I hope I will finish it within some months or so.

A small sunmary:

"The year 2225 in the far future several planets has been colonished by earth. Some has been colonished by civilians, others by miners searching for rare metals and gasses. But the most harsh planets of the galaxy are used as prisons, stretched across several planets hundreds of penal colonies are build. Most of the prisons are based on icy and desert planets were the prisonners are forced to work in mines or are condamned to recycle the huge piles of waste which ships from earth dropped on the planets.

The smallest of these colonies houses 250 prisonners and the largest penalty colony has a population of 20 000 prisonners. Most of the prisonners are criminals of planet earth but some of them are inhabitants of other galaxies.

With no future within the harsh penalty colonies many inmates escape, ...

But life outside the colonies is even harsher, mob bosses have gathered gangs of harded criminals, Alien merchants and scavengers are roaming the plains in search of slaves or usable materials, ...

Only when you are accepted into a clan you make a chance to survive on these harsh planets!"

I'm intending to build:

- Some civilian colony buildings.

- Some prisonners barracks

- 2 watchtowers

- A landing pad

- A field of solarpanels

- 1.5 meter of electric fences

- Huge piles of waste

- A clan settlement

- Some hasty vehicles used by the clans.

I'm intending to paint

- A small scavenger force

- A small civilian contigent

- Some aliens

- Some alien merchants

- A small military and police force

- ...

I hope I will finish this project!

Greets,

Scratchbuild sci-fi APC

Here's a small post about my scratchbuild APC, he's loosely based on the GW rhino but a bit more basic and especially much cheaper!

It will be used in a 28mm project that I'm currently working on including some gangsters, aliens, scavengers, an isolated harsh desert planet (Mars), an penitiary colony,...

The main construction was made of cheap and extremely soft wood which was easy to cut. The roof, interior and exterior details were made of thin plasticcard.

The machinegun was made of some cheap plastic toys which I found in my bitsbox. The entire vehicle is scale 28mm but he's a little bit overscaled.

I think of basing him on a hardboard base so he's a little bit more sturdy.

The vehicle with the roof and machinegun.

The vehicle from the side.

I hope you enjoyed it!

Perry miniatures: French line infantry

Hi, here's a new post about some of my painted miniatures, this time some painted napoleonic perry French.

On the photos you can see the fusilierspart of the plastic box which contains:

- Flagbearer

- Officer

- Drummer

- 4 voltiguers (skirmishers)

- 4 grenadiers

- 4 voltiguers

- 24 fusiliers

A general shot, on the pictures you can see miniatures in different stages of painting, the most are ready but some are still bare or just undercoated.

A general shot, to paint these miniatures I only used gamesworkshop paints and 1 humbrol paint.

- Boltgun metal

- Mithril silver

- Snakebite leather

- Scorched brown

- Dark flesh

- Skull white

- Chaos black

- Enchanted blue

- Shining gold

- kind of bright red (name unknown to me at the moment)

- ...

And another picture, ...

En masse they look fine but I'm not such a good painter!

Greets,

28mm: rocky outpost

Hi, here's another post with some of my terrain. It's a rocky outpost painted to serve in a jungle or desert area. This an old piece of terrain that I build to be used in several settings from the Sudan to Congo and from Venus to Mars.

This piece already served in a small WW2 skirmish game between German defenders and American airbornetroops.

The rock was the mainline of defense for the german forces fortified with some machineguns, snipers and mortarsquads.

But the mainline was quickly suppressed by the American airbornetroops and their Shermantank support but with a great loss of lives and the tank.

The rules used for the game were easy homemade rules.

The tools used

- Saw

- Stanley-knife

- PVA

- Hotglue-gun

- Brushes

The materials used

- Pieces of bark

- A block of polystryn

- Sand

- Paints

- Gravel

The construction

1) Take an polystryn block.

2) Cut out the stairs.

3) Saw the bark to the right size.

4) Glue the bark onto the block.

5) Glue a line of stones were you want some small walls.

6) Texture the bare block with sand and PVA.

7) Paint the entire piece in a chosen color.

8) drybrush the entire piece with a lighter variant of the chosen color.

Photos

The outcrop with an 28mm figure for scale purposes.

A close-up of the stairs and adjecent rocks.

Rock(bark)details.

An overall view of the rocky outcrop.

Another picture of the entire rocky outcrop.

Thanks for reading,

15mm: ACW fences

Hi, here's a post about my 15mm ACW fences. These fences that I've made a while ago were part of a small ACW-project which I never finished.

The fences were made of bamboo sticks which were crossed and glued together. The bases are made of hardboard-strips which have a length of 13 cm. The entire piece was painted brown and drybrushed with a lighter brown (almost creamcolor).

After that I flocked some parts with static grass that I had stored in my supplyboxes. I made 11 of these fences so I can fence a line of 1 meter and 43 cm. Enough fences for now but I have enough bases left to do another 10. The fences already served in Europe during a small WW2 game set in Normandy (not really historical correct :p).

Will they ever serve in the ACW? I don't think so, ...

Greets,