An Experiment.

I have been playing around making  short clips using photos of various wargames. Here is one I made earlier tonight. It will be interesting to see if it uploads successfully....

The music used is called "Chase Pulse Faster" and is Public Domain (Available from here) I find it to be quite pleasant, but tastes in music can vary widely. Making the movie was simple enough - Windows Live Movie Maker seems very user friendly. Potential wargaming use for short clips produced this way seems to be limited to either tutorials or propaganda reels - which does seem to promise a certain amount of fun. 

More trucks for Harad.

A collection of playworn diecast toys.

Recently I acquired a number of diecast vehicles that had seen much better days. The collection did include a   Matchbox Battle Kings Tank Transporter, which was the main reason for me acquiring the collection. I rather like the Battle Kings Tank Transporter, and I have already repainted one for service in Harad (details here), so I thought I would do the same with this one.

This is one of the later production battle kings as it is a more military green, and the  plastic parts are a more muted  colours such as black and grey.

The rerar wheels of the tractor unit are buckled and one of the exhausts has snapped off. Fortunately I still have the piece. 

The cab (and upper trailer deck) have been repainted a darker green. Nothing Simple Green can't solve.

This truck as been used by Matchbox as part of a freight set (with forklift) and as  an armoured car carrier.

Size comparison shot.

 The normal process of drilling out the rivets to seperate out the vehicle parts and give them a good clean, and soak in simple green (if required) was followed. but I didn't take any photos! I used pliers to straighten out the wire on the tractor rear wheels to unbuckle it, which was quite a simple operation.

The parts were sprayed primer grey, then painted over with Iraqi sand, and the reassembled and given a brown wash.

Both Tank Transporters side by side.

So I now have a heavy truck and another tank transporter to use in CD games set in Harad. I plan to recycle a few more vehicles from this diecast collection,then I will sell or trade the rest.

Lucky Products AWI Mohawks

I have painted and washed the first three V&B Mohawk skirmisher stands. I still have to finish the basing, but I am quite happy with the way the first nine figures have painted up. I have only done a very basic paint job on these figures as I wanted to see what a group of them would look like painted (as opposed to the horrible red and blue plastic they were cast in - pictures here)

In V&B terms each of these stands represents a sizable force of Indian Warriors. 

Unfortunately, in my haste to paint these fellow up I didn't remove all the flash. Some of the flash was useful in helping to suggest the scalp lock at the top of each figures head. Evidently int was considered good form to maintain a hairstyle that would produce a good trophy to whomever finally ended a warrior's life.

I am considering painting on extra detail for the muskets.

I only added  basic warpaint to the faces of two figures. 

 I also quickly finished up the first of my three 'contoured' V&B stands. I decided to see how the autumn leaves flock would look on this base with the fallen logs, and I am not unhappy with the result. The paint jobs on the militia figures were quite rushed as I really wanted to quickly finish the stand off.  The figures on this stand are all from the Imex/Revell AWI Americans set.

Front view. in V&B AWI militia stands are considered permanently disordered..

Side view. I really like the pose of the red coated figure.

And a rear view.  

And together with their Mohawk friends.

I also started work on painting the first of the Lucky Products British artillery. The MDF base is a standard V&B artillery base (3" x 1.5") so as you can tell, the gun is quite large, so only having two figures on the base works well. At the moment all I have done is undercoat in black and block in some basic colours. Doing this lets me see how much detail is actually on the figure, and how much needs to be painted on.

Very much a WIP. 

Early on I was worried that the gunners and drummers from the Lucky Products set were wearing the wrong headgear - they are wearing tricorns, rather than their correct headgear - but it appears that tricorns were often worn in the field as they were more practical on campaign.

 The current plan is to build up both the British and American forces needed for the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, with additional units - such as Mohawks - for use in other campaigns.