What me Warrior?

This perfectly scaled beauty is the Imprint Models “Warrior” which I hastened to finish after my dad-in-law got this tank done very quickly. This model comes with the extra armour which is standard now, but if you wanted an older version you just leave it off. There’s also a pair of draped camo nets supplied which I choose not to fit.

Again the quality is top notch making the entire experience enjoyable. Even thing fits together well with only a little bit of extra effort to fit the armour up kit.  Unlike the T72-M1 all the hatches are seperate, so you can fit crew if thats preferred over the buttoned-up version.

I’ve used Brookes Miniatures WMIK crews from Old Glory UK – they’re well priced and can be hacked to suit. I’ve painted the driver as Johnson Beharry prior to his Victoria Cross.

Effectively it’s the last vehicle for the regiment and it fits in well as a father figure to the smaller vehicles.

 

 

T-72M1 for Two

I’m so sorely tempted to start this post with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, etc” purely because this is a Tale of Two Bobs. One being my father-in-law who’s been a keen kit modeller ever since there was such a thing. Typically he specialises in aircraft being an ex-brylcreem boy. The other Bob is Bob Winward the man behind Imprint Models and who, as such, we’re about to pour compliments on.

A few weeks ago I bought an Imprint Warrior from via Empress Miniatures. Being just before Salute 2012 they muddled the order and sent me an LAV instead, but the quality of it was stunning. Then my Warrior turned up which was stunning too but more so because it’s a British vehicle (Hurrah!).

As usual I showed it to Bob as my latest project on the bench and he was stunned. Mainly it was the quality which he’d though was the domain of kits, finally casting had caught up, but also the price (£22) which is a fraction of what he’d pay for an equivalent kit.

Always a man to put his money where his mouth is, Bob had me bring up the Imprint web site, saw the model he wanted and gave me the cash there and then to get it for him. It came very quickly and Bob was onto it straight away and he’s done a great job too. You can see for yourself from the pictures.

I do feel our shared enthusiasm may have spilleth over. I’ve emailed Bob Windward a few times to express how happy I am, and my father-in-law being old school wrote him a letter of gratitude. I do hope he doesn’t think we’re Jehovah’s Modellers trying to drag him into our sinister cult. We can’t recommend them enough, in case you hadn’t seen the sub-text, and expect to see the Warrior up here soon.

Rocket Man

With Salute 2012 now a happy memory and a dent to the wallet it’s time to crack on with what we spent our cash on. The boy Slug beat me in the race with his Dwarves from Akula, while I’ve been slower off the mark. One thing I did manage in my consumerism was to get the rest of the Taliban, or Afghan Guerillas as they call them, from Eureka. So now I have every piece they make and I’m euphoric about them, so much so as to have painted some already.

It was good to see the Eureka gang at Salute but my being prearmed with sarcasm about the Ashes, Ricky Pontin, and many other antipodean delights proved to be a waste of time. I didn’t know that Nic from Eureka was from Yorkshire, and I’d left my Geoff Boycott gags at home. Alongside him were two seppos, and one solitary Aussie who lived in London. A genuine surprise but so cosmopolitan as to be delicious. Unfortunately Kosta Heristanidis wasn’t there so compliments galore for his great sculpting had to be tolerated by everyone else.

There really is something about Kosta’s work which I find delightful, good sculpting is only part of it -both in detail and charactor, there’s also something aboput painting them with every fold and line fitting my brush as if to tempt the paint into place. With some figures painting can be a chore, with these it’s an encouraged caress.

This piece, as I imagine you’ve gathered, is the rocket launcher. There’s a pair of loaders, the launcher plus all the bits and bobs to turn this base into a mini diorama. The launchers is eleven pieces of metal which all fit together first time, and there’s only the tiniest of mould lines on the figures. I can’t recommend these enough. However if the idea of ordering all the way from Victoria worries you try the Isle of Wight instead.

Again I’ve based this on a laser zapped custom sized base from Fenris Games, they’re a great idea well priced and give you as much room as you want. I like mine small as possible and really busy – Job Done!

Once More Unto the Breach…

… dear Friends once more. Having built a few compounds for our upcoming Jihadistan campaign one thing became became obvious. The British forces do like to make their way through compound with explosive charges rather than just going through the door. Above is my solution and I think it’s rather elegant for what it is, and better than just a piece of paper with “breach” scrawled on it.

I’ve made one and cast half a dozen in the hope of the British player not getting carried away with his charges. I may well need some more given the joy a big bang can bring to a game. These are available from Slug Industries.

Sanger a Song of Sixpence

One of the most different things about making models for casting rather than just the tabletop is just how much longer it can take. Whereas I can have a model like the one above table ready in just three or four days for casting from it takes at least double if not triple the time to make a master. Thankfully I’ve evolved beyond making masters which get trapped in the mould, so I’m delighted with this one.

It started with single Hesco blocks. First laid was the first layer, then the second above it, the planking with scribed woodgrain and finally the steps.

Next came the lower half of the roof, or the table as we came to call it. The only real detail being the woodgrain underneath which you hardly ever see. Well I know it’s there.

Next was the corrugated roof, but that’s not really protection enough from Terry Taliban’s mortars, so it has to be sandbagged. So a line of sandbags went on, which has to be filled before the next line goes on.

It starts to look like this but very very slowly…

Finally got to throw the masters into rubber and lo and behold here’s the very first cast which worked perfectly… phew!

As did both sections of the roof. A peak of euphoria was reached in 6mil mansions.

I did take the roof out a little early hence the curve, but married together a neat piece which I hope others will be interested in.

It’s quite agreeable painted too, although I’m never happy with my drybrushing of the Hesco itself. It takes ages, look passable when it’s inches from your eye but looks a bit scratchy at a distance. Well it does to my hyper-self-critical eyes.

I’m looking forward to seeing this on the table, it’s big enough to hold five figures or a larger heavy weapons base of figures, and very tough – although my Eureka rocket launcher is on the workbench.

This model is now availble, unpainted and sans figures, from our humble Slug Industries.

Red Dwarves

Here’s another example of the boy Slug’s painting which is not only a neat paintjob but also a record for the fastest painting of a Salute purchase. As many Salute devotees know it’s easy to buy some metal and still have it safely stored when the next one rolls around. These Russian dwarves made by Akula are part of the World War one fantasy genre which is rapidly gaining interest. Their quality is quite marvelous both in sculpt and cast, these were created by Bob Olley a true miniature maestro and cast by Grffin and I challenge you to find a cast line let alone any flash.

Slug really enjoyed painting these, namely because they were so easy to paint. Most have great coats and the heads come seperately. A quick google brought up a decent uniform reference, even though you could quite legitimately get away with pink, purple and gold lamé. He’d not painted a single dwarf before so enjoyed how much less there is to work on. You can see these in their bare flesh, and perhaps even buy some yourself, here.