Basing 15mm

Howdy folks!

For those of you who have a holiday today, I hope you are having fun and for the rest of you the same!

This is just a brief little post asking folks about how they base their 15mm minis. Personally, I think this has a lot to do with the system you are using or the type of games you are playing, but mainly what I am looking for is input on single figs vs multiple basing.

I generally prefer multi-basing my 15s. I have tried individually basing figs and it always makes too much work unless I group them on movement trays, I and I really don't like them. For squad-based games, I will base the figs in fire teams usually 3-5/base depending on the force organization. For combat that involves ranked up forces, I tend to fall back to old DBx basing with regular, highly trained units based on 40mm frontage with 15mm depth, looser or less-trained units based on 40x20 and then warbands and cavalry based on 40x30.

I have been considering basing more wild, skirmishing units on 30mm round bases but am not sure about this. What does everyone else think? Is there anything I'm missing or that has really worked well for you?

Thanks,

-Eli

Another Great Blog Find - Lonely Gamers

Hello everyone!

As I bounce about the internet, researching miniatures lines for use with some of my own homebrew minis projects, I am stumbling on many great blogs out there. The most recent find is "Lonely Gamers". Why this gent is lonely, I dunno? His stuff is wonderfully painted and anyone else would be lucky to have his minis on their tables.

Anyhow!

Check out his blog as it is a lovely presentation of historical wargaming with a touch of this and that. The author is also very good at posting on events from his area. Most of the stuff there is 28mm but there is the occasional offering in another scale.

Lovely, lovely pics.

Take care,

-Eli

The Ooh Shiny Complex

Hey all,

While networking through the ol' interweb, I came across "The Ooh Shiny Complex". This blog is run by a gent who goes by Ruarigh and focuses on all sorts of gaming. This is a fun little blog and really resounds with me as the author is also a fan of trying to make the most out of a limited gaming dollar, something I am not always overly successful with.

Covered in the posts there, are fantasy wargaming, sci-fi and historicals and covers scales in 6mm, 15mm, and 28mm. The miniatures there are gaming miniatures with paint lovingly applied in an effort to get minis on the table. Like myself, Ruarigh is not so much concerned with propainting his figs, but getting them so they look the part and can get onto the table.

Check it out and let him know what you think,

-Eli

Goblin Factory Sneak Peak

The folks at The Goblin Factory were kind enough to send me some pics of some of their upcoming releases and gave me permission to post them. For those of you who may not be familiar with The Goblin Factory, they are manufacturers of fantasy figs that fall into the true 25mm scale. This means they are a bit slighter in overall proportion and slightly smaller than the current crop of 28mm. The cool thing about their stuff is that their choice of subject matter doesn't keep them off limits to other scales.

A good example of this principal is their goblins, available both armored and unarmored, on foot and mounted on wolves, measure in at about 15-18mm, so while they make excellent goblins in 25/28mm they can serve as savage orcs in 15mm. The animation in their figures is awesome, and the goblins really do look incredibly savage and wicked. The unarmored goblins are sculpted with their weapons but no shields while some of the armored goblins have shields and others do not. The nice thing about this is that you can easily add shields if desired.

The pics accompanying this post depict their new lines of kobolds and half-men (halflings), sculpted by Mike Broadbent that they have ready to go. According to Don at GF, the kobolds in this range hearken back to the classic AD&D kobolds with their doggish features and horns, a touch of nostalgic class that I can get behind. Of the half-men, he says that they scale well with the halfling figs from the GW Lord of the Rings range, which is a cool thing because the number of hobbits in that range is sorely limited.

The half-men, as seen in the pic above and below, do really seem to offer something that hasn't been put out there in great numbers - militant halflings. Though I'd love to see some The Goblin Factory half-men armed with farm tools, and civilian improvised weapons, these gent look grand with their pikes, long axes, and typical melee weapons. There are even command armored with bills, standing posed either en garde or, as you can see in the pic below, as sergeants. These are hobbits ready to defend their shire to the end.

I think the Goblin Factory range looks very nice and am considering using their goblins in some of my VSF gaming as savage otherworldly denizens. GF sells their minis separately or in sets which is great for those looking to pick up just a few figs or to amass whole units. I am currently awaiting my first few sample figs from Don and will post a review of them once I have a chance to look at them in the flesh.

Take care all,

-Eli

[Note: Some of these pics are pretty large and had to be shrunk down to fit on the blog. You should be able to get a bigger, more detailed image if you click on any of them.]

Druid's Children

A couple of weeks back I had a chance to chat with the David at Splintered Light Miniatures about their new of miniature animal warriors called "Druid's Children". Many of you may already know Splintered Light, but for those of you who have no, they are a company the specializes in 15mm fantasy armies miniatures- everything from dwarfs to lion men and satyrs. Their detail and imagination is really nice, so check them out.

So, anyhow, in chatting with David, he was kind enough to offer up some samples of the Druid's Children line. This was incredibly nice of him and I eagerly accepted. I've had the minis for a week or so now and have been looking them over, trying to figure out how to paint them, but I figured a brief review of the figures I received would be the least I could do.

The five figures I received included an otter, rabbit, mouse, shrew, and squirrel. First off, these figures measure from 12-18mm in size and the animals are not true to scale with one another but do share distinctive size differences with larger animals being relatively bigger than smaller ones.

The detailing is crisp and the features on all the animals' faces are spot on. I particularly like the shrew with his cap riding low on his eyes. Of the five animals I received two are armed with boys (squirrel and otter), two with spear (rabbit and mouse) and the shrew is armed with sword and shield.

All of these figures are very evocative and conjure up the likes of Narnia or Redwall. The line includes a wide range of animals with a variety of weapons. So far, only "heroes" have been released and include moles, hedgehogs, badgers, rabbits, shrews, mice, otters and squirrels. Enemies will include rats, weasels, pine martins, foxes and even a wolverine. Pictures of the current line and previews of upcoming releases can be seen at the company's site.

I will definitely be picking up more. In fact, my oldest daughter (age 9) and I are working on a skirmish-level wargame system to use with them, though we may just end up modding and existing system.

Hope you enjoy,

-Eli

[Special thanks to David at Splintered Light Miniatures for allowing me to use the pics off of his site for this review. I would have presented pics of the minis I received, but they really do look as good as they do in the pics at his site.]

TWENTY FOLLOWERS!

I know it may not be all that big a deal to most, but I was amazed and thrilled to see that I have 20 Followers listed on my blog. For me this is a great honor as I never expected my blog to be all that interesting. General purpose blogs do seem to be the exception in miniatures these days, but you all have made it worth doing.

My twentieth Follower is Andrew who runs his own blog called Ferrous Lands. It's a mix of a general purpose hobby blog and one man's passion for bringing a favorite video game series to life. Great painting, terrain and wonderful ideas.

I know there are more than you twenty who have declared yourselves Followers and to all of you I extend my sincere thanks and and appreciation. I would really love to hear from you lurkers and casual readers as well. In fact, I'd like to extend an invitation to all you readers of one sort or another to use this post as a place to chime in about the blog and your time spent here.

Thank you once again. It's great having you all here.

-Eli

Raw Materials - Cardboard Packaging

Check this stuff out. What looks like the ruins of a lost city is actually some cardboard packaging straight out of the crate. I am hoping to turn them into some quickie ruins for my 15mm stuff. A friend of mine is bringing them by in a day or so I'll be able to give a better review and assessment of their usefulness then.

Can't wait,

-Eli

Correction to Previous Post

It has come to my attention that I failed to include the pictures of the zombie dogs in my previous posting on zombie beasties (http://leadpeople.blogspot.com/2009/05/return-of-zombie-beasties.html). I have added the pictures to that post, so if you haven't looked at these macabre mutts, please do.

Thanks,

-Eli

Return of the Zombie Beasties

Hey all,

While my buddy at work had his camera out I had him snap a few pics of a few my older conversions that I wished I could get a better look at and so I've decideed to post them here.

The first set are my zombie piggies. I love these guys. Pigs are nasty enough as it is without having them be crazed undead creatures. The one on the right is my favorite as he is dragging his inside under and behind him.



The next few pics are of my zombie pooches. These guys were fun and rather easy to convert. In both cases mistakes turned out to make for really good gore. A good example of this is the hanging jaw on the Dalmatian. Also on both the pigs and the dogs, the ribs were a byproduct of the knife work to gouge out the metal to make the cavities.



I have plans for more undead animals as the minis present themselves.

Have fun,

-Eli

Alter-Nations - Kingdom of Hawaii Part 8

Howdy all,

So, not a full update of its own, but this is a nice post of the nice pic of my first few RHA Reserve Militia provided by a buddy of mine from work who was nice enough to bring his camera into the office (thanks Kevin!). These are speed-painted to my usual tabletop standards and I have noticed a few horrible oversights , including a brush hair painted onto one of them. Personally, I think that the Freikorp Paraguayans due a fine job representing Hawaiians in service to their own nation.



The uniforms on these figures depict my idea for a pretty much standard uniform for the RHA Reserve Provincial Militia. The white shako caps are simple of simple construction and kept a white cotton or linen. These soldiers do not where a formal uniform jacket but simple loose shirts in the standard uniform yellow of the RHA. Instead of trousers, they wear a native kilt-like garment (anyone know what these are called?) and bare feet. Kilts are not standard for all militia units and different units may substitute trousers or go without either. Shoes are almost never worn by militia units unless with the exception of non-natives serving in militia service who generally prefer to keep their tender haole feet protected from the sharp island stones, coral and prickly foliage that true islanders grow up with.

Their kit is carried in a shoulder-slung satchel made from white canvas, linen or even retired scraps of sail cloth and a rolled ground mat, often made from woven thatch or more scrap sail cloth. Each militia unit is required to provide their own uniform with the exception of the headgear and their rifles.

Militia rifles are often surplus from stores previously used by RHA regulars or procured in lots from arms-traders and foreign agents. There is an attempt to keep weapons in a particular militia unit standardized to the same caliber and type of ammunition but occasionally there are times when this is not possible. When disparate ammunition types are present in the same militia, the uncommon ammunition types will be grouped together so that they may support one another or function as a separate unit for guard duty or rear-support.

Hope you enjoy seeing these figs and reading my idea for their organization.

-Eli

LEGENDS

Tooling around on the Lead Adventure Forum, I found a post pointing to this wonderful blog. First off, this is a blog with two focuses - pirates and Wild West miniatures gaming. What's great about this site, besides the fact that it seems to be mostly bilingual (French & English). the creator seems to have equal love and artistry for both subjects.

Bottom line; if you want to see great pictures and some nice conversions and scenery for both pirate and Wild West gaming, then you definitely want to check this one out. So go on over to Legends and give it a look-see.

Take care,

-Eli

Alter-Nations - Kingdom of Hawaii Part 7

Hawaiian Provincial Militia Sighted

Nothing too spectacular to report, but I have managed to put brush to lead and should have the first examples of my 15mm Hawaiian Provincial Militia ready to show in a day or so. I still suffer from inadequate camera syndrome and so haven't been able to snap any quality pics, but I did snap the above picture to give you sort of a in progress workbench sneak peak.

Though the picture is woefully blurry, you can see their white shakos, bright yellow shirts and the telltale island skirt shown in red here, though I do plan to have other units have other colors and possibly even patterns.

I hope this little snippet will breath some life into the project for folks who have been reading along my various posts of conjecture and brainstorming.

Take care,

-Eli

Alter-Nations - Kingdom of Hawaii Part 6

WA'A PELELEU

In my research on Hawaii I found many references to the advanced war canoes that Kamehameha had commissioned for his invasion of the other Hawaiian islands. These vessels are unique in that they combined both traditional Hawaiian canoe building techniques with western naval engineering.

These double hulled war vessels averaged 70 feet in length, were lashed onto curved cross members (a uniquely Hawaiian feature) and had a swivel gun (some pictures show two) was mounted on the bows! The hulls were carved from gigantic koa tress while the sails were cut in the square European mode, but made of traditional plaited Elauhala‚ (pandanas leaf) matting.I have never been able to find out just how many people one of these carried but considering that a fleet of 800 carried Kamehameha's 10,000 warriors it can be assumed that their crew capacity is considerable though I am sure there were many other lesser Hawaiian canoes and traditional war canoes along on that invasion as well.

Personally, I think these are beautiful vessels and I can see my fictional Hawaii still using them close to home where natives could use the skills of their upbringing patrolling the coasts and keeping the peace, even as more modern vessels were coming and going from their islands.

A really cool boat,

-Eli

Warlords of Mars

If you haven't already heard of this one, check it out. Brand spanking new and out of the gate with some amazing offerings, Warlords of Mars is a great VSF blog that should be most entertaining to see develop. I know I will be.

Take a peak and enjoy,

-Eli

Alter-Nations - Kingdom of Hawaii Part 5

WHAT FIGURES TO USE - PART TWO

So I have received my figs from Freikorp and they look good and would be workable for my version of Hawaii if not for one small detail - lack of poses. Freikorp's line is extensive in the number of nations it covers but there are very few of their lines that include more than one pose per troop type. Now this is not horrible as that pose is usually a nice neutral advancing pose, but it also means that a larger force is really going to start looking pretty static. So, I decided to look further into other figures.

I have decided that the Paraguayans would make good reserve troops in the form of provincial militias. The shakos they wear and the basic uniforms would easily make for low cost, possibly surplus-supplied uniforms. For the regular Royal Hawaiian Army (RHA), I have decided to follow with a bit of Hawaii's real history.

Historically, Hawaii's military uniforms were drawn from those of the British Empire. J. (Victoria's Boys in Red) and I decided to blend our VSF settings and in that setting Hawaii is a protectorate of Britain and so I have decided to keep the uniform similarities there but with a few exceptions. So, to accomplish this, I will be using Colonial British uniforms and miniatures for the RHA regular troops.

I will go into more detail once I have something to show, but this should prove to be a fun army to build.

-Eli