From ByronM - Small Scale Madness (93 points)

I have several posts today going up, the totality of which I believe will count up as a points bomb, or as close as I am likely to ever get to one.  I am however breaking them up since they are groups of very different figures in different scales and themes, and in fact in painting styles.

With that, Welcome to Byron's Points Bomb(?) Part 1 - Small scale madness.... 

Great War Naval Forces - 1/3000 scale Dreadnoughts

Having done WW1 in 28mm over the last few years, I started reading more and more of the history around the whole war.  The naval aspect of the war caught my fancy and I thought, why not do some ships to have some small games at some point.  After all, you don't need that many ships, and how hard could they be to paint?

Well, the answer to that last part is, very hard if the sculpts are not great.  I got my ships from Mick Yarrow Miniatures after searching around for a while, they had decent reviews online and they were cheap so I figured why not.  Well, they are cheap, but the quality is pretty horrible.  They must be using molds made around the same time these ships were really sailing!  Some were concave, some had bubbles, some were missing guns, some were 2-3mm thick and others were 7-10mm thick, making them all very inconsistent.  They were CHEAP though, so I guess I should have known.

Step one was a lot of greenstuff work to patch them all, and I really should have done more as I could have lifted the hulls on some and didn't so some still sit very low. Step two was adding back gun barrels on at least 5 of the ships, to do this I used thin brass rod glued in. I had planned to add towers onto them, but after all the work I had to do to start with, I was ready to be done with them and went straight to basing.

I based them by cutting some 25mm wide x 100mm (and some 90mm) long strips, and masking off the back 12mm of the base with masking tape. I then covered the front part of the base in a thin layer of liqutex and rolled the side of a paintbrush handle through it to created wave effects at a slight angle.  I let that set for just a bit and then when still soft, but partially set, I put the ship on the base about 10mm back from where I wanted it and slid it forward to make the bow wave and a hollow for the wake behind them. I made sure that each ship got labeled on the tape so that I would not mix them up, as I have no real idea which is which by sight!

I then went on to painting them, based a simple grey for the hull, structures, and turrets, and tan for the decks, then inked them blank.  I let that dry then repainted everything with the base colours but just in from the now black lined areas, then did 2 highlights up from that on everything.  While very simple, I think it is enough for this scale, and probably more than these poor castings deserve.

Once the ships were painted, I layered in 4 different blues to create a wave effect, and then a very pale blue (almost white) was put in with a flat brush to highlight the bow wave and the wake.  I then peeled off the tape and glued on some printed labels to identify the ships.  Again being careful to make sure I took off one piece of tape with the name off at a time and put the right label on.

Total there are 14 ships, 6 German and 8 British, done to allow me to do Dogger Bank or any other fictional or what if battles I want.  I may add some more at some point, but this is it for now.

Epic 30k - Death Guard (Part 2)

Thanks to Greg, I got corrupted and dragged along with the Epic 30k madness that he has descended into.  Luckily, I have only gone partially insane as I am sticking to one single faction and a small force of them at that.  

As posted a few weeks back, I am working on the Death Guard (Part 1 can be found here), but not the traitors following the false "Horus for Hope" propaganda.  My force is based on Battle Brother Captain Nathaniel Garro's loyalist's that continue to follow the light of the Emperor and rally against the false prophet.  Garro is so struck with confusion over anyone actually fighting against the Emperor that it takes him a while to realize what is going on and to fight back.  So kind of like the what will happen shortly with Americans when they realize WTF happened in the last US election, but I digress.

This small addition to my force consists of a unit of Death Shroud Terminators, two Spartan Land Raider transports, and the Death Guard Primarch himself, Mortarion.  The terminators and Mortarion use power scythes to reap their foes, but only after they have purged their corruption with their cleansing chem-flamers.  A pleasant sort, aren't they?

NOTE: While I managed to get better pictures for almost everything this week, I forgot to apply the custom white balance on the camera for the Death Guard, so please excuse their colour here.  They really are the same colour in real life as the ones from round one.

Team Yankee 6mm - American Reinforcements

I have been working on both Russian and American forces to do Team Yankee in 6mm, but basing them on a desert conflict so that I can use them for a cold war gone hot like Team Yankee or for theoretical or real gulf war games.  Anyway, I have most of the forces done already, but needed some additional infantry, so banged off another unit of American infantry and their transports, which have to be one of the ugliest transports ever invented.

 So here are 8 bases of American troops and 4 M113 transports.  I based these up on some custom bases that I 3D printed to have little lips around the back area so that I could safely texture the front and have an area reserved to drop in labels.  I would like to say the labels are for them being 6mm and its hard to tell what is what at that scale, but it's really because I don't follow modern military vehicles and if they are not labeled, I wouldn't have a clue. 

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Wonderful work Byron. Those Great War ships sound like they were a bit of a bear to deal with, BUT your hard work really paid off. I remember using much the same method for my water bases and the Liquitex works a treat. You'll have to try these with General Quarters III - I think you'd like them.

Your Epic Death Guard additions look terrific, especially with Mortarian in all his glory, leading his Terminators into the thick of it. The two Land Raiders are excellent as well, with great weathering and the Chapter specific doors are a brilliant touch.

Also in the 6mm vein, your Team Yankee Americans certainly look the business. I really like the custom bases, with their colour-coded labels. I think that will be invaluable when these are used in anger on the tabletop.

93 points for you, sir! But I see we have two more coming up soon. Excellent!