The October Painting Table

It’s frustrating! I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things, but my progress is not what I would like it to be. I think the next person I see who says COVID is a hoax or “it’s just like the flu”, I going to throttle them! I really identify with the 72-year-old who said that before he got COVID, he didn’t feel old.

Anyway, here are the finished results of my time spent painting this month.

Zanzabari Slave Traders

I finished 2 more 28mm Darkest Africa Zanzabar Arab Slave Traders from Wargames Foundry. I think both of these sculpts are from the Zanzabaris: Armed & Dangerous pack. If you are going to game Colonial Adventures set in Africa, the Wargames Foundry line has one of the best range of figures.

Bjorn Ironsides

Keeping with Wargames Foundry, the next figure is from their Dark Age range of Vikings. The character is named Bjorn Ironsides & is one of the few Vikings wearing a metal breastplate.

14519: Dwarf Valkyrie

It’s hard to believe it’s been a little over ten years since I first played Reaper’s Warlord game. I had a decent all female Dwarf army, which didn’t win any tournaments, but did snag the best painted army prize at a couple of them. One where I didn’t win best painted was where the guy had paid my friend & great painter Lyn Stahl of Metalhead Minis to paint his army. For years Lynn has run the painting classes and painting competitions at ReaperCon and GenCon. Anyway. I finally got around to painting these Valkyries sculpted by Gene Van Horne (who is best known for his darling Mouseling sculpts). I even used my new favorite color Vallejo’s Model Color Intermediate Blue.

02021: Tara the Silent

Let’s go back in time to the mid to late 1990s when Reaper first launched its Dark Heaven Legends range of figures. An early sculptor for the line was Sandra Garrity who also sculpted for Grenadier Miniatures. I love her sculpts, they always look as though they stepped out of one of Larry Elmore’s Dragonlance paintings. Here is the rogue, Tara the Silent :

02200: Justine the Holy

One of the things I like best about Reaper is that they were among the first to offer a large number of female sculpts in their ranges. Here is another figure that has been in my lead pile for way too long & another Sandra Garrity sculpt, by the way – Justine the Holy :

02176: Muriel the Just

Some of the early Reaper female warriors were members of a mercenary guild called “Sisters of the Blade.” They were later developed into a faction for Reaper’s Warlord game with different sculpts, but these early sculpts do so much to capture images of Fantasy literature of the time. This is one of four or five copies I have of this sculpt, she is armed with a flail and I bought these to work into a band of Warhammer Chaos Marauders because the edition at that time had the marauders armed with flails. Another beautiful Sandra Garrity sculpt, here’s Muriel the Just :

French Battalion Gun Limber

In some games set in the 18th century, the battalion guns are considered to be with their battalion at all times. In fact, models for the battalion guns aren’t even placed on the table, but are just a modifier added when the unit fires its muskets. So, the battalion guns move with their battalion. This may be convenient when playing large games with several brigades and divisions of battalions. but this abstraction doesn’t seem very realistic when playing many of the smaller engagements and skirmishes of the period. Therefore, in rules like Two Hour Wargames’ Muskets and Shakos, you need gun limbers to be able to move and place your guns. Here is another 10mm French Gun Limber from Pendraken Miniatures :

Thracians!

And finally for this month, I painted two units of 6mm Thracians from Baccus Miniatures. These are for my Battle of Mantinea project. Thracian mercenaries were hired by many Greek city states, especially Athens. These two units of skirmishers is part of the Athenian contingent & with these, I’ve completed the Athenians.

The Count

I painted 33 minis this month, that brings the year’s total to 422! Here’s the breakdown:

• 33 28mm Fantasy Figures
• 182 6mm Ancient Greek Figures
• 2 28mm Dark Ages Viking Figures
• 46 10mm Seven Years War Figures
• 12 28mm Old West Figures
• 11 28mm Colonial Era Figures
• 101 28mm World War Two Figures
• 35 28mm Science Fiction Figures
• 47 Pieces of Terrain
• Rebased 13 Science Fiction Figures

Unfortunately, the lead pile has somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 to 4,000 figures still to be painted. I can’t wait for the day when things get back to normal and I can sell a lot of this stuff at conventions.

Did you happen to notice I used Vallejo’s Model Color Intermediate Blue on all of the fantasy figures I painted this month?

As always, you comments, support, kind words, criticism and lavish gifts are always appreciated.