I was in my facvoured hobby shop recently and the owner and I got to talking about the kind of customers he gets. It turns out he had a label for me, too.
I am a bargain hunter.
He has a table of cut price items at the back of the store which I always make a bee-line for as there is always something interesting to be seen. I always go there before I take in any of the more-regularly-priced items on the shelves.
I'm not particularly upset at ebing viewed in this way, because I am not just a bargain hunter, I'm more of a scrounger.
I have been quietly buying Lord of the Rings miniatures on eBay over the past year. I was interested in their mass battles rule set and wanted to assemble a large Riders of Rohan and an Uruk Hai army to have a go with. Add to the mix that my "local" games club only does GW games, I thought well, why not?
Long story short, I suppose I have assembled a pretty respectable Eored of about 75 mounted and 60 or so dismounted, of whom about half are painted to varying degress of finish. This has cost about a quarter of what walking in through the doors of my local GW barn and emptying my wallet.
Proud to be a bargain-hunting scrounger.
Got to go - I need more Uruks. I hope they're half-painted. Stops me having to assemble, clean and undercoat the buggers.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
The Red and the Blue
More or less on a whim I went and bought some HE Artillery just to see what they were like.
I bought three - the Traditional Charles XII Gun, Light Artillery Gun and Heavy Artillery Gun which you can see here. The Charles XII Gun has the barrel cast in one piece with the carriage and although the detail is a little heavy in places is not too bad. The imaginatively named Light Artillery Gun and Heavy Artillery Gun are very fine. Detail on the carriages is very simple - for example whatever metal work there is i have simply painted on myself. Nonetheless all the pieces are very slim and fine. The barrel of the Heavy Gun in particular is really delightful. All three guns repay careful clean-up as there is some evidence of mould wear especially around the axles and on the muzzle of the Charles XII Gun. this is nothing you can't clean up with a jewellers' file, though.
By comparison, the SSM Field Gun recast from the original plastic weapon is a much more clumsy affair, nonetheless, quite a satisfying little model. I was very pleased how the gun tubes came up over a green base-coat. Once again, the detail on the carriage was scanty and I ended up just painting it on.
While I was feeling whimsical, I bought a load of HE sample infantry on the basis of a couple of blog posts from Mr Preece and Mr Schwartz. These are Swedish Infantry on the march and as you can see, they have a lovely dioramic quality. I am put in mind of vertain scenes that have been put together by talented flats painters like Mr Christian Rogge. Warning, this site contains images of pures wargamers' porn.
What to do with them, though? I have been tempted with my new copy of Anton Hoffman plates on the Bavarian Army of "The Blue King", I must say.
I bought three - the Traditional Charles XII Gun, Light Artillery Gun and Heavy Artillery Gun which you can see here. The Charles XII Gun has the barrel cast in one piece with the carriage and although the detail is a little heavy in places is not too bad. The imaginatively named Light Artillery Gun and Heavy Artillery Gun are very fine. Detail on the carriages is very simple - for example whatever metal work there is i have simply painted on myself. Nonetheless all the pieces are very slim and fine. The barrel of the Heavy Gun in particular is really delightful. All three guns repay careful clean-up as there is some evidence of mould wear especially around the axles and on the muzzle of the Charles XII Gun. this is nothing you can't clean up with a jewellers' file, though.
By comparison, the SSM Field Gun recast from the original plastic weapon is a much more clumsy affair, nonetheless, quite a satisfying little model. I was very pleased how the gun tubes came up over a green base-coat. Once again, the detail on the carriage was scanty and I ended up just painting it on.
While I was feeling whimsical, I bought a load of HE sample infantry on the basis of a couple of blog posts from Mr Preece and Mr Schwartz. These are Swedish Infantry on the march and as you can see, they have a lovely dioramic quality. I am put in mind of vertain scenes that have been put together by talented flats painters like Mr Christian Rogge. Warning, this site contains images of pures wargamers' porn.
What to do with them, though? I have been tempted with my new copy of Anton Hoffman plates on the Bavarian Army of "The Blue King", I must say.
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