15mm Fantasy: Lizardmen

I've been quite busy lately, which has really slowed down my painting schedule. It seems like there's no time to break out the paints and brushes. I've managed to grab times here and there, and I've used it to complete work on my lizardman army for Mighty Armies (or any 15mm fantasy game, honestly).  I really like they way they came out.

These are all from Khurasan Miniatures. I think their lizardmen models are the coolest I've seen in any scale. Here's the whole army army. If you click on it, the picture is pretty large and should show a lot of detail.

Let me walk you through what you're looking at.  Up first is the main block of warriors: salamander spearmen. These guys look really unique. The front stand is a salamander shaman, the model holding the skull staff. These stands form the main fighting core, with a little magic boost from the shaman.

No lizardman army is complete without smaller lizards to harass the enemy. Here are some lizardmen, that I'm calling "skinks" after the WHFB color-scheme I picked for them. I was surprised how small these models were next to the salamanders.

Now it's time for the cavalry units. First up is what I imagine to be light cav. These are salamander bowmen on flightless birds. I can see these guys looking for flank or rear charges while harassing with bow fire.

Next up is the heavy cavalry, and the whole reason I wanted these models: mounted crocodile warriors! These guys will be the heavy hitters and they look awesome. I have no idea why they're mounted on wooly rhinos. It's a cool idea, but wouldn't being mounted on something reptilian make more sense?

Finally we come to the big boss. He's another croc warrior mounted on a wooly rhino. I had a spare "skink" model left over and stuck him on the base for a little splash of color as well as making him stick out more.


 So there you have it. I can't wait to get these lizards on the table and see what they can do. As for additional development, I can still add in salamander archers. I'm also planning on putting in a 15mm dinosaur model, either an ankylsaurus or triceratops, for some extra punch. I'd like to find something to be a flying unit too. What I'd really like, just for kicks, is something that looks like the WHFB Slaan models. While I'm not trying to mimic WHFB, I think something like that would look impressive in 15mm.

That's all for now. I've got a ton of stuff on the table that I keep adding to. I'm not sure what I'll be working on next, but I have plenty to choose from!

15mm WW2 European Terrain

I've been beefing up my 15mm WW2, both individually based models and Flames of War based models. As I've mentioned, I'm enjoying the scale immensely, and have turned the corner with FoW.  So in order to enjoy games in this scale, I need terrain.

A lot of the guys I game with have excellent terrain collections in both 28mm and 15mm. So historically I haven't had to worry about playing on a table where cat toys represent trees and a pile of books is a hill. But, at least in 15mm, their collections are limited to desert landscapes and buildings.  So here's my opening to contribute something new to the battlefield landscapes.

I'm building up European themed terrain in 15mm.  JR Miniatures recently had a 20% off sale, and I picked up a bunch of stuff.  Combined with pieces I already own, I now have the basis for a bombed out European town.  Let's have a look at a sample layout.

Here's a quick arrangement I made for taking pictures. I've got detail shots to follow. This is roughly 4x3 area.

The JR Miniatures stuff includes 4 ruins, a concrete bunker, and six stone fences. I still have some high stone walls and a stone bridge to paint up, and they are not shown here. Additionally, there are blast craters from Rebel Minis, escarpments and rural roads from Gale Force 9, and my favorite Woodland Scenics trees.  All together it makes a nice setting.  Now here are some close ups.

This is a nice ruined house. But what the hell is going on with the base? It's so flipping thick! The house itself is also a small for 15mm figures. You can stick a small FoW base in it, but the guys look huge. Oh well.

The Sherman tanks come rolling into town, passing the devastation along the road.

Both the green and blue buildings scale OK with figures. The second floor of the blue building is out of scale with the bottom floor. The blue building has a removable top floor to place units inside. But the floor is so tightly fit, it may as well be permanent.

Here we have some US riflemen checking out the intersection and investigating the abandoned bunker and ruined cabin.

The bunker has a removable top and you can place a good number of models inside, or one medium FoW base.  Here's the riflemen inside the bunker.

Overall I'm very happy with this collection. It's a good start. I'd like additional buildings and will probably go back to JR Miniatures for more. But I also need to beef up standard terrain like hills and trees.While I have a number of hills, they are more like cliffs and they're painted in desert schemes. I'll have to fix that. I also own the Gale Force 9 river system and swamps. So I can fill a table with terrain. I'd just like more buildings.

That's it for now. I'll be getting back to painting figures this week, once I finish the bridge and other walls.

Mighty Armies: Amazons

I've finally got around to snapping some shots of my first force for Mighty Armies. This is a 15mm fantasy battle game which has multiple models per base. I've played a few test games, and it's a fun and quick-playing rules set. I already have three forces for the game (technically four, since I bought enough Dark Elf minis to make two forces). I ordered from different places, and the first to get to me was my Amazons force.

Here's an overall shot of the entire army, eleven stands total.

Here are some details of what you're looking at above.  First is the Amazon Princess, the army general. At first I wondered why she was so much smaller than all the others. I think it's because she's supposed to be younger, maybe?

Next is the Amazon Queen, who acts as a spell caster in the Amazon army.

The boxed set I picked up had a single stand of "Blade Dancers" which looked like girls in sun dresses. I've no idea what their back story is in the game. In terms of mechanics, they're good fighters and resistant to magic as well as unhindered by terrain. That's some special dress the girls are wearing. I'll need more than just one stand for them to be effective.

Finally here are the main body of troops, warriors and archers.

Despite the small size it took longer than expected to paint these models.  There's a lot of detail on each, and totally I used 7-8 colors. While this is a standard sized force, I'd like to have other options. So I'm going to pick up Spear Maidens (light infantry), more Blade Dancers, Panther Riders (cavalry, probably heavy cav), and even some gryphon riders for flying units. Everything you see above, including the bases, cost me $23. This is not an expensive game to buy in to. So adding all these additional units is not a hit to my wallet.

I've got Lizardmen (or more appropriately, Salamander men) on popsicle sticks now. The Aligatormen mounted on wooly rhinos look awesome!  Once these are done I'll probably switch back to my Flames of War stuff.  There's a bunch of stuff for my Americans that I want to get done.

Fate's Needle

It took me years to get here, but I finally wrote that novel. These last few weeks have been busy with formatting it, getting it on the major sites, and doing a bit of promotion.  Actually the amount of promotion could also be called "not much" or "non-existent."

Unlike a lot of other self-published crap you will find out in the world these days, this e-book has been professionally edited and proof-read. You're not going find sentences about the most best Viking worrier in all of norway.

You can find the book on Amazon.com, B&N.com, or Smashwords. Any of these fine places will put a tidy little eBook adventure into your reader, phone, or PC.

So what's the book about?  Let me ask you a few things first.  Do you like Viking stories? Do you like Vikings killing each other with swords? How about with spears? Do you like fun, escapist stories that don't drag on for 600 pages?  Then you'll like this!  Go get it now!

To document my foray into the world of publishing, I've started yet another blog. It's my authorial platform to multimillion dollar stardom.  Apparently I cannot sell books unless I have an author's website. My novel will somehow malfunction if I don't do that.  So join me at www.jerryautieri.com and keep my books from exploding.

I'll be back to blogging about minis and my gaming stuff very soon.

15mm Sci Fi Vehicles

When Rebel Minis had a sale a few weeks ago, I picked up a some items to round out my 15mm forces. I needed vehicles to give some variety to the foot troops that I had collected.  Here's what I've got.

These are supposedly APCs, though they look more like tanks to me.  I struggled a bit with a camo scheme, since I wonder if camo would add value in a futuristic setting. But I decided they'd probably do camo for low tech enemies.  So this is the scheme I devised.

Next up is something like a dune buggy of sorts. It's the Earth Force Gila, but the model comes with a Sahadeen driver.  I thought this looks like something those guys would drive, and added him as the driver instead.  I don't think he's clearly visible in the photo. It was a nice kit, with three weapons options.

Finally every sci-fi army needs a walker! Actually every sci-fi army needs multiple walkers! I only got one to test things out.  I'd love to do armies of nothing but walkers, which would work in 15mm. I just needs good rules for something like that. I painted this walker in an urban camo scheme, and had a lot of fun weathering it.

So with all these 15mm sci-fi guys running around, I wanted to get them on the table. I tested out a game of FUBAR for 15mm sci-fi, which also had supplemental Rebel Minis rules.  At one page per rules set, for free, it's definitely something worth trying.

I won't go into a detailed report. I played Sahadeen and my opponent played Earth Force marines. The Sahadeen are really weak, and while EF Marines aren't "all that" they are a lot better than Sahadeen.  The FUBAR rules have some interesting mechanics in activation as well as reaction.  Because the Sahadeen were rated as "Green" troops they didn't activate much and tended to stand around and get shot to bits.  When they did shoot, they almost always missed.  I'm not sure I'd play this version of FUBAR again given some of the imbalances.  But for what I paid to get the rules (nothing) and for the time invested in reading them (10 mins, while we were playing) it wasn't all that bad.

Here are some pics.  My Sahadeen (foreground) activated a couple of times and missing their enemies in the wood and getting shot to bits in return.

 Earth Force Marines hide in cover from a withering hail of Sahadeen fire.... which always missed.  Why hide?

We called the game since EF had suffered one casualty to about 15 of my own, as well as destroying my buggy.  But still, the figures looked good on the table!  I'll just need a different rules set for them.

OOOH HOOO Withcy Woman

Technically they are Witch Elves, but that Eagles song just kept playing in my head whenever I worked on these models. I'm glad to be done with them and rid myself of the song.  These are the first models from the batch of Dark Elves I got several weeks ago. I'm beginning to doubt if I'll ever get all those models painted! I'll be using them for Kings of War or skirmish games. Neither option will need as many Dark Elves as I own.

So foregoing raven hair and ruby lips (and sparks from fingertips.... there's that damn song again!) I chose to paint them as Drow.  The overall effect, when ranked up in a unit, is a confused mass of black and white.  Take a look at what I mean.

I used Reaper's Dark Elf skin tone triad, which is a nice grayed lavender color. I used a very gray green for their clothing.  Overall, I like the effect on individual models.  Here are some close ups of the girls.

Overall I think they came out pretty good, and I like the colors.  I got a kick out of the 80s ripped fishnet stockings.  These Witch Elves could be on the cover of a Ratt album.

A full unit consists of 20 models for Kings of War. I only had 16 of the newest sculpts, and had to back fill with the old school Witch Elves.

I hate these models, as they are all hair and ugly as sin. I'd much prefer to have all the newest sculpts. I still have a bunch of these old ones.  If anyone wants these models, I'd be willing to trade one for one for the new witch elves.  I still want Witch Elves, but just not these hags.  They're all hair and their weapons look like hunks of metal, not very interesting to paint.

So I just wanted a break from all the military stuff that I have been painting (and still have to paint). I've got some 15mm sci-fi to show you soon.  Then I'm teeing up 15mm fantasy!  I played a few games of Mighty Armies last night and I think I'm really going to like it.  I hope so, since I've already got three armies for it!

R.I.P. Mr. Brush

Mr. Brush 2007 - 2012 

"Do not go gentle into that good night"

I  finally admit that my beloved Windsor & Newton Series 7 #2 miniature brush had to be put down forever. Five years old is quite an age for a brush, at least in my experience. I tried to deny the signs. "Oh, he just doesn't have the spring of a new brush; but he's fine!", or, "That lacquer was just getting in the way. No worries!"  But most damning of all, "You're just as good as ever with half the hairs remaining in your ferrule. This is great!"

Mr. Brush had a good life. I only ever use one brush when painting, unless I'm painting something big. Mr. Brush painted hundreds of figures over hundreds of hours.  There was a time when Mr Brush's hairs formed a point so sharp I used to paint and dot eyes on my 28mm figs with him.

As you can tell, I have a love affair with Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes.  But I'm speaking specifically to the miniature brushes.  The shorter hairs give you great control over the paint.  You do trade some capacity to load up the bristles. But you shouldn't be spending money on W&N brushes if you're glopping paint.  That's not what these brushes are for!

I've moved on now that Mr. Brush is dead.  Here's my new painting partner at Mr. Brush's wake. Notice the family resemblance.

Maybe in another five years, Mr. Brush II will be on his deathbed.  But for now, I look forward to working with him.