Well as I mentioned in a reply to a comment on last weeks post, my original idea for the next few (or more) posts was derailed by a small furry saboteur, namely Tiger the cat who decided to have a belly ache last Saturday morning and ended up with a visit to the vet that cost me £66.00, exactly what my army pack of Irregular Miniatures “Very British Civil War” figures was going to come to with postage (it’s a good thing he’s cute!). So with this put on hold for the time being I had to cast about as to what to do to fill this weeks post. I decided in the end to copy in principle what “Blaxcleric” has been doing on his most excellent “Fantorical” Blog (plagiarism being the purest form of compliment after all!) he uses the turn of playing cards to determine what he has to paint that week, check out his gorgeous results at… http://fantorical.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/painting-challenge-week-one-6mm-micro.html however as I keep my unpainted figures in a wall cabinet full of small draws, it was easier for me to roll a D30 to determine which draws I’d take the figures from and paint up, and the winners were 17 and 27, which equated to the figures shown below.
Draw 17 contained three 28mm zombie pirates that were samples Iain Kaye had been kind enough to chuck in with one of my various orders a while back (I really must get some more pirates as I’ve fancied doing some for ages now!), anyway working up from a black undercoat the skin was painted a mix of pale flesh and stone green (I applied the two colours directly from the pots and mixed them on the figures themselves). Then the trousers on two were painted coffee with cream highlights before the stripes were added
and the other was just dark French blue with mid blue highlights. Rust was lightly dry-brushed over the chain mail sword blades and copper/gold hilts, leather brown belts/shoes and various shades of grey hair finished off the painting. A coat of quickshade mid-tone and basing as usual completed them. Nice figures these don’t know why I’ve not painted them before.
On the other hand I remember exactly why the figures in draw 27 have been languishing there for the past ten years plus, these are a perfect example of why you should never order figures you haven’t seen! They came from RH Models and were part of an order for 20mm Sci-fi figures (The units of human troopers I hasten to add were really nice and I recommend them wholeheartedly) and while the troopers were painted in short order these were put away and forgotten. Still their number literally came up so out to be sprayed black they went, a dry-brush of chain mail later I was sat staring at them and 
wondering what the heck to do with the stuff sticking out of the bottom of them, were they smoke from exhaust jets? Or rods stuck into a pile of rocks? In the end I went for the former and painted them shades of grey (but not 50!). I added some lights and copper bits to try and add some interest to there rather plain appearance and did the bases to match the troopers painted so long ago. I still don’t like them.
I also took the opportunity to paint up the APC to go along with the 10mm “Colonial Marines” I did last week. From a black base coat I dry-brushed the chain mail metal bits before painting it all in the same dark green (bronze green I think but the names worn off 
the lid) as the troopers. Then in a break with the movie version I decided to go all “camo” on it, so khaki, grass green and stone green were splattered all over it, before I finally added some numbers and insignia in red and white. This was then quickshaded and based a per the figures, I’d like some proper tanks so we can do some open table games as well, but I’m still looking for ones I like, I guess I’m just fussy.
Oh well, time to roll the die again and see what we get this week.
Cheers Roger
Rantings from under the Wargames table 
Now that is an eclectic mix, Roger, not just of genres, but as you point out, sculpting quality. Your paint job on the zombie pirates is excellent and really brings them to (un)life; especially like the striped pantaloons. Never been brave enough to try such things myself. Are they still available? Nice work on the APC too, particularly in doing camo on 10mm. I’ve almost gone cross-eyed looking at the robots though, and I think the middle one is supposed to be blasting off. Indeed of the three, its my fave as it’s somewhat similar to VINCENT from Disney’s definitive sci-fi “The Black Hole” 🙂
I’m clearly going to have to up my game if you’re going to be posting similar model menageries regularly. I seem to be painting endless 6mm Moderns presently. Thanks for the ‘shout out’ btw and I hope the cat is recovered.
Hi Simon, yes the cat seems fine now, the problem with having so many animals is one of them is always getting ill! still couldn’t part with any of them. yes the zombies are still available from Irregular but I went and had a look the other day, and that seems to be all the undead one’s they do, I do like the lady pirate (falling out of her shirt) and the captain with beard and hook though, I think I’ll be revisiting this range when I have some money (so probably never then!).
Do you remember the old 2000AD figures GW did a while ago? they did some robots that came in two pieces so you could mix and match the tops to the lower half, either legs or a circular hover type lower dome arragment, well the middle robot appears to have one of these “domes” as the base of the sculpt (but you didn’t hear that from me). He is the best of the three though.
No problem with the “shout out” same thanks go to you for yours by the way, have you done you battle report yet? coudn’t see it on you site, love the idea with the camel on the base to make your leader figure easier to spot, great idea and made my laugh. No neeed to up your game as I see it, I’m looking forward to seeing more of those oriental goblins soon.
Cheers Roger.
Roger, Only managed to play the game yesterday, and an absolute scream it was too. There’s something about swarms of Face Huggers leaping at you that’s terrifying, and the Aliens’ ability to make your men ‘bug out’ in panic at the most inopportune moments was gutting 🙂 Great game though, and here’s the link: http://fantorical.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/15mm-battle-report-aliens-verses.html
What is does mean though is that I’ll have to wait on the Bushido Goblins for a while as I want to get some more 15mm done for a larger game next week 🙂
That is brilliant Simon love the way you’ve done your battle report, it reminds me of the way “Bill” over at the “Old Spaceways Forum” used to do comic strip style reports to tell us what had happened after we put in our moves in a flash gordon type play by Email game I used to play on there a few years ago. You have inspired me, I havent played a game for weeks now what with overtime, Myles’s exams and going to see my Dad in hospital, hopefully once things have calmed down a little I can see about organising a few games.