“A roll of the die” (week 16)

Well I started the week by adding a new rules page to my blog (if you raise your eyes slightly you should see), This is where I hope to post any rules I write myself. So far there are just two sets in there, my 10mm fantasy rules and my 15mm dinosaur hunting rules. So if either of these are any good to you (or you just fancy a nose) please check them out and help yourself. Anyway after that it was time to toss the coins of fate again, and up popped a head and a tail, so out came my “Very British Civil War” list or “Merlin” as I like to call it, and the roll of the D20 turned up number 5 (again), which equated to…

Box 5 (3 x 28mm lady rifles, and 1x civilian leader)

I’m very tempted to start this week’s description with… “Once upon a time there were three little girls who all went to the police academy”, but that would be silly so I’m not going to do that, instead I’ll start by saying that I based up the first three members of my “Women’s Institute knitting, baking and rifle shooting circle”, along with the somewhat uninspiring civilian leader figure up on two pence pieces as is my want and after “Tetrioning” up the bases they went out for their customary coat of matt black.

Now these were supposed to be relatively simple to paint but looking at the vast number of paint pots arrayed on my table you’d never believe it, so after the metallic bits on their weapons were dry-brushed in chain-mail the ladies had the undercoats applied to their dresses, these consisted of  coffee, pink burgundy and deep bronze green mixed with stone green, these were then highlighted with cream, polish crimson and stone green respectively, next I painted in their “wellies” in deep bronze green highlighted with grass green mixed with a little shamrock green (well they had to be green didn’t they!), the wooden bits of the rifles came next, chocolate brown and butternut doing for this. Flesh was next on the menu so hands and faces were undercoated with European flesh and after the eyes and teeth were added they were highlighted with continental flesh (hardly the colours for good British lasses but there you go), then I added their lipstick in dark red. Hats and scarves came next, dark red highlighted with bright red and white spots on one, dark blue highlighted with royal blue on the next and butternut with chocolate and orange cheques on the head scarf. That left their hair which was chocolate brown highlighted with chestnut on one, this in turn was the base colour for the next highlighted with orange and my blond was bright yellow highlighted with lemon yellow. I decided that the dresses were a little plain so added some flower details on the cream dress, these were simply spots of bright red with a couple of “crescents” of porcelain blue round them and the ladies were ready for action as it were.

The leader was simple to paint after the chain-mail on his weapon was added I just painted his shirt coffee highlighted with cream and did the same to his trousers but in dark and light grey. Then I highlighted his black belt and shoes with dark grey again, and added his flesh as above. His hair was chestnut highlighted with orange (another redhead!!) and he was done too. All of the above were then treated to my usual coating of Quickshade and basing technique of chocolate brown with dry-brushes of Khaki and coffee, then patches of scenic green were added that were then flocked with “autumn mix” hairy grass, before their final trip out to the garage for a dusting of matt varnish.

As I mentioned last week I’ve been thinking of Quickshading all of my 20mm WW2 collection so while I had the tin open I dug out the “Merrill’s Marauders” marines that go with the Japanese I painted last week and treated them to a coat of Army Painter too. I also gave one of my German infantry and a Romanian trooper a coat too as a test. The results of the before and after of these are shown below (after on the left with flocking), I think I’ll end up doing the rest at some point as though there is not a huge amount of difference I think they do look better. Oh well more work, even when I think stuff is finished it turns out it’s not.

Till next week, Cheers Roger.