New Year's Eve Odds and Ends

Well, another year over and I'm still sitting on a pile of unblogged pictures, some of which are of models I finished painting several months ago.

The mounted standard bearer is has clearly had a couple of vins de trop, as has his cheval...

First on the bill are standards for Duc Bertrand's host, which the eagle-eyed will notice took part in my Kings of War game against Joey all that time ago. The heraldry is taken from 'Ca Plane Pour Moi', and is a latin translation of "I am the king of the divan" and a pictorial representation of the concept.

Banner shot: note cod latin motto.

More recently painted are a dozen crossbowmen from the Perry's crusader range. Having raved about their Brettonian bowmen from the 90's, I also endorse these offerings: Detailed by not excessively so, well posed, well sculpted, and really good value.

Not visible is the chap on the left's satchel, presumably he lives in a rough neighbourhood and must carry a crossbow to school in self-defence.

I can also announce a 'project' as other wargaming bloggers call them. I've got my hands on some 2mm moderns from irregular miniatures. I chose this scale because a 2mm figure is close enough to 1:1000 scale (actually 1:900), and that's a really nice ground scale to work with, as it means your models are the same scale as your ranges for modern warfare. There may be very little detail on the figures, as well as a limited range, but it would be interesting to see what modern mechanised warfare looks like in action.

Right: Two machine gun teams. Centre: Four infantry. Left: 5p piece for scale

The setting for all this owes much to Jasper Fforde's writing, featuring a people's republic of Wales (backed by the soviets) fighting the British army and marauding bands of vikings with S-tanks and Saab jets for some variety. I know I could have just gone with 'cold war gone hot', but that's not only a little stale, it's also a little too close to for comfort for me.

Itty Bitty soviet armour. The t-55's are al right, but the BTR's look a bit vague.

When I've got all these mini-tanks painted I plan to give them an outing using Cold War Commander, and if I enjoy it then I'll probably buy more and go from there. Either way, you lovely people will probably get a battle report out of it, hopefully by next new year...

Although they do look nicely camouflaged, I was aiming for BAOR green with black stripes, so they are being re-done.