80's Chaos Beastman

A swift post for another palette cleanser mini - one more long ignored old Citadel Miniatures Chaos Beastman.

I like this fellow cos he's all out of whack. Quite unlike my previously posted one, he's fuzzy all over and Bovine, rather than the typical Goat. One eye'd and only one hoof'd he strikes quite the "chaos-y" vibe. I wanted to give him some sort of pilfered-from-a-corpse look so painted his trousers up in the old colours of the olde Empire province of Ostermark. Seemed fitting that the same province that Mordheim was in should provide his attempt at a uniform of sorts.

Attempted a Chaos face on the shield that all the old minis seemed to have in White Dwarf. It's not awful, but it's certainly not great. 

Fuzzy like me.

I've also been putting together some more Objective markers, this time for Warhammer 40K and added a little more paint onto the remaining two objectives for my 28mm WW2 projects. But more on those in the next post.

Hope all are well and staying that way - Dai

Summer of Scenery Challenge (Part 1)

Been having some technical issues trying to get this post up, so apologies for the radio silence of late. Let's get on with the show, eh?


Dave over at the Wargmesculptor Blog announced he was starting a small challenge for any who wanted to sign up to get some or their scenery/terrain pieces built and painted in an effort to help get rid of our backlogs. So, I jumped in and decided I'd give it a go.

A Sarissa Precision mdf Helipad for my modern day zombies game that one day WILL be played, promise. Simple kit and even more simple paint job - will do for my table. Was inspired by the Left 4 Dead video games where the goal was to get to the helipad whilst fighting off masses of undead - best Zombie video games ever I feel.

A Mobile Office also in mdf by Sarissa Precision. Trickier to put together with those vertical struts, but looks good on the table. Same as the helipad, kept the paintjob very simple which also got it off my table swiftly. Thinking some day in the future to make a white board and find office furniture for the interior.

These two are a couple of Warhammer 40K ruins scatter pieces. Very simple drybrush paintjobs. I have another 7 or 8 pieces to go with these two recently primed. The Statue is from the now out of print Urban Conquest Warhammer 40K expansion and the ruins behind it are the last of the 3 piece also out of print Honoured Imperium scenic set that included the previously posted Statue and giant Aquila that I'd painted up.

These two small 28mm resin WW2 stockpiles can be used as either objectives or scatter terrain. They were a kind gift a long time ago from the estimable Stew (Click his name to see his very cool blog) after he ordered the Chain of Command rules and realized he had no intention of playing in 28mm! I have two others in the painting queue as well.

I tried to add a little interest with the poorly painted signs, but otherwise they are very simple paintjobs and based to be suitable for both winter or greener seasonal games.


Did you see the two Brit troops in that first pic? Yeah, I painted those up too. Here's some better pics.

These two are some more Commandos (Toting iconic Tommy guns) for my Dieppe Raid project. The helmeted chap I believe is by Blacktree and the kneeling Wargames Foundry. Both decent sculpts in their own rights. These two bring me up to 6 out of 8 done for my first squad. Lots still to go!

Last painted piece to show off is a small "Palette Cleanser" mini to help keep the mojo going. This chap is a Citadel Miniatures Beastman from 1980-something-or-rather. Had him since I were a young lad and he deserved to be painted up a long time before now but at least he's ready for... I dunno - not really sure how I'll use this one.

To finish up I also managed to stick together the last 10-man Brood Brothers squad for my Genestealer Cult and also a couple fun minis to make up a Rogue Trader and her retinue (Just for gits and shiggles really).

 Old 1980's Imperial Guard plastics mixed with more recent plastic Cadian bits and Genestealer Cult heads and nicknacks. Now I have three of these squads assembled, they just need some gap filling here and there and I can get to their basing so they can be primed.

Got the pistol toting Rogue Trader off a nice Ebay cheapie auction. Liked the character when they first showed her off from their first Blackstone Fortress expansion or something. The red chap to her right is an Adeptus Mechanicus trooper. I felt he'd make for a good right-hand-man. Those three primed-grey fellows in the rear are old 1980's Citadel Miniatures Chainsaw Warriors from a very much out-of-print game. They'll be her muscle I think.

And that's it - long post, but I guess that's what happens when one doesn't post for over a month (!!!). Stay healthy and safe out there!

Not Dieppe, but still WW2 Canadians (Part 1 - transports)

As the title would suggest, pictured below are some additions to my WW2 Canadian collection. But I might add these are not for my Dieppe Landing project as of course no trucks/lorries landed that day! Instead these are for games where I use the same troops for games or events set later during the war and those Poor Bloody Infantry need a taxi to get them where they need to be.

The models below are a nice find by fellow blogger Admiral Drax - a pair of Lledo Days Gone diecast Mack Trucks (I believe they are at least). A little smaller than a 1/56 or 28mm scaled truck but  for the price they’ll most certainly do!

As they are “just transports” and really once they drop off their precious cargoes, just easy victory points for my opponent, I gave them a very fast and dirty paint job and didn’t even make an effort to try to paint the interior of their truck beds.

Nice to have some transports for my games and getting these done has relit the fire under my ample backside to crack on with more commandos! (So watch this space)

An Officer directs a Bren Gun team to get the hell away from the trucks before. A panzer puts  a round into them!

Decals are a mix of Rubicon, Warlord and Dom’s Decals. Warlord were the worst to work with by far. 

Markings are for some no name Lorried Infantry Company in the Canadian 2nd. 

As you can see, the freehand markings are rough as heck but for transports, they’ll do!

As always, stay safe, stay healthy and stay away from me if you have a nasty cough and a fever!

Dieppe Landing Churchill Mk1

As promised in my last post, here's the Churchill Mk1 from my Dieppe Landing force.


The kit is made by Madbob Miniatures in the UK and was very nicely detailed. The cast only had one airbubble to repair and it was a small one on the hull gun's barrel. Nothing that a bit of creative superglue application didn't correct though!


This was the first version of the Churchill tank that was used in the war and Dieppe was their first outing. The Mark 1 sadly though had an underpowered engine for being so large a beast and the hull mounted 3" cannon (Thought to be useful for bunker-busting) ended up being too difficult to aim properly along with it's additional ammunition taking up too much room inside. Along with that, the turret mounted 2-pounder anti-tank gun was not powerful enough to pierce most german tanks (As evidenced in the North Africa campaigns.) so the Commonwealth quickly upgunned their Churchills to carry a typical 75mm/6-pounder instead in later Marks.


During the Dieppe Landing very few of the tanks made it off the Landing Crafts and off the beach. The main reason being that the beach was not sand as the crews had been trained on in the UK, but large shale which caused all sorts of problems like tracks being thrown, etc. Still, the tanks were large enough and had heavy enough armour that many were able to protect the eventual withdrawal (Of the few remaining troops who weren't killed/captured) like bunkers as the German guns were mostly ineffectual against them.


Originally I had some trouble finding online accurate markings for this mark of tank that was at Dieppe. Lots of pictures of the Mark 3 versions with 6 pounder guns, but not this one. My first success was of an incorrect tank that had actually served in Italy and not Dieppe (The Canadians used the Mark 1 all through the Italian campaign) and was informed as much on the Bolt Action Facebook group. That in turn lead me to find other scale model kits of this tank to see if they could shed any light and in turn came across one that did. Lucky me.


But enough prattling! No-one came here to read my nonsense. On with the pics!

(And I've since found a resource to add some correct markings to the Universal Carrier from my last post - an update might be incoming!)

Another Dieppe Landing post

Here are some pieces I've been working on lately. Fast and dirty paint jobs to fit with the rest of what I've done.


Managed to get the Recon Universal carrier painted up for my Dieppe landing force. It's a Warlord games plastic kit and was fiddly as heck to assemble and paint up but I'm happy enough with the end result. Still needs a few id markings but I'll research those later.

Next up is a Bren Gun duo for my first Commandos squad. You'll notice the fellow on the left has a pretty blobby face - that's due to a 4 month old puppy taking an interest in my hobby. *eyeroll* lesson learnt there... (They are both Wargames foundry sculpts for those interested.)

Lastly I also got a sniper team in gillie suits done. This Warlord Games duo are smashing sculpts and were fun and easy to get painted up. Not sure snipers were present at Dieppe, but Commonwealth tactics liked to use platoon sharp shooters, so I felt it was okay to add them and heck, I liked the sculpts, so there.

I also managed to get the Churchill Mk 1 done for this lot but realized the pics I took were from when I originally painted on the markings and thanks to the Bolt Action Facebook group, was informed that they were incorrect. I've sorted that now, but still need to take pics, so will post that beast up tomorrow or so.


Still hoping all are staying safe and well out there.

Skitterings and survivors

More random stuff off the paint desk. Tried to get some progress made on some WW2 Commandos, but after my puppy decided that a Bren Gunner looked like a tasty chew treat I quickly lost interest. (Lesson learnt there - he'll still work, but will just be a little lumpier than normal)

First up is a simple large Phase Spider. This sculpt is produced by Wizkids Unpainted in their pre-primed range of Dungeons and Dragons semi-hard/soft plastic range. Cool details on these and the price point is VERY affordable. Mold lines are a bit tricky to remove and the "pre-priming" only liked certain painted in my collection but otherwise this was a swift and simple job that will look good on the tabletop!

Next up is a nice Zombie Survivor published by Dead Earth Games for their Post Apocalyptic skirmish game. I named her Moira.

The next two are produced by Spectre Miniatures from their Modern Skirmish game. Seriously well detailed and realistic too. I felt that these two would make for some good prepper-types.

First up Dustin. As you can see, he has an affinity for a certain world leader. The "MAGA" is crudely applied, but after the 4th try I just said eff-it and left as is. That hat is a suprisingly small area!

This is Gordon. He felt like he was ready for the end of the world, that is until he forgot to bring his backpack. Fear not, pilfering a child's pack to make up for it is perfectly kosher during the Zombie Apocalypse! (Not like the Zombies will laugh at his style or anything, right?)

Last for this post is a small piece of terrain by Sarissa Precision terrain. Some sort of water container thing that was included in a nice little compound terrain kit I got this Zombie project. Simple construction and paintjob. Felt messy works really well when it's the end of the world.

And that's it for now. What's next? Who knows, the way my attention span has mimicked that of a rabid butterfly on speed anything in my extensive unpainted backlog might take my fancy.

Hope all are staying well and safe in this virus-y time.

Ribbit in stereo

Quick post for a pair of Reaper Miniatures Bones Black Giant Frogs that I swiftly slapped some paint on. They’ll be great for rpg sessions and maybe in the odd skirmish game.
The Bones Black series makes some crisply details and very affordable sculpts but they tend to have some unfortunate mold lines that don’t clean up very easily. Still for the price I won’t complain.