It's All Greek to Me! (Part 6 - Infantry Squad #1 Complete!)

First post of 2025, and in January - a better start to the year than 2024. We have a new president here and half the state seems to be on fire. In January. Crazy times in California and I am somewhat apprehensive for what that means for the year to come. 

Last post I mentioned a planned game of Bolt Action with Densmol; well, that did not happen. My poor opponent and his wife were waylaid by some awful bug or something and so it has all been postponed until... March or some such. Being adults with responsibilities and jobs and his active social life means it's tricky to coordinate dates for gaming. So we'll see - watch this space.

But, the 2nd occurrence of Operation Sweetheart - the earliest Bolt Action event in the area is occurring Feb 8th and I've been tentatively given the go ahead to attend (Responsibilities allowing.) by the Fun Prevention Officer. This in turn has lit a tiny hobby-fire under my arse and so when I can find time, I've been able to continue painting my remaining Greek infantry and hey-presto (!), the first squad of 11 is done!

These minis are all by UK-based Great Escape Games and produced in a satisfying white metal. The sculpts themselves actually depict a squad of Evzones, historically tough men of the Mountain Divisions. The rules themselves don't really do much to reflect this aside from offering an option to make them a bit nastier in close combat, but seeing as that aspect of the game has been seriously nerfed in the new edition, it's not really worth paying points for. Still, I really like the Great Escape Games sculpting with lots of exaggerated facial features including satisfying big moustaches! 

Next up is the second or four squads of  infantry, another 11 men though this time some more 3D prints from Greece-based Studio Historia. Their past sculpts depicting Greek weapons teams were a breeze to paint up, so I'm hoping this lot won't take quite so long as the metal sculpts from this first squad?

The painting chart has been updated to reflect all this progress thusly:

So until next post (Where I hope to show the 2nd squad painted up.) - hope all are staying safe and well, 

- Dai

More Odds and Sods

More finished stuff hot off the paint station - a Paladin, the second Jomsviking Bondi mentioned in my last post and a small Burrows and Badgers scatter terrain piece. 

First up is the Paladin, an old early 80’s TSR Dungeons and Dragons Paladin. I named him Rogelio de la Vega (Bonus interwebs points for getting that random reference.) and decided I’d paint him up in colours I don’t normally choose, so it was a fun experiment and I think he came out just fine. I like to think that he is a terrible dandy and an obvious show off, more likely to step in to stop a nefarious act only to bolster his reputation in the eyes of onlookers.

White plate armour? That must mean this guy has some money to spend on enameling!

The crossed keys symbol doesn’t feature in my limited DnD searches online. Guessing it’s from the real life Catholic reference? Or not. Either way, it helped key in (see what I did there?) the purple in his colour scheme beyond his feathers.

Pale pink cloak and darker pink tunic were both applied in craft paints. Rather surprised with how good their finish looks!

This next bloke is a metal mini by Gripping Beast, a Jomsviking Bondi for my Dark Ages project. That fancy helmet and green poncho-cloak-thing combo must have been a nice part of a loot pilefrom a raid in the Mediterranean or some such. I kept the paint job on this one simple so he wouldn’t stand out too much from the others in his unit.

Not sure this feller is all that fearsome like the other  Vikings? Don’t tell him I said that though

Last up for this post is a little resin piece of scatter terrain. I got it for my church terrain (to be featured in a later post) and it’ll add some fun Burrows and Badgers style design elements to the whole affair. Simple painting to look like the stone mausoleum it’s supposed to represent.  

Basic paint job so it looks stone-y. Was going to try for a marble effect but… no, not this time.

Sister Tomasina looks to the scripture whilst next to the  mausoleum of Sir Gorgonzola. Little does she know, his life crumbled about him when pressure was applied.

There’ll be more soon, tho at a bit of a slower progression.

Dearly hope all are well out there,

- Dai 

Interlude 3

Bit quiet around here eh?




Not been totally idle though.



1. Remember those old Rogue Trader Guard I scored and bragged about a couple posts back? Well they have all been clipped from their sprues and sorted into some wee containers I managed to drum up, ready for when I finally get to them. I also added in the other Guard that I’d already owned and I think I should be able to put together about three or four 10-man squads along with some extras to fill out both heavy weapon teams and platoon squad members. Score right?



2. Speaking of Guard, I read in some blog that I was too silly to bookmark about a Guard player who had found an awesomely cheap alternate model to use instead of the $30+ GW Chimera model. The blogger had chopped the gun off the turret (Or maybe replaced the entire turret?) and shoved on a GW gun instead and added a few 40K-esque details on top of that. I only saw pre-paint pictures of the finished tank, but I liked what I saw and the price of the finished piece even more! On top of the blogger’s mods, I plan to switch out the abominable wheels for something more beefy, though have yet to find an affordable option for this. (Prefer a wheeled transport as opposed to tracked, just seems meaner to me.) This is the shop where I plan to buy 4 of these to make my armoured platoon – http://littlegreenmentoys.com/Tim-Mee-Tan-Armored-Car-02-0001.htm and here’s a pic of the piece pre-mod:

3. O and painting! Well yes, I’ve also managed to get some painting in too. The hobby room got flooded a couple weeks back (Along with the upstairs landing.), which was rather annoying and will prove to be an expensive fix I fear. Thankfully only the flooring was affected so I’ve been able to go in and work, though not often due to the fact that my wife doesn’t like going in there with bare floors. But I have gotten some painting done: a. Work on the Brother Captain Stern commission has started and I’ve got the base metallics started. Customer wants a similar scheme to the studio one, so red next.

b. My Raven Guard dreadnought and Captain Sicarius models have been primed black. Doubt I’ll get to Sicarius anytime soon, but the dreadnought has been calling to me for some reason of late.

c. I am close to finishing the paintjob on the Ogryn from the Radical Ordo Malleus team for my =][=munda project. Shading and all sorts is done on almost all areas of the fig, just need to break up the large bare areas of skin with some freehand tattoo’s and scars. The scars are going to represent his former slave status and will hopefully look as though he’s been lashed a good few times. With the tattoos I’m hoping to effect a design that reflects some sort of devotion to the God Emperor with script work or Inquisitorial seal-type imagery. I’m rather intimidated by the prospect though so we’ll see just how well it all turns out. Hopefully will have an update with pictures by Sunday.



4. Someone needs to take down Kickstarter by the way – along with the awesome Sedition Wars KS, I also have found myself putting down some $$$ on the Relic Knights KS with a mate. And now I’m drooling over the lovely Dreamforge plastic Eisenkern trooper boxed sets and Leviathan titan-thingy. It’s a good thing I have the thriftiest budget-conscious wife in the world, else I’d be in the hole terminally if my hobby urges were allowed to have free reign.



5. Lastly, a mate recently found this boxed set from his gaming days of yore. He knew I am a painter and (still) a roleplay gamer and so gifted me it along with a handful of hero-esque miniatures from the same age. Can’t wait to get painting those pig-faced orcs! (After the commission. After the Ogryn. After the dreadnought. Etc. Etc. Etc.)

Again, next update with actual hobby pics will sometime before the end of Sunday.