A change of painting subject

I have been painting Zulus for a few weeks now, 240 completed so far, and felt it was time for a change of subject. 

The 1:72 scale plastic Zulus completed so far.

The perfect excuse arrived with a postal delivery of some Star Wars Legion models I had spotted on sale. Some Wookiees and B2 Battle Droids were quickly painted up and added to my growing Star Wars collection, adding a bit more variety of units in my skirmish games.

Battle droids.

Wookiees.

While I had my Star Wars figures out, I decided to upgrade the Emperor model. It is a nice enough model, but it looks like an old man rather than a truly menacing figure, even when accompanied by his bodyguard. To give him a bit more menace, I decided to try and add some bolts of crackling energy coming from his raised hand.

My current model of the Emperor lacks menace.

Adding his body guard helps increase the level of menace.

This was done by bending some wire into shape, coating it with glue, and sprinkling sand over it for texture. Once dry, I sealed it with a second layer of glue before painting it in successive layers of mid-blue, light blue, and white to try and create an energy effect. A small hole was drilled into the Emperor’s raised hand, allowing the wire to slot neatly in place. This means the energy effect can be added or removed as needed.

"Luke, turn to the dark side!"

It can be removed when not needed.

Later this week I have a remote Blood Red Skies game scheduled which will be part of my Battle of Britain campaign.

Boardgaming and test painting Zulus

No wargaming this weekend, but there was plenty of gaming all the same. With the kids and their partners over for a BBQ and games day. As a family we all enjoy gaming, and this weekend’s boardgames line-up included the co-operative games "Reign of Cthulhu" and "The Captain Is Dead!". The Captain Is Dead! proved to be popular and we played it twice, narrowly losing in the first game before managing to pull off a victory in the second game. In the evening we wrapped up with "Small World of Warcraft", which was won by my wife. Despite declaring at the start that she did not understand the rules and was going to give the game a miss!

A cooperative game of The Captain is Dead! in progress.

The games day began with hunting down the horrors of Cthulhu.

The day wrapped up with a game most of us had not played.

Planning and preparation for my Anglo-Zulu War project continues. On the rules side, I have been reviewing options following suggestions from "A Wargamer’s Guide to the Anglo-Zulu War" by Daniel Mersey. At the moment I am leaning towards using "Black Powder Second Edition" with its "Zulu" supplement. I need to settle on the ruleset soon as this will help to determine the basing approach I take.

A option to wargame the Anglo-Zulu War.

On the painting table, I have started work on the HaT 20mm plastic Zulu figures. A test group of four were painted. With 600 Zulu figures to get through, I am keeping the painting approach very simple. They are prepared with a wash in detergent and a coat of PVA glue, then block painted with a final PVA coat to give them a glossy finish that I like. 

The countdown is 594 Zulus to go...

Preparing the plastic figures with a wash in detergent.

A test group of 4 figures are painted.

I have also spent a little time on some remaining Star Wars Legion figures. If I am honest, that was probably a bit of procrastination on my part before I start tackling the mass of Zulu warriors in the plastics pile. Anyway, they are finished now, so no more excuses!

Some Droidekas completed. They were very fiddly to glue together.

Some more Rebel troopers. I chopped off some of their heads and replaced them with Kroot and Tau heads from my W40K bits box. I already have a couple of Rebel troop units and wanted this one to look a bit different.

Star War Legion and WW1 Middle East painting

Before I became absorbed with painting aircraft for the Blood Red Skies game over the past few weeks, I had been adding a few models and making conversions to my Star Wars Legion forces. Four of these models were straightforward builds, AT Walkers for the Empire and Rebels, along with a couple of Speeders.

AT Walkers painted for the Empire and Rebels.

A couple of Speeders.

The first conversion involved turning a Luke Skywalker figure into Obi-Wan Kenobi. I reversed the pose to give the impression of Obi-Wan deflecting a blaster shot or standing in a defensive guard. This required removing Luke’s head and replacing it with a spare, along with adding a cloak from the bits box. Green Stuff was used to make the hood and also lengthen the shirt to be more robe like.

A comparison between the figures. Obi-Wan on the left and Luke on the right.

A cloak from the spares box proved very useful as when I make them from Green Stuff they lack movement.

A view of Obi-Wan from the front.

The second conversion made use of the spare torso from the AT walker kit. I added an alien head and cloak from the ever-useful spares box and mounted the figure on a cheap plastic dinosaur, which was slightly modified and fitted with reins and a saddle to create a suitably Star War beast rider.

A beast rider

Another spare cloak was added to this conversion.

With the aircraft painting done (for the moment) I am now reinforcing my WW1 Middle Eastern forces with some additional Indian units. So far I have added one unit of Indian cavalry and two units of Indian infantry. All are HAT plastic 1:72 scale figures. A battery of howitzers is also on the painting table, which will be crewed by some converted Indian figures, although they are not yet finished.

Indian Cavalry - HAT Bengal Lancers were used.

Two units of HAT WWI Indian Infantry. The Officers were added from other WW1 kits.

I hope to get these units onto the tabletop for a game soon.

Waste not, want not, terrain and a Starfighter

In my last post I made some alien-looking plants using seed pods from a Banksia tree which I found on a walk on Christmas day. While making the terrain (see previous post for details), I cut the bottom off each of the seed pods. These offcuts still looked interesting, so I decided not to throw them away.

More alien plants added as scatter terrain.

A day or so later, while sorting through my stash of various plastic plants I have collected over the years, but never fully used. I found some sprouting flower pieces that looked like they could be attached to the Banksia offcuts to create a few more alien-looking plants. With that in mind, I drilled holes to attach the flowers and then painted the pieces.

The following is a quick overview of the steps involved in making the plants.

The off cuts of the Banksia seed pods.

Some unused plastic pieces of plant not used with sprouting flowers.

Holes were drilled into the off cuts to hold the flowers.

The off cuts were given a green wash, dry-brushed with a light green, and finally dabs of yellow added. 

The finished plants on the tabletop.

I think I have now done my dash with creating alien-looking plants for the moment. Keeping with the Sci-Fi theme, a recent addition to my Star Wars Legion collection is a 1/72 scale X-Wing Starfighter for the Rebel forces. I already have a TIE Fighter for the Imperial forces. Although the 1/72 scale models are smaller than Star Wars Legion figures, which stand at around 30 mm tall, the fighters do not look out of place and appear suitably proportioned when mounted on sticks so they stand about 12 inches above the tabletop. With this addition, both forces now have access to air support, and the X-Wing will be used in the same way as the TIE Fighter, providing scenario-driven air support.

The latest addition to my Star Wars collection.

The X-Wing and TIE fighter.

That’s all for 2025…

Gaul Warband, Robots, and Sci-Fi Terrain

Most of my available wargaming time this past week was spent getting some painting done and scratch-building simple Sci-Fi terrain. I had prepared and undercoated a 48-figure 20mm plastic Gaul Warband at the start of the week, but in an effort to delay tackling them I decided to first painted a couple of Spider Robots for my Star Wars Legion forces. One was the official kit, which came with some spare legs and guns. This gave me the opportunity to build a second robot using a scratch-built body assembled from whatever suitable parts I could find in the spares box (mostly unused bits from old Warhammer 40K kits).

The completed Spider Robots. The closest one uses the spare legs with a scratch-built body.

The Spider Robots from the front. Official kit on the left.

With the Spider Robots finished, there was no avoiding the Gauls. Once I got started painting them, I quickly found my rhythm and completed the unit over a couple of days. My approach to painting Ancient armies is deliberately simple. Basic block colours over a mid-brown base coat, which helps hide any missed areas. A final coat of PVA glue gives the figures a durable and glossy finish which I like.

The complete Gaul Warband made of 4 bases.

A view from the front. The figures are mainly 20mm HAT miniatures with a few Italeri Gauls added in.

Finally, while tidying up the storage in my wargames room, I came across some plumbing items picked up at the hardware store that I must have bought with scenery in mind. These were quickly mounted onto some MDF offcuts left over from last week's container construction to create a set of vents for my Star Wars terrain. I will use them either as scatter terrain, or added to the roofs of block buildings to make them look like a factory (and a suitable scenario objective to be destroyed). 

The vents used as scatter terrain.

The vents on a factory building roof. They add a bit of colour to the buildings.

My next project and adding to a past project

I currently have a few Gaul units as part of my Carthaginian army, and I have decided that my next project will be to add to them so that I can field a full Gaul army. I am continuing with the four-base unit style (48 miniatures per unit) as I like how they look on the tabletop. So ordered some more HaT Gauls, which arrived a couple of weeks ago. I also have Gaul cavalry due in this week. The infantry figures have all been washed, and I will soon be giving them their first coat of PVA glue as part of the priming process before painting.

I am continuing to use 4 bases for my heavy infantry and cavalry in my Punic War armies. Skirmishers are 2 bases.

Some of the recent arrivals.

Before finishing the Gauls, I will have to make some MDF storage trays so I can store them properly. I currently use plastic office containers, but there is not enough free space in them and they do not make the best use of the shelf space. 

Current storage approach for my Punic War armies.

With the custom made containers I am planning to make this weekend, I am hoping to get more figures stored in the same area. My collection is beginning to outgrow the room, and I am reluctant to store any of the models elsewhere. They will just end up getting forgotten!

First off the painting table this week, though, were some Star Wars Legion models. An early Christmas present from my son, who is away over the Christmas holidays. They join my steadily growing Star Wars collection. I thought this project was done, but it will soon grow even further. Yesterday I purchased another core set, which will double my Stormtroopers and add a couple much needed speeder bikes, while the Rebels gain another AT-ST walker and more troops.

Not a great photograph of the recently complete Imperial Dark Troopers for my Star Wars Legion collection.

On the tabletop at the moment is a WWII scenario I am trying out. If it works out, I will hopefully post about it.

B&W view of a WW2 game.

Kit-bashing a couple of Star Wars Legion models

This week I was rummaging through my Star Wars Legion spares box, filled with all those leftover and unused bits from past kits, to see if I could find enough pieces to kit-bash a couple of new models. I managed to come up with two, the first model was a Mandalorian riding a dinosaur. The model began with a child’s plastic dinosaur that I had picked up from a local discount shop. The rider uses the spare body of a seated Clone Trooper combined with an unused Mandalorian head and jet-pack. The figure fitted neatly on the dinosaur, and I sculpted a saddle and straps using Green Stuff epoxy putty, while the reins were made from thin wire.

A kit-bashed model for my Star Wars Legion collection.

The hardest part of this model turned out to be painting the dinosaur. In my first attempt I used a grey base with a blue wash. It did not look right at all. So, after a bit of research into dinosaur colours and patterns, I tried again with a clay tone and yellow shading. This gave the creature a far more natural and interesting appearance, well suited to a desert environment.

The unpainted model with the plastic toy dinosaur.

The dinosaur colour and. patterning took a while to get right.

 The Mandalorian rider will be able to serve with either Imperial or Rebel forces. 

The reason I decided to make the rider a Mandalorian, was so the model could serve with either Imperial or Rebel forces. The idea of using a dinosaur came from my existing Imperial Dewback Rider, and the scale of the model fits perfectly alongside it.

A comparison to the "Official" Dewback Rider.

The second kit-bashed model I put together was a repair droid. Its body comes from the centre console of another model. I always paint in the windows so I can skip building the interiors. The head and tracks were taken from an unused variant of a different droid kit, while the spare arms came from a more humanoid-style of droid. With all these mismatched parts combined, the finished model definitely has a bit of a Frankenstein vibe to it.

The kit-bashed droid.

he droid seems to be waving his arms around saying "Danger! Danger!"

I plan to use the droid to undertake repairs to any damaged vehicles in my Star Wars games.