Federation armed forces.

I decided to spend some time working on another project, having spent the last couple of months painting 28mm fantasy figures.  I am still doing some painting, but I am not spending as much time doing so as I previously had.

For the past week and a half I have been assembling some tanks and IFV's for my 28mm science fiction figures.  These are from the free website that I previously mentioned.  free items   I had to use Paintshop Pro and import the camo scheme from ones that I previously made.  This took a couple of days to complete.

The models are better than the other one I had made, but the directions could use a couple of additional diagrams to help with assembling them.  They include a variety of detail parts and choice of weapons for the IFV and secondary armament for the tank.  I chose to use the smaller remote controlled turret for the IFV and chose the auto-cannon for it.  The tank also has a remote controlled turret, but I decided to not use it due to its large size.  I also added thumbtacks to the turrets to allow them to be rotated. and also made some other minor modifications to the locations of items on the tank turret and the IFV turret location.

I did post a picture of some of the figures in a previous post. See previous post They are from Anvil Industries.   These were available in a set called the Martian Orbital Fusiliers under their regiments range.  I purchased three of the 10 figure sets along with a six man heavy weapons set and a five man command set in order to get the free shipping.  Purchasing the two additional sets of 10 figures reduced the cost per set by four UK pounds.

This set of figures is no longer listed,, but all the parts to make the figures are still listed on their site.  These include the Gothic Void helmet, and torsos (the specialist weapon guy has the plain back and the rest have the standard back), armored legs and arms, and the Tesla disintegrator under the rifles with stocks range.

After priming them with white spray primer, I painted the figures with a rough wash of a bluish grey color to give them a similar camo pattern to the vehicles.  The wash left different parts of the figures with dark, medium, and light patches.

 The complete force.  Three tanks, four IFV's, one command squad with 11 figures and four ten man squads.   The ten man squads have a two man ATGM team, two team leaders with rifles, and six riflemen.  The command squad has 11 men armed with rifles.  This gives me 15 units and a commander for Wiley Games Bigger Battles rules.  These are for the Federation armed forces.  One of several factions of the Human Space setting which also includes the Panthari Imperium and the Domain.

  The tank. 150mm main gun with co-axial machinegun.

 IFV with ten man squad.  50mm main gun.

Close-up of the ten man squad.  The missile team is in the top right corner,  The heavy weapons man is just to the left of the figure at the top center. One of the two team leaders is at left center and the other is cut off at the right center.  The multi-part figures allow a variety of poses.  While there are some similar poses in the four squads they are all have minor differences.

The army of the Dark Lord part two

I finished painting and basing the next batch of units for the Dark Lord's army this morning.  Two of them had to be primed.  Though I used a grey spray primer, it was not the right shade of grey and I had to paint all the figures with Charcoal Grey from Howard Hughes..  This batch went quickly as there were only seven other colors that I used.  Where I could I did paint some teeth and tongues   There are two units of spearmen in the back row, two units of archers in the front row and one unit of javelin armed skirmishers in the center of the front row..  I will be starting on the next part tomorrow.

These are being used for a fictional campaign using a map that I used several years ago.  The Dark Lord is located in the northeast corner of the map.

Army of the Dark Lord part one

I started painting the next army this week.  Two units were already finished and a third was almost done, but there were three infantry units and one mounted unit that needed to be primed.  All the rest of was just primed.   As of this morning I completed the one that was almost done, primed and finished the unprimed mounted unit and completed three other units.  The other unit that was already finished will be included with the other units of the same type.

 All six units

 The Dark Lord's mounted guard.  This was one of the two finished units. 

 Elf knights on reptiles.  This was one of the unprimed units

 Another knight unit.  Most of these came from the Battle Master board game.

 Reptiles riding reptiles

 Light horse.  this was the unit that was almost finished.

 Dire Wolves

 Character figures

 Two subordinate commanders to left and in front.  Army commander in center

Two heroes.

Elf Army Part Three

Last night I finished painting the elf cavalry and ten character figures.  The elf cavalry is organized as eight units of eight figures each. While most of the horses were almost finished the riders needed to have their armor repainted to match the heavy infantry.  Six of the units are on partly armored horses and two are on unarmored horses. The army's units equipment and organization is based on the Maurikian Byzantine reforms.  The cavalry has lances and bows.

The figures are all plastic and were purchased years ago at much less cost than the current offerings from Games Workshop.  While most of the figures I have were made or designed by GW there are several from other figure makers. This is the last of three posts.  Clicking on older post will go directly to the previous post.  The first post also has links in it to the dwarf army and human army units.

 All eight units

 The guard cavalry.

 One of the two units on unarmored horses.  They carry a mix of equipment

 The other unit on unarmored horses

 The army commander at the left and two subordinates.

 Two mounted heroes

 A mage

Four heroes on foot.

I also found a couple of figures that I could use to finish the sixth unit of light infantry.

Elf Army Project Part Two

Last night I finished painting five, sixteen figure units of Elf light infantry and another 14 Elf light infantry.  I will either base the extra 14 figures as an understrength unit or add a couple of extra heavy infantry figures to bring it up to 15 figures.  These figures required more work as they were just primed.   I have ordered some plastic glue from Amazon so that I can make needed repairs to some figures and add standards to two of these units.  I will be flocking bases later.

Elf Army Project Part One

After painting the 6mm figures last month, I spent the first week of this month taking care of other things and reading the new set of rules from Wiley Games.  These are the set called "Bigger Battles and are intended for larger scale skirmish games where units of 5 to `12 figures are used instead of individual figures.  This inspired me to dig out my 28mm figures that I had started a while back and finish painting them.

The first batch is the Elf heavy infantry.  The next batch will be the Elf light infantry, followed by the elf cavalry, and finally special figures like heroes and mages. I had originally started painting these a while back and then decided to change the color scheme.  This group of figures was about 1/4 to 1/3 completed prior to working on them this past week.  The Elf heavy infantry is organized as eight units of 16 figures.  The color scheme is green and yellow uniforms and equipment with red weapons and silvered and gold armor. I need to get a tube of plastic glue to fix a few missing spear points on several figures. Edit:  This is the first of three blog posts the other two follow directly by clicking on the newer post at the bottom of the page.

Shields were made from scans of shield patterns that I had and resized and reshaped as ovals in addition to the circular ones using PaintShop Pro.  I did not want to use the original shield shape and patterns supplied by Games Workshop.  The new shields are printed on heavy card stock and glued to the figures. Most of the shield patterns are sort of floral in design.  The guard infantry unit has a white Pegasus on a pale blue background and one unit has an altar with a central flame.

 The guard infantry

Keepers of the flame

 

 

 

 

 

When the rest of the army is finished they will be able to engage the dwarf and human forces I painted a while back.  Dwarf Army  Human army

Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Cavalry

I finished basing the Sassanid and Byzantine cavalry that I painted this month.  The figures are all from the Baccus 6mm Sassanid Persian line.  Currently no one makes all the figures needed for Early and Maurikian Byzantine armies.  However, by adding shields and paint, I was able to convert the Sassanid cavalry to close approximations of the Byzantine counterparts.

I was able to locate a set of 3mm and 1.5mm paper hole punches.   2mm would have been a better size for the Byzantine shields and with the 1.5mm punch being too small I used the 3mm punch.  I had hoped to use Paintshop Pro to reduce the late Roman shield patterns from the Notitia Dignitatum, but they were too detailed and did not print correctly.  I ended up just printing red on cardstock and punching out the shields that I glued to the figures.

The Sassanids are on the left and the Byzantines are on the right.  There are 180 armored horse archers in the back, 180 lance and bow cavalry and 18 command figures.   The Byzantines have 144 lance and bow cavalry on unarmored horses in the back, 144 armored horse archers in the middle, 72 lance and bow cavalry on partly armored horses in the front, and 8 command figures.   I have other command figures for the Byzantines also, but those are from a while back.   The 72 figures on the partly armored horses were in a previous post.  I will be adding flock to the unfinished bases later today.



I was painting these figures throughout the month while taking breaks to paint the Achaemenids and NKE's.
The Achaemenid cavalry that I finished earlier this month are here
and the New Kingdom Egyptian army is here

The total figures painted for this month are 923 mounted, 677 foot and chariot crewmen, 30 chariots, and 60 chariot horses.