I was born in East Orange, raised in Bloomfield, and went to school somewhere around Newark until my parents launched an exodus across NJ. I have been lucky enough to travel abroad. I read, play a couple of musical instruments, like movies, and do what I can to improve a rapidly aging body and mind. I currently work in Texas and live in Florida. I have moved over two dozen times in my life. My tiny armies and navies have followed me on my march across the US. Eventually we hope to end our nomadic existence and settle in one place.
A mix of figures from Old Glory and Foundry all appearing to be 28mm. Old Glory sculptors seem to revel in off-balance poses and dramatic expressions while the Foundry figures seem more nicely detailed and better proportioned. Except for a handful of Zouaves in the back row, all the figures are painted with acrylics on a black primed surface. The Zouaves in the back row are part of a large set of figures I bought, some of which were already painted. I did not have the heart to repaint the figures and though they are different from my style, I think they fit it well enough. They appear to be primed gray and painted with enamels.
From a huge set of Napoleonic figures, these appear to be Battle Honors figures representing a Hungarian unit in the Austrian army. These were painted with a white base coat, a heavy black wash on top of that, and then, everything else in acrylics except for enamels on the weapons.
The figures are based for Napoleon’s Battles, probably the only attempt by the venerable Avalon Hill company to produce a set of miniature rules. The rules offer a hefty figure scale of 1 infantry figure equals 120 actual men. Even so, most people would find the enormous number of figures required to stage even one of the smaller historical scenarios a bit off putting.
A group of 15mm Traveller figures. These were originally produced under The Citadel logo, the label that distributed figures for Games Workshop. The figures were sold either bagged or boxed with a nice brochure describing the military formation represented. Now the figures are produced under the RAFM label, a Canadian company, who according to their website, originally produced the figures for Citadel. For years, I lamented the lack of a source for these figures but they are currently being sold by RAFM.
I painted the figures with bright blue helmets to emulate those worn by the UN and red helmets to emulate the Red Devils of WWII. The dress, a khaki uniform with dark grey body armor, was deliberately kept drab. Figures on the left are newer. The ones on the right are painted with Humbrol enamels and mounted on matboard (now delaminating with age), the ones on the left were painted with Liquitex acrylics and mounted on wooden bases. The enamels are sturdier but not as bright. The figures represent a Tech 2 army for use with GDW’s original Striker rules. RAFM offered low tech troops resembling American infantry from the 50s, mid tech such as those shown and high tech where figures are dressed in battle armor. Figures to the right represent security troops and are painted with an olive drab base overlaid with paint dabs of light green and tan to offer the appearance of camouflage.
The figures are pleasant, easy to paint, and offer a nice range of support for 15mm SF military support.
Large flamboyant figures in 28mm by Foundry, a group of Renaissance-era knights. The online Foundry site shows the armor brightly painted and I have not hesitated to follow suit.
People seem unduly impressed by the candy-stripe lances though the technique is pretty simple. Paint the pike the base color then cut a thin strip of masking tape and wrap it around the lance from base to point. Paint a nice contrasting color, let it dry, and remove the tape. Masking with tape is not too difficult and rather helpful with more intricate patterns on figures this large.
One helpful thing to keep in mind is that horse armor in the period was crafted in both leather and metal. These could be distinguished by the cords used to lace leather armor together, cords absent on metal armor. While metal armor was usually some metallic shade, leather armor was frequently painted in flamboyant colors. It is helpful to be able to spot the difference when painting horse armor from this era.
15mm Essex Late Middle Ages figures. Fair warning that I no longer try for historical accuracy in painting. I am less than convinced by the standards often used to make a determination. Frankly, I just like to know which side is which.
After a few years, a larger army. It grows when the time is available. Still, mostly Essex. Tents are Baueda.
A large grouping of Assyrian soldiers in 15mm by Essex painted about as brightly as I could. Chariots are a pain in the neck to paint, even worse than cavalry but what would an ancient army be without chariots? All figures are mounted for Empire which seems to use a narrow depth for its base. Likely these will all be rebased at some point for DBM.
Here, I am leaning heavily on acrylics with enamels only in evidence in the metallic parts. Because I am trying to paint quickly, some faces are a bit askew but the overall effect from a distance is good. Time for painting is limited so I must get as many as is reasonable done in a relatively short time. One might also notice my annoying tendency to give everyone blue eyes. I had no desire to focus on any historical information here but rather painted an army I thought would look interesting, using both pure and mixed colors with a limited palette leaning heavily on green, red, brown, and blue.
Romans in 6mm. The beauty of the 6mm scale is that it is possible to crowd a huge number of figures into a small space. With such a small size, individual details are swallowed up and one simply sees a mass of figures. This works well with ordered ranks of Romans. It becomes possible to use a smaller table space while crowding each base with masses of figures. Here, there are 20 figures to each base for a total of 80 figures, what you would expect in a century. However, for sanity’s sake, each block represents a cohort, each colored shield group a legion.
This is an old paint job on figures by Heroics Ros. I always mean to get back and do some more but that is the history of figure painting for me. The best approach for figures like this is an almost mechanical application of paint in broad colors with a minimum of detail. Still, with a little more time, errors on the shields could be corrected and some simple design applied. But in some respects too much detail would take away one of the pleasures of this scale that fine detail is imperceptible during gaming. We see the serried ranks of soldiers and little more even if every feature is finely detailed.
Time passes and the Romans have increased in number to just under 300 figures.Now, over 400 figures. It is getting difficult to find more packs of Romans in the boxes still unpainted.
No surprise here, Battletech moves readily between miniatures, boardgames, and computer games. Below are some of the maps produced for use with Battletech. One side of the map focuses on a particular type of terrain, the other is a hexagonal grid on white. Cardboard cutouts were used to display things like office buildings and houses.
The Mechs of course stood up straight and tall and towered over everything around them. Why not? Every other piece on the board was flat. Nevertheless, the game looked good even with just cardboard. In some ways, the often amateurish scenery that appears in games is not as compelling as the scenery on the attractive boards.
For those unfamiliar with the game, playing pieces are giant piloted robots packed with weapons. Their Achilles Heel is their susceptibility to heat overload. The robot can fire weapons, take hits, and move but it pays the price by building up heat. Heat and battle damage, weapons systems and their ammunition are tracked on an elaborate chart much like warships in naval wargames.
Advanced Squad Leader was certainly one of those games that came close to a miniatures game. As the rules blossomed into multiple volumes and were finally consolidated into a huge 3-ring binder, Avalon Hill developed a series of larger game boards for use with miniatures. Below is one of the boards from Hedgerow Hell, one of the two deluxe modules.
Like almost all RPGs, Traveller uses miniatures but Traveller also relies heavily on boards for conflict resolution. Below is a nice example from Fasa’s hotel complex.
![IMG_2903[1]](https://i0.wp.com/littlemenatwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_29031-e1427658740559.jpg?ssl=1)
