Wednesday 28 December 2011

Dress Torso Comparison... and the Leviathan's back

Hope everyone has been enjoying your festive celebrations, my own Christmas has been rather packed, but I'm now settling into being even more busy...hmmm

Anyway, just a couple of quick pictures while I'm waiting for the glue to dry.

First up Oink requested a comparison shot of the new 28mm Dress Torso I've got for sale compared to a standard Cadian torso, so it is, these torsos are for sale now on this blog, HERE.


Next up, well looky what I'm back working on! It's been sitting under the bed for well over a year now, I did pull it out briefly and promptly ripped off the sponsons and lower hull sections. The reason for this drastic action was that the greenstuff work was shoddy and uneven and the plastic sections - a mixture of plasticard and things from the bits box just did'nt look right. I've now started to rebuild this lower portion with better constructed sponsons and solid plates of plasticard, with the aid of liquid greenstuff - which I'm suitably impressed with - I'm also ensuring all the joins are smooth and well blended not rough like they were before - hence all the green patches. I'll add further detailing later on, for now I'm concentrating on fixing earlier less satisfactory work and rearming it - as I write this the rear sponson on this flank is just about dry, so now its back to work. The Leviathan will live again!

Friday 23 December 2011

Now on Sale - 28mm Dress Uniform Torso's in Packs of Ten


Right, I've been sitting on these for quite a while now, so I figure its long overdue that I made them available!

These dress uniform torsos feature a winged skull on the breast, and are a modified version of the Roughrider torso. They are intended for use with plastic heroically scaled 28mm infantry, or with my own Roughrider kits. Each pack consists of ten torsos and is priced at £5.00, excluding P&P. I currently have approximately 30 packs available via Paypal Checkout, as with the Roughriders, on the Conversion Bits & Kits page HERE.

As I mentioned these have been around for a while now, and the particularly eagle eyed may recognise them from Colonel Winterbornes excellent Roughriders, an example of which you can see below.

Tuesday 13 December 2011

New (Potentially Praetorian) Releases from Victoria Miniatures, MaxiMini & Warlord Games

Seems while I've been distracted Victoria Lamb and Warlord Games have previewed and indeed released yet more goodies suitable for alternative Praetorians!

First up we have the long awaited Victorian Guard Arms and Lasguns, now available from Victoria Miniatures, now available for sale from Victoria's webstore HERE.


You can see the full range of Victoria's Infantry bits in the below pic, quite a collection! I've just ordered a small sample of several of these along with a couple of the Roughriders - looking forward to having a play around with them after Christmas, suffice to say I'll be blogging about them once they arrive.


Finally from Victoria Miniatures is a preview of one Captain Caine, not available yet, but hopefully soon!


Meanwhile, Warlord Games now have their British Zulu War Plastics on pre-order HERE. Each box comes with enough bits to make 20 Plastic Infantry and includes 4 metal command figures to boot, all at a price of £20.00, not bad eh? Of course there is a down side, these will almost certainly be true scale 28mm as opposed to GWs Heroic Scale 28mm, similarly to Wargames Factories offering, that said these looks much better sculpts and that, combined with the price make them worthy of concideration.


Finally, look what has been previewed on DakkaDakka HERE as a forthcoming release from Maxi-Mini - another company getting in on the Pith headed action!

Monday 12 December 2011

Roughrider Painting Contest Winner!


Congratulations to Ray, aka Colonel Ackland! His Roughriders romped home to victory in the poll, securing him 10 Roughrider conversion sets for his troubles - quite fitting considering Cavember was his idea! Below are a couple of shots of the winning entry, or take a look HERE for further pictures on Ray's blog.


However, a big thank you to everyone who took part, I'm sure you'll all agree there were some really nice entries which showcased alot of the conversion possibilities open to those for whom the GW option just is'nt up to par!

Thursday 1 December 2011

Roughrider Painting Contest Entries

Thats it, the entries are in, the contest is closed, time for a spot of voting! There is a poll to tge top left of the page, have at it, which do you think is the best squad of Roughriders? Voting closes in one week!

ENTRY 1


ENTRY 2


ENTRY 3

ENTRY 4


ENTRY 5


ENTRY 6


ENTRY 7


ENTRY 8

Friday 18 November 2011

For Sale - Classic Epic Chaos

SOLD

New Releases from Victoria Lamb

You may well have already scene them by now, but Victoria Lamb has now got the next wave of models in her online store, with yet more previewed, take a look below!

Assembled Roughrider

Pith Helmetted Heads

Roughrider Arms with Lances

Victorian Guard Torsos

Roughrider Legs

Piper Preview

Arms Preview with Lasguns

As ever, you can view the Victoria Miniatures Facebook page HERE, or the webstore HERE.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Cavember Painting Contest Alteration - Bring Your Roughriders, ANY and all!

I've been having a bit of a think, and realised I really did'nt like what I'd done with the painting contest.

It was pointed out to me by one reader that only allowing entries for models based on my own models was a good marketing ploy to sell Roughriders. I had to agree with that, and realised that I had made a concious decision to do it that way. This has been playing on my mind a bit since, along with the fact that actually I've been commericalising my hobby. On reflection, that realisation has left a very bad taste in my mouth. I think it may be time to put a stop to that, before my hobby, and my blog, become a second job, and a shop.

There are a few things I'm thinking about, but for this reason, please find below the ammended rules for the Roughrider Painting Contest,



I've been inspiried by one of my fellow Praetorian bloggers, Col.Ackland, who recently posted a challenge to himself, and to others, to get his and as many other Praetorian Roughriders painted up as possible. You can find his post HERE. It struck a cord with me as a damn good idea (I'm still only just assembling my second five man unit!), so in response I've decided to take it that little bit further.

I'm extending his challenge to get your Praetorian Roughriders assembled and painted, and at the end of the month I'll be running a contest for anyone who does, for the best Roughrider Squadron. The winner of the contest will get recieve 10 Roughrider conversion sets. The details/rules are as follows.

  • The submitted Roughrider Squadron must consist of between 5 and 10 models.
  • The unit may be composed of any models, and depict any regiment you wish, as long as they are recogniseable as Roughriders (i.e. they should be WYSIWYG).
  • All models in the submitted entry must be finished and both fully painted and based.
  • Each entrant may submit up to two pictures of their entry.
  • All entries must be submitted to the below email address by midnight on the 30th of November 2011.
  • A public vote, lasting one week, will be posted in the first week of December on the blog.
  • In the event of a tie, I will cast the deciding vote.



The original post meanwhile can be found HERE.

Friday 11 November 2011

Roughriders Preview from Victoria Miniatures

Victoria Lamb has posted a preview of the Victoria Miniatures new Roughrider, and it looks like an awesome sculpt. Speaking personally I've already got all the Roughriders I need - albeit unassebled (surely your not surprised?), but I may have to find room for some of these anyway!


For more details, take a look HERE.

Friday 4 November 2011

Pre-order Rorke's Drift from Warlord Games

Just spotted this in my inbox, and thought it was rather cool and potentially worth pointing out to any Praetorian fans who might want to recreate Last Stand at Glaziers Creek, as inspired by the defene of Rorkes Drift. Warlord games are releaseing a 28mm terrain set of Rorkes Drift, included are laser cut wooden buildings with interior details and removeable roofs, and plentiful resin accessories such as mealie bag barricades, and a vast host of other bits! They are also including some of their new plastics - I think while they will almost certainly be true scale 28mm, they will no doubt be a vast improvement over the current similar plastic British Infantry offering from Wargames Factory. One to watch for Praetorian fans - or obviously for thoses into historical wargaming arouond this period!



It seems reasonably priced for everything you get as well, I may be tempted...

Take a look HERE

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Cavember! A Praetorian Roughrider Painting Contest & Free Shipping in November!



I've been inspiried by one of my fellow Praetorian bloggers, Col.Ackland, who recently posted a challenge to himself, and to others, to get his and as many other Praetorian Roughriders painted up as possible. You can find his post HERE. It struck a cord with me as a damn good idea (I'm still only just assembling my second five man unit!), so in response I've decided to take it that little bit further.

I'm extending his challenge to get your Praetorian Roughriders assembled and painted, and at the end of the month I'll be running a contest for anyone who does, for the best Roughrider Squadron. The winner of the contest will get recieve 10 Roughrider conversion sets. The details/rules are as follows.

  • The submitted Roughrider Squadron must consist of between 5 and 10 models.
  • The unit may be composed of any models, and depict any regiment you wish, as long as they are recogniseable as Roughriders (i.e. they should be WYSIWYG).
  • All models in the submitted entry must be finished and both fully painted and based.
  • Each entrant may submit up to two pictures of their entry.
  • All entries must be submitted to the below email address by midnight on the 30th of November 2011.
  • A public vote, lasting one week, will be posted in the first week of December on the blog.
  • In the event of a tie, I will cast the deciding vote.



Not only that, but I'm also pleased to say that I've now taken delivery a new casting run of the Roughrider kits, so there are now a further 95 sets in stock. In addition to the above painting contest for this month only there will be free shipping on all orders of 5 or more sets (just that little extra incentive!).

Sunday 30 October 2011

SHOWCASE - The Praetorian 4th Mechanised

Following the first Showcase post featuring Victoria Lambs Praetorians I recieved a email from a fellow Praetoria collector, Phil Anderson with a few pictures of his army, the Praetorian 4th (now where have I heard of the Praetorian 4th before?) Mechanised (ah, mechanised!). I think Phil's army is another great example of a Praetorian Imperial Guard collection, and one which deviates from the normal scarlet tunics, to a kharki uniform instead! This goes to show you don't always have to take the conventional route. Phil shows a real attention to detail with minor conversions like the addition of Aquillas to some of the helmets and includes a squad of Roughriders converted in the same way I converted my own early ones, and they look superb! I'll now pass over to Phil for a few words!

The 4th Praetorian Mechanised Infantry

The 4th started life over 10 years ago, inspired by the Big Toof River display at games day ’97 and British history (like many other Praetorian collectors). They army has gone through many different incarnations (painted, stripped, repainted... at one stage it was sporting a lot of union flags), and abandoned the red livery, in favour of desert fatigues worn by British troops in the late 19th century. When the Steel Legion were released with the option of fielding imperial guard as mechanised infantry the 4th were truly born.

Unfortunately about 8 years ago I stopped playing and collecting 40k and my armies have been drifting in the warp (or more appropriately the loft), but I’ve always had kept an interest in it and have been thinking of getting back into it for some time. I recently stumbled upon this blog and was very interested in what people have been doing with their praetorian armies, some of the models I’ve seen here are absolutely amazing and have persuaded me to dust off my pith helmet, fix bayonets and take the 4th out on parade.


The army (looking at the painted finished models) being mechanised infantry obviously has a lot of armour, there are 5 chimera, a medusa, a hell hound (affectionately named ‘singing sally’), a sentinel, a leman russ, and finally my own take on the executioner that I like to call the ‘bulldog’ variant leman russ (sporting lots of heavy bolters).


No praetorian army would be complete without rough riders, and my army has 6 of the plucky devils. These were made using standard bearers and sergeants sawn at the waist just beneath the belt atop rough rider legs (how are those ancient miniatures still current??) with the boots cut off and replaced with the boots of the aforementioned praetorian. All that was needed was a little green stuff and repositioning and lances made from uruk hai pikes (I seem to remember there was a lot of uruk hai kicking around in my bitz box at the time so to use those pikes just made sense).


There are lots of little conversions in the army, sergeants and members of the command HQ have aquilla modelled on their helmets, and one particular kneeling guardsman (originally a heavy weapon crew member) has been given a chainsword and now commands a firing line. For a heavy bolter gunner I’ve used a wounded soldier who looks like he is valiantly manning his post continuing to fight on (heavy bolter is from the old metal heavy bolter space marine scout).


The Command HQ has had the most work done to it (and is certainly my favourite unit). Firstly a heavy weapon loader has had his magazine converted to a medi pack. The standard bearer has a banner I sculpted where I’ve loaded it with purity seals, honours, and litanies. There is a zulu warrior complete with animal hide shield and spear (anyone got any ideas what model has been converted???), a priest, a representative from the inquisition in the form of a storm trooper and of course a bugler. The supreme commander was one of the last additions to the army and is simply the Cadian Colonel (sorry no pith helmet! Will have to be changed if I start the army up again...). The second in command has had quite some work done to him, once again he lacks the pith helmet (and the fact he is a giant of a man due the scale of the plastic IG) and is made from the plastic tank crew with a converted bionic arm, power sword on his belt and sculpted epaulettes.


One unit I always wanted but never got round to creating was some kilt clad veterans, something akin to the black watch...

The army saw some serious action and was a regular down at Poole GW many years ago, wasn’t always too successful in the field (some days it seemed the tanks were made of paper, and lining your men in neat firing lines may look good but template weapons were always a worry...) but was great fun and always kept the Praetorian end up!

Friday 28 October 2011

REVIEW - Victorian Laser Guns from Victoria Miniatures

Recently Victoria Lamb previewed through her Facebook page the new Victorian Laser Guns that she'll be releasing through Victoria Miniatures, and I'm lucky enough to have recieved a preview sample.


The weapons design is a blend of late 19th and early 20th century rifle design such as the Lee-Enfield or Martini-Henry, this is very evident in the stock and trigger mechanism. However, it has been cross-bred with something altogether more familiar to any 40k player, the humble Lasgun. Also in common with 19th century weapons it is a reasonably long weapon, as you can see when it is compared to a number of other GW Imperial weapons. This belnd of styles means its an ideal weapon to use to count as a Lasgun - anybody who looks at a Guardsman armed with this weapon will be left in nou doubt as to what it represents. Yet it also has a very steam-punk/victorian feel all of its own, it would be ideal for such VSF games as well!

The castings is of an excellent quality, there is only a small and easy removed mould line and the level of detail is spot on, right down to the fold in the straps. Oh, and the barrel is dimpled, no fidley drilling required here! From the point of view of an Imperial Guard converter, the only slight downside is that standard Cadian or Catachan lasgun bearing arms wont work due to the different style of grips between this weapon and standard lasguns. This should'nt hold compentent converters back however, and we are told that there are specific arms in the works! For the VSF player, you may find the gun a little large as it definately feels designed with GW's 28mm Heroic scale in mind, rather then true scale.

These should be available soon from the Victoria Miniatures shop, and judging by existing pricing of her other bits fitting out an army with these lovely guns won't break the bank!

A whole Praetorian army with these would look awesome I have to say, though for myself I think I may be a bit far along to retrofit my army with them. That said I've always fancied having a go at 'updating' a squad as a proper attempt at a Golden Demon and these would fit right in with that idea, watch this space!

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Sunday 23 October 2011

Opps - FW Resin Paint Stripping Disaster!

Oh dear.

Be warned resin & fairy Power Spray do not mix for long soaks!

In the pre-wedding rush, I slightly (okay completely) forgot I put a couple of second hand Forgeworld Heavy Mortars in Fairy Power Spray to soak. FPS is my normal choice for stripping paint as its easy to get hold of and dispose of (much like Simple Green). I've never had a problem wiith it before, but this time...



So the resin has gone all elastic, and slightly sticky, both carriages are the same unfortuntely, the wheels worse, though the Mortar Barrels being thicker are still useable. Well I'll chalk that one up to experience.

Friday 21 October 2011

Praetorian Roughriders Nearly Out of Stock


Just a quick warning, I've currently only got 9 Roughrider conversion sets left in stock, I've just placed an order for another casting run, so will hopefully be able to restock before the end of next week.

Friday 14 October 2011

SHOWCASE - Victoria Lamb's Praetorian Imperial Guard

Yep, I'm back, and I've some posting to do. I'm going to start with this though, since it seems like an appropriate opportunity. Showcase, is going to be an occasional series of blog posts where I'll briefly highlight other hobbiests whose work which I have found particularly inspiring. These will of course be weighted towards my own tastes, so expect lots of Imperial Guard, and of course specifically Praetorians. There will be exceptions though.

I'd be very surprised if anyone who is a fan of Praetorian Imperial Guard has not heard of Victoria Lamb, in fact I'd imagine that her name is reasonably well known in any hobby circuit. Amongst other talents, which you might read about if you visit her website http://www.victorialamb.com/, she is an award winning miniature painter and sculptor with more then a dozen Golden Demons, and other major awards to her credit. The very first of which was gained with none other then a Praetorian Command Squad.

When I started collecting Praetorian's myself, I'd only ever seen the odd painted model - with the exception of GW's Big Toof River. My first go at the army was overly none to impressive. It was probably seeing Victoria Lambs work, the first time I otherwise saw a full Praetorian army, which cemented in my head the idea that I could do better myself.


Not only is the army gorgeously painted, but absolutely every guardsman is converted, with the addition of webbing and an aquilla at a bare minimum, and many with head swaps, resculpted limbs, or altered weapons. These small details add so much extra to the army. The Heavy Weapons are also converted, this being the first place I saw alternative wheels used to create weapons more in keeping with the theme of the army, which I emulated myself.


The Command HQ is without doubt the army center piece though, as well as her usual conversion touches, including a fantastic standard bearer, is Captain Caine. Beautifully scratch sculpted with milliput, and creating a fantastic resemblance to Michael Caine's character in the classic film, Zulu. I'm as in awe of this model now, as I was when I first saw it.


I'd very much encourage everyone to go and take a look at Victoria Lambs website even if your not the biggest fan of Praetorians in the world, or have seen them before. There is also a selection of her other work, including a number of her fantastic other award winning models, some of which you'll undoubtedly recognise.

Victoria Lamb also now runs 'Victoria Miniatures', selling copies of a number of her original sculpts. Of particular interest may be the Kilted legs originally sculpted for the Drookian Fen Guard conversions featured in various locations by Games Workshop (I've got some on order myself!). As well as her latest release of a Penal Legion conversion kit which looks absolutely superb. There is a webstore on her site HERE, and more details can be found on the Victoria Miniatures Facebook page, HERE.