Bronze Age Warriors - Minoan Part 4

Minoans Part 4

Having got fed up painting Minoan Infantry I decided to paint up the few missing items that really make for a good looking army. I got a friend to 3D print the specific items as I cannot justify purchasing a 3D printer.

Knossos was the capital city of Minoan Crete. The city pre-dates the Minoans by quite a long time frame. Its been the subject of multiple excavations over the last 150 years. 

I wanted a Built Up Area to act as a feature piece if I ended up defending Minoa. I had considered scratch building a feature but struck it lucky when I found exactly the item I wanted on this 3D printed Items site.

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-knossos-palace-crete-greece-201037

The item is inspired by this structure in Crete.

My friend Dave found the 3D models and he kindly gave me the four missing Triakonters I needed to complete the Minoans. The ships come on their own bases so I had to put them on larger bases and build up the surface so the galleys blend into the sea. The are available to download from here.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/377531/Ancient-Galleys-2?fbclid=IwAR2oUOaeSlpNdVUzBpoLzb8MFaJ8hX2LMGndlDPUjQaoa6nqB-ySLM_Xy20

They painted up really well and using Vallejo Sandy Paste for the sea was just rough enough to be painted etc to look like it was sea.

No Minoan Army would be complete without a Minotaur. I decided to make mine a huge bronze statue. I got it from Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3456137

I asked for two 3D prints because I might end up selling one on. They are on standard 40mm x 40mm bases so can be used as baggage elements

Over Xmas 2021 Dave at Museum Miniatures announced that he was providing a free STL file of a Trojan Horse. He had no plans to sell it as the model is far too large but is perfect for 3D printing.

Here is his publicity shot from the company Facebook page.

Museum Miniature Model 3D STL file

I got two printed out by my mate Dave and have tried two different colour schemes.

Thats all to blog for now 

This brings the painting tally so far for 2022 to

240 foot [72 elements]

9 Feature Pieces [9 elements]

The Uncharted Seas - Iron Dwarves

First Foray Into Fantasy Gaming

As part of Project Lead Mountain I am trying to clear out lots of unused unpainted things. One of my more left field purchases was a load of Uncharted Seas ships. The original company Spartan Games went bust and they were sold off to the highest bidders upon liquidation. Wayland Games purchased The Uncharted Seas rights, but have at the time of writing, nothing with the rules for over two years.

Since I had a large collection of their ships I decided it was time to get some of them painted, ready to either play or sell on. The main faction I have are Iron Dwarves, Dragon Lords, Ralgard and Shroud Mages, though the last faction are missing lots of options. I also ended up with other starter fleets for the Humans and Orc Raiders plus a few additional pieces.

Chainmail Class Flagship

Guardian Class Floating Citadel

Most of the fleet laid out

Piston Class Cruisers

Belcher & Kraken Class Submarines

Armoury Class Troop Carrier

I am missing the Bellows Class Airships but hopefully will eventually sources some in due course.
UPDATE - I now have two of the four Bellows Class Airships I wanted and managed to find four more Piston Class Cruisers. I am now missing four Foundry Class Heavy Cruisers.

More Ancients from Project Lead Mountain - 15th C European Infantry

15th C Medieval Infantry Oddments

Back in February I posted a blog on an Hussite EBay purchase. https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2019/02/hussite-infantry-part-1.html

I have finally painted the last of those figures along with 8 others and have made a profit on the items I already sold on.

As you can see from the picture about they are a mixed lot from two different makers, Minifigs and Oddziat Osmy.

First up are the Minifigs German Spearmen. They are Code 222X from their Renaissance Hussite Wars Range but the armour style actually dates from 1400 AD. Being very old sculpts in the typical Minifigs pose they needed some cleaning up due to having lots of flash. I cannot comment on the casting quality as they must be quite old castings so may well have been redone.

Minifigs 222X German Spearmen

The other Minifigs casting is 225X Hungarian Spearmen also from the Hussite Wars Range. Again the armour style dates from 1400 AD.

Minifigs 225X Hungarian Spearmen

Lastly I bought a box of Oddziat Osmy Code MT04 Teutonic Order Command 1410 AD figures. It contained nine knights and eight swordsmen. They were cast in rock hard pewter and were original 1st generation Polish sculpts. The Teutonics do not have any actual swordsmen in their army lists that I use but I painted them up to go with the other spearmen. They are nicely sculpted figures and were easy to paint.

Oddziat Osmy Teutonic Order Swordsmen

I had planned to sell them in due course but might keep them instead.

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8 The Fleet

As part of my building project I needed to source suitable models for the T'ang Fleet. There's a few makers out there who produce Junks including, Navwar, Langtons, Museum etc. The Tang fleet consists of four different types of vessels, 5 x War Junks, 2 x Horse Transports, 2 x Tower Ships and 1 x River Paddle-wheeler.

The war junks were the easiest to source as I used Grumpy's models as I already had a large bag of them in Project Lead Mountain. They are sold in the UK by East Riding Miniatures to special order as they are deleted from their current catalogue due to the Grumpy's moulds being at the end of their life and not everything is castable.

They are also available from Eureka in Australia casting code GRU-SHIP05

I decided that the fleet would be painted a uniform colour scheme based on traditional Chinese colours of Red and Yellow. 

Grumpy's Junk

Next up are the two horse transports. For these I purchased two large junks from EBay for next to nothing. They turned out to be Museum Miniatures casting code BO08.

Museum Miniatures Junk

The tower ships were problematic as no one makes anything suitable from historic ranges but I came across the now discontinued Spartan Games Ralgard starter fleet. 

Whilst these are designed for fantasy naval games they style is perfect for use as Chinese type ships. They are cannon armed but I can say that these represent the Greekfire weapons of the time instead. The model is right out of the box.

Ralgard Cruiser

The Chinese of this era used man-powered river paddlewheel galley type ships. Theres nothing at all like them available and I only had this line drawing to guide me. 

Since I had used two of the Ralgard cruisers I looked at the frigate models in the box and decided that I would convert one of them. The models sail was far too large so I took a pair of Grumpy's masts and sails to use on the hull. The stern rudder had to be removed so I could model a stern wheel and the model needed sponsons to house the paddlewheels that ran along the hull sides.

Converted Ralgard Frigate