Some painting, terrain, and a second hand find

This week I managed to finish painting a unit of Highlanders for my Anglo-Zulu War project. These figures, other than the officer, are nicely converted old Airfix Napoleonic Highlanders and have had an interesting journey before finally reaching my painting table.

Converted Airfix Highlanders that were recently gifted and are now painted and based. The officer is from a HaT kit. I could not resist adding the bagpipes.

A view from the front.

The figures originally belonged to John of the "Wargame Hermit: Solo Wargaming" blog before being passed on to James of the "Solo Slow Wargaming" and "The Chauvinistic Blog" blogs. James had been unable to find a use for these, along with a selection of other Colonial miniatures, so very kindly passed them on to me. I wrote about this unexpected gift a couple of posts ago (here). They have now been repainted and based, and make a very useful addition to my growing British force.

A couple of weeks ago I placed a bid on what appeared to be some Peter Laing 15mm American War of Independence (AWI) figures judging by the photo. Fortunately, they turned out to be exactly that and some 60 figures. The Peter Laing range has been unavailable for many years and are difficult to find.

The Peter Laing AWI figures. Alas only one cavalry figure, I could do with another 4 to make a unit.

I originally bought my Peter Laing AWI collection back in 1978, although it remained unpainted until around 2015 when I returned to historical wargaming after reading "One-Hour Wargames" by Neil Thomas. These newly acquired figures will be a very useful addition to the collection and should allow me to add a few more units.

Finally, on to terrain, or more specifically - sci-fi terrain. I am always on the lookout for inexpensive items that can be repurposed for the tabletop, and during a visit to our local $2 shop I spotted some plastic flowers whose heads looked as though they might make some interesting alien plants.

Plastic flowers purchased for sci-fi terrain.

The flowers are removed from the stem and the connector at the bottom clipped off so the flower can sit flat on the tabletop.

Some nice colourful alien terrain.

For around $5 I decided they were worth a buy. Once home, I removed the flower heads from their stems and found that, with clipping off the base that attached them to the stems and a little bending, they sat nicely on the tabletop. I think they look best arranged in clusters of two or three adding some distinctive colours to the tabletop.

A few days of painting and a surprise package

I have managed to make some good progress with my painting recently, helped by my son visiting for a day of painting. While he worked on his Star Wars Legion collection, I finished a unit of mounted infantry for my Anglo-Zulu War project, adding to the infantry unit, a Nordenfelt Gun (which I may convert to a Gatling Gun later), and naval brigade figures which I had completed the the previous day. With the mounted infantry finished, I decided to paint some Star Wars Stormtroopers I have had sitting around for a while.

Mounted Infantry

Infantry unit.

Naval Brigade units

Stormtroopers

As having a painting day with my son was not enough, I also received a wonderful surprise in the post. James, of the Solo Slow Wargaming and The Chauvinistic blog blogs, contacted me a week ago to say he was posting through some miniatures that he thought I would find useful. When the parcel arrived, I eagerly opened it to discover some carefully converted Highlanders. There are enough figures for a small unit, and they will soon find their way onto the painting table.

Surprise package contents

Converted highlanders. I am looking forward to painting them.

The parcel also contained a selection of ESCI, Call to Arms, and HaT figures. The ESCI and Call to Arms figures include some interesting models, such as officers and buglers, which will be ideal for the command stands I still need to make, as well as adding a bit more variety to the officers leading my infantry units. The remaining HaT figures will allow me to add a couple more units to the collection.

There was also an accompanying letter, in which James explained the provenance of the miniatures, many of which had themselves had been gifts to him over the years. It was a thoughtful gesture and made receiving them even more special. Thank you, James. It was a wonderful surprise.

A blood Red Skies game for my Battle of Britain campaign.

I am not quite sure what my next post will be. Tomorrow I will be playing another remote Samurai game with Jon (playing the Osaka side) and have also completed the next scenario in my Battle of Britain campaign.

Wrapping up the Zulus and starting on the British infantry

For the moment, I have wrapped up painting my plastic HaT 20mm Zulu army with the completion of four command bases last week. They are based on 2 x 2-inch squares I cut out from a large sheet of 3mm MDF purchased from the hardware store. For one of these commanders, I converted a figure and used a spare horse so the commander could be mounted. This base will be used as the overall commander.

Zulu command bases

With the Zulu army complete (at least for now) I started painting some of the British infantry this past weekend (it was wet so no gardening). The first decision was what size of the base and number of figures per base?

Testing out base sizes and number of 20mm figures per base.

The Zulu army is based on 4 × 3-inch bases, which is the size I use for most of my armies. Each base has 12 figures, and a unit consists of two bases, giving a total of 24 figures. In the Black Powder rules and its Zulu supplement, which I plan to use for my games, units are classed as either Small or Standard. In my games, a Small unit will be represented by a single base, while a Standard unit will consist of two bases.

For the British, I wanted to give the appearance of the "Thin Red Line." So I kept the base width at 4 inches but reduced the depth from 3 inches to 1.5 inches. This allows eight figures to fit comfortably on each base, giving a Standard unit of two bases a total of 16 figures.

The completed 16 figure unit with 2 bases.

I originally considered making British units around half the size of a Zulu unit, but doing so would have required smaller base widths, not what I wanted. Although each British base only has a third fewer figures than a Zulu base, the shallower formation gives the impression of a much smaller unit and the "Thin Red Line" appearance I was hoping for.

A comparison between the British and Zulu bases.

As with all of my 20mm projects, I have used my usual block-painting approach with a glossy finish. I keep my painting simple, adding just enough detail to create the impression of straps and equipment. These armies are intended for the three-foot rule when on the tabletop rather than any close-up views. I also find that, at this scale, trying to pick out every tiny detail is becoming increasingly tricky with my eyesight.

A tabletop view.

This approach to painting is partly about speed. There are a lot of figures to paint, and I would much rather finish the project and play some games than end up with an incomplete project sitting on the shelf.

Back to painting Zulus

After taking a break from painting Zulus, it has taken me quite a while to get back to them. A few real-life distractions have ended up extending the break to be longer than expected.

A Zulu army advances.

I have been painting the Zulus in batches of 60, simply because that's how many of these HaT 1:72 scale figures come in a box. A full batch can look rather daunting when they are all lined up on the painting table, and getting motivated to start can be an issue. This weekend I decided it was time to knuckle down and get stuck in, and I have now completed the latest and possibly last large batch.

60 Zulus lined up on the painting table.

With these recent additions finished, I thought I would do a bit of a parade and lay the whole collection out on just to see how much tabletop space they occupy. I have been re-reading Black Powder's Zulu supplement, which uses both standard and small units. With most of my collections I base my figures on 4 x 3 inch rectangular bases, so my plan is to use two bases for a standard unit and a single base for a small unit. 

With the Zulus I am able to fit 12 figures onto each base without them looking too structured or regimented. Most units will be standard sized and consist of two bases totalling 24 figures. They provide a good representation of a Zulu Impi on the tabletop. There may be occasions with smaller battles where I will use a block of 4 bases.

I do my best to make the units look unstructured with no obvious lines of miniatures.

So far I have 12 standard sized units and 1 small sized unit. When all laid out they take up a fair chunk of the tabletop.

When I get around to painting the British forces I suspect I will have between 8 to 10 figures to a single base, which I am looking forward too! However, next will be some Zulu commander bases to wrap up the Zulu army for the moment.

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.

Scratch made WW1 wagons and the next wargaming project

I have continued with the WW1 Middle East theme from my last post by making some very simple supply wagons for both the Turkish and British forces. I often end up with spare cavalry figures after painting units, as the HaT 1:72 scale figure boxes usually contain 16 figures while my cavalry units are made up of 12 figures. Rather than leaving the spare figures unused, I decided to put them to use as wagon teams.

The British wagons on the move.

Turkish wagons guarded by cavalry.

The wagons themselves are simple scratch-builds. They made from off-cuts of wood, with balsa-wood shaped to form the canopy. The wheels are made from washers and card glued together. Each wagon is drawn by one of the spare cavalry figures and a horse with the saddle removed. Like much of my WW1 armies, they are very basic models with any detail painted on so they look the part when viewed on the tabletop.

The almost completed wagon. The toothpick axles just have to be trimmed.

The wheels begin as washers glued to card. Once the glue is dry, they are cut out. This approach provides a nice round wheel with a good thickness.

A toothpick acts as the axle.

Any remaining wagon detail is painted on. I will often use a combination of a dark colour and lighter colour when painting details such as the wheel spokes.

Alongside the wagons I also completed a couple of howitzers crewed with some spare Indian figures that were converted and an officer. These will provide the British forces with some more artillery support. Again all the figures and models are HaT 1:72 scale (although the officers may be ESCI - not sure as the come from my spares box).

Indian crewed Howitzers

My next project arrived a couple of weeks ago. A large box with a selection of HaT 1/72 plastic figures for the Anglo-Zulu War. Prior to doing much with these kits, I have been waiting for a couple of second-hand books to arrive. This project was not planned, it was opportunistic, and came about when I saw Hannants.co.uk had a good number of boxes of HaT Zulus boxes available in stock.

The next project arrives.

Some reading.

Possible rules.

More on this project in the coming weeks (and months) as it progresses... 

WW1 Middle East adding landing boats and Royal Marines

While painting the Indian units for my WW1 Middle East games (see the previous post) I decided to continue with the WW1 theme by adding a few landing boats and a unit of Royal Marines. This will give more options and variety when setting up scenarios, as British naval forces supported a number of land operations during the war, eg, the Dardanelles, Mesopotamia, the defence of the Suez Canal, and Red Sea operations supporting the Arab Revolt.

A unit of Royal Marines are landed ashore.

The Royal Marines are HaT 20mm WW1 British Infantry (Early) simply painted in a dark blue. Although this uniform was replaced by khaki fairly early in the war, but I chose to keep the blue help them stand out from the other British units on the tabletop.

The Marines advance.

After they were painted, I decided to have a go at making some simple landing boats. They were cut from 19mm MDF board into basic boat shapes. For their crews, I used spare HaT WW1 cavalry figures that had previously lost their horses to making some supply units. These figures were cut in half at the waist and glued into the boats. After initially painting them grey, I thought they would look better if I added a second crewman to each boat along with a rudder made from a cut down matchstick.

You can see how simple the models are. Along with an additional crewman I did attach a cut down match stick to the stern to represent a rudder.

The models are very simple, but they are robust and quick to make. Rather than modelling detail, I rely on the overall shape and paint to give the impression of landing boat. I use a rather loose painting style and try to give the impression of detail, rather than painting details themselves. Sometimes this approach works, while other times it does not and the models will get undercoated again until I get the look I want. For models that will not get a great deal of use, and are viewed at three feet, I am quite happy with the results.

A closer view of the model boats shows the loose strokes of paint to give the impression of detail.

A wargamer's view from three feet.

I have a small ship made from wood off-cuts to represent the Campbeltown from when I setup a St.Nazaire game which I can re-use to support the amphibious scenarios.

A basic block ship from which troops are ferried ashore.

The next post will either about adding some more supply wagons to the WW1 collection, or a post about my next planned project which has been recently delivered, and was not on my planned list of things to do in 2026.

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.