Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Sahel Conflicts: More Terrorists, Troops, and Civilians

 I'm back with the last of my modern African figures; the storage box is finally full, so there will be no more expansions beyond this and the remaining vehicles on the painting table.

28mm modern African figures for Mali/the Sahel from Eureka, Miska, and Combat Octopus miniatures for Spectre, Bolt Action Modern, and Zona Alpha

Motorcycles seem to be a popular mode of transportation in Mali for various militias and terrorist groups, and I received a few as part of my Miksa Miniatures Kickstarter pledge. They weren't enough to field a full unit, but Eureka Miniatures had a set of Australian SAS soldiers in headscarves that I converted.

28mm modern African insurgents/terrorists from Eureka (Australian SAS conversions) and Miska miniatures

As part of the conversion work, I ordered a Russian weapon sprue from Miniature Building Authority. Unfortunately, they were more 32mm in size and looked huge on the figures, so I had to try and cut them down a bit to make them look more appropriate. In the end, they were still oversized when compared to the Miska AK47, but I think it looked ok overall. Straps for the weapons were made from thin strips of plasticard.  

28mm modern African insurgents/terrorists from Eureka (Australian SAS conversions) and Miska miniatures

One of the stretch goals from the Miska Kickstarter was an insurgent with improvised rockets. I couldn't find any real world photos to help with painting, so used some Hamas rockets as references.

28mm modern African insurgent/terrorist improvised rockets from Miska miniatures

The final items from Miska in this update were a set of civilians. They were slightly taller than the Eureka civilians, but not enough to be distracting.  For clothing, I used some photos of civilians from the Timbuktu as reference.

28mm modern African civilians from Miska miniatures

To complete the civilians, I ordered a few herds of goats from Eureka. Depending on the scenario, they could either be static terrain pieces or join the civilians as moving variables/complications on the battlefield (perhaps with an IED tied to one of them).

28mm modern African goats from Eureka miniatures

Finally, I ordered some African militants off of Etsy that were designed by CombatOctopus. The figures were comparable in size with my other 3D prints, but one odd thing about them was that the head sizes were smaller than the other manufactures. To me, they looked like 25mm heads on 28mm bodies, particularly the heads in caps. However, I think they will be fine on the table. I left them as generic soldiers, and they will either function as poorly equipped Malian soldiers (they have no body armor), mercenaries, or bandits.

28mm modern African militants from Combat Octopus 3D print miniatures

Friday, March 3, 2023

Punic Wars: Refurbishing An Old Carthaginian Army


When I got back into wargaming in the early 2000's (I had previously played Rogue Trader WH40K back in the 1980's), I was really interested in moving from Sci-Fi into historical battles, but had no idea where to start. Poking around various forums in those early interweb days, I saw references to a new Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) game that seemed to be all the rage with 28mm players. Given my previous WH40K background, this seemed a natural place to jump in and I managed to track down the rulebook and "Armies of Antiquity." 

After talking with various people online (including a very helpful Allen Curtis, who would go on to write the "Hannibal and the Punic Wars" supplement for WAB), I thought the variety of troops found in a Carthaginian army would make for a fun bit of painting.  With the advice of Allen and others, I assembled my first army from various manufacturers and managed to play a few tournaments at "The Shield" historical conferences in the San Francisco area. Unfortunately the conference shut down (and later Warhammer Historical itself), so without access to other players in my area, my army sat in storage for over 15 years. 

But recently a gaming buddy of mine expressed an interest in playing ancients with the Hail Caesar rules, so I thought it was time to dust off my Carthaginians.  I had about 200 figures painted, and another 200 or so that had never been finished. Given the age of my army and my limited access to paint and other supplies at the time, I figured a makeover was needed to bring them up to more modern standards.

Here is what they looked like out of the storage boxes. The painting was only a two tone affair, decal options were limited, and the steel bases were just green with some added model railroad flock and rocks. While not a complete disaster, there was definitely room for improvement, particularly with the bases.
28mm Punic Wars A&A Carthaginian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

With the large number of figures to process, I had to make a decision of how far down the refurbishment rabbit hole I wanted to go. I went with the following:
  • I would not fully repaint the figures for the most part, but add additional highlights and washes as appropriate. The bare figures would be painted to match using the old color schemes, rather than my new recipes.
  • I would still use some of the old Veni Vidi Vici monotone water slide decals, but would also add in some Little Big Man Studios decals as appropriate for some added pop.
  • Rather than try to break the figures off their old bases and switch them to plastic or MDF,  I would stick with the steel bases for the army. I was also going to leave the base sizes and unit formations as is, rather than adjust them for the Hail Caesar recommendations.
  • The old flock and other basing materials were to be removed.  The bases would be coated with Vallejo ground texture, the rocks better integrated into the ground, and a dusting of light flock and modern grass tufts added.
The first unit through the process was a batch of A&A veteran African spearmen.
28mm Punic Wars A&A Carthaginian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

For this unit, I kept the original VVV shield decals, though added some wash and highlights. Skin and clothing got highlights, and the edges of the linen cuirasses were lightened from black to a sand color.
28mm Punic Wars A&A Carthaginian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

1st Corps African/Libyan Hoplites 
28mm Punic Wars 1st Corps Carthaginian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

These were upgraded in the same manner as the A&A figures. I hadn't painted in the eyes originally (these figures are a bit smaller) and attempted to do so during the refurbishment, but the shield and spears got in the way of my brush. As such I gave up and left the eyes as is. 
28mm Punic Wars 1st Corps Carthaginian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

Wargames Factory Numidian Light Infantry
28mm Punic Wars Wargames Factory Numidian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

I never assembled these plastic figures back in the day, so they were new to my army.  Considering they were one of the very early 28mm historical plastic kits for wargaming, they actually looked pretty good. The kit came with javelins instead of spears, so I replaced them here. Unfortunately, I was out of wire spears and had to use my stockpile of pewter ones.  They are a bit thick as a result, but it got the job done. I trialed the Little Big Man decals on this unit and while the designs were lovely, I had some issues with the edges of the decals bunching up on the convex shields. For the next batch of convex shields, I think I'll try cutting divots out of the edges to see if that helps.
28mm Punic Wars Wargames Factory Numidian miniatures for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) and Warlord Games' Hail Caesar

And here is a bit of a size comparison.  This army was built during the transition from 25mm to 28mm figures, so I had some size discrepancies between the manufacturers. 1st Corps figures were only around 25mm to the eye, while the other two manufactures were 27-28mm.
28mm Punic Wars miniatures: 1st Corps, Wargames Factory, A&A size comparison


I still have a long road ahead of me to finish the rest of the figures, but I'm happy with the initial upgrades and am optimistic that the final army will be looking much better.
The remaining "to do" pile