London's Burning, Liverpool Is Red

Yesterday when I got home from work, I found a package waiting for me from my ever-vigilant arms dealer, Al Front. Inside were 8 20mm IT Figures RCW cavalry, 2 lonely Red Guards in Budenovkas, and a Red Guard Maxim team running with their MG...

...and a host of Anglian (now Empress) Miniatures Republican Militia and International Brigade troops for my Liverpudlian VBCW Assault Column. I've ended up with enough figures to complete one group of 10 (Officer, NCO, LMG team, standard, 5 riflemen), start the 'Shock' group (4 figures with SMGs) and another rifle platoon (standard, 3 riflemen). A 'few' purchases, probably at Salute!, of Musketeer Miniatures' Workers' Militia and Workers' Militia Command, plus PLP 111 Atwood, PLP113 Higgins, PLP128 Cpl Gordon, PLP129 Tommy 'Gun' Atkins from Artizan Designs, and the Empress Miniatures' International Brigade Command will do to give me a small command group plus 30 infantry.

Then 'all' I need are an MG team and a bomb-thrower type contraption in lieu of a mortar. They might be supplied by Moscow and the COMINTERN but that doesn't mean they've got all the gucci kit!

Anyway, foaming for yet another new project aside, today I cracked on with my wife's Biel-Tan Eldar, getting a Dire Avenger Exarch to a state where I can probably finish him in my afternoon break. I'm hopeful that I should be able to crank out the actual Dire Avengers fairly fast, maybe two or more in an hour if I 'assembly line' them. The key, I've found, is to keep the scheme simple, use limited colours and few highlights (and where possible don't mix colours), and always remember that it's for playing with, not for show.

Oh yes, and I painted up an Anarchist guerilla/terrorist with pistol. The propaganda of the deed, comrades, is alive and well in 1938 London. His allegiance is hidden, almost, with a black-and-red neckerchief below his shirt and suit. Perhaps he's a Painter, or perhaps he's just another Angel Alley Anarchist... or maybe he's both, or an agent provocateur, or all three, or none of them!

And, finally, some more pictures from my collection:


A Games Workshop Imperial Army Sergeant - when I got this model he was missing his right arm, so I gave him a new one from a plastic Sentinel pilot, with a metal stubgun from a Necromunda Escher Juve. I like this 'colour test' figure, and will be painting all my Mercian Yeomanry (AKA Syrtis 72nd) in this way.



Two views of the same scene - an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus approaches a PDF roadblock on Rigel, together with three Stormtrooper bodyguards and an assassin. Violence is likely - but my money's on the PDF this time, unless that 40mm GL can take out the APC with its tribarrel cannon...!

ADDENDUM: Figures in the above by Ground Zero Games (Hammer's Slammers range plus resin vehicles and ESU Commissar's dog), Hasslefree Miniatures (Kat) and Games Workshop.

Olley Painting Points:

This Week: 8
2010 Total: 47
2009 Total: 58
Grand Total: 105