28mm Ancients: Roman Legionaries

One of the big issues with being a wargamer while a history major is that on a regular basis I listen to accounts of different interesting wars, campaigns, and military forces. I then find myself wandering back to the barracks to see what miniatures are available. Well this semester saw me in a class on the Romans, and I made it a whole three weeks before I wanted to order some legionaries and barbarians. I talked my classmate Andrew (he’s normally a WWII tread-head with a soft-spot for Panzers) into joining me in my descent into ancients (It wasn’t too hard… he’s doing ancient Germans under the pretense that they’re the predecessors of the Wehrmacht haha). We each ordered a box of Ancients, and I got the Romans. I’ve only painted five, but they turned out well so I thought I’d upload them.

Force on Force: 20mm Korean War (WIP 1)

During my second or third FoF game with my friend Pat back in Montana, he made an offhanded comment in regards to how the rules would make for a good set to play the Korean War with. I have painted up a lot of 15mm Marines and Chinese, but for FoF I’ve really liked my 20mm moderns. With the upcoming release of HBO’s The Pacific I began to think about painting 20mm marines, and the Imex Korean War box sets appealed to me as a cheap and easy way to get communist forces done. Around the time I found several diecast 1/72 T35/85’s for $7 bucks a piece I decided that I’d at least make a small foray into 20mm Korean War gaming. As a result I’ve been doing some painting:

 

These are Fantassin miniatures WWII Pacific Marines. I wanted my Marines to be suitable for either Korea or WWII, and I was especially drawn to the extra equipment on these miniatures. I bought the Boxed set and then an additional six riflemen, and I’ve been pretty impressed with the miniatures. The helmet covers have turned out especially well.

Up next are some communists, miniatures from Imex’s Korean War Chinese boxed set. I was initially planning to do North Koreans instead, but a sale of $5.00 for a box of 50 Chinese changed my mind, and I grabbed two boxes. They’ve painted up decently, though the faces have been a pain in the ass, and I’m still not that happy with them, but that’s one of the disadvantages of plastics.

Finally, here are the T34/85’s I picked up (Forces of Valor models). I’ll be repainting them so that they’re more generic communist tanks with just a red star (because I have a sneaking suspicion 20mm WWII Russians may be in my future), and I may remove one of the tank commanders if I can get the hatch to close. From what I’ve read the Chinese never had armor, but the NKPA did, so I’m going to assume that perhaps the Chinese got a little support for the time being and at $7.00 a vehicle they were hard to pass up.

Now to get everything painted.

28mm Viking Progress

After a long absence due to a lack of camera and the minor inconvenience that college life presents, I’m finally getting another post up here. Near the end of last semester I ordered some 28mm Vikings from Old Glory 25s intending to use them with LOTRs rules variants. I painted about six and burnt out, but this semester I found some more motivation, and got 24 done in the first half of the semester.