the Austrian Commission

about 5 years ago a friend of mine decided he wanted an Austrian army, and he wanted me to paint it.

He got the bulk of the army(all Old Glory done over the course of 4 months(10 infantry battalions, 2 cuirassier units,  2 artillery batteries).  not bad considering over the same period I painted my Russian infantry corps, half my cavalry corps, a division of Confederation of the Rhine and misc British and french brigades here and there for others. 

after that the pace slowed a little ,with him giving me maybe 1 unit to paint every few months.  i painted an additional 1 grenadier battalion, 3 skirmish battalions(1 jager 2 grenzer) and a jager line battalion. not long after i finished, napoleonics died off   he still had more units to bet painted (1 grenzer line battalion, 2 chevauleger units 2 more grenadier units, and 1 more foot battery and a wurst gun battery) but with the waning interest in napoleonics,  we decided to hold off. 


well now that I'm getting back into it and I'm getting a new group of guys into Napoleonic with Black Powder, he is having me finish off what he has in his Austrian army, and he's doing a similar sized Perry french army(which I'm painting over the summer). this will also help me French my rebuilding of my former old Glory Russian infantry corps, only with perry/warlord plastic Russians.  I never sold the cavalry corps, or my guard and militia, so it's just line infantry, jagers and grenadiers I need to rebuild.


anyway, so over the last 3 days I've painted 2 foot batteries and 1 Chevauleger regiment for the Austrians.  My friend opted to use Old Glory guns, with sash and saber artillerymen(i believe there was a S&S sale at the time).  i also talked him into avoiding old glory cavalry(which I'm not a fan of) and he bought Sash & Saber Chevauleger.

Sash & Saber Chevauleger of the Hohenzollern regiment

Austrian artillery, Wurst battery on the left, Foot battery on the right.

As i mentioned I'm not a big fan of Old Glory Cavalry. the never fit on the horses right, and  they seem tiny compared to the infantry.  I wasn't a huge fan of the Russian or British infantry either. however, i was pleasantly surprised by the Austrian infantry.  the sculpting seemed to be of better quality across the board, and the infamous awkward or downright anatomically impossible poses were almost entirely non-existant. the only real complaint I had with them was that some of the officers were rather undetailed.

It looks like this maybe the summer of napoleonics! stay tuned for more Austrians!

Baden Hussars finally Finished.

So after almost 2 years of kicking around my desk, I finally finished the 1st unit of Baden Hussars.  these are Perry french hussars , just painted a little differently.

I still have 8 more hussars to paint, but I have a small commission to finish for a friend first.

Cutting one Project to Fund Another...

the first time i saw Zvezda undead Romans, i fell in love with them.  I had to buy them, and make an army. unfortunately i only was able to find 2 boxes, so after painting and assembling one of them, i put the project by the wayside.

Then a few years ago at a Convention in my area, i ran into a guy i have known for several years, and i happened to mention the idea, and he  happened to know a store in London, Ontario that had several boxes, and the dream was reborn for a time.  

I rethought the project.  now, it was a combination of humans and undead.  the humans formed the recruit/inexperienced cohorts. if they survived to become veterans, they went to the first cohort.  if the died, they were resurrected and put into on of the other cohorts. i had some old Glory Romans kicking around from years ago to use as the recruit cohorts, and i bought some of the then new  Warlord Hardened veterans to form the first cohort,  and a box of the resin and metal  roman artillery to supplement the dead artillery I had acquired.

then I got into Napoleonics, and the project once again fell by the wayside. then Napoleonics gave way into the current projects(WW2, FIW, Imaginations) and then my gaming group unofficially dissolved and i went back to school.


Now i find myself with all these figures, and i don't think the project will ever get finished.  my interest in fantasy is waned over the years, and although I think this army would be really cool to have, i just can't seem to ever find the time or the will(or the space) to actually DO anything with them.

As such, Ive decided to sell them to someone who might actually do something with them.

I would like to try and sell them in two groups first, but if there are no takers, I'll consider splitting them up.

Here is a list

1x Cursed Legion Boxed set(assembled, painted, 20 legionaires , 4 archers)
4x Cursed legion Boxed Set(4 command assembled, everything else on sprue)
1x Cavalry of the Cursed Legion(2 figures assembled, rest on sprue)
1x artillery of the Cursed Legion( 5 figures on sprue, everything else assembled)
Price $120 USD


1x warlord Roman Artillery boxed set (resin assembled)
1x Warlord Plastic Roman hardened Veterans(assembled)
1x Roman command(6 metal, to do command stands for the old glory units)
2x Old Glory Roman cohorts(16 figs each)
1x Roman Mounted Tribune
2x other foot command figures.
Price: $85 USD


Buyer Pays shipping from Canada. I'd suggest a service with delivery confirmation, but if you want to go cheap, I'm not responsible for things going missing(it's not happened to anything I've shipped, but you never know).

 the assembled skeletons are fragile so I cannot guarantee they will survive shipping completely intact.   you can email me  at

crucible_orc *AT* sympatico *DOT* ca  (so the spam bots can't get a hold of my address)


and now the pics:

Artillery of the Cursed Legion.  5 additional crew on sprue

Painted Cursed Legion Boxed set(you'll get the necromancer free)

Remaining Cursed legion boxed sets & Sprues

Old Glory Romans

Warlord Romans stuff.
there are 3 or 4 additional unassembled plastic veterans in a bag

Baden Artillery

I've finally gotten around to starting the last of my Napoleonic Baden army. in this case it is a 2-stand artillery battery.  I used Front rank Bavarian Artillerymen. I also have them with Sash & saber Austrian guns.

Baden artillery battery.
Front rank figures with Sash & Saber guns

When I had bought this stuff a couple of years ago, the only source I could find that mentioned Baden artillery equipment at all said that they most  likely used captured Austrian cannons.  Now there is a source mentioned on TMP that show that their cannons  were all cast in Bavaria, which I presume means they were french(since that is what the Bavarians used to my knowledge).  But i already spent the money, so I'm not changing them now.

the Bavarian artillerymen are not a perfect match for Baden artillerymen though.  the helmet should not have the plume on the side. however this is too much work to cut off a metal figure(and would require re-sculpting the side of the helmet) so I just left it black. also, the metal work on the front is slightly different. the  helmet should lack the medallion, and in it's place have a peak rising into the same point from the metal band at the base of the helmet.

I should perhaps also mention that some sources say that the facings and labels were edged in red.  I was using the histofig.com plates for my Baden army, and they do not show this. the histofig.com plates are the only source for Baden uniforms that I found that gives you ALL of them in one place, so i stuck with his interpretation. plus they are free.

Of Cannons and Houses

 Sunday and Monday, I painted up another of the buildings o got at Hotlead 2 years ago.  This was the same lot I got my church and Farm with. also in the picture is the first of 3 Royal Artillery teams from plastic the Victrix boxed set.

H.G.Walls house  based, with Victrix Royal Artillery team.

with the exception of the church, all the buildings I had had cast-on roofs.  I cut the roof off the building, and in this case added an internal floor(with a block in the middle for ease of removal).

View of the inside of the house

the cannon teams are a nice addition.  the infantry are not as frustrating to assemble as some of the Victrix sets are, and they paint up nicely. Each figure in  the set comes with 2 or 3 choices of arms  and equipment to keep the poses fresh. you can probably make 12 or so different poses from the 15 crew in the boxed set.  the cannon is many pieces, including the chains on the underside of the carriage.  There are 2 issues i have with this set.  the first is the lack of horses for the limber(which is not painted up yet due to this fact)  this was a disappointing revelation. I would much rather sacrifice the 3rd team sprue for the 12 horses to complete the 1st 2 limber teams. the 2nd issue is the lack of wood grain on the surfaces that should have a wood grain.

Closeup of Victrix artillery team

Fortunately Perry makes a British 6-horse team available by itself(for a large wagon I'll probably get a pair of these later this summer to complete the limber teams.

Diving into Dystopian Wars

a little over a year ago I was given a copy of Dsytopian Wars 1.1 rulebook  for helping a friend take merchandise to a convention. then last October at Council fires, I finally bit the bullet and bought a Blazing sun fleet at a pretty decent discount.  I had initially really like the Prussians, but since 3 other guys I knew had bought Prussian fleets, i decided against it.  I bought a naval boxed set, a dreadnought a pack of destroyers and a pack of escorts.  A month or so later the Covenant of  Antarctica fleet was released, and I immediately bought a matching set of ships to fight my Blazing Sun fleet.  somewhere along the line I also picked up a pair of medium flyers for both nations(inari scout ships and Icarus flyers)


Over Christmas break I had painted both battleships and cruisers for each fleet. but heading back to school took up most of my time so I once again put the project on the back burner. finally, I had my last exam on Thursday last week. so over the weekend, I was (apparently) anxious to get pack to painting, so I painted everything but the escorts, and 3 covenant frigates, and flyers.

Covenant of Antarctica Fleet

Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet.

I have to say that i *really* like the Covenant ships. especially the cruisers and armoured cruisers. I also cannot wait for the Russians to be released. 

I have not bought into the ground combat portion of the game yet, because generally speaking, I think the ground combat stuff is terrible looking.  the only ones that look decent so far are the British and the french. That being said, the little I`ve seen of the Russian ground forces have me a bit excited to see the rest of them.

now all I need to do is find someone to play with.


Stay tuned, I should have some more 28mm Napoleonic pics by the end of the week.

It's Alive....... almost!

After a nearly 8 month hiatus due to school and lack of gaming group, I've returned!(at least for the summer).  I still have a week and a half left in exams, but  after that I plan to get back to gaming with a vengeance!

back at the beginning of last October I began doing test schemes on my Napoleonic plastics for a Peninsular War skirmish project.   I never got around to photographing them. Recently my friend Jon has expressed an inters in getting back to his gaming roots, which was Napoleonics.  so i decided nest time i photograph something to grab a few pics of them.:

Peninsular British line infantry
Victrix miniatures

Dismounted Dragoons of the 27th regiment.

on to more recent things.  the Easter weekend gave me a much needed breather from school. i too good Friday to get back to painting.  I've had an AGNM soviet T28 kicking around since last august. this is the one Vince at AGNM graciously donated to me after my original T-28 was pilfered from my gaming club. i finally painted it. it looks better then the original, and I took the liberty to test out some waethering powders on it as well.

AGNM Soviet T-28

And then i pained a couple of JTFM tanks i picked up at HOTLEAD. the Neubaufehrzeug 4 is also a replacement of a pilfered tank.  I decided to go with a 2-tone grey and brown camo scheme I found on the interwebs.  it's a nice departure from the endless grey of early war Germans.

JTFM German Neubaufehrzeug 4

 JTFM french 'Char léger modèle 1935 R modifié 1939'

the other is one of Jeff's new tanks, the  Char léger modèle 1935 R modifié 1939 (or more commonly known as R-40). this is a neat little kit, and it comes with a trench rail, which is really cool! I may need to ask him if i can get a trio by themselves to put on my H39s. Both of these tanks have bases attached so they fit in with the rest of my collection.


 Hopefully I'll be a little more active over the summer.

2 Posts in 1 Week, Holy Crap!

Yes, 2 posts in one week.  I'm finally getting back to painting.

This time I've painted up the remaining 8 grenadiers(the grenadier company of the Kurprinz regiment, which i have yet to buy).  this served as the true test platform for the new colour scheme, which i think is actually the nicer looking of the 2 regimental uniforms.

Grenadier company of the Kurprinz Regiment,
with the converged battalion command.

and with that, my Converged Grenadier Battalion is complete.

Complete converged Grenadier Battalion

and with that I'll be able to start working on the 16 troopers, standard and trumpeter of the Metzger Kurassier.

the other thing I've been working on jsut this evening is modifying Old glory horses to look like draft horses to go with ammunition carts for my FIW collection.  Gaming friend Mark Degner and I will be running a large FIW scenario using a modified version of Sharp Practice.   I had thought i had enough old Glory draft horses left, but it trusn out i only have one.  I do have a box full of extra horses, so i used some putty to modify them.  I'll post those once I get them painted as well.

It's Alive!

Yes, I am still alive.   over the last 2 months I experienced more gaming 'funk'.  Along the way I also painted a few commissions started school, and  sold my French truck master to Army Group North Miniatures after i was plagued in  the later stages of getting it cast. I had gotten a few trucks out ok, but then the problems started, and they did not stop until i decided to sell it.

anyway, over the last week or two I painted up some Imagination stuff,  specifically the first 2 groups of the Köztársaság  Pandour regiment.

Köztársaság Pandour infantryman (Crusader miniatures)

Köztársaság Pandour officers and hornist (Crusader miniatures)

 I had ordered some Eagle miniatures kneeling pandours to convert into an Amusette team, but they really won't fit in at all with the crusader. they are larger, and the sculpting is not particularly complimentary either.  If anyone has any kneeling Austrian Grenz from Old Glory, let me know.

Köztársaság Pandours engaging Tufecis raiders from Asarya

I will expand the pandour regiment with another unit of 8 infantry, and i think I'm going to add a troop of 6 mounted pandours, using Front rank figures. I'll be using the pose with the severed head as a character naturally!


I also did a bit of test painting on some other figures i had, specifically some Grenadier Officers.  my grenadier formation will be the grenadier "companies" from each of the 2 infantry regiments  i will eventually have. it also doubled as a viability test of the Kurprinz regiment uniform colours.  I think they tuned out well.

Converged Grenadier NCO, Officer, and Drummer.
The Blue is the  Kurprinz Regimental uniform.

Also, I'll be running a big-ish FIW Sharp Practice game at Council Fires on October 1st, so stop by and say Hi!

MIA? and a few new things

I have been missing in action for almost a month now.  the first 2 weeks were taken up by a deep painting funk.  the 3rd week I was laid up in bed sick with a chest infection. not normally a big deal, but i have asthma, so when something gets into my chest it knocks me off m feet for a few days.

then last week i was finishing up a 28mm SYW painting commission  for one of the guys at AGNM. I was down At the AGNM  workshop on Saturday dropping off the figures, so I picked up the other French vehicle that is soon t be released, the AMR-35 ZT-3 tank destroyer.  this is a lovely Casting. It's one resin piece with 2 metal fittings(gun barrel and Exhaust system at the back).  Casting was nearly flawless.  there was one small bubble on the bottom of the cast on base.  Since it absolutely does not impact the look of the vehicles, who cares!

French ARM-35 ZT3, soon to be released from AGNM

I have also been working on my French truck over the last month. I picked up the resin and RTV rubber form Toronto, and then had to wait a week to get back down there to grab the mold release which i had forgotten.  the mold turned out well, although i probably made the walls a little thick.   I have been having a bit of trouble getting the bits out of the mold.I think i have it fixed, but it's still a pain.  and since they are resin, they are also fragile. 

I was thinking about returning to my old way of resin ccasting with Alumilite for 3 reasons: Alumilite has a bit more tensile strength, it cures faster(cure in 5-8 minutes which is a big deal when you get about 2-3 in 10 casts don't turn out, and they take 25 minutes each with Smooth cast) and the old way of casting, i end up with a bit of thin flash, which ever so slightly thickns th parts, making them slightly less fragile. I haven't yet decided.  I suppose the other option would be to get them metal cast, but i by no means have the money to contract out the casting.  Anyway, on to the pictures.

First casting of the French S-20 truckFront view

French S-20 Truck rear view

S-20 Truck between a Panhard 178 Armoured Car and  an S-35 Somua tank, both from AGNM.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  there are a few minor things.  in 1 or 2 places i missed the rapid prototyping texture left behind. there are actually more places, but on the seat backs it almost looks deliberate, kind of like a texture for the fabric covering.  given that it is my first attempt, I'm pretty happy.  Now all i have to do is get a bunch of complete kits ready fro sale.  when i am ready to sell them(probably starting in a week or two)  I'll be charging actual shipping costs.