Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Forecast: Dry and Hot and Dangerous!



Colonials are the watchword for the month of July here at Leadgardens. Once you realize that painting vast acres of khaki and white clad figures can be a pleasant break from other more complex projects—like those painfully slow Naps sitting on the back shelf..."if you guys don't get done quicker, I'm gonna ebay the lot of you!, he muttered...)


wild melee around a Krupp gun

But the Mahdi and the Sirdar has come to the rescue giving me a project that does not involve too many headaches and a good bit of fun! Just right for a sleep-deprived new dad!


Fortunately I have over the years followed my one unbreakable rule: "NEVER SELL YOUR TERRAIN!" ...so I had lots of palms, desert style buildings and such from a previous collection of colonials to get a game on fairly quickly after the first few units were painted up...a great way to keep the momentum going.

I am experimenting with using cork for the playing surface just to try something different...and as Maestro Wells would say, "cork is the natural terrain of toy soldiers." In these pics the cork is not glued down but I'm probably going to fix them to the boards eventully. I find the surface really nice for figures and forgiving if you knock stuff over. The down side is its price and I think it's not a particularly environmentally friendly choice so my cork tiles may wind up headed for other uses at some point.


Egyptian Krupp battery (with rather ugly ammo markers and not sure about those brass barrels on the guns but one of my b/w reference pics looked like brass so...)


rebellious Egyptians holding a Nile village


Egyptians man a zareba


Bengal lancers move through rough ground

Next up: Mahdist Camelmen and the stalwart Sudanese!

5 comments:

Donogh said...

Fantastic looking game.
I've used cuts of cork tiles to make hills, but never made the leap to using them as terrain tiles!

legatus hedlius said...

I agree completely. I've been slogging through painting some British Napoleonics and have just gone back to painting beja and it's a huge relief!

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Excellent post - looking forward to more!

Bluebear Jeff said...

After looking at these lovely photos all I have to say is "ebay the Naps" and paint more Colonials.


-- Jeff

Fitz-Badger said...

Excellent terrain and minis!
(still resisting the desire to do some Colonials... maybe once I get enough tricorne stuff done...)