The Big Push 9. Objective Achieved.

Finished! A week to spare before the demo game at Newbury. So.... what do we have? A unit of Sharifian Regulars supported by an Irregular Arab lewis gun team (all from Brigade Games). A number of odds and sods that may be utilised as dismounted armoured car or Light Patrol car crews. These may or may not be used so I didn't spend a lot of time on these and got them done pretty quickly not really worrying about the end result as they may never make it onto the table. The exception is the Lewis team which form the first two figures of a unit of Queen's Westminster Rifles that I need to do eventually (hence they sport unit patches). Finally a small number of "Supression Markers" that are needed for the Setting The East Ablaze ruleset. These are GWM casualty figures. Done!

The one thing I have gained from this speed painting excercise over the past five or six weeks is some experience using the base coat-wash-hightlight technique. I dabbled with this about a year ago as I searched for a way to speed up painting for my own tabletop collection given that most of my time is taken up painting up commissions "properly". I am quite pleased with some of the results given the time constraints. I am less pleased with others. I have learned quite a bit using this technique. Bring on the game itself. If you are at Newbury, please pop by and say "Hello". Just look for the game being put on by "Adrian Shepherd and Friends". I wonder if Adrian has finished the Crusader Castle......?

Sharifian Regulars and Irregular Arab Lewis Team.

Odds and Sods from Empress Miniatures, 

Woodbine Designs, Great War Miniatures and Footsore Miniatures.

Great War Miniatures "Suppression Markers".

Bolsheviks!

Some Copplestones and a Brigade Games figure painted up as Trotsky's Armoured Train Guard. More Copplestones and a Brigade figure ever so slightly converted to create some Red Army Cadets.

Final elements to the Asia Corps

First up, Brigade Games' Asia Corps Lewis Gun teams.

Next, a unit of ten Jaeger. Four battalions of Jaeger were assigned to the Asia Corps, three battalions of the 146th Jaeger Regiment  and the 11th Reserve Jaeger Battalion. In reality, they probably looked just like the rest of the figures in this project being equipped with the sun helmet or soft visored cap. For variety these figures have retained their distinctive shako and badger skin backpack. Perhaps not historically accurate, but an interesting diversion. The Officer, bugler and kneeling NCO come from Great War Miniatures and the remaining seven figures are from Mutton Chop.

Asia Corps Guns

Crew from Brigade Games and the guns are the GWM 77mm FK96 with a lengthened barrel to make them look like FK16s. The Brigade Games FK16 model that came with the crew just looked too small to my eyes.

Brigade Games Imperial German Schutztruppen 3.

Four figures from Brigade Games to join the Pulp Figures and complete this unit of twelve. Also a photo of the whole completed unit.

Austrian Mountain Howitzer.

Austria provided two batteries of heavy mountain howitzers to support the Ottoman effort in Sinai and Palestine. They were equipped with the Skoda 10cm Schwerer Gebirgshaubitze M1916 but no one makes one of those so to stand in here are some Austrian gunners (as seen before) manning a Brigade Games 7.5cm Skoda Gebirgshaubitze M1915. The trail deliberately broke into two pieces.

Mules and other things.

The Brigade Games WW1 British 2.75 inch Mountain Gun in transit.

These chaps are the WW1 Turkish cavalry produced by Forgotton Front Miniatures (found on the Miniature Figurines website). They are meant to be Lancers wearing arabic head dress, but here the right arms have been bent in and/or down and they will represent Ottoman "Dragoons". These are a bit of a "speed paint"as time is short and I need to wrap up the Mesopotamian painting so I can complete some early war German Infantry before the summer ends.

The horses for these chaps are being painted elsewhere.

Brigade Games WW1 Indian Army Sikhs.

As the Mesopotamian Indian Army project begins to draw to a close, here are  some images of  the WW1 Sikhs produced by Brigade Games.

WW1 Indian Army Mountain Guns 1.

The 2.75 inch Mountain Gun and crew from Brigade Games.

Caribbean delights.

Time for painting over recent weeks has been limited. Energy and concentration levels have been low as a result of the demands from the real job. However, things are brightening up and I have taken a break from painting arabs and guns to work of the "Haitian Project" that I began way back in November. See the first post here. This post marks the half way stage and all need to be completed by the summer. Fifty more USMC and US Navy types to go. All the figures are from the Brigade Games "Caribbean Empires" range of figures with the USMC being augmented by a few figures from the Pulp Figures range.

Haitian Gendarmerie.

US Marine Corps.

Merchant Sailors.

A few more Haitians.