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Hello everyone, I’ve been asking myself if this is the right place, but as this project has been the one that kept me busy for most of my recent time and is very dear to me, I would like to present it to you. The whole idea to this was born during the time when I nearly stopped painting miniatures and doing wargaming. I had some pretty bad experiences with some guys and communities in Germany and my overall motivation to do some painting and building stuff was down to almost none. I even stopped writing which normally is my preferred method of relaxing. In short: A midlife miniature crisis. Read some more about the background over here: Gallia to Arms - original blog entry During that time a friend of mine bought the miniature kit of the Edelweiß tank that became available just then and later also purchased the kit of the Shamrock tank. That was the moment I decided to also make a small miniature project within the world of Valkyria Chronicles which I had known and liked since I first came to know the original game (or rather … its soundtrack). I had a lot of 20mm figures left and some 1/72 scale tanks, which I figured to be perfect for my plan to recreate the equipment and figures of the game in small scale. They don’t need much space, are easily convertible and they don’t cost as much as 28mm figures and vehicles. As some of my friends continued to do wargaming on WWII and I had so much stuff left, I soon decided to create a small force of Gallian troops for WWII skirmish games. Unfortunately it turned out that the game rules they were using rendered the Valkyria Chronicles scenario almost useless (due to balancing issues). So I continued creating models just for fun, using the whole anime scenario to set up the amusing story of a guy doing weird stuff. It somehow got out of hand … My little builds caught the attention of some guys organizing an annual local tabletop event called “Do or Dice” – and they asked me if I’d like to present some of my miniatures. I thought – wow – what an honor – but … it’s a tabletop event, not a miniature showcase event. So … hm. What to do? Right! Create an own scenario. Luckily I had acquired some left-over scale train terrain from my late uncle – and there were two grass mats measuring 100cm x 70cm. Perfect for a small skirmish game. Reason enough for me to tackle that challenge. Fortunately I’ve like 8 month or so left. Well then – Let’s Make … Gallia to Arms! Creating a scenario set in the Valkyria Chronicles universe requires certain elements. As I plan to use this thread as the main thread and create threads for the single elements of the game – Gallian Forces, Imperial Forces and Terrain – consider this as some kind of register for the different threads. I will frequently update the different sections, so stay tuned. What do we need? Gallian Forces Gallian Army WIP Thread Imperial Forces Terrain Terrain WIP Game rules and scenario setup Game supplies Well then Let’s make this: Into this: Or at least something that looks like it …

Last month I held my nose to the grindstone, as it were, and painted a bunch of wargaming units, a dozen figures at a time. This month, I wanted to relax just a little, so I pulled a group of Caesar Adventurers (currently OOP) out of the queue, and amused myself by finishing off a couple of them. I’ve picture them here with Sir Forscale to show how not-big they are, which is why they make look just a little rough when blown up to more-than-life-size on the screen. It’s interesting to me, though, what you can do with a 1/72, if you aren’t in too much of a hurry. These were done with my work kit at lunches, so 45-60 minutes each. My elder son, who has been doing some amazing work on 1/72 historical Bronze Age figures lately, asked whether some sort of single figure game was in the plans. As of now, I am thinking about using the 1/72s to play through some Rangers of Shadowdeep.

So, I finished off the elf lady to boss the two saprolings at lunch yesterday, and the red witch today. I don’t do much greenstuff work; her broom is especially rustic... The saprolings look more impressive when upscaled; maybe 9 feet in comparison to the 1/72 figures...

I gave my older son a copy of the de Bellis Antiquitatis 3.0 rules for Christmas, and he has been inspired to dust off our joint 2009 project to do Egyptians vs Hittites in DBA. That did entail rebasing some chariots, and it looked like they might look lonely on the 60x80mm stands (vice 40x60 we had been using), so I painted 8 Egyptian infantry to serve as chariot runners and put two on each base when I rebased yesterday. Since I had some unfinished Libyan archers from BITD, I dusted them off and did four as two light infantry stands, to start an opposing army of my own. I picked out the rest of the Libyan foot last night, but they’ll need a chariot converted from an Egyptian one (most likely). In between those tasks, I also put a quick paint job on a Bones hordeling, who looks like he’ll be happier facing 1/72 scale opponents than heroic 28+mm figures.

This morning I finished off a few 1/72 scale Caesar figures, from their fantasy adventurers and 13th century knights boxes, plus a Bones saproling as a 1/72 tree-thing...

I finally finished the last 4 spearmen for these two stands of 1/72 scale Vikings (the Cold Islanders in my miniatures campaign). On to the orcish army...

I’m on the road; post-Gencon, my muse is informing me that I need more troops for the Portable Fantasy Campaign. I try not to ignore her lest all inspiration leave me, so here we are so far. Most of these figures are from Accurate, with a couple of other makers mixed in. I brought a bunch and don’t expect to run out; we’ll see how far I get.

I was idling yesterday and decided to paint up a few 1/72 scale plastic figures to add to the portable gaming set up I'll be taking to Gencon. These figures are a mix of old Airfix and other more modern manufacturers; I don't think any two are from the same maker or set. I'm not entirely happy with the painting; my hands are steady enough and my magnification is good enough for the size of the figure, but I'm working toward trying to predict/plan/produce the right paint consistency to apply it with a Winsor Newton 000 brush without being so gloppy that it dries on the way to the miniature, nor yet so runny that it spreads as soon as it touches the miniature. At least they all meet the three foot viewing distance guideline for tabletop gaming.

I’ve been chipping away at the 1/72 scale fantasy project this morning, with three Caesar elves and a Maid Marion from the old (sculpted in 1964) Airfix Robin Hood set. Assuming I get them based by Sunday, this would bring me up to 33 figures for the month. It hasn’t been too bad, considering all the Christmas hurly-burly.

While I still have some more barbarians/Vikings to paint, I was inspired yesterday to get a start on the orc army I'll be wanting for the campaign. These trolls are from the Age of Mythology boardgame, which has sprue of "things" for Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology. There were four on the sprue, so I intend to paint one more stand at some point. It would be nice if they came in more than one pose, but the implicit challenge in this project is to do it all in plastic, and some things are a little scarce.

I finished up two more stands of fantasy Vikings for more portable 1/72 scale campaign set up. These are intended as “Blades” for Hordes of the Things, so I grouped all the two-handed axes I could get out of a box each of Zvezda and Orion Vikings and possible Revell Saxons. This puts me up to twelve bases for the ‘army’, with three to go, so I’ve got enough to swap the order of battle around a little bit between games.

I cleaned up my painting space this weekend, which made it much more inviting: So, with my significant other off on a business trip early this morning, there was little to keep me from queuing up the podcasts and painting as long as I could stand it. I finished a couple of vintage TSR Star Frontiers ships, for generic SF usage: In the vintage SF line, I also did a simple paint scheme on two Grenadier Traveller Imperial Marines, acquired fairly recently from eBay: I had these two Airfix Robin Hood figures started at Thanksgiving. According to the Plastic Soldier Review, these figures were originally released in 1964. While the mold has been in production fairly recently, I noted, from the color of the plastic, that these two are ones that have been in my possession since time immemorial (i.e., sometime around 1972-4), which is a long time to wait to be painted: These Caesar 1/72 elves are a command stand for my fantasy mass battles using Hordes of the Things rules: They’ve been waiting a while, too. My younger son made the gonfalon for me, topped by an earring we found in the parking lot at the ice rink. He retired from skating in 2012, and I’m glad the muses were finally with me today on this project. 10 figures, 8 from primer out...

Well then, Let's go on. As written in my WIP thread ->Check Here<-, the first few Gallian infantry units for my Valkyria Chronicles scenario ->Check Here<- are done. That means: First few units are ready to be shown. As I wrote, those are units I made over a time frame of almost 4 years now, so I guess a constant quality improvement is clearly visible. Still - even if they are not perfect to the last, every of these figures is quite dear to me. As you can see, on the first two I tried to apply eyes, but it looks weird, so I am currently thinking of repainting their faces. Some details: And just to give an idea of the scale - here's Reaper's Troll Slayer Sophie for comparison: Next units are already on their way.

My older son (now 27...) has been up to visit twice in the past month or so. Because of the portability we found ourselves playing an old favorite, Hordes of the Things, using 1/72 scale plastic armies assembled from an eclectic variety of sources. In my usual scattered way, my muse led me to pull out a delayed project, a Hordes expansion army of fantasy-ed Viking barbarians. My troops, if they are ever completed, will be assembled from a mix of Revell, Orion, and Zvezda figures, mixed within the units. These two are Zvezda. I'll go back and collect pictures of the rest of the finished figures later...

So my older son was up for a visit this weekend with some gaming. After yesterday's Saga and Frostgrave games, we finished up this morning with a "traditional" game of Hordes of the Things (Wargames Research Group, 1991), which was one of the first wargames he learned to play. Since he was in middle school, we have generally played with 1/72 scale plastics, and, as an adult, he's quite adept at painting them. So, when we were done, I was inspired to dig through my boxes of projects set aside, and work up a couple of elves. (He drew up a campaign map a few years ago; I was assigned elves, but haven't painted any lately...since I had the few I have on the table today: it made sense to work on a few...) So, not yet based, but shown here with Sir Forescale to show how small they are, a Caesar unarmored elf swordsman and one of the ~5 poses of unarmored archers they have: Since my bench is too messy to actually use right now these were done at the kitchen table with my travel paint kit of limited palette colors. I did use a pair of good brushes rather than my travel brushes (to save wear and tear) and my optivisor. Some of the autumn cloak had been done previously.

Hello! after some time, following the 3D sculpting of 1/72 models for fantasy gaming, we sent to 3d print the first faction - the Rösian humans (vikings)-, and yesterday we received the masters/samples, to assemble them and show them off! The starter packs of all factions will contain a mix of monopuse models (always with separated shield) and other poses with the option to select different heads or weapons. So to make a "refresh", these are some of the renders : This is not a human viking but we , to see how would it come out, sent to print an elf hyena rider After 3D printing, the moulder made the masters: And here they are assembled! ALSO, we wanted to share that we are working on the miniatures to be able to play skirmishes with warbands with individual miniautres, but also, they will be compatible with bases with slots to make 5men squads and make rank & file armies We hope you like it! For FLUFF/setting info: (no comercial site) http://www.worldofmagrieb.com/

Just got a pack of The Red Box 1/72 Dark Alliance Orcs:set 2 that I plan to use for goblins. The plastic is kind of rubbery, maybe a PVC material, unlike the styrene like plastic I was expecting. It is for the best to be honest, main sprue can be bent in half and returns to original shape with nearly no trouble and only a tiny bit of discoloration. That will at least keep the tiny weapons from breaking easily. The plastic seems a bit like Bones, so filing does not seem too effective. Plan is to clean and wash them on the sprues then pin the sprue itself to some sort of anchor for painting. Probably give them each a paperclip shortbow or a couple javelins from hammered paperclips.. Since I kinda like the base colour of the plastic, first thing is to start with a wash of Minwax polyshades Antique Walnut and see what happens.

This is the first of my units for my 1/72 WW2 wargame. It's 1/76 scale, but that's close enough to do okay. This kit had very crisp moldings, so it was probably a pretty early run. I'd guess it was made about 1980. I painted the camouflage with a base of old reaper pro paint Griffon Tan, with old pro paint olive and shield brown for the pattern. The little skirt near the bottom is old reaper chestnut brown. I then gave the whole thing a wash in Coat D'Arms brown ink wash, which I thinned an extra 50% to make it flow better. You can see it still caught in some surface places and looks like brown staining, but since it's a tank the dirtier the better. Raised details were then highlighted with a very light drybrush of old pro paint stone grey. The kit itself was rather nice, and has been re-released occassionally by Revell. Fit was overall good and not extremely fiddly. This is my first Char B1 in any scale, and I enjoyed it so much I'm looking for an excuse to get another one. It's a pretty heavy tank for its day so the in-game numbers have to be fairly low or it will be too strong. In most scenarios one of these with a handful of smaller escort tanks will be enough. I didn't apply any markings, partly because the decals are 35 years old and probably useless and partly because I don't know how game markings will work yet. Generic markings may be as well as no markings at all if multiple units are present. For tank types which multiple countries employed, an absence of markings may allow me to have a more useful force without a lot of expense. This tank may re-appear in 1944 as one employed against D-Day landings under the control of occupying german forces as a Pzkpfw B1 (f). The tracks are "rubber band" style, all one piece that snap together and fit on like, well, a rubber band. So they're a little warped. I drybrushed their dark grey color with a bit of reaper gunmetal to add a bit of wear. The kit also includes an FT-17 tank I will probably show later, and also some road, figures, and walls to make a little diorama. Those parts aren't a priority right now, but if I do them then I'll probably share a picture of the whole scene. Additional views: And one with Sir Forescale to give an idea of the size of the tank:

Hi all, Has anyone purchased a mini that is 1/72 scale? If so, how does the scale compare to Reaper's 25mm "Heroic" scale? Smaller, bigger... about the same? I found some plastic minis that would do well as fodder, but I want to make sure the scale is right before I purchase. Thanks! -mb