The Roaring Northerners are Dave Stewart, John Hill and Iain Robertson; a loose affiliation of tabletop wargamers and figure painters who inhabit the frozen and somewhat soggy wastelands of west central Scotland. Shadowy and secretive, they stoically quest to reduce the scale of the lead mountain that threatens to engulf them all, and perhaps even find the time for the occasional game...
....This is their story

Tuesday 30 September 2014

Stormin' Normans...

With the advent of the mooted Normans in Sicily/1st Crusade campaign on the horizon, I was tricked by Dave and John into buying decided to get some Normans on the painting bench, in order that I could take part properly, rather than using my much later Scots as proxies.

So far I've only managed to get the general finished and based, along with his standard bearer and loyal attendant/ evil henchman (depending on your viewpoint).

Baron D'Guyerre* (10 pts for spotting the movie reference...)









I also procured some Vikings (since that's my prime, if not only real, interest in dark age/early mediaeval forces) however, haven't made a start on them yet, since they'll be of limited utility in the campaign we have planned (unless there are some spectacularly unlucky dice rolls...). However, the dread fleet of Haakon the Bastard and Magnus Trollhammern should make an appearance at some point soon. Maybe...

Quite pleased with how these have turned out, if only that they don't somehow look especially "Norman", though hopefully the next few batches should remedy that. The bases were intended to be a bit of a compromise; I'd initially just intended on doing them in plain desert colours, but then thought that I would like them to be usable as Conquest era Normans against Dave's Saxons, John's pre-Feudal Scots and my Vikings, etc, so had to get some sort of greenery into them, without making them exclusively North West European looking. I think the trade off worked reasonably well. Like MTP, it doesn't blend in perfectly with temperate or desert settings, but doesn't look hopelessly out of place in either of those either.

However, I'm now engaged in a bit of a push to get some more Cold War Soviets done, so we'll see when the next batch of Normans gets finished...

Cheers
Iain


*In the fine tradition of "William the Bastard,", he was going simply be "Stephen the C*nt", but I decded against it.


Thursday 11 September 2014

More French and Indian Wars Scenery.

I picked up this boat at Falkirk show this year.

It is a lovely mould, though I am ashamed to say I do not recall the manufacturer.

Anyway, I finally gave it a lick of paint and here it is.

And, yes I am aware the stream is far too small......








As always, any and all comments gratefully received.


Cheers.

David.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Czechs in the post.

At our last meet up Iain supplied me with a six man squad of Elhiem 20mm Cold-War figures suitable to be painted up as Czechoslovakian Motorised Infantry.

They are super little sculpts and I just had to get on with them.

Yes I am aware that they would probably not be carrying the arm badges when going to war, but hey a bit of artistic licence never hurt anybody and that wee bit of colour really helps.

These guys are going towards our ongoing 'Force on Force' 'Cold War gone Hot' project, to help take on Iain's lovely BAOR forces.

Six man BMP dismount and PKM support (all weapons have Czech domestic designations but are basically the same as far as I have been able to ascertain).

Now I just need BMP and maybe another Czech vehicle.....Tatra trucks anybody?

Basing kept pretty basic for reasons of speed of completion.

As ever, all comments pro and con gratefully received.

Cheers.
David.