Just Needs Varnish!

Having made reasonable progress with my 20mm steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction forces recently I thought it was maybe time to start working on some heavy support units. So far I’ve worked on a mix of generic and nation-specific units, but for the heavier units I want equipment that will be specific to individual armies. When I say heavy support units I mostly mean tanks!

Working in 20mm scale has meant that getting hold of models I can use has been tricky in the past, although 3D printing has now improved the situation. I scratchbuilt my first VSF tank years ago (see below) but have never really got further with tanks. That has changed significantly this year already!

Browsing the Warcradle Studios site I found the Armoured Clash range of models, which fit into their Dystopian Wars background. Looking through the various factions I spotted the Empire Battlegroup box (shown above), particularly the ball-shaped Fangun medium tank in the middle of the picture. These models are 10mm scale, so too small for me, although the tanks would probably pass as light tanks in 20mm scale. So Alternative Armies 15mm sci-fi models to the rescue with a model they’ve had available for some years (shown in the picture below)!

This was exactly what I was looking for! The only modifications I made were to replace the sponson guns with some lower tech weapons that were extras with a 3D printed mech I’d bought (see my tank in the following pictures). Because of the shape of the tank I mounted it on an oval MDF base for stability. As far as painting goes I went for a similar jade green/bronze/terracotta finish that Warcradle use on their Imperial equipment (it also matches the colours I’ve used on my Chinese automatons and helps me use up the jar of Citadel Warboss Green paint that I bought specifically for my Chinese equipment). As far as scale goes I think it fits in perfectly with 20mm figures!

Having got a Chinese tank finished I wasn’t sure what to work on next. I’d bought a resin model years ago of an Italian Fiat 2000 heavy tank that I thought would work as a VSF vehicle, but the model had a fixed turret that I wanted to replace.

The Fiat 2000 was actually built in 1917/18 for the Italian Army. The picture above shows the Fiat 2000 in a partial front view, but I thought it would look better turned round and with a different turret. I’d bought a couple of Japanese Type 89 medium tank turrets in 1:48th scale a while ago and thought about using that turret on a Fiat 2000 hull. Luckily, I was able to buy a good quality PLA/FDM printed kit of the Fiat 2000 and just substitute the larger scale Type 89 turret to give me a Japanese Type 45 Heavy Tank (shown in the pictures below).

I opted to paint it in the same camouflage I’d used on my historical 1930’s Japanese Type 89 medium tanks, one of which is also shown in the pictures for scale. This means I can use it on its own for VSF games or as a fictional heavy tank in 1930’s games. I used the same marking style as my Type 89s, so the vehicle number represents its type (ending in 45) and the white circle represents the heavy tank tank company in its regiment (the use of a symbol to represent the company is correct, but a solid white circle is fictional). Since the “89” designation in the Type 89 represented the last two digits of its year of introduction in the Japanese imperial calendar (2589, equating to 1929 CE in our calendar), the same system dates the Type 45 Heavy tank to 1885 so that it fits into my VSF timeline (Japanese years are more commonly expressed these days by the alternative era name system).

I’m pleased with how this turned out and reversing the vehicle model seemed to match the profile of the Type 89 more closely (I added an open drivers hatch in what would have been the rear machine gunner’s position).

So, onto the last tank to be featured here! This is the one I scratchbuilt years ago but which has ended up as the third VSF tank to get painted! Apart from the track units, which are from a 28mm resin model, the tank is scratchbuilt from card. It was originally going to be generic, but in the end I have painted it as Her Majesty’s Landship “Challenger” i.e. it’s a Royal Navy tank! It’s basically similar to a construction excavator in design, replacing the cab and earth scoop with a gun turret! Optimised for use in warfare in hot climates (e.g. Mars), it’s thinly armoured, open-topped (covered here with a canvas cover) but carries a large calibre gun.

The open hatch can be left as it is, have an officer placed in it or have a naval rating firing a Gardner machine gun from it (the figures and Gardner Gun are plastic figures by HaT). The main armament can also be changed – either a conventional heavy gun, a fiendish-weapon-that-creates-a-bright-flash-when-it-fires or a fiendish-weapon-that-makes-a-lot-of-noise-when-it-fires! The different hatch occupants and main weapons are shown in the pictures below.

As a comparison, the three tanks are shown together below.

As you can see they are all large-ish and of similar sizes. I’ve used a dark brown wash to shade and mucky all of them and I’m happy with how that’s come out. The Xenos Rampant rules only allow one fighting vehicle (e.g. tank) per 24 point force, so that’s meant I can just work on single vehicles for each of my armies, which tends to give more of a Victorian army-of-prototypes feel to things. Hopefully there will be more VSF tanks to come, but I’m not sure who will get what in the way of tanks yet!

Over the last couple of years March for me has been “Maritime March” where I catch up on painting model ships. But, sadly, not this year! This year March has seen me continuing with steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction models. My plan is to add steampunk/VSF elements to some (if not many, or even most) of my 19th Century historical armies. With one exception I’ll only have one VSF force per historical army to fight skirmish games using the Xenos Rampant rules by Osprey. That exception is China, since I have various Chinese forces that reflect the state of their historical 19th Century forces, and the latest force to get the VSF treatment are my Tigermen!

The two pictures above shows my historical Tigermen and I have two 10-man infantry units (you can see more about them here). More usually these would be sword-and-buckler troops but many in the late 19th Century were equipped with firearms (as mine are).

To give one of the units a bit more firepower I’ve painted up one of the Expeditions boardgame plastic mechs I got as a dedicated Tigerman automaton (shown in the picture above – you can see more on my other Chinese automatons here). I used an Army Painter Dark Wash to shade it and then picked out some of the raised areas in a highlight. The striped camouflage does a really good job of breaking up the outline of this model!

Since the Tigermen are just light infantry I reckoned that some heavier, more mobile, support was required. Luckily, I found these 3D printed tiger constructs on Etsy and thought they were ideal (see picture below)!

My original plan was to have just the three tiger models in the unit but I decided that if I added a rider to one of them he could function as an automaton commander for the unit (and it looks better than having an infantry automaton command team tagging along behind trying to keep up)!

I added a saddle, saddle cloth (which an automaton mount doesn’t really need), saddle bags and a bedroll from milliput, topped off with a plastic HaT 1:72 scale Hun rider! The rider had a separate arm with a lance but since the plastic was quite bendy I removed the lance, put a hole through the hand with a pin and then pushed a length of fine brass rod through for the flag pole.

I agonised over how to paint the tigers but in the end went with a Vallejo Model Color Green Ochre base coat followed by an Army Painter Dark Wash. I was thoroughly amazed at the result, as the wash shaded the fine etched panel detail really well! Eyes were added in Burnt Cadmium Red with a red highlight. I added a very fine drybrushed sand highlight but it didn’t really need it. As far as I’m concerned these have to be the best figures I’ve ever used a wash on! I also decided to add a nice big hand-painted paper flag to give this unit a bit more presence on the battlefield.

I also got round to painting a larger model for my Japanese forces, although it could also be used by the Chinese – a dragon automaton!

This is a resin 3D print that comes in two parts and is really nicely sculpted. I couldn’t quite disguise the join between the halves but it’s not too obvious. I had to sand down part of the bottom surface and reposition one of the rear legs to get it to sit flat on a base and even then I had to build up part of the base to give enough contact area to keep it secure.

I looked up various artworks on Far Eastern Dragons and went with an orange upper surface and blue-grey lower surface, with the spines in a red-brown. Once the basic colours were done it looked awful and had to be viewed through sunglasses (Barbara, my wife, said it looked like a cheap kid’s toy made from orange and grey plastic, and she was right)!

So, out came the Army Painter Dark Wash again and that toned it all down nicely. I followed that up with some fine drybrushing and was quite pleased with how it turned out. It’s a reasonable size model for me so it’ll form a unit by itself.

As an aside, it probably represents a Chinese dragon. From what I’ve read, Japanese dragons usually have only three claws on each hand/foot and this model has four. This could make it a Korean dragon, but it also carries a pearl in one hand and that frequently indicates a Chinese dragon (I’ve assumed this is a bomb of some sort for my model). Chinese dragons linked to the Imperial ruling dynasties usually had five claws, with four-clawed varieties being associated with lesser personages.

I’m pretty sure you can never have too many tigers or dragons!

Still on with steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction stuff, although this time it’s fire support for my troops rather than automatons.

Shown above is a Prussian Army 15cm multiple rocket launcher, attached to a limber and towed by a horse team. The only new model in the picture is the rocket launcher, the limber and crew being Franco-Prussian War Prussians that have been painted for quite a few years.

The launcher itself is a bit of a kitbash! The launcher assembly is a Britannia Miniatures WW2 German Nebelwerfer, the carriage is one of Irregular Miniatures “More Useful Guns”, the wheels are from the plastic HaT Gardner Gun model and the seat/stowage box is from a Newline Designs ACW limber.

Not to be outdone, the Austrians have also opted to upgrade their rocket launcher arsenal (see above).

Once again, the only new model is the rocket launcher, the rest of the models coming from my 1859 Austrian army. The Austrians have bought the German launcher unit but mounted it on a lightweight, split-trail carriage more suited to horse traction. The model is just the Britannia Miniatures Nebelwerfer with its tyred wheels replaced with spoked wheels from the HaT Gardner Gun model again.

German artillery expert Hauptmann Zauberwurf evaluated the Prussian rocket launcher but, although considering the launcher itself serviceable, he designed a more practicable carriage for it (shown above, being observed by Hauptmann Zauberwurf himself). The carriage was based on an agricultural tractor, but with armour plate added to protect the crew in action. With its own integral engine it can be driven at a fast walking pace to conduct tactical moves or accompany advancing infantry. The model is the (yes, you’ve guessed it) Britannia Miniatures Nebelwefer mounted on a 28mm scale, 3D printed, tracked gun mount.

Having designed the tracked, self-propelled mounting, Zauberwurf has also mounted lightweight 7.5cm guns on the same chassis to provide direct close-range infantry support fire.

This is a HaT plastic Russian M02 76.2mm gun mounted on the same tracked chassis as the rocket launcher. Both the launcher and gun have magnetised rubber bases and fit onto a piece of steel paper glued in the well of the tracked carriage. This lets me change the weapons over as I need to.

In the picture above you can see the same gun with a British crew.

The final pictures (above and below) show a British crew in action with the quadruple artillery piece that provides the carriage for the other versions above.

At 28mm scale it still fits in with 20mm figures and can be used as a multiple mortar unit to drop very heavy barrages on those fiendish Martian invaders!

And since all of the above troops are Imperial British, Prussian or Austrian sci-fi figures, they are the closest thing I’m going to paint that might qualify for Wudugast’s and IRO’s “Forward March” challenge (in which they aim to paint Imperial Guard armies before the end of March).

Continuing on the theme from my last two posts, it’s time for more steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction automaton units, but this time from Europe.

Shown above is a Prussian Army automaton unit, consisting of three automatons and their controller. The automatons are Ironclad Miniatures 28mm VSF figures that I’ve had lying around for ages, but with my current blitz on automatons I thought I’d get them done. I painted the first one in Humbrol WW1 Blue to match my Franco-Prussian War artillery pieces but then thought that would look too light, so I then gave them all a coat of . . . that’s right, Prussian Blue! I then agonised over how to paint the details and in the end went with a black grey helmet with brass fittings, a brass face mask, bronze back pack/boiler and gunmetal weapons. Then, expecting complete disaster to be lurking just around the corner, I covered them with Army Painter Dark Tone wash! Much to my surprise, they came out alright, so I drybrushed some more blue on them, painted the eyes red and drybrushed their lower legs in earth and an earth/white mix (this was intentional and I did it when I drybrushed the bases). Two of them got GW transfers applied, small skulls on their helmets and skew-whiff Roman numerals on their chest plates. I painted the third one after the other two and had by then learned that I did not want to chase tiny damp transfers around on the model so I left it plain! My excuse is that this third one is newly assigned to the unit and has therefore not yet had markings applied!

The controller is just an Emhar 1/72 scale FPW Prussian infantryman with an extra backpack and aerial added. I’ll probably just use an existing Prussian officer with this unit in any games but I’m more than pleased with how they’ve turned out.

The Prussian Army has ordered that all units coming under its control in the fight against the Martian invaders will use equipment it provides, but not all field commanders agree with this. Artillery expert Hauptmann Zauberwurf, commander of Freikorps Zauberwurf, considers the Prussian automatons too heavy and incapable of accurate fire, so he’s significantly modified their design for his unit’s use (see picture below).

The outer armour has been mostly removed from the automatons to make them lighter and the hands have been replaced with heavy duty grabs/cutters.

These allow the automatons to grab onto Martian tripods and either cut through their legs or fix explosive charges to them. The blue finish has been replaced by a dull field grey to make them harder to see on a battlefield. The models are 28mm West Wind Productions “Secrets of the Third Reich” robots painted field grey with an Army Painter Dark Tone Wash applied (I tried my own enamael wash first and it looked crap). I also painted the single controller figure, a 20mm Liberation Miniatures sci-fi mini, with a large pack and aerial added, to match the previous troops I’d painted as Hauptmann Zauberwurf’s assistants (one of whom is visible on the right of the picture above). Hauptmann Zauberwurf values his men and so they wear lightweight body armour and protective helmets.

Having seen Zauberwurfs modified automatons, the Prussian Army decided it needed its own form of anti-tripod machines and hit upon the idea of using cheap, disposable tracked automatons carrying heavy explosive charges that could be detonated in the proximity of any Martians on a command from their controller – Projekt Goliath!

The solution uses tracked, armoured trailers containing wireless equipment to protect the control teams while they steer the tracked automaton onto its target. Unfortunately, whereas development and manufacture of the control trailers and tracked automatons proceeded rapidly, the same could not be said for the development of an armoured tractor to move the trailer and automaton close to the combat zone. As a stop-gap measure, some Prussian artillery units have been converted to automaton units and use the less than ideal solution of horse drawn limbers to move the equipment about!

The 20mm scale trailer model in the above picture is a 3D-printed French trailer for the early-WW2 Chenilette Lorraine armoured troop transporter. All I’ve added is an aerial and large Iron Cross insignia. The tracked automaton is a WW2 German Goliath remote-controlled demolition vehicle, but in 1/48th scale.

The Prussian Army command provided Hauptmann Zauberwurf with some prototypes for testing (see above picture). The Prussian Army and Freikorps Zauberwurf test teams are shown below.

Hauptmann Zauberwurf recognised that the large national insignia on the front of the army vehicle makes a good aiming mark for Martian gunners so decided to use a smaller national marking. His Goliath operators are also trained to follow the vehicle more closely, so they wear body armour and use the number painted on the rear of the Goliaths to track their vehicles, whereas the Prussian Goliaths use a visible pennant on a small mast (which the enemy also have a chance of seeing).

Not to be outdone by their Prussian neighbours, Austria-Hungarian forces have also introduced automaton units (see picture below).

The automatons are some of the first I painted for this project (see here) and are intended to be generic types for any army, so they’ll have to do for the Austrians for now. The operator is newly finished and is just a plastic Austrian artillery crewman with a larger backpack with an aerial on it. I’ve painted him as an artilleryman and assumed that is the branch of the army that will control them for now.

Back in May last year I painted some flying bathtubs for use by my earth forces (see here and the picture below)

I bought a couple of extra flyers with the aim of painting some individual unit leaders at some point and I’ve now finished the first of these.

This is the Red Baron, a Prussian cavalry officer recently transferred to lead an aerial squadron in Freikorps Zauberwurf!

The figure is a Tumbling Dice 20mm WW1 German Uhlan painted in late 19th Century colours. His lance is another of Hauptmann Zauberwurf’s inventions and is more akin to a launched harpoon with an explosive head. His “bathtub” carries a machine gun pod on its starboard side and it’s painted in red overall so his squadron members can easily see him in the thick of the action!

All of the above qualify for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You Got” challenge, since they’ve been painted since Boxing Day 2025. And since all of the above troops are Imperial Prussian or Austrian sci-fi figures, they are the closest thing I’m going to paint that might qualify for Wudugast’s and IRO’s “Forward March” challenge (in which they aim to paint Imperial Guard armies before the end of March).

Still more Steampunk/VSF to come next time I think, although that’s enough automatons for now!

Following on from my last post are more steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction automatons.

The picture above shows the Chinese automatons featured in the last post, but equipping a Japanese unit. New figures here are the automaton with the flag (which replaces the Chinese-flagged version) and the two-man control team. I’ve painted the officer as a cavalryman and the wireless operator as an infantryman – these match my historical figures (for which some of the uniform details remain contradictory in my sources). The wireless operator has had an extra backpack with an aerial added.

I’ve decided that the easiest route for my Japanese to have automaton units is for them to use captured Chinese automatons or build their own copies. This has partly been driven by not being able to get Japanese-style automatons that I’m happy with, but I’m happy with my compromise. So the picture above shows the Japanese unit equipped with the larger Chinese automatons I featured in the last post, but this time painted light grey (they are different models though).

The pictures above and below show the modernised Chinese unit with the same light grey automatons.

In addition to these newer automatons I’ve also painted an older model I had in Warboss Green to match some of the other automatons (otherwise I’ll never get that colour used up)!

This is one of the old Spartan Games Dystopian Wars models (or maybe Armoured Clash models) that I’d previously painted a pair of in red (see below). I’m happier with how this one’s come out and think the Army Painter wash looks much better than the enamel brown wash I used on the older red models.

I’ve still got another one of these models to paint so I’ll probably go with the green scheme for that one.

I’ve also added a Japanese armoured infantry officer to lead my Japanese elite infantry unit (see below).

The ordinary ranks in this unit (featured here) are in plain crimson so I just added bronze, red and yellow patches and a nobori-style back banner that matches the one on the extra Japanese automaton.

I’ve also added a couple of heavy automatons for my British.

These are 3-D prints by Kyoushuneko, printed in 15mm scale to represent large automatons with 20mm figures. The control group was featured here.

These aren’t going to be solely British and I’ve left them unmarked and in plain grey so they can be used by most of my armies (although I think my Chinese and Japanese forces already have enough of their own)! Having said that, I still have more automatons to come!

All of the above qualify for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You Got” challenge, since they’ve been painted since Boxing Day 2025. And since all of the above troops are Imperial Chinese, Japanese or British sci-fi figures, they are the closest thing I’m going to paint that might qualify for Wudugast’s and IRO’s “Forward March” challenge (in which they aim to paint Imperial Guard armies before the end of March).

I’ve now managed to catch up with myself as far as painting, varnishing and taking pictures is concerned, with the weather helping a bit (we have now had one day this year without rain, wind or low cloud cover)! Most of the delay has been with me, however! I’ve had more than a few figures on the go that I wasn’t sure about, so some experimentation has been in order (i.e. trying washes and swearing a bit). These figures have also been from different armies, so basically I’ve been getting a few test figures done and then finishing units once I’m happy with how the initial figures have turned out.

Anyway, back at the beginning of the year I posted this picture, without saying what I was going to paint (badly) with it.

Well, now the answer can be revealed (I doubt containing excitement is required here)!

This is an automaton unit for my 20mm Victorian Science Fiction Imperial Chinese Army, consisting of three automatons (I prefer the plural “automatons” to “automata”) and a two-man control team. The two humans have been recycled from my “retired figures” pile and have come back into service to control the automatons. The short officer with binoculars has just had static grass added to his base, whereas his colleague has been added to a larger base and had his spear converted to an antenna for the automaton control unit added next to him.

The automatons are plastic game pieces for one of the expansion sets for Stonemeier Games’ Scythe boardgame and I got them from China on eBay. I’ve been looking round for miniatures to use for Chinese automatons for a while, and had a few false starts, but I thought these were ideal. They are meant to be dieselpunk mechs in a much smaller scale but I thought they were just the right size and had the right appearance for what I wanted.

Having got them, thinking how to paint them was the next step. Painting and lining them would be a chore so I thought I’d have a go with a wash (which I have little success with on figures), needing to trade quality of finish against time taken. I’d seen some of the new “Armoured Clash” miniatures and artwork from Warcradle Studios and thought my Chinese automatons would look good in a jade green, hence a hunt round for paint and me buying Warboss Green. So they got a coat of Warboss Green with some areas in Vallejo Model Color Bronze and Gunmetal. I opted to wash the minis with Army Painter Strong Tone and was quite surprised with how well that worked to shade the model! The “eyes” were Burnt Cadmium Red highlighted with red and I drybrushed the lower legs with Humbrol Dark Earth and a white/earth highlight when I painted the bases. Interestingly, I painted two of the automatons with the last of the wash in one bottle and the third one with wash from a new bottle, which didn’t shade quite as well and needed some extra shading added by brush. Overall I’m pretty pleased with how these turned out!

In the 19th Century the Chinese did not have a single army and my forces reflect this. The automatons above are for use by more traditional Chinese forces, so it only seems appropriate that some of my modernised Chinese forces also get automatons.

These automatons are 15mm spider droids from Ground Zero Games that I’ve had sitting round for years, but they work well with 20mm figures. I added some big rivets to the upper surfaces (from plastic rod) and a flag onto one of them so the contollers can easily see where they are on the battlefield (based on a 19th Century Chinese army signal flag). I painted them light grey and washed two of them in a black/brown enamel wash and did the third one with the Army Painter wash.

I already had two of the control team figures but I painted the officer in the middle to replace the map reading officer in the background (who’s been promoted from the artillery branch to the automaton branch) as an extra. I think these automatons look more sophisticated than the previous ones and that fits with them being in a modernised force.

The two units above are intended to be independent support units but I also wanted some individual automatons that could be added to infantry units to represent them having heavier weapons. So I painted a couple more of the plastic mechs in colours that matched the uniforms of the Chinese infantry that they are accompanying.

An infantry unit in blue coats with red trim . . .

. . . and an infantry unit in blue coats with yellow trim.

In these units, one of the infantrymen acts as a controller for the automaton, which brings its extra firepower in support of the unit. These were painted in the same manner as the previous automatons but with Humbrol WW1 Blue as the base colour and additional areas in either red or Vallejo Golden Brown.

All of the above qualify for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You Got” challenge, since they’ve been painted since Boxing Day 2025. And since all of the above troops are Imperial Chinese sci-fi figures, they are the closest thing I’m going to paint that might qualify for Wudugast’s and IRO’s “Forward March” challenge (in which they aim to paint Imperial Guard armies before the end of March).

Not quite sure what’s coming next, but washes might start to feature more prominently!

In my last post I mentioned that detailing my overall progress last year, and plans for this year, would be delayed until I sorted the figures that were currently being painted into their relevant storage boxes. Well, that hasn’t happened and I’m still busy painting them! Since I’m still finishing various units it’ll be a while until they’re ready to post, so I thought I might as well just get the progress update posted now to give the illusion of progress at least!

As I’ve said previously, I aim to spend about an hour a day on preparing and painting models and in 2025 I managed to put an estimated 311 hours into finished models. That total is estimated from the effort I reckon has been put into finished models, so there is always some contribution from models prepared but not finished in previous years (overall it averages out about right).  I started recording this in 2017 and it turns out that 2025 is my second lowest recorded effort in a year. This is due to me spending quite a lot of time last year preparing stuff to paint but not finishing it. The table below shows where I was at the beginning of 2025.

The table below shows the proportion of time I spent on projects in 2025.

I’d mainly wanted to get some VSF stuff painted last year so I was pleased with what got done. And, as expected again during Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery community challenge, I got a reasonable amount of scenery done! For the Boxer Rebellion I finished a Japanese cavalry and infantry unit, along with a Chinese ironclad and some Boxer flag bearers. As far as Paraguayan War units are concerned I finished the last planned infantry and cavalry units and only have some sailors left to paint now.

So I’ve now updated the overall chart of what’s stored in which box as shown below.

I’ve increased the amount of painted figures during 2024 by 70 figures (1 figure = 1 man = 1 horse = 1 gun = 1 limber, so one cavalryman counts as 2 figures) and prepared figures by 138. So not a lot of painted figures but the large increase in prepared figures is not surprising as I basically spent May, part of September and November doing that. As far as the painted figures go I felt that I made progress, even though it’s not a lot of figures. My Japanese troops for the Boxer Rebellion are now finished, my Paraguayan War troops are essentially done and I made good progress with VSF forces.

There have been a few changes in both plans and storage allocation:

1. The number of boxes for VSF figures has been increased from three to six! Two of these are boxes for larger models and the content of all six boxes is likely to change as I shuffle figures around to make the best use of the space. There are a couple of “new” VSF armies planned but all the figures for these have now been prepared and based.
2. I’ve decided to add more units to my French forces for the Franco-Prussian War, mostly troops from the later Republican phase of the war. These figures have already been prepared and based and moved into their box. This has meant some of the specific French Imperial troops have moved in with the Sardinian forces for the 1859 Second War of Italian Independence (which the French fought in) but my OCD can handle this change!
3. I got quite a shock when I counted up the number of prepared figures (622)! This means that in 2026 I need to be painting some of them and not preparing more.

At the moment, though, I’m not sure what I’ll aim to work on in 2026 really! VSF stuff will feature, since some of it is underway at the moment and there’s a lot already prepared. Scenery definitely, as I’ve always got lots of that to do. Vichy French ships are also prepared so I should aim to finish a couple of them at least! Otherwise I might try and do a bit of something from all my projects, even if it’s just the odd vehicle or unit of figures!

Hopefully, then, my next post should include some finished stuff!

The first pot of paint I’ve bought in 2026 is shown below.

That’s right, it’s Games Workshop paint, so that might come as a surprise (shock even) to those of you that know I’m not a GW sort of person! No, I didn’t buy it accidentally, or even nick it (which doesn’t seem to be socially unacceptable in some places) but bought it because it’s exactly the colour I want for some minis I want to paint! But they’ll have to wait for another post!

Usually my first post of the year is a very quick run down of progress I’ve made in the last year, followed by a very woolly plan for the coming year containing no deliverables that I can be held accountable for! At the moment I’m busy painting test figures in ones and twos and since these haven’t been allocated to any storage boxes I don’t want to do a progress review or any mini posts until some of the units are finished. So nothing really to report at the moment apart from the fact that my wife says I’m just as grumpy as usual (that’s not news really, either the fact that she’s said it or the fact that I am grumpy)!

Hope you’re all well out there!

Dropping down to small scale for this post with a couple of 1:1200th aeronef models.

For those not familiar with the term, aeronef is an expression commonly applied to ships that fly using some form of gravity-resisting technology to stay airborne, usually in a steampunk or Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) setting.

It’s over 20 years since I started collecting aeronef models from the Brigade Models Imperial Skies range. Most of the small collection I have was painted before I started this blog, so they’ve only featured here once before (see here for more info). With my 20mm scale VSF project now making progress I thought I should maybe try and get more aeronefs painted with the aim of trying out the Imperial Skies aeronef combat rules (in the past I used my own rules but I decided I’d like something different and I just love the cover of this book).

Since I have small Japanese and Russian air squadrons I decided that I’d like to get a couple of battleships for my Chinese squadron to give it some heavier vessels (up to this point I only had cruisers). A trawl on Etsy surprisingly turned up Chinese aeronefs so I bought one and thought I might as well get it painted (at this time Brigade Models don’t yet produce any Chinese aeronefs but I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before they do).

This model’s a resin 3D print and it came in one piece! Well, there were three separate small masts with flags attached but I opted to leave them off the model as I didn’t think they’d survive the painting process! It’s not a bad print, although there are some faint print lines on the “sails”. The sails are what give it a Chinese look, so I painted them in the same way I’d paint the sails on sailing junks. Otherwise it’s just a big blocky hull with turrets and guns that aren’t particularly Chinese-looking!

Chinese naval fleets in the 19th Century used a mixture of foreign and Chinese built vessels and most of my Chinese aeronefs and dirigibles (zeppelins basically) are from Brigade Models various nationality models.

In the 19th Century it wasn’t unknown for smaller nations to order warships from abroad when trouble was brewing with their neighbours, only for them to offer them for sale once the crisis had passed (sometimes before they had been completed). So in that vein I bought the model above, a Chilean Santiago class battleship, re-sold to China!

I’ve always liked this model, with its two massive quadruple gun turrets and not much else! This is the revised resin-and-metal model that replaced the older metal model and it’s a nice model that goes together well with little cleaning up required. To give an idea of size, the Santiago class model is 84mm long, so not a large model. I opted for a Neutral Grey colour on these two aeronefs because I couldn’t really think of anything else and most of my other Chinese vessels are in grey of one shade or another. So they look more purposeful than spectacular but that’s OK with me!

Don’t think I’ll get in another post before Christmas so I’d like to thank everyone who’s dropped by and I hope you enjoy the holiday period wherever you are!

A quick look back shows that I haven’t (shockingly) posted since October 1st! This is basically because, a) I haven’t finished painting anything, and b) I haven’t hosted any wargames! In my defence (and you’ll have to take my word for it) I’ve been preparing loads of stuff and have played a few games hosted by John, my long-suffering regular opponent. In fact I’ve even won some games, hard to believe though that is (just scraped through to victory in two Spanish Civil War games and then had a more comprehensive win playing a Firestorm Armada starship combat game)!

Anyway, all that aside, I’ve finished some stuff at last! Since my previous post was about the Chinese ironclad Pingyuan it seems appropriate that the next figures finished are some Chinese navy crew figures.

These are 20mm figures from Jacklex’s First Sino-Japanese War range, now no longer available. For much of the 19th Century Chinese navy uniforms were little different from army uniforms, which is handy. The picture above shows these figures on one of my older 19th Century gunboat models rather than Pingyuan to make it easier to see them. I painted three gun crew (in blue and white) and two marines (in red), the officer being a figure I’d previously painted to command a Chinese junk.

They’re also useful crew for small torpedo boats and I can also use the gunners to man fortifications or as army gun crew (since you can never have too many gunners).

I’ve also painted three Boxer banner bearers, with each banner being a different colour/pattern to make it easier to identify units for The Men Who Would Be Kings games.

I had to make these flags the hard way, drawing and painting the basic shapes on graph paper.

I then added in the details and re-drew the pencil lines in to make them easier to cut out.

Although these are simple flags they seemed to take me longer than usual to paint (I estimate that two flags takes as much effort as one figure overall but these seemed to take longer).

Anyway, although the shading/highlighting could have come out better, I’m pleased I’ve got these done.

As an aside, I was up in the loft a few weeks ago sorting out some boxes of accumulated stuff for my wife to sort through, and I came across a box marked “PICTURES”.

Unsurprisingly, on opening the box it contained . . . pictures!

But, when the pictures were lifted out . . .

SPACE HULK! Yay! First edition Space Hulk no less, that I thought went missing in the warp years ago! I can’t remember when I was last as excited! And it’s all there, although nothing’s painted. I have fond memories of playing this with one of my work colleagues decades ago when we were carrying out field work away from home, so I’m keen to start playing again! I realise that most of you reading this won’t be surprised by me finding it again, but you’re probably amazed at me owning it in the first place. Brilliant game I think!