Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 15 January 2018

Explorers and Oryx

     "Oryx"
I had intended to post a write-up of my second venture into 'Jimland' but the techy side of real-life once more thwarted my endeavours. To put it simply I've had issues with my, now six year old,  camera eventually sorted my my more techy daughter.
Oryx's bums (for those that like that sort if thing)
The consequences of which is that I've taken photographs today of the figures I've been slowly painting over the last week or so to post about today!
I finally got around to finishing the basing on the recent additions to my Jimland menagerie (the ORYX [for Roy]) and managed to also finish and base the five pulp explorers I recently bought at Battleground along with finishing off two others and those damn porters that have been awaiting completion for what seems like a life-time.
Two of my 'older' explorers that have featured previously,

Ans their rear view
Two of the Newbies, from Pulp Figures

(The Chap as already been named as Otto Sackville.)
Two more 'four eyes' from Pulp Figures
The Butterfly 'Hunter'' has butterflies on him!
Final Pulp Figure

I'm sure he's based on some fictional chap
The almost obligatory group shot
(Obligatory blurry picture)
Just when I though I'd seen the back of my explorers I found whilst sorting through my Sudan collection figures, suitable as explorers.
The chap on the left is rather large and is possible a Foundry figure or  a Redoubt figure.
The chap on the right is almost certainly a Boer and is definitely from Old Glory. The latter came with a group lot of colonials bought from Evil-bay (along with some Brits, Ansar, a Boer gun crew and two Egyptians!). To complete what I want for my Sudan collection I still have three bags of OG Egyptian Infantry, 1 bag Egyptian Cavalry, some more guns and gunners more Dervish Cavalry and Camelry, the list just goes on!
Based and undercoated (undercoat courtesy of Wilko's)
I have been busy with my Sudanese though, the aforementioned purchase bringing the numbers up to just over 300 all based up and undercoated on Tuesday through Wednesday of last week,
Top left is a unit of 'arab' rifles; top right five Fuzzy sword armed units; below them a unit of cavalry and mounted Emirs; Bottom left 5 Units of  'Arabs', 3 sword and two spear; Bottom centre "Fuzzy rifles"; bottom right 4 units of 'Fuzzy' spears. There are also a few 'randoms, civilians and foot Leaders without units.
By Sunday, all the flesh had been added to all 300+
The new three-piece terrain board
   In other news, during the final stage of my Jimland game I had one of those disasters everyone fears - I stumbled onto one of my very lightweight terrain boards snapping into three piece. ( I blame age, drink, drugs and incompetence...)

















Cocktail splints in a very strangely coloured photo (I blame the cameraman)
Some cocktail sticks and liberal amounts of PVA, left to dry for three days (as PVA takes an age to dry 'internally' - so to speak)
Almost like new.. I may have to add two small hills to strength the board
That's it then for this week's post. I'll be writing up the latest Jimland adventure whilst holidaying  in the sunny North West (yes I know) as of Friday, but I am assured they have the Interweb even in the sticks. IN the meantime, the terrain board above needs fixing all the fuzzy wuzzies have to have their hair painted, everyone needs weapons painted and the list goes on...

Thanks for taking the time to visit and I hope you found something of interest and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.


22 comments:

  1. Ah! A lot of great looking stuff! Really love this project:)

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    1. Thank you Michael, there is a lot going on in just these two projects

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  2. Stroll on. Painting 300 figures all at once would see me lose the will to live, never mind taking me months to motivate to pick up the paint brush. In other words, I couldn't do it so I'm glad its you rather than me.

    Those big antelopes are Oryx, then, are they. To be fair, I was partly correct last time (so Wikipedia tells me) as my Gemsbok (Oryx gazella) are all part of the same family. If there's a zoo over in the NW maybe you'll see some :)

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    1. Haha, thanks Roy. The 300 (not Spartans) are a breeze compared to Zombies or civilians in any form. They're monotomous sure, but I do monotomu well.
      Sorry about the Oryx thing and I knew about Gemsboks too after looking them up!
      I think the closest I'll come to wildlife is a display of Owls!

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    2. Haha, no worries. Only thing that happened was you spoiled my plans to (jokingly) ask what type of antelope they were.

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  3. If the game gets too many more figures, you will have to go outside to play it.

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    1. Haha, it wouldn't be the first time I've played games outside!
      I do like the idea of having a greater choice of figures though for Pplayers!

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  4. Sorry to see the result of your terrain board incident Joe - that was quite an earthquake in Jimland!
    The repair job is looking good in the photo's, and I'm sure it'll look great when it's finished. "Wilko" sell their own brand 'interior pva wood glue' which I've found to be very strong and fast drying - a bit late to tell you that now though.
    The new additions to the painted mini's collection look grand, and oh my! 300 in one go - that takes the prize for "batch painting" :-)

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    1. Having had fairly bland tables in the past no-one warned me of the pitfalls of terrain boards! (But mostly it's my cramp wargaming room)
      I've been suspicious of any PVA other than Evostick's as I've had some pretty naff home brands, but I'll give it a whirlif it's significantly cheaper.
      I used to do this sort of batch painting all the time, it was the only way to get an army up and running and I'm surprised to find that I seemto be in a minority.

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  5. Painting 300+ at once....... that strike me as insane. So just take it easy mate and don't stress. You have my admiration for just attempting such a task.

    The terrain board seem to be coming back together nicely as well. I shall enjoy the restoration.

    As always an inspiration and FAR more productive then me so far this week.

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    1. Thanks Clint, for the stress warning, but I find it fairly relaxing painting the same things (currently doing hair). It is boring though, but I can put up with that,
      The terrain restoration I could have done without, but it is on the agenda as "Urgent", but these things take time (drying etc).

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  6. Ouch my sympathies on the board front. Nothing worse than self induced damage and the guilt that follows. I am sure you will get it back to its former glory in no time at all.

    Love the porters and explorers you've finished you have a great collection

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    1. Thanks Brummie, the terrain board is a minor upset and I'll repair this one and make another too.
      I've got everything I need for Jimland, but not everything I'd like !

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  7. Wonderful explorers, mass painting sessions and tabletop mishaps, what a lot to cram into a single posting, Joe, and what a collection of the good (painted minis), the mad (utter insanity of 300 minis) and the ugly (albeit a nice recovery with the sticks and PVA). Great stuff :-)

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    1. Thanks Blaxx, painting en masse is how I remember doing all my old wargames stuff - it's apain to do but wonderfl when finished.
      As for the Jimland stuff, I'm just pleased I got what I wanted to paint, out of the way andthe board will be up and ;running' by the end of February, fingers crossed.

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  8. Love the butterfly hunter Joe.

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    1. He fits in perfectly with one of the types of explorer avalable in Jimland.
      I've been looking at Pulp fogures for years but it hasn't been until they've beenavailable from North Star that I've contemplated getting some.

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  9. Hi Joe, there's a lot going on in this post, the oryx look good, looking forward to seeing them in a game.

    You need to have strong words with the two unpainted explorer chappies, they need to stand still when you are photographing them.

    Batch painting 300 figures is just mad, best I ever did was 36, good luck with that.
    Thanks for the info you sent me.
    Cheers

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    1. Hah, thanks Vagabond, I'm in the process of converting all the animal cards for Jimland into a table, similar to what I've done for the Native encounters.
      Strange thing with my photography is that I try and do indetnical set-ups from one phot to the next and yet I still get varying results!
      I think 300+ figures is well with my record of 400+ (for a friend!)!

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    2. Maybe there's a lot of earth tremors up in the north east;-)

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