Chinese, ruins and dwarves

So, a bit of a mixed bag this time, these miniatures were all half-finished for a while, and I finally got around to finish them up.

The old Lord of the Rings ruins on the other hand was a very fast paint job. I actually spent more time covering up the silly indents on the backs of them, so those are filled with lollipop sticks and green stuff.
The Chinese are four boss types, two LMG teams converted from Japanese bodies with British WWI heads, and bandits which will be used for the free unit in Bolt Action. Some of the latter have been converted from dark age bodies with Russian heads and German weapon arms.

Dwarves

More than thirty years ago I started casting miniatures using Prince August moulds. Most of the time they didn't look very good, stuff made by ten year olds usually doesn't, but a couple of years ago I got nostalgic and revisited those moulds, and with the help of tips from the internet, and a grown-up brain, I managed to get much better results. Especially the dwarf moulds have always been a favourite of mine, and when I realised that they fit the size and style of the Lord of the Rings dwarves from Games Workshop I started a small force. That ran out of steam after a while, but now with Warlords of Erewhon out I've revisited the dwarves once again.


Two PA dwarves, with a GW dwarf in the middle:

 Plastic rangers with big axes:

 Plastic archers:

These dwarves with throwing axes I'll use as spearmen, the rules seems to fit that quite well:

Get a bowl of rice

Here are some more Chinese for my Bolt Action army, these too are from Copplestone Castings. In particular I'm very happy with how the flags turned out. They are freehanded on wine-bottle foil.

 This guy just sitting eating rice instead of serving the big-ass mortar might be one of the coolest miniatures ever.

These are originally labelled as Chinese bandits, I'll use them for the free inexperienced squad the Chinese get, as well as hopefully use them for some skirmish gaming.

 

Latvian Waffen-SS part 1

In my last post I wrote about Latvia earlier in the second world war. After a while the Germans relented in some of their contempt towards the Latvians, and did allow them to join the SS. In total two divisions of the Waffen-SS was comprised of Latvians, the 15th and 19th. 

While these forces did include individuals implicated in the Holocaust, they did not join as a group, and the Allies made a distinction after the war between the normal Waffen-SS, which were seen as a criminal organisation, and the Baltic Waffen-SS, which were not.

This was the first time I've painted any of the SS camo patterns, and I must say I enjoyed it. I'm sure you can do it better and more exact, both in patterns and colour choices, but these look good from half a meter, so I'm happy. 

Latvian defence battalion

During a visit to Riga this autumn (it's a lovely destination for a weekend trip!) I went to a couple of museums, and read up about the Baltic countries in the first and second world wars. In both wars they were three tiny peoples stuck inbetween brawling giants, and Latvia lost something like a third of their population.

When the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, the Baltic countries were panicked, since their only chance to stay free was to play out Germany and the Soviet Union against each other. That chance was now lost, and all three countries had to agree to Soviet "protection" in 1940. This "protection" was so severe that when operation Barbarossa occurred just a year later, they welcomed the Germans as liberators. This liberation was not a true one, and the Germans had quite sinister plans for the whole of Eastern Europe (Germanize the best, and kill the rest). But, since this wasn't widely known they got a lot of Baltic troops, both volunteers and "volunteers".

This is a unit from one of the many Latvian Defence Battalions. They use old Latvian army uniform (modelled on the Russian WWI uniform), and helmets from the Czechoslovakian army (which didn't exist anymore, thanks to the Germans). For Bolt Action I'm thinking about running them as Luftwaffe, for the green inexperienced rules.

The models are sculpted by Paul Hicks for the excellent Bohemian/Horcata range. I've greenstuffed over the bottom of the tunics, to make them like the Russian-style pullovers, and not jackets.

More Chinese infantry

Here are some more Chinese WWII infantry, the ones in (brown/khaki) summer uniforms finished a while ago, and the ones in winter uniform more recently.

 

Some late Late Romans

These two commanders have been a very long time coming. They were first started a very long time ago (three years?!), and the guard figures (vertical spears) stood half painted for ages on my painting table. I've now finally finished and based them.