Empire war machine crew

In recent weeks I have based two cannons and a Helblaster volley gun, so I guess it is now time to give them some nice new crew.

I have added one crew member to the base of each war machine. This is because the crew figures are really only there to indicate how many casualties remain. If you loose the last figure the machine dies too. For this reason,I only need an extra two figures per war machine.

I love the older style metal figures and have been fortunate enough to be able to lay my hands on a few. They had quite a thick layer of paint on them so I had to do a certain amount of work on them. After soaking in brake fluid and scrubbing they were starting to look a little cleaner....

I have painted all my chaps in the colour scheme of my Nordland army. This is a blue and cream combination.. The advantage of these figures is that you can go to town a bit with the colouring of the fabric to maximise the blue cream contrast.

I hope you enjoy....

Empire Cannons and crew

The last time I posted, I had just completed a helblaster volleygun for my Nordland force. Since then I have had a combination of events that have set my hobbting into the background for a week or two. My laptop decided to fry its hard-disc, loosing all myu stored information, I read through the hunger games trillogy of books and I temporarily fell out of love with the local gaming community. No worries, it is time to come back and what better than to hit the blog with pictures of two cannons I completed recently.

 

These are old cannons I already had, but they were painted as plain timber, were unbased and had some very old crew. in a recent post I assembled the bases and here they are painted with crew.

  

I have elected to paint the woodwork on the cannon in a Nordland theme blue colour. This helps it fit into the army colour scheme and was really done because I liked the effect when I have seen it on Napolionic artillery.

 

Hope you enjoy

Basing Empire war-machines

When I attended my first serious tournament, Polish sausage, it became clear that the convention was to base war-machines. So I have grabbed the opportunity to  have a go at building some bases.
 

The base shown above is one I have put together for a Helblaster volley gun. I have included the chap carrying the shot tray and a couple of barrels and boxes for extra shot. The war-machine crew only purpose is to indicate the number of remaining crew. Therefore it seams appropriate to include one crew member on the base, since once he is gone the machine is dead anyway..

I have also put together two bases for cannons. Each base was made by combining two cavalry bases. I believe that this gives enough room to show off the bases whilst retaining a nice compact look.