Expeditions up the Lead Mountain

2020 has been an "interesting year" so far, and now here we are in the middle of a global pandemic.

For tabletop wargamers like me the enforced isolation and "downtime" presents a rare opportunity to take much needed stock and to undertake a few expeditions up our personal "Lead Mountain".

For the uninitiated, most wargamers are a strange combination of hoarding collectors and flighty butterflies - always buying the next shiny thing before our current project is complete.  This leads over the course of many years to the accumulation of a "Lead Mountain" (or for the younglings among us, more accurately a Plastic Mountain).  It is, after all, many decades since commercial wargames figurines were made of yer actual lead...

I am not alone in this "taking of stock" but for me, this has taken the form of the mass acquisition of some Really Useful Boxes, to replace my wholly unsatisfactory (for me) stock of mismatched box files.  This is in an effort to try and sort out and begin to get a handle on the absolute chaos that swathes my personal hobby mountain range.

It is working though ,and I'm starting to get a grip, organise the Gordian Knot, and most importantly, get the damn stuff painted and ready to use on the table.  I thought it might be useful to catalogue the process here, mostly to continue to give myself the motivation to make more progress.  If I can't get to a table to "play war" with my pals, I may as well get prepped for when I can.

I started with the long-overdue Warband Fantasy armies, and I've made significant progress on completing those, which you can see here.

I also did a few miscellaneous bases for Warband too.

Dwindling supplies have stopped play on that pitch though, so I switched to completing the basing on my 28mm Romans.  This is a long-term ongoing project to get my rendition of the less well known Battle of Dertosa on the table.  The Romans are mostly done, and I've made a good start on the Carthaginiains, but frankly there's still heaps to do with this, and that particular face of the Lead Mountain has some tricky climbs ahead of it.  I'm saving the Carthaginian war elephants until last as a bit of a treat!  Further progress is currently halted for similar lack of supplies.  I'll be getting on with this once I manage to get to a hobby store for much needed paint and other bits and bobs, as I REALLY want this on the table.

So, onto the next thing.  I have a Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard Army, which I built in an escalation tournament at our club recently.  I greatly enjoyed painting up these fantasy/sci fi "pestilent" chaps, as I always find painting things rusty and grimy to be easier than a nice clean paint job.  As with these things though there were a few things left to be done (as I didn't use them in the tournament).  I also occasionally acquire "reclaimed" figures from time to time and have a good few boxes of the stuff.  While a lot simply gets chucked out as too far gone to restore to working order, I can usually get some use out of some of it.  In this lot, I noticed some good old figures that will mix in with my Death Guard.  I also noted a dash of Chaos Possessed figures, and as I understand the "Chaos Possessed bomb" is a current meta-game thing, I figured I'd do something with them.

You can see that here.

And with the Death Guard finished, a little "army on parade" moment is in order.

Next up, having reboxed and gathered together my Wild West figures, used mainly for the excellent Legends of the Old West skirmish game, I found I still had five figures that I hadn't finished painting.  

So I slapped so paint on them and that's another figure set finished.

Next up, bit of an unexpected return to Warband, as I found a surprise 10mm Medieval army I'd forgotten I have and decided to rebase it into something I'll likely use.  To be fair, this had been buried deep in the roots of the Lead Mountain, no doubt for som long-forgotten project I'd half finished.

Rebasing the Medeival army

Lord of the Rings
Another good Saturday morning spent bashing away at and trying to sort out the Lead Mountain, and still temporarily lacking 100mm x 50mm bases to continue with the Warband armies, I've decided to dive into the Lord of the Rings 28mm figures I have.  These have been knocking about for a good while, and aside from a few boxes, I've also acquired some "pre-owned" figures over the years.  I'm sure I have more buried up there some where but these'll do for a start.

Now I was planning to do these as 28mm Warband armies, using the Lord of the Rings army lists.  But I think instead I'll base and use them as they are intended, as individual figures.  I'll likely look to use Dan Mersey's excellent Dragon Rampant rules if they ever hit the table.

More progress on this one here...


Warhammer 40k Crimson Fists

OK, not many pictures on this one, so far at least, mostly because I've been collecting this for many years and never got round to photographing it much.  But I've made a lot of progress finishing off the things left to do on my large Warhammer 40,000 Crimson Fists Space Marine army.  Once its done, I'll probably do an "army on Parade" for the full thing.  Hopefully it'll fit on the table.

Warband Barbarian Men
The next army project is now complete, and I have a full Barbarian Men army ready to go alonside my other Warband armies.  At this rate I'll be able to put on a huge battle with two army alliances!

Here's the full rundown

This army was a lot of fun to paint actually and I managed to get through it in good time.  


More to follow!