2mm zombies

I wanted some 2mm zombies for my undead army but my previous experiment with chopping individuals off blocks didn't look that great and seemed a bit fiddly for a unit that I might need a lot of. So I had a fish around in the 2mm spares box to see what I had that I could use. The best candidate was the barbarian infantry from the ancients range.

As you can see I have splodged on a trail of blood and gore behind them. This helps indicate what direction they are facing as well as making them easy to spot on the table.

2mm might not be everyone's cup of tea but for the lazy painter there's something to be said for a scale where you can get five new warbands painted while drinking a cup of the aforementioned.

2mm knights, peasants and the new barbarians

For fantasy and medieval gaming I put together some bases of knights to see how that would look. The cavalry blocks definitely look better from a distance where their silver bodies stand out quite well. This is a block I am definitely going to come back to and repaint at some point but here they are for now.

Here's a little experiment using a different block. This one is from the horse and musket range and is supposed to represent peasants. I chose it because they have no shields and the block is quite small compared to the others. As you can see I made a start on texturing the base to make them easy to identify. An agricultural theme seemed appropriate for these tiny peasants.

I liked how they came out so I went back to my barbarians and tried to make the flesh more visible with some careful lines and dots here and there. I think a couple of minutes work on the flesh and a tiny bit of highlighting was worth doing as they were a bit too dark to see before.

 

When I come to do my Gauls I'm going to be a bit bolder with the colours and try out different coloured hair too. It might look like a mutli-coloured blobfest or it might just work.

2mm Undead - zombie dragon

I painted a few more bits and pieces for my undead army. Here's my second attempt at painting some skeleton warriors and riders. I also did a zombie dragon to go with them.

2mm victorian science fiction drill

The Vorkuta Land Driller by Spartan Games. I'm planning on using it as a hollow earth exploration drill or something like that. I couldn't resist.Spartan have some really good miniatures and scenery, if you're playing 2mm Victorian science fiction then you will definitely find a long shopping list of wants. I thought £10 was just about fair for this very nice model.

A base of British colonial infantry that I painted up quickly to see how they looked in terms of scale. 

2mm earth elemental and glue top fort

I finished off the 2mm earth elemental that I made with a quick paint and drybrush. He has no real head but I painted a round bit of rock as a red eye. Crude though he is I think he has a certain rocky charm. Dipping him in grit and seeing how he came out was quite fun. The grit gives better shapes than I could carve so I will definitely be using that again for some more rocky monsters.

A fortress in boulder strewn scrubland. The fort is the top from some superglue. I tried to make it look abandoned by adding some vines (wire) to the side. The tree was another experiment, it's a dead paintbrush splayed and firmed up with glue. I still have some details to add to this like some arrow slits in the fort and perhaps some dark foliage here and there. The door is 3mm high.

2mm cold war Russians

Here's the start of my 2mm cold war Russian forces. I painted them a dark green and then drybrushed it. I tried to paint the base a neutral colour so that they would look ok in the widest possible range of environments from green fields to desert, jungle, urban and wherever else a soviet invasion might be fun. A bit of a tall order but of the colours I tried this was the best for contrast and fitting in with the scenery tiles I have made so far.

Everything is based on 1p pieces which are just over 20mm wide. I forgot to put the dice in for scale this time.

BMP with commanders stopped to check their maps. The HQ (IK4) has four men seated with a map. It's an interesting miniature that I'm sure to find lots of uses for but I think I'll find a different way to indicate a command base. Perhaps just a flag and a single vehicle.

The BTR APC looks like it's a BTR-70 but could stand in for any of the BTR series making it useful from the 60's to the present day.

T54/55/60 tanks. I had a go at giving them a red blob to represent a star on the sides. If you're trying out a little bit of simple detail like this I'd recommend doing one and then placing it about two feet away on the table and seeing how it looks. Also put them next to some of the enemies they are fighting to see if it makes them more or less distinct.

T64/72/80 Main battletank. All the modern MBT's are based singly, I would have liked to get two on the base but it looked too crammed together. The one on the right pulling a wheelie is going to have some scenery added to make it appear as though it is climbing over a wrecked bus that I'm making from the large truck block IKV8.

Next I'll be finishing off my infantry and support weapons. I still have the aircraft and helicopters to do as well as trucks and various bits of artillery.

2mm dwarf army

I wanted a dwarf army in 2mm scale but unfortunately Irregular don't do a dwarf block so I had to improvise. One candidate is the hobbits block as they are noticeably smaller than their lofty 2mm adversaries. I decided against them as they are in rabble formation and look rather weedy. Instead I used the skirmish infantry BG3 from the horse and musket range. These guys are mostly kneeling or otherwise hunkered down making them about the right size.

After painting them silver I painted their faces black and then put a dab of flesh in the middle of the black as their face. The idea being to make them look like they have beards. At 1mm I think that's probably the best I can do!  Please ignore the disturbing naked blob on the front block, that's the first blob of what will hopefully end up looking slightly like a general on a bear. Or a rock if I fudge it up.

Irregular do some nice bombards (RBG30) that might go nicely with these dwarfs. Some converted siege engines (ABG25) might be in order too.

I like the idea of an army of dwarfs supplemented by some elementals so here's my first attempt at a stone elemental. He's on a 1p piece so as you can probably tell he's big in 2mm scale. I made the basic shape out of green stuff and then covered it in glue and dipped it into some basing grit.

I haven't decided whether to finish him off as some kind of rock and mud creation or paint him up as lava.

Talking of lava here's an unintentionally camp (I think) looking fire elemental which I also made from green stuff.

2mm WW1 tanks and a trench piece

Here's a test piece of WW1 scenery I made. It's a 50x50mm MDF base with trenches carved out of some DAS clay. I used the spring from a disposable lighter for the barbed wire. The ditched biplane is by irregular miniatures. I wanted to be sure of the terrain colours before I started painting my armies in earnest.

A base of 2mm Renault FT17 tanks. I gave them the thinnest possible undercoat followed by a brown ink wash because I was scared of losing all the great detail on these tanks. I'm not sure on the final colour scheme but I think you'll agree for 2mm they are quite impressively sculpted miniatures.

These 2mm A7V tanks are crying out for some German crosses on the side, another future project.

And finally, a base of 2mm Schneider tanks. All of these tanks are easily recognisable on the tabletop. They are large enough to paint some unit markings on which I think will be well worth doing at some point.

Test pieces for 2mm undead

Here's some test pieces for my 2mm undead army which I'll be creating by taking ordinary blocks and giving them white skeletal heads. Simple though the effect is I think it looks quite nice, they are certainly easy to distinguish from the living.

Undead cavalry, I painted them black, then added the white bits and finally gave them a wash of vallejo sepia tone to make them look a bit gloomier.

Early imperial Roman infantry repainted as skeletons. I think these will work as the main unit of the undead.

An experimental base of zombies. I used various infantry left over from chopping up blocks and glued them onto the base in a fairly random pattern. I'm not sure if I will make more of these or try to find a block that looks suitably mob-like to represent them.

This necromancer is home made from a tiny blob of green stuff. I need to carve a sliver of plastic for his scythe. The rock pile is made up of failed attempts that got squished.

On the workbench I've got some skeleton archers, chariots, eagles to paint as carrion birds and some ghosts which I've been making from transparent blobs of glue stretched into spooky shapes.

I found some loose order infantry that I think might make nice little vampires as they all have cloaks and a high quality looking banner. I am tempted to add a few tiny coffins to their base and see how that looks.

I try to do a couple of pieces of scenery for each army that I paint so for my undead force I'm going to start with some barrows and a graveyard.

2mm elves vs orcs

I was trying out some rules tonight so I took a couple of pictures of my orcs vs elves game. Here are the forces I used.

Orcs: 7 bases of orcs, 4 bases of trolls, 2 bases of wolf chariots, 2 bases of wolfriders.

Elves: 7 bases of elven archers, 2 bases of treemen, 2 bases of spearmen, 1 base of scouts and 1 base of giant eagles.

The elves were defending some wooded hills. I covered about a fifth of the board with trees and woodland.

The turning point. The orcs needed to take this pass to get at the archers but a lone treeman blocked the way. This developed into an interesting battle with warbands charging it, not killing it and then fleeing as their nerve broke. These wolf chariots eventually did the job after it had been weakened by waves of attackers.

Almost the final turn. The elves have the spear command on the ridge and have been joined by the last of the archers (to the right). Their main hope is the convocation of eagles! The orcs have three warbands and some trolls left.

The eagles took out a warband but the trolls proved too tough for them. At the end the elves had been completely slaughtered! Because of this crushing defeat I think I'll set the next battle in deeper elven woodland.

2mm fantasy barbarians

Here's the start of my 2mm barbarian army, these are for fantasy gaming rather than ancients. I tried to paint them to look like they are wearing leather armour with wooden shields. To go with them I've started on some chariots and archers.

This one's from the fantasy range; a mammoth with a howder. What self-respecting barbarian chief would ride into battle on anything less? I bought quite a few of them to use for a bit of barbarian siege warfare.

 

The barbarians get some air support in the form of these giant eagles. These ones are mounted on a 5p piece.

The barbarians also get the biggest monster from the 2mm range - the giant.

 I decided to make a couple of quick tiles to go with my new army. The first piece is a stone quarry on a 100mm x 100mm mdf base. As the barbarians have a bit of a stone age theme I thought this might be a useful piece for them.

 Next up is a lava pit that was made by squidging together some glue paste between two boards and pulling them apart. 2mm scale swamps can also be made in the same way.

The giant is stood next to a castle from the mighty empires board game.

Spiders, hydras and hoplites

Here are some giant spiders from Irregular's 6mm fantasy range that I couldn't resist. They're surrounding some elven archers.

This hydra is also from Irregular's 6mm fantasy range and makes a good giant monster in 2mm.

 Greek hoplites vs the hydra.

Another picture of that mountain pass from the orcs post. Everything is painted using the same four or five colours blended together. I use emulsion tester pots for almost all my scenery.

 Painting 2mm isn't without its frustrations I have to admit. These hoplites were unfortunately one of them for me. This picture shows two blocks put together to give them a bit of bulk. They are holding spears and have shields. I initially tried to paint every helmet, every shield, every spear in the correct colours and pretty much achieved it but when I put the miniature on the table it looked awful. In the end I mostly just drybrushed it and then painted the shields.

2mm WW1

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Britain's entrance into the first world war. You might like to read about the valuable work of the Royal British Legion here: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary

The first world war is a sombre subject for wargaming given the huge loss of life but it has remained popular with wargamers especially at the smaller end of the scale. This is no doubt due to the large number of miniatures needed to properly simulate even a small part of this enormous conflict. WW1 perhaps had its heyday as a wargaming era back in the days of board wargames with their heaps of counters. You could argue that 2mm miniatures are just fancy 3d counters.

Irregular Miniatures provides a good range of WW1 specific 2mm miniatures, as well  as multi-purpose ones such as machine gunners and mortars. For tanks there's the MKIV, Schneider, Whippet, FT17 and German A7V.

Some MKIV tanks at a staging post. The horse and musket scenery is a bit small for the 20th century miniatures but I think they work as farm outbuildings. The MKIV's themselves are detailed little miniatures that could be given a fascine add-on without too much trouble.

 A biplane flying over a farm. The generic biplane is large enough to paint some insignia on, another future project. This scenery tile was just a try at making different shapes using filler.

Whippet tanks moving through a wooded pass. Off to the green fields beyond? The trees are made from Javis clump foliage. A bag of which will create a great many trees, just pinch bits off and glue it on. They have a nice texture so I recommend a dark colour so you can drybrush it in whatever colour you like. A mix seems to look more realistic.

This is the IK1 infantry section mounted on a 1p piece. I painted the models in a mix of black and dark brown and then gave them a quick drybrush with a mix of white and British uniform brown from Vallejo.