Dystopian Legions: Kingdom of Britannia Armstrong 14 Pounder Cannon

As the second of my recent purchases (the first is reviewed here) I bought the Kingdom of Britannia Armstrong 14 lb cannon. I have been eagerly awaiting this mini, as I love the overall 'historical' look of this mini, whilst it's still clearly a fantasy/VSF piece (although less so than the Prussian Tesla weapons).

The mini is a mixture of resin and metal parts, with 2 metal crewmen. The overall quality is good, with there being no flash or seams on the crewmembers, however, the gun, and especially the wheels suffer from a common problem with Spartan vehicles, in that they have a large flash/chunk of metal where they have been snipped from their sprue. With one of mine, the clippers had also caught the edges of the wheel. This is not the end of the world, as this part of the wheel can certainly be used to stick the gun to the base, and therefore be completely hidden. This was slightly more of an issue with the Bassett Tankettes than it is here. Another issue I found was that there was a crack in the resin of the main part of the gun. I'm not sure what could have caused this, other than a flaw in the resin at casting, but it was easily filled with a dab of liquid green-stuff, and will be completely invisible after painting.

Gun parts

Crew

 

The infamous Spartan Wheel Sprue issue





Crack in the resin



The last thing about this kit (and all the artillery pieces for the other factions) is that it is released with a Spartan custom base. This base is perfect for creating little dioramas on to spice up the battle field. I think this will be the perfect place to use up the bags of Secret Weapon sandbags or bricks I had bought for the bases of the Bassett's, until I realised there's no space on their bases to add anything but the mini and a little mud. 

The assembled gun on cool base.

Overall a pleasing model, with rules that may have to wait until I am playing against a bunch of Ironclads, so there's no real rush for me to get this guy painted yet (my opponents don't have any tanks that need killing. Yet). I give this guy 7 out of 10, as the casting flaws were easily remedied, and the crew were of a very high standard.

Dystopian Legions: Kingdom of Britannia Sergeant and Officer

I finally got my hands on the new releases for Dystopian legions today. Of the two boxes I bought, I thought I'd give a review of the Sergeant and Officer set first. This is a box with two 2 part minis. The Sergeant lunging with his rifle, and the Officer with his pipe.

Be careful. The pipe in the hand of the officer is a very small piece. Even with the sticker attached to say the bag contains small parts, I thought I did not receive the pipe, until I finally noticed it stuck in a corner of the bag. Phew!

In review of these minis, they are of course up to the very high standard we have come to expect of Spartan minis, with little or no flash to deal with, and sharp definition on the minis themselves. If I have any gripes for these two guys it would be for the Sergeant. I feel his feet are far too spread apart for the base he has to fit on. Also, I am not a fan of the pose, he seems a little wooden or unnatural, although, i am sure I have seen a similar pose in some old manuals and paintings of bayonet practice, and if he were in a deeper lunge, he would certainly never fit on a 30mm base. On the other hand, I do like his bedge on his pith helmet. I may have to try to take an imoression of that before I paint him up, so I can make copies for other units.

In regards to the Officer, this guy is in a great pose, great facial features, with great character. A great sculpt. He should be a dream to paint. A little static and thin for the 40mm base he has to fill, but I'll let him off.

The surprise to me when I opened the box was the little hidden extra. There's a sheet of 12 plastic counters that are easily separated and are, I assume, command tokens. Thank you Spartan, I was not expecting that. Nice touch.

 All in all, I was ready to give 8 out of 10, but the additional free counters edged this box set back up to a 9 out of 10.

Father's Day Gift to Myself

A bit of an interim post, as I've been trying to write up a couple of battle reports for Dystopian Legions, after having had my first two games (at last).

Not that I don't love the hand made gifts the girls will give me on Sunday morning, and I'll sure as hell be taking the long lie that comes with it, but a neighbour told me of an offer at Canadian Tire this week, where I could pick up a Dremmel kit (rotary tool kit, as it's not actually a Dremmel (tm)) that normally goes for $150, for a mere $40. Not only that, but he offered to pick one up for me too. So, $40 later, here we are, a nice little gift to myself.

That's a lot of bits and pieces in that box there, there's even a little table clamp to fit to the kitchen table (no man cave in this house).

Now to go find some minis to chop up and convert!

Colore Ton Monde: June

The anniversary edition of Colore Ton Monde this month , led to a bumper crop of models painted by entrants (22 finished models this month!). Click here to go see them all, including my own Mangler. The photo, taken at the Oldies night last week, with a proper camera, lighting set-up and background.hose really make the mini look better than it deserves. I chose the mangler as it fit well with the theme for the month (That's gonna hurt!), but come the time to finish the model I was rather uninspired, and was looking round desperately for a bucket of dip to plunge him in to.

Off to stick some flock on his base now. Maybe there'll be something to help me do so in this big box of fun. Yes, that's right kids, I won the prize draw!  Thanks to Club Chaos for running this amazing challenge, and thank you also to Gamers' Vault for putting up the prizes! (Sasori is the winner, but that's my forum nom de plume).

Whilst the camera was out last week, I had one of the Big 'un's minis that happened to be in my bag snapped as well. It came out nicely. I don't think she'll notice the difference I this pic and the one I took, but it was fun to have her on the list of those who entered the challenge.

On to this month's challenge:

Si tu finis pas ton assiette, on va l'envoyer en...

Pour le mois de juin, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle qui traîne sur votre table de peinture. Quelque chose de commencer par le passé, mais mis de côté pour quelques raisons que ce soit, ou un projet qui s'éternise. On accepte aussi tout vieux modèle pas encore commencer, pour étendre plus large.

If you do not finish your plate...

For the month of June, we invite you to paint a model that hangs out on your painting table. Something started in the past, but set aside for any reason whatsoever, or a project that drags on. We also accept any old model yet to be started.

This is great, I was hoping for a theme that would give me an excuse to finish off the Llael Loyalist Artillery Corp that I started (and obviously failed to finish) a few months ago. They are in various stages of painting, including one mini that I had missed at the basing and priming stage and now joins the rest of the section completely nude, so to speak.