Napoleon Blownaparte and His Napoleonic Zombie Band

Back at Historicon 11, I picked up a set of Eureka Miniature's first Corpse & Musket line release: Napoleon Blownaparte and Napoleonic Zombies. When a friend decided to do a Napoleonic Zombie Retreat from Russia 1812 game at the upcoming Cold Wars convention, I had a reason to paint them up.

The original Eureka release only had seven figures in it, and I wanted a GASLIGHT sized unit of ten, so I set about finding three more figures. The first was an old metal French standard bearer that I had picked up at a flea market and whose bandaged head, I felt, marked him as a good zombie candidate. The other two I made from a couple Victrix plastic French Infantry bodies and arms, and some bits left over from a pack of Wargames Factory Zombies.

On the left is one of the Victrix conversions, in the center is the Eureka Napoleon Blownaparte complete with cannonball hole in him, and on the right is another one of the great figures from the Eureka set, which is actually a vignette cast as a single piece depicting a zombie biting a French soldier in the head. Brains!

These are three more of the Eureka Zombies. The one on the left is intended to be holding a standard, but I liked him better without it.

Here is the game they are for:

S-267 - Corpse & Musket: Napoleonic Zombies byGASLIGHT - Theme Game, Sat. 2:00 PM, 4 hrs, 6 playersGM: Greg Priebe with Todd Harland-White and HAWKSNapoleonic 28mm, Rules: GASLIGHT

Eureka "Corpse & Musket" Bridge For Use on Venus

At Historicon this past Summer I bought one of the sets from Eureka Miniatures' new Corpse & Musket Range that contained "Napoleon Blownaparte" and several zombified Revolutionary French soldiers, as well as a zombified Arcola bridge. (You can see this set in this TMP news item, http://theminiaturespage.com/news/504825/ I couldn't find it on the Eureka site.)
The bridge, which is all draped with vines, and growth, and slime, struck me as having potential to be (beyond a gateway for the dead) a nifty jungle terrain piece. I immediately saw potential use for it in both my Venusian project, and Buck's and my Frog Wars project.
The bridge comes in three pieces: a resin deck, and two metal rails. I encountered only a couple problems in assembly. First, some of the holes for the railings' pegs needed to be drilled out on the deck; and secondly, the bridge when assembled sits almost flush with the table top. This wouldn't work for me as I planned to use it with my Miniature World Maker latex rivers, which sit at least a quarter inch high on the table. To solve this problem I cut a pair of riverbank risers out of foamcore to glue to each end of the bridge allowing it to pass nicely over the river.
Once assembled, I sprayed the bridge with black primer. I then dry brushed the bridge decking and rails a mottled assortment of greys, tans, and grey-greens. Then I painted some of the larger vines with dark green. My next step was to pick out an assortment of green shades and working from darkest to lightest, I dryburshed them here and there where ever vegetation was sculpted into the bridge. Finally i picked out some details in the vegetation sculpting with reds and oranges to give some color interest. After that I glued the bridge to the two foamcore risers, and spackled the foamcore, sprinkling some sand on the wet spackle, to give it some texture and help blend it into the bridge. I painted the risers brown and then drybrushed a dirt path on them. Lastly I flocked the foamcore and glued on an assortment of plastic foliage.
The end result is shown below from four different angles. I have posed two Kroot/parrotmen on the bridge to give a sense of scale.

The Father Christmas Wars

I've slowly been putting together the pieces to run a game based very loosely on J. R. R. Tolkien's, "The Father Christmas Letters." This book is a compilation of letters Tolkien wrote to his children at Christmastime from 1920 to 1939. Several of these letters describe the problems Father Christmas, his friend Polar Bear, and the Elven workers had in dealing with raiding Goblins. The Goblins would try to steal the toys from the North Pole. In my version Father Christmas will get help from some 1960's TV Christmas Special characters also!
I'm using 28mm figures and the rules will be G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. For the Goblins I'm going to use Games Workshop Goblins. For Father Christmas' side I'm using figures from several sources. I'm not finished painting figures yet, but I thought I'd show you what I have so far. I'm going to be running the scenario New Years Eve, so I'm frantically painting the rest.

The Snowman Squad. The figures are from Team Frog Studios.

The Snowman Command. The leader figures is converted from a casualty figure with the addition of a sword and a helmet and the hole through his midsection filled with putty

The North Pole Cooks Catapult. Filled with boiling hot chocolate and marshmallows! This will teach those gobos a lesson or two! It started life as an old Games Workshop Halfling catapult

King Moonracers Misfits. An elite paratrooper squad. These are plastic mini-ornaments sold in a set. The eye-ring at the top of the umbrellas for hanging on the tree has been removed..

The Teddy Bear Battalion. The figures are from Eureka Miniatures.

Teddy bear close-up.

The beginnings of the Toy-Soldier Guard. This will be a unit of 10 figures. These figures are from Eureka
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Close-up of the Toy Soldier Command.