Citadel 2000AD figures - Revamped

To be ready to try out the new Judge Dredd Miniatures Game from Warlord, as soon as I get my grubby hands on the box (Christmas Day I suspect, as my wife has it hidden away 😒) I'd decided to revamp my old Citadel 2000AD figures.

Judge Dredd on Lawmaster. Two part figure and three part bike - third pattern I believe.

You'll have seen the trials and tribulations of stripping enamel paints from my last post. Now the figures are primed and ready, just crying out to be finished (rapidly) with Citadel Contrast paints!

The vivid colours that are part an parcel of this paint range lend themselves perfectly to the "cartoonish" finish I think these minis deserve.

See what you think...

Older Style Lawmaster...sadly no judge figure

Judge Bambra

Judge Gallagher

Judge Hershey

Paranoia - Blue Trooper

Paranoia - Blue Trooper

Paranoia - Blue Trooper

Slaughter Margin - Businessman

Rogue Trooper - Morgen (Sniper)

Rogue Trooper - "Rogue"

Rogue Trooper - "Rogue" with Lazooka

Rogue Trooper - Major Magnum

Perp

Ugly

Slaughter Margin - Tek

Perp - Zodiac

Paranoia - Tomk-r-bee

Mutant - Fettuchini

Perp - Jackson Prince 

Perp - Ratex

Perp - Chimichunga

Citizen

Perp - Sprayer

Stripping Paint From Minis.

With the forthcoming launch of the new Judge Dredd miniatures game from Warlord, I became all misty eyed and felt compelled to dig out all my old Citadel 2000AD miniatures.

I’d bought these in the mid-1980’s to go with the JD Role-playing came from GW and at the time I’d given them my best possible attention with their paint-job.

Oh dear! When I look at them today, my painting techniques have changed so very much, I don’t think I could live with how they looked anymore.

My three stage process; - Paint Stripper, rinse, ultra-sonic bath with Methylated Spirit

All those years ago, acrylics were a new thing. Most of my available palette was made up of muted, combat coloured enamel paints. To top it all, the figures had been satin varnished to protect them.
Something needed to be done.

Citadel Judge

For a while now, I’d been looking into how I might strip paint from minis to enable them to be re-finished. I have a heap of 6mm moderns that need this treatment as well as other bits and bobs.
On line there’s lots of advice about using anything from Dettol to neat alcohol and anything in between. One thing that particularly interested me was the proposed use of ultra-sonic baths to speed up this process.

Citadel Rogue Trooper

My wife restores old sewing machines and she had a requirement for something to clean up old parts, perhaps one of these baths could work for both of us?

We bit the bullet and bought a generic, un-branded item from eBay for £40. It came from somewhere in the EU within a couple of days and looks to be of good build quality. Of good build quality.
So far, however, my efforts have met with mixed results.

Remember to remove the slotta bases first! I think the process would have dissolved them!

I must firstly stress that I don’t believe this in anyway to be the fault of the bath. What I hadn’t taken into account was that everything I’d read on line was about stripping modern acrylics from minis, not enamels!

• I first tried the figures in Dettol (Clear)…..nothing happened.
• Next I tried the figures in White Spirit (Clear) …..nothing happened.
• Then I tried Methylated Spirt (Purple)….again, nothing happened.

Bases back on the stripped figures and textured with Vallejo Grey Pumice to hide the gaps.

So, I bought some paint stripper from Wilkos (a strong caustic solution) and left the figures to soak in this jelly like substance overnight. The next day I rinsed this off and then placed the figures back in a bath of Methylated Spirit for 1 hour with the ultra-sonic on max.

Spray primed ready for Contrast painting.

This finally did the job. A quick brush up with a toothbrush sized wire brush and the figures were ready for priming.

Not as quick as I’d hoped, and far more labour intensive. I guess there must be a better way, but I’ve yet to find it. I will be interested to try this on acrylics to see how much easier the process is….but that’s for another day.

Loke Double-Sided Neoprene Battle Mat

I've treated myself to a Double Sided Neoprene Gaming Battle Mat 3'x3' foot Grass & Desert for skirmish gaming in the Loser Shed.

Its made by Loke BattleMats and whilst I got mine through Amazon, you can also find them on eBay for the same £39.99 delivered price. 

It is described as; - "the latest in an innovative range of double-sided Neoprene mats! One mat for all you gaming needs! Save space with these great mats, ideal for travelling to games or for use at home! 

3mm Neoprene with a stitched edge, these high quality mats open up a range of gaming opportunities. 

The photo doesn't do this justice. In fact its a hard wearing black man-made finish with carrying strap

Now featuring dedicated space and terrain images, these high quality mats add the perfect backdrop to your game! Ideal 3'x3' size for a huge range of tabletop miniatures games, these mats also look amazing underneath Board, card, tile and dice games!!"

Nice printed resolution too.

I really can't fault their enthusiasm, I'm very impressed with it's quality and finish. It came in a smart travel pouch and lies flat on the table top once unrolled.

Thoroughly recommended.

Black Seas - Wargames Illustrated Freebies

I tried to tell myself I didn't need Black Seas in my life.......

I already own two fleets of metal ships in 1/1200th scale and I enjoyed the GWH Trafalgar rules a lot...

And then Wargames Illustrated gave me two free Brigs in 1/700th scale for the forthcoming Warlord Games release.😉

These are great little models. Simple to assemble, nicely detailed and appear quite robust when completed.

The Brigs come two models to a sprue (there was alternatively a single free Frigate).

I've put some pictures below taking you through the process....

The hull is made up of three parts

The bowsprit simply fits into the hole on in the bow

The foremast has a rolled sail moulded on the lower spar.
 The mainmast needs to have the two horizontal mizzen masts added 

The lower mizzen mast is horizontal, the upper one is angled upwards at about 30'

And that's it! simple!

To paint the model I used a few contrast paints following the usual matt white spray primer.

The paints I used were; -

• Outer Hull sides and masts- Skeleton Horde
• Inner hull walls - Blood Angels Red
• Deck - Snakebite Leather
• Lower hull, cannon, top edge of hull, mast cross members - Black Templar

To finish these off I decided I would paint them up and add the paper sails that are downloadable from both Warlord and WI's websites.

On sheet two you can see the red guidelines to help with cutting out

I printed these out onto thin white card. The file is two pages and they should be printed out double sided so when you cut them out there is detail on both sides.

Printed as they come they are really too big even if you follow the red printed guidelines. With hindsight I think printing at 75% would have been fine.

I cut them out with a scalpel and then rolled them around a paintbrush handle to curl them. The carefully applying super glue to the cross-spars, I attached each sail one-at-a-time, and used a quick spray of accelerator to get the glue to dry instantly.

To attach the bowsprit sail I was going to have to use some cotton as the only way to fit it is to have it supported by rigging.

As I was going to do this I decided to add some basic rigging to the whole model using black cotton. Again this was added using superglue & accelerator to secure it at each point on the masts. The pictures will better tell the story I think.

Not full rigging by any means, but I think sufficient to give the look & feel of black powder era warship.

Needless to say, I weakened. I'm now the proud owner of a Black Seas Starter Set.....😚

Warlord Games - SPQR Part Two

I've been busy completing the figures that came with the starter set, using almost exclusively my Contrast paint collection.

Gaulish Hero

I know I've said it before, but I'm really impressed with the speed these paints can be applied, and the table ready finish they deliver.

Roman Hero

For ancients they're perfect as the colours are quite vivid. For more modern subject matters the choices are far less. There's one or two browns and an olive greeny colour, but not really enough to deal with WW1 or 2.

Standard Bearer

I spoke of the speed of use, and these figures bear witness to this. I only got the starter set at the very end of August. Since then I've been abroad for 4 out of 6 weeks, but I've already completed both warbands - that's 16 Roman Legionaries and their hero + 40 Gaulish Warriors, 12 Gaulish Archers and their hero - 70 figures all painted, based and varnished! Not bad.

Standard Bearer

Centurion

There are sufficient decals for every figure to have a decorated shield though taking into account standard bearers and musicians, there is a surplus.

Matt White Primed

Painted in Citadel Contrast colours (edge of shield still to be touched up and base painted)

I've not yet learnt the ways of using decal softeners etc. (I will have to look these up) and my tried and trusted way of application is to slide the decal onto a thin layer of PVA glue to aid adherence.

Pilum armed legionaries

This worked to a point with these, but as they have a surround that makes them slightly oversize I think the softeners would have been a real help. In the end I trimmed each decal with a scalpel to remove the surrounding clear area. Quite a ball-ache to do.

But they're all done now. Next step is try them out and write up an AAR.