At long last...back in the saddle!

About three weeks ago I finished up my last two batches of Civil War paint-for-hire miniatures. That was it, as far as commissioned projects go. The end of over two years of having to set my own miniatures second to other peoples'. I thought I might be too burned out to segue into my own stuff, but I surprised even myself with a flood of minis-related work.

First I finished my WWII Odessa project. Then last week I took the weekend and finished up my Hexon terrain. So now we actually have proper terrain to play on! Tomorrow's my birthday, and I'm celebrating with our first game of Armies of Arcana and the new terrain. Pics will follow, of course.

(Since our "new" fantasy armies are still in progress, we'll be using our old Grenadier/Fantasy Warriors armies. I statted them up in AoA and, surprisingly, they came out equally balanced.)

Next on the list are our fantasy armies and, quite unexpectedly, the samurai armies. The reason for the latter moving up the list so quickly is that I ordered a can of Army Painter stain and have come up with a quick-painting scheme utilizing that product.

At any rate, this blog has been long and talk and short on pics for far too long, so without further ado I'm going to play a bit of catch-up now.

First, some pics of the figures I've completed so far for my Undead army.

The renegade Amazon necromancer riding an undead troll (figure by Hasslefree Miniatures):





Next, Mirliton's fantastic recasting of the old Grenadier Undead War Mammoth, with figures by Games Workshop and...Ral Partha? Maybe...?




Lastly, a Reaper Wraith figure, my general:




My vision for this army is that it comes from a Hades-like "Land of the Dead" that periodically overflows into the land of the living. Des's Amazons live on the borders of the Land of the Dead and act as the first line of defense/guardians against these incursions.

Next up are some of my zombie minis. There are eight survivors grouped into four pairs (mostly courtesy of Hasslefree):







A few of my zombies (there are about 30 to 40 total), courtesy of a mix of manufacturers:




Lastly, some of my Odessa project figures. As I've discussed before, I've mounted the figures in "fire teams" on circular slotta bases. Intended to be used with Blitzkrieg Commander, these bases should be usable with nearly any rules set short of a 1:1 skirmish game, which is the sort of rules system I'm distancing myself from anyway.

Some Romanians (plus a German pioneer section); you can see the mix of base types: large circular for squads and heavy weapons, square for command, small circle for section leaders and special troops like this Forward Observer.

Romanian R.35 tanks.

Two Russian anti-tank guns and crews.

Russian T-26 (love those early war tank designs!).

Some of the Soviet forces; you can see the eclectic mix of Odessa's defenders: naval infantry, Red Army, dismounted cossacks...