Pendraken Miniatures English Civil War Cuirassiers

This 40mm x 30mm stand of English Civil War Heavy Horse is actually the third such base I’ve painted over the past eighteen months for my long suffering and far from complete 10mm Royalist Army. All the models are from "Pendraken Miniatures" code EC11 Cuirassier.

 In order to ‘tie-in’ with the rest of my King’s Lifeguard forces, the models were initially undercoated with “Vallejo” Gunmetal Grey and then washed with Black Shade. I then dry brushed the cavalry soldiers’ armour, helmets and swords with more Gunmetal Grey. Their helmet plumes were painted with Heavy Red and washed with Red Shade, and their boots picked out with Heavy Ochre and Umber Shade. For the horses I simply undercoated them either “Vallejo” White or Heavy Sienna and then washed them entirely with some more Umber Shade.

 I’ve still got a handful more of these 6mm "GHQ" "Micro Armour" miniatures to paint and base, but I’ve finally finished enough to start basing up the majority of my Fedayeen Squad SVU sniper rifle and AT-13 Sexhorn-2 anti-tank missile system stands.

 I've also managed to start using “Citadel” Abaddon Black to help pick out some of the detail on three models from the "Empire Of The Dead" boxed set EOTD-07 London Bobbies. I'm actually in a bit of quandary with these 28mm miniatures by "West Wind Productions", as I am not sure how best to bring out the dark ‘Bobbie” blue of their uniform and capes. In the past with such subject matter I’ve either undercoated them black and then dry brushed them dark blue, or simply painted them dark blue and applied a dark blue wash.

Sally 4th Wargames Figure Warchests

Despite my best intentions the size of my model collection, be it lead, plastic, resin or MDF mountain, continues to grow. As a result storage space has increasingly become a problem so I’ve invested some time, and a little money over the past couple of weeks trying to remedy my shortage of shelf space. Having decided to abandon my current practice of simply using plastic bead craft storage boxes for my miniatures, I’ve taken the plunge and bought some precision laser cut MDF Wargames Figure Chests from the “Sally 4^th” website found here: http://wargamesbuildings.co.uk.

I only purchased five of their MDF boxes, including lids and appropriate inserts, in order to see just how well they’d accommodate all the 6mm and 15mm models I’ve been painting recently. Currently these figures are stored in a variety of brightly coloured plastic craft containers, which despite their considerable size, are unable to hold many of my miniature bases due to the odd sizing of their compartments; doubtless though they’re ideal for keeping beads and suchlike safely housed.

When the package from “Sally 4^th” arrived, I must confess to being a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of pieces confronting me, and as a result was somewhat concerned that I had made an expensive mistake; especially as each Chest costs approximately £12 with the lid and insert.

Fortunately my package included an excellent ‘Assembling your Warchest’ guide, and having identified which MDF parts made up a single lid I was able to set to work with my PVA glue. I’d actually strongly recommend that you build the lids first as they come together far easier than the warchests and once dry make a useful housing structure to sit your warchest inside whilst you wait for its glue to harden. It also ensures that the lid will fit over the warchest when you’re ready to start stacking them up.

The 40mm square slot inlay has proved ideal to accommodate most of my 6mm “GHQ” miniatures as I can snuggly fit two of their 40mm x 20mm stands in each space, allowing me to house 40 bases of “Micro Armour” infantry and (small) vehicles per tray.

I must also extend a big thanks to Chris Abbey at “Sally 4^th” for specially cutting two 30mm x 40mm inserts out for me. These will allow me to not only store my larger “Micro Armour” vehicles but also a large part of my ever increasing “Pendraken Miniatures” 10mm Second World War Eastern Front collection.

Finally I bought a couple of inserts specifically designed to hold both the small and medium “Flames of War” rounded-corner bases by “Battlefront Miniatures”. I actually plan to use them to help store both my “Ground Zero Games” Xenomorph models and my Prydian Army by “The Ion Age”.