"The Great Intelligence Is Back..."

"...And its robot Yeti are roaming the streets and the underground tunnels."

These three 28mm metal Yeti were produced by “Warlord Games” as part of the Nottingham-based company's "special limited-time offer" Doctor Who: Web Of Fear set. The blister also contained a kneeling figure of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, as well as Professor Travers, and were provided for free with any orders of £75 or more. However, they are now long Out Of Production (OOP), so I recently ended up buying this particular collection of miniatures second-hand.

Based upon the furry robots from Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln's February 1968 televised story "The Web Of Fear", the trio were all undercoated with "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and 'drowned' in "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade. They were then all dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, before being treated to a light dusting of "Vallejo" Heavy Brown. Lastly, the classic monsters' eyes were picked out with "Vallejo" White, Sun Yellow, "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade and an additional highlight of "Vallejo" Sun Yellow.

"Wargames Foundry" WIPs - Four French Napoleonic Fusiliers being slowly progressed

With my 'blast from the past' completed, I have been pottering about on a quartet of Fusiliers in Greatcoat Marching by "Wargames Foundry". These identical sculpts will form the backbone of my initial Napoleonic French force using the "Xenos Rampant" ruleset by "Osprey Publishing" (as a unit of Light Infantry), and were originally going to all be pigmented wearing plain white trousers - as per their 'official' colour scheme on the trader's website.

However, to be honest the casting/sculpting on these figures is a little 'rough around the edges where each soldier's legs meet the underside of their knee-length jackets. As a result I started to really struggle when it came to painting a reasonably straight line between the different areas. Having 'battled' with two sculpts and plenty of White Star by "Two Thin Coats" I therefore decided that the other models would be wearing different coloured trousers - and was rather delighted to see from my reference plates that the Fusiliers did wear brown or blue pants from time to time.

"Pendraken Miniatures" WIPs - This 10mm Sherman Firefly tank has been primed, shaded & dry-brushed

Sticking with historical stuff, I have also been making some progress on a unit of Allied Sherman Fireflies for my Battle of the Bulge campaign. These 10mm medium tanks by "Pendraken Miniatures" were originally simply going to form part of my British force. But having spotted (and subsequently purchased) some WWII Commonwealth Markings and Flag decals from Leon's stall at Colours 2023, I thought I'd try to make them stand out a little more on the tabletop by turning them into the Second Canadian Armoured Brigade instead.

Unlike many of the armoured vehicles I've recently been putting my brush too, these Fireflies are the company's latest designs, and are absolutely packed full of detail. Ordinarily, I really do like to predominantly just basecoat, shade and dry-brush my tanks in order to quickly get them on tabletop. But it seems such a shame to rush these particular Shermans, that I plan to 'pick out' the odd shovel and fire-axe on their hulls, before calling them finished...