Tarbooshian Recruits

As you will all remember the gallant infantry of HSHTGT have been operating at below par numbers since the campaign against Anahuaco began. When I say "operating at below par numbers since the campaign against Anahuaco began" what I mean is sitting in boxes on a shelf. But hey, the first sentence is, as you may agree, more dramatic. Anyway I have painted up eight new infantry recruits to bring 1st Infantry and 2nd Infantry up to the required FLW of 20 figures per battalion.

Below is a captioned step by step photologue(??) of what I did do:

Washed, dried and base-coated with matt black Plastikote

Undercoated with Vallejo matt white

Hats, jackets, facings and trousers done

1st Inf Bn on the left 

2nd Inf Bn on the right

Complete apart from basing and varnishing

As above apart from their leggings

Based and painted in the toy soldier style

Gloss varnished and ready for posting to their battalion boxes

UATH!

PS A warm welcome to new blog followers Paul J and Sun of York. Hello and thanks for following!

HotT Army Showcase #8 - Carry On Oni.

This is as close to a Workshop of Games army as I'm ever likely to come. Certainly the prices involved were not at all eye-watering since the figures were sourced from a charity shop find as discussed in another Oni related post.

The army. It comprises:

1 x Behemoth general

2 x Behemoth

6 x Warband

1 x Demon Gate Stronghold

This is not a subtle army. Expect charging, crashing, smashing and bashing whenever it gets a game. I'm quite looking forward to using it.

The legends state that Oni come in a variety of colours with red and blue being the most common. Not wanting to anger anyone's Pantheon I went with reds and blues. They also are known for wearing tiger skin couture and using big-ass iron clubs to get across their point of view. Some of these figures have axes. An axe is merely a club by other, sharper, means. Other colours are leather and horn. I made the horns from cocktail sticks. They vary in length and angle from the head. This is nature's way. In addition some of the horns are shorter than the other on the same head. I put this down to fair wear and tear during the Rutting Season. Do Oni have a rutting season? They do now.

I painted the bases green and left it at that. They are mounted upon thick board for ease of storage and use. I went with 25mm basing conventions. I do this with all my armies because it makes getting figures of various scales on board (ha! smell the pun!) a lot easier. I think of them all as 15mm scale armies even though they are not. This is fantasy after all.  I considered flocking, rocks, filler etc on the bases. On reflection I decided that they looked more toy-like with basic bases so I went with the easy option. I can always go back if I change my mind.

The stronghold is a piece of volcanic rock (it's resin - Editor) from a Tenerife gift shop. It did have a metal devil stuck on it. I removed that and then added a couple of trees and tidied up the jewel outcrops. The stronghold represents The Demon Gate or Kimon or Ushitora which is situated in a North East direction. I think that the black outcrop looks sinister enough to fulfill this. It also has some demonic precious stones littered about to trap the unwary and the greedy. Japanese legend says bad luck and Oni armies come from the North East. The Japanese say this, not me, just in case any Geordies, Mackems or Smoggies are reading this!

The Army of The Oni

Demon Gate from the South

Demon Gate from the West

Demon Gate from the North

Demon Gate from the East

Warbands

Warbands close-up

Warbands double-ranked

Behemoths

Behemoth General

Banner reads - Oni-Ni-Kanabo (Oni with an iron club)

Make sacrifice to ME!

Army close-up

As above

The Army of The Oni

Coming at you from a North-Easterly direction soon

This army forms a matched pair with the Fantasy Samurai.

Updates as they happen!

I Name This Ship.....

.......His Serene Highness's Ship Promiscuous. Bless and keep all those who sail in her!

Many thanks to all the chumrades who exercised their franchise in the recent poll. HSH The Grand Tarboosh smiles upon thee.

Some pictures of tonight's naming ceremony in the Tarbooshian port of Evapmylk:

The people of Tarbooshia know that Anahuaco will soon meet defeat and despair now that Promiscuous prowls their coasts looking for conquests.

Naval Might

HSH The Grand Tarboosh

The fragrant Senior Nursing Sister Tweedy

Le Capitaine Petit-Filou

Drums & Colours

The stern prow of Promiscuous's with its big weapon

HSH boards HSHS Promiscuous for the first time; erect with pride.

HSH The Grand Tarboosh turns to acknowledge the cheers of his loyal subjects.

More stuff later!

Oni Get Horny

Yep, that's right. I've fitted the figures with horns. What else did you think you were going to get?

Now, to backtrack a little. The figures described in an earlier post looked like Oni, dress like Oni and are equipped like Oni. But not a one of them had a visible horn extension anywhere on the head. So, what to do? I considered dress makers pins for about a second. Then I really thought about it. what did I have that was cheap to replace, easy to work with, took glue well and wouldn't injure my fingers when I moved the figures around. Cocktail sticks. Well, the pointy ends of them.

I drill a hole on either side of each figures head. The Oni claimed this was a medicinal relief in that it let a little of their anger out. Hope not. I then snipped off the pointy end of a cocktail stick, approximately 3mm-5mm in length, A dab of glue on the blunt end and massage the horn into the head hole. Bit of a drudge of a job but the results are impressive.

Here's a few pictures of a representative sample of horny Oni; naked of paint etc etc innuendo ad naus:

The geezer 2nd right will be the army flag waver.

Statue of Liberty fail

Give us a kiss!

All the best!

Oni-Ni-Kanabo

Another HoT army. This time they will form a matched pair with The Samurai. Who are they? They are The Oni of Japanese legend.

From wiki - Depictions of oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads.^[2] They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and toes. Their skin may be any number of colours, but red and blue are particularly common.

They are often depicted wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs called kanabō (金棒^?). This image leads to the expression "oni with an iron club" (鬼に金棒 oni-ni-kanabō), that is, to be invincible or undefeatable. It can also be used in the sense of "strong beyond strong".

I found the figures in a boxed game of Dungeons and Dragons from a, you guessed it, local charity shop.They're pretty big, but then so are Oni, so no problems there. Their great size means Behemoth but you can only have 12 points worth of them so the next best fit seems to be Warband. Thus we have:

1 x Behemoth General @ 4pts

2 x Behemoth @ 8pts

6 x Warband @ 12pts
I have obtained some images from the web of various Oni. I noticed how much like devils of Western imagination they look.

UATH!

Boaty Dazzler

Today's awful pun title brought to you by my own lack of inspiration.

In other news the poll for the name of this fine vessel is closing soon. There is a leader at the moment but only YOU can decide the final name!

So, the boat. Apart from a name it's finished. I decided a dazzle scheme was the way ahead and then I was dazzled by the large number of schemes available. Some were too outlandish even for HSH The Grand Tarboosh; this may come as a shock to those of you who witnessed the eccentric horror that was The Watchtower. A fairly subdued scheme was finally chosen. I marked the angles and straight lines with a ruler and pencil. I then tried my very best to maintain those straight lines with a paint brush. Maybe something smaller than a 4" brush might be more helpful next time*.

*There will not be a next time.

Enough waffling you want pictures! Well, I can help you there:

Updates as they happen!

Even More Boat

Work on HSH Ship (Name To Be Decided) is progressing. I have added a funnel cut from a piece of flexible pipe and also scratch-built a deck gun from odds and ends. I then sprayed the whole thing with Plastikote matt black.

Some pictures and descriptions:

The funnel was mounted on a piece of balsa wood which had previously been glued to the aft end of the boat. There was a spider living in the pipe who objected vigourously to being evicted. It's ok, I got the blighter out and it ran off in a huff.

Close-up of the deck gun. It's made from plastic tube both round and square. The recoil mechanism is a cut down kitchen skewer. The gun mounting is the top of a Vallejo paint bottle. The rotation handle is a road wheel off a 1/72 PzIII. On the other side the breech opening mechanism is steering wheel from a 1/72 Opel Blitz truck. Other breech parts from plastic card. The gun has a pin fitted to its underside and this slots into a hole in the gun mounting to allow rotation of the weapon. I might still glue it fast though.

Plastikote conceals a multitude of sins.

More when it happens!

HOTT Grids

Bit of a boring post this but since I did the work I felt you should share in the tedium. I have read several accounts of HotT players using a gridded mat. They use either hexes or squares and this apparently make the game flow more easily. It also eliminates all micro-measuring which is surely a Good Thing. 

I have two mats. One is two feet square. The second is three feet by just over two feet - six feet square. So not acceptable for competitions but a-ok for fun times at home. I am going to use the larger mat with a view to opening up the flanks of both armies.

So, since all my figures are based using the sizing for 25mm figures eve though they are a mix of 1/72, 15mm, 28mm and random scales. I chose to go with 60mm squares. The process wasn't too arduous. I used a 3m ruler and a Sharpie pen to mark the corners of the squares with black dots.

You can see the results here:

Large Mat With Dots

Small Mat With Dots

I am indebted to this page for the rules and suggestions which I will apply to my own HotT games. Many thanks to the author John.

Updates as they happen!

More Boat

Much activity to report from the Navy Construction Yard. The holes in the deck have been covered. A door and viewing ports fitted to the wheelhouse.

Starboard side view. New deck planking fitted forward and aft of the wheelhouse. New hatch fitted to side of wheelhouse. The planking is plastic card which was scored to match the lines on the original deck. The door is also plastic card including hinges and door handle. The port hole is a steel washer. If you look closely you can see one of the port hole closures on the deck.

Close up of wheelhouse hatch. All closures present and correct. 

I used lots of glue too!

Reminds me of a washing machine.

Port side view. Showing forward decking repair and viewing port on the front of the wheelhouse.

Port aft view of repaired decking.

I have decided that the funnel will go at the stern of the vessel where the white dot is. That arrangement will free up quite a bit of space on the deck for figures and possibly a second gun.  

All the best!