Post a Comment On: Nate Miller's Tabletop Games

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I purchased a Pike and Shotte Infantry Regiment plastic boxed set of miniatures from Warlord Games a few years ago with the intent to use them for a swashbuckling style D&D campaign but that campaign died after a few sessions and I shelved the minis among my vast hoard of unpainted minis.  Recently my son has decided to get into wargaming but he is primarily interested in historic.  I have an 11 year old "Old Man" wargamer it would seem.  So I dug these out and we put some together. 

The kit is pretty nice but it does have a few flaws.  There are exactly enough heads for the miniatures in the kit.  Not one extra.  Don't drop one.  There also aren't many arm/weapon options.  You have to figure out which ones work with which bodies and not mess that up and there aren't a lot of options or left overs when you are done.  Also the pikes on the pikemen break if you breathe too heavily.

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I primed these with Dupl-Color Sandable Automotive Primer in black because it's my favorite primer for metal an hard plastic minis.  I then drybrushed them with burnt umber.  I've found as I get older that I can't see details very well when I black prime so this helps me pick up those details.  Also I left some of the areas with just the burnt umber layer.  Mostly the boots and leather gear.  The brown also set a nice tone to paint over for these models.
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When I painted their coats I used three different colors of red.  One a darker cool red, one a cool brighter red, and one a warmer bright red.  This works well for figures of these era because troop uniforms carried more than in later periods.  
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Here you can see more of the details with their base coats painted in.  You can see how leaving the burnt umber saved me time on some of the details.  I washed the flesh with Games Workshop Reikland Fleshshade at this point.  No highlights at all because these are rank and file minis.  
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I used Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade over the rest of the figure trying to avoid the flesh areas.  This tied the colors together and provided subtle gradations.  
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I did some basic highlighting on the coats, pants, and hats but allowed the shading the provide gradation for the rest of the figures.  I really like a more basic paint job for rank and file historic miniatures.  Not only do you usually have to paint more of them but they just tent to look a little nicer on the tabletop with a basic paint job.  Notice I didn't paint the eyes in for the same reasons.