The Fifth Fortnight Thematic Bonus Round: 'Casualty / Casualties'

For our 5th thematic round we move into rather more grim territory with the focus being on the casualties of conflict. Again, I left this fairly open to interpretation by the participants so you will see many visions of 'casualties'. From the smoking ruin of an armoured vehicle to a blood-drenched back lane in Victorian Whitechapel, from wounded soldiers being assisted by their comrades to poor refugees leaving all they know to gain safety, human conflict creates a heartbreakingly wide spectrum of casualties. 

So, please take some time to view the gallery below, leave a comment if the muse strikes you, and remember to vote for your favourite entries. I'm using a paid service, Survey Monkey, for the voting poll so please visit the sidebar to the right and place your votes for your favourite entries. You can vote for as many entries as you wish! 

AlanD

When I first saw the Perry range of French from the retreat from Moscow in 1812 about a year back I was completely blown away, and rapidly gave up on my resolve never to paint 28mm Napoleonics. They have sat in their boxes ever since, with me frankly intimidated to paint them. However, Curt's wonderful renditions of these figures and advice about painting snow have inspired me to get them out and whack some paint on them, and what better time to do it than the Casualties round? 

Alan Perry has excelled himself with these sculpts. He has done an amazing job of capturing the look of tired and frozen men, struggling on to the Berezina with whatever warm clothing they have been able to beg, borrow or steal as the wind and snow beats against them. 

Some of these men won't make it, and I feel particularly sorry for the Voltigeur who has lost even his greatcoat. Even those who make it back to Prussia will never be the same again.

Amazing figures, evoking real human suffering. I hope I have done them some justice.

AndrewS

I took two 28mm foundry figures and with some minor conversion work added an arrow to the injured party.

The berserker is about to finish him off for good measure.  Simply based with a discarded shield to add to the setting.

AndyM

I was a little uncertain on this round (as I will be for the Favourite Character round!) as I wasn't sure if the aim was for casualty related vignettes. However, for my big Ayton game in May I knew I needed casualty markers, had some figures and wanted to try out the excellent Pendraken/Minibits dice holders. So here are the first batch of casualty markers for my 28mm C18th ImagiNation forces.

The two top figures are the markers for the Savage Swans and the 1st Altefritzenburg Regiment (which you'll hopefully see complete in a week or two!) and are Minden casualty figures. The bottom base is for my Ottoman type allies and is the marker for the Regiment Chameau. The figure is an RSM Azar shooting figure with gun and base removed and a small hammer applied!

The dice holders (10mm dice) work well but as my chaps rarely take casualties :) I didn't want an empty gap there so Leon was kind enough to send me a load of the offcuts from the holds so I could make fillers:

I also needed markers for guns and cavalry but as these had the potential for large bases I went for something smaller. I've not yet finished the bottom base (was rushing to add it to this lot and failed) but it will do for cavalry and guns.

Someone else (Essex Boy) had the brilliant idea of each unit having a pack mule and the dice holder on that base. I shall be stealing that idea!

AnneO’L

As I do not posses any casualty figures, this Theme was a real challenge for me. Whilst digging through my bits box, I discovered that I had spare heads and limbs. So I decided to do a scene with severed heads and arms lying on a cavern floor, the remains of a previous battle.

I felt that it was time to break free from my normal style of painting and to try something new. Because I tend to work in such bright colours, I went in the opposite direction and paint in greyscale.

The two main figures, Rosie the Chronotechnician and the Slig Soldier are 25mm figures from Reaper Miniatures.

The base was scratch built by myself. The bricks are from Secret Weapon and boy do those come in handy. This is also the first time I have attempted blood effects.

Although this was a difficult piece of work, I learned a great deal from the effort.

BrendonW

28mm, Conquest Games Plastics. The Barrel is Renedra, the crossbow is Fireforge, and the shield decal is Battleflag. This bonus round challenge was perfect motivation for me to finally get around to these figures I have been wanting to paint for ages.

Naturally the up right combat fellas are first priority when you are a wargamer but these will make great objective markers or exhausted fatigue markers for Saga. I also intend to use them as flavour fillers on large units when I start playing bigger Dark Ages battles beyond skirmish games. In fact the fallen horse is a great way to fill in for two mounted figures in a Knights unit to help stretch the collection.

BurkhardS

So this is my entry for this fortnight theme. I have long had these minis and for a long time I wanted to turn them into a casualty marker for my Napoleonic games. The minis are from Warlord Games small Napoleonic Prussian range. While the plastics are an absolute pain in the behind due to their soft detail and undercuts these casualties are just brilliant… characterful faces, crisp detail and great interaction between the minis. 

The only change I made was replacing the banner to be carried by the wounded soldier with a musket (from a Victrix French Guard set). Warlord means these minis to be used as part of the unit, where a banner would be fine, but I felt that on a casualty marker this would just draw too much attention, so I did without. The minis were painted up to act as a casualty marker for a unit of silesian Landwehr or more specifically the 3tes Battalion, 13te Schlesische Landwehr, as denoted by their Yellow shoulder boards. 

ByronM

Here are my World War 1 casualty / shock marker figures for the fortnight challenge.  

The figures are all 28mm and are from a combination of different manufacturers figures.  All are early war British figures done as Canadians to match my 10th and 16th battalion units.

I have done them all on 50mm and 60mm round bases stealing the dice box idea that Curt and Sidney have shown in their blogs. These are done to help cleanup and organize the table when playing Through the Mud and the Blood where sections gain “shock” markers when they are fired at.  

Rather than clutter the battlefield with crump markers or blast markers to show shock and have to move multiple things around with the unit, I have created these markers that can be places alongside each unit as they gain shock.  Thanks for coming up with the awesome idea Curt.

ClintB

"In Space No One can hear you nom.... nom....nom! (Episode 2)

"Barbara to Eagle Base, we see movement Eagle base over!" "Eagle Base receiving!""Looks like a man, he has Canadian patches Eagle Base he's turning round Eagle base""Roger Barbara, keep us informed""Oh Dear God. He's dead Jim, but not as we know it! He's ahhhhhhh!"

Those of you with good memories will recall that I submitted 3 unarmed astronauts for the non combatants round. Therefore for the Casualty round I have submitted a single Crooked Dice armed astronaut with an alternative "zombie" head. 

DallasE

They are 28mm German casualty markers for 'Through the Mud and the Blood', from Great War Miniatures. I painted them for Byron. They're very nice figures indeed! And eyes!! 

The last pic is Gilles, as I discovered him after leaving the photo booth unattended for a minute...

DaveD

This was a quick in between sessions job. Here we have Pete Dalton - brother of the notorious outlaw Ned Dalton propped up outside the local Uriah Woolstenholmes Undertakers Emporium (Motto - they think its all over - it is now) -- he only has one last journey to make - onto the hearse out to Boot Hill.

This is a 25mm Dixon Miniatures piece - they have a nice range of extras for the Old West collection.

EdwinK

I attach a figure from Great Escapes' Dead Man's Hand range - one of the lawmen  casualties.  I had intended to submit all three, but, frankly didn't think the sculpt on the other two worthy of a Bonus Round. 

The more I worked on this figure the more I realised that this would be better as a stand-alone entry.  There is pathos in the idea that this is a gunman beyond his prime, reduced to being the Law in a one-horse town nobody cares about.  He's been wounded by desperadoes and left to die, alone, in the desert.  No-one will hear his last monologue, delivered in his Sam Elliott voice.

At least that how I see him - cheery sort, aren't I!

FranL

My entry for the casualties challenge is a 15mm North Korean T-55 with 3 crew lying atop the tank, a grim reminder of war.

IanW

I have been wanting to get round to painting this for well over a year and it was good to finally get a good reason to get it painted.

This is a 54mm Beneito set. I have added the cannon ball to the base but otherwise I have only painted and flocked it.

I wanted the face of the Hussar to look really pale and shocked so went a fair bit lighter than the poor lancers carrying him.

Originally I had painted up the faces before the challenge but part way into painting the figure I knocked it and a bunch of finished stuff off my computer whilst looking for something else smashing the model back into it's component pieces and had to start it from scratch. It's something I still don't want to think about!!!!

It was quite a challenge as all the straps for the swords the canteen and the swords themselves also needed adding once the other parts of the figures were painted. All in all I think I gave this about 30-40 hours which was a lot less than I expected.

Originally I was going to take it to work and put on my desk but I had my computer changed and no longer have a tower to put it on so not sure what lies in it's future.

IannickM

Well just in time, here's my submission for the casualties bonus round. It is quite ironic really as I just underwent a knee surgery a few days ago, and won't be able to use one of my legs for over a month. The surgery also kinda made the challenge secondary in my mind in the weeks leading up to it, so I did very little painting in the last few weeks, unfortunately. I did however wanted to submit an entry in this bonus round and I succeeded in completing this very minimalistic piece just in time! I painted the piece under some painkillers medication, so it is somewhat a miracle to me that it actually looks decent!

I call it "The long road home" and it depicts a Catholic league soldier from the TYW going home after the battle of Lützen (1632) with an injured comrade on his shoulders. I kept the piece as simple as possible as I wanted to convey a sense of despair and loneliness. 

To me the TYW is the perfect setting for such a piece, as it is surely one of the most brutal and senseless conflicts in history. The figure is from Perry Miniatures ECW range and the sign is from Architects of War. I don't think I'll win any prize with it but I like the atmosphere it brings and it will look good in my TYW Lutzen project. 

JamesL

This figure is a vintage 1/32nd scale (54mm) Airfix figure I got from my 30 year old toy soldier collection (yes I still have mine…)

He is from their 8th Army set, and I must admit back in the day I found him a little useless for taking on the terrible Hun and Lego people that would randomly attack my toy soldier toolbox…. Finally, he has his day in the spotlight, as his true worth becomes apparent.

I painted him with Vallejo paints in accordance with the Warlord Games 8th Army colour scheme, and he is my first 54mm figure I’ve bothered to paint…I’m starting to think all his comrades in my old toolbox may need a similar treatment…

I must say, it is a quietly unsettling thing to paint a figure depicting the inevitable death of a countryman, a little sobering. I hope I have done their memory a service.

JohnM

La Mort de l'Artilleur

I am trying to pimp up this small submission by giving it a French title! I had planned a real graveyard of casualties for this bonus round, but alas when I started to set up I realised I had no 30 mm round bases. So much for that plan. 

Anyway here we have an excellent sculpt in 28 mm from Offensive Miniatures. They have several different British and French casualties, all which are quite nice. This large stand will count as 3 DISR in our games of Lasalle.

KevH

Here is my Casualty entry for the Bonus Round. Once again I am staying with the Crusader theme. This is the last of my Crusader Baggage elements.

I thought this fitting as there are a few poorly, sick, ill, bloody people in this one. A casualty Wagon with two rather worse for wear occupants and two drivers who seem oblivious to the moans from the rear. A group of Military with wounds and and a nice little conversion.

The Guy bending over, re-wrapping a bandage around his leg, was originally loading a crossbow. I placed a few weapons next to him to show he was halting on the march for a minute to attend to his wound on his leg.

The final group are civilians, A woman and baby, a Priest and a guy picking his nose. Rather nativity, lol as they are all on donkeys. I included these as they could be servants or relatives of the wounded.

Now only a week to do my favourite character. No Idea what to do yet.

LeeH

My entry for the Casualty bonus round may be stretching the definition of a casualty just a bit. The poor unfortunate victim in this vignette is a 'casualty' of a rather bloody sacrifice rather than a victim of combat. However for me the real focus of the model is the Priest in his colourful headdress. 

These figures were bought from the Bring and Buy stand at Salute some years ago and came in a plastic bag without any additional information or labelling. I have since found out that they were part of a larger set from Outpost Wargames (sculpted by Martin Baker) that originally included two other priest figures. They are cast in pewter to 28mm scale although the proportions do make these rather 'chunky' figures, full of character.

The decorated altar stone is part of the set but the larger stone base is actually an old resin casting by Ainsty that I found and recycled for this project. I did consider removing the metal base from the feet of the priest - pinning it to steps of the altar instead - but in the end I decided to keep it separate so that this figure could be displayed separately. I think the whole vignette looks pretty cool but I'm pretty sure my wife might take a dim view of me putting a full bloodied sacrifice scene on display in the Family room!  

MarkG

My next entry for the "Casualty" bonus round are six figures from the Perry Miniatures AWI range. I was painting up a full AWI militia unit for this round, but on reflection I realized that it would have had only one casualty figure out of twenty in it, and I thought that be stretching the rules a bit. 

I had a brain-wave on Wednesday night and threw these 6 figures together from the Perry's AWI British plastic box set. I really didn't know what to do with these figures beforehand, and then had a "Eureka" moment when I realized that I could use them as a motif on a simple casualty counter. These six chaps should be enough for tracking casualties on any medium sized British force using the 'British Grenadier' wargame rules.

As for the figures, like all Perry plastics they are very easy on the paint brush. Features don't stand out as prominently as on metal figures, so you need to go a bit easy on the paint. Certainly I'm looking forward to tackling the rest of this plastic set. I do hope you like them.

MartinN

Not much to say about my submission this time. I had these "Celtic Casualties" from Warlord Games in my lead pile for several years now without even knowing what to use for. As Curt announced the themes for the bonus round I had a dig in the mountain of unloved goodness and came up with these chaps. 

Initially I had planned to do only one of those rather... well, let's face it... crappy sculpts. But with my frankish Army for Dux Brittaniarum the need arose to have some appropriate counters for "Shock".

Despite you certainly see they're sporting the wrong fashion when looking up close I decided these will do.

MichaelA

I love the Painting Challenge; I always have.  I love the the flexibility that allows us to push for the greatest tally of points, slug it out painting a particular era or my own particular favourite goal - putting something together that really tests my painting and modelling skills.  This then is my offering for the last category; in its simplest form this is an entry comprising of 4 x 28mm Foundry Victorian miniatures, one (the casualty) is prone whilst the fishmonger comes with his own market stall.   

Although I have been mulling over the concept for a good while now, the build itself started on the 21st January and has been quietly going on in the background, whilst I have tried to keep moving with other units.  This is a scratch built vignette, inspired by the horrific events that took place in Whitechapel, then a squalid district in the East End of London, during the year of 1888.  

The mystery of Jack the Ripper and the grisly murders that are attributed to the killer still hold the public's imagination even to this day.  Based on a humble CD and initially built up with foam core, all seemed to be going well.  I had used some model railway preformed plasticard to represent the brickwork and thought I would use the same on the base to represent cobbles and duly stuck it down only to find 24 hours later that something had disagreed with the plastic, buckling the floor - disaster! 

 Fortunately it was at this point that I heard that we had all been granted an extension and set about using the time to rebuild my little piece of London town.  I was also mightily relieved to see that the bricks used for the wall had stayed in place, particularly as I had worked hard on my first attempt at Object Source Lighting created by the lamppost. 

In order to give the illusion that this horrific crime was going on under the noses of the everyday people, I needed a device that could break up the scene, shielding Jack and his victim from sight.  I stumbled upon the idea of a clothes line, fashioned together from bits of plastic, wire and tissue paper.  It is also removable, allowing me to potentially reuse the street as a possible location for future photo-shoots!  

The addition of a Reaper Boners Rat swarm and liberally sprayed water and blood effects complete the scene.  My plans for the next two bonus rounds may need to be reigned in a bit now, especially having given this one so much attention, but I am delighted with how it finally came together.

MilesR

Here’s my minimalist casualty entry. I actually had something a bit grander planned but sometimes my hobby projects go terribly wrong - I’m sure that has never happened to any of the other participants. Anyway, I was forced to improvise this afternoon and came up with a damaged German Halftrack - mines can be awful things.

The model is 15mm in scale and comes from the Plastic Soldier Company (PSC). In addition to be good models and a less expensive alternative to some of the Battlefront stuff, I find the PSC models cry out to be “kit-bashed”.

This model will be used an objective marker for Flames of War games. It took me about an hour to finish up.

Not the most elaborate of submissions but hopefully it will do.

Now I red to go back an strip some paint from the “debacle”  :)

Millsy

This is a 15mm objective from Battlefront's Flames of War range. It's a destroyed Italian tank - a M14/41 Carri Armato. I'm not usually much into these kinds of items but this has been quite fun and will dress up our table quite well, especially as I seem to turn a lot of teeny tiny working tanks into pretty much this same thing. :-) 

I suspect the mold for this particular model is getting on a bit as there was a lot of clean up work and some of the battlefield detritus was pretty much unrecognisable. In the end I opted to hide those bits with grass. Even so it came out quite well and I'm pretty pleased with the burnt out effect on the interior.

PaulJ

These 15mm figs are my entry for the Casualty bonus round for use with the Battlegroup Kursk rules.  I really love these rules, which include provision for all sorts of great support troops from line laying communications vehicles to field hospitals.  I have made a medic/stretcher bearer unit for both my Russian and German forces, having which makes the Army more resilient as the lads know they'll be looked after if they get hit.

The German medic cradling the casualty is by Peter Pig.  Its a fantastic sculpt and I just had to buy a pack of these when I saw them at CanCon in January.

The Russian stretcher party are from the Skytrex WW2 Command decision range.

PaulS

Here's my casualty entry, and your present for running the competition this year. It shames me to say it, but I've not seen any of Sam Peckinpah's films. I was intending to correct this during the course of the challenge, but Lovefilm has deemed otherwise and keeps sending me subtitled films that I can't watch while painting! 

As I've been working on WW2 stuff for the challenge, it seemed highly appropriate to try and create something inspired by the movie poster for... 

The base model is made up of various bits of Warlord plastic kits and greenstuff to get him into a similar pose to the poster design. It took a while to get that right, so I'm secretly glad the deadline shifted for this entry, otherwise he'd have never made it in! The uniform colours aren't particularly accurate for real world representation, but are aiming more for the high contrast, stylised illustration on the poster work.

And then I started to add the snow... which seems to have covered up more than I expected, so this is probably about 20 minutes after the film poster, so more snow has settled and he's bled out a bit more... but you get the idea :)

PeterD

For my entry in the casualty round I have this group from the Perry Crusader range.  I love the Perry's stuff and enjoy painting their figures.  We have one brave soldier passed on with another likely soon to join him given the arrow in his belly.  

Things look brighter for the armoured chaps, one has his wife to look after him and the other seems to just had his bell rung from falling off his steed.

PhilH

For this Bonus round, I offer 'Last Stand at El Teb, 4 February 1884'

The first Battle of El Teb was a disaster that destroyed Valentine Baker's Egyptian field army in a single day. When deploying into a brigade square to face Osman Digna's Beja tribesmen, one regiment inexplicably extended to the front, leaving yawning gap on one flank. Poor fire discipline at 1000 yards wreathed the line in smoke for no effect and caused skirmishers and artillerymen to be fired upon by their own infantry. When the furious Beja charge hit, the fragile Egyptian formation collapsed entirely and routed, to be slaughtered for no quarter. There were only small pockets of organized resistance, including a fighting withdrawal by the Sudanese Massowah Battalion, that I attempt to represent here.   

Of the 3500 men who had set out, barely more than a thousand survived. The Beja force is estimated to have been 1000, with a marked technological disadvantage and yet their casualties were only in the dozens. The disaster led to the deployment of British troops to secure Suakin and defeat Osman Digna, starting with the second battle of El Teb just a few short weeks later. 

My casualties bonus entry is five models to join my Sudan collection: three plastic Mahdists (Perry), converted to be falling at the volley and two prone Egyptian casualties (Redoubt). I had a bit of fun converting these and getting the Tamiya clear red out and can't wait to see what everyone else has to offer! 

And one last shot of my grisly favourite:

RayR

For my Casualty bonus round figure I chose an Old Glory 10th Century Crusader figure. He could represent an early Knights Templar or just as well be a Knight with as yet no affiliation. 

I added the home made arrows (what a bugger they were!!) And added a Banner for good measure! 

This figure as well as the others in the pack were undercoated during last years Challenge but never made it to the painting table!!! Not sure if the others will for this years Challenge either!!!

RossM

Here are two casualty figures from Redoubt. 

Both 28mm in scale and there will be several more of these in coming entries but shown in different uses. The Lords of Battle from the Illiad have been doing their work well here. The figures are well posed and paint up well.

SamuliS

My entry for the casualty round is Ensign Kennedy of the 1st Royal Scots. He was mortally wounded carrying the King's Colours at Waterloo. When a sergeant tried removing the flag from his grasp the young Ensign wouldn't let go. The sergeant proceeded to pick the Ensign up and carry him back to the British lines, while the French who were impressed by the act stopped firing until they had returned to the ranks of the regiment.

I ran into the story at another blog a bit over a year ago and decided to have a go at modelling the scene myself. This was my first real foray into using greenstuff for anything more than filling small gaps. Turned out rather well even if I say so myself.

The legs look a bit off, but it won't matter from the distance. The mini itself is comprised of parts from Victrix British line and artillery and some parts from the Perry british sprues. Flag supplied by GNB designs and the base is from Warbases.

SeanS

I am proud to submit my entry into the casualty round this week. Not because of the skill displayed, but because I knuckled down and did it in two days after procrastinating like all get out. Most of you can pump out figures without breaking a sweat, I am well known for never finishing anything.

These three figures are 28mm scale and come from two manufacturers. The two on the ground come from the Conquest Norman infantry set that I won from Mike at Trouble at T'Mill. The standing fellow with the arrow in his chest I can't remember what he was but I bought him in the early 90's with some equally accoutered crossbowmen. His slotta tab says OUCH!

The paint scheme was yellow and blue, I used a burnt umber ink wash and then drybrushing of the base color. Again not winning any awards but serviceable. We're going for completion here. The standing figure is on a 20mm square plastic slotta base, while the two ground casualties are on custom plywood bases with angles that would make Cthulhu proud. If you ever need a 40mm x 39mm base, I'm your man. The groundwork was my normal airdry clay, texture gel and sand. The only modification to the process was the application of a bead of glue near the edges of the plywood. This helped to keep the clay from lifting up from the edges as it dried.

I'll finish with a little about this weeks photography. While I did continue to use the Aperture priority setting at f16, I altered my normal protocol. I used a tripod and infrared remote and set up next to a window with decent natural light. I also used my new flash diffuser, but in the end went with the straight daylight shots. The flash tends to highlight the flaws and the daylight ones seem to show how they look in person better.

ScottB

For the casualty bonus round I offer some simple items from the Lord of the Rings range by GW. So all nominally 28mm scale, though the hobbits are a tad smaller...

These are figures that have lain dormant in my collections for years, and if Curt hadn't put a casualty round up here, they'd still be there! So big thanks to Curt for making me get stuff painted I wouldn't normally!

First up is the Frodo model from the 'In the clutches of Shelob' set. 

A very simply paint job of Frodo all webbed up, after being stung by Shelob's venomous tail stinger.

I've included a picture with Shelob for scale, though she's not part of the submissions, having been painted quote some time ago... 

We just need Sam rushing to the rescue to save the day!

Next up this time is all four hobbits, after they have, become lost on the Barrow Downs, and then fall prey to the evil spirits of the Barrow Wights! So these are figures from the 'Fog on the Barrow Downs' set.

Again simple paint jobs of white shrouds, with the addition of kingly golden jewelry.

Again I offer an extra picture with the Barrow Wight's getting up to their mischief! Just for scale, and the setting, and not for points.

But wait, what's that I hear... a strange lilting song...

"Get out, you old wight! Vanish in the sunlight!

Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,

Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!

Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!

Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,

Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended."

Its Tom Bombadil to the rescue!...

SebG

As soon as the V2 of Art de la guerre had been published, I had wanted to paint a Carthaginian army, representing Hannibal fighting in Italy (who doesn't). It was more than three years ago... I also knew what kind of "camp" I wanted to create for this army: a small dio set after the battle of Cannae, with a lot of dead people, and Carthaginan troups searching the battlefield for wounded Romans. And it had to fit in a 4*8cm base. 

I finished painting the army for quite some time now, but the dio was never completed, just primed, that's all. So, thank you Curt for motivating me enough to finish it, finally.

I wanted to create a bit of drama, so I chose my minis carefully: the Gauls are from Xyston, and the dead and wounded are from Xyston and Freikorps. I liked the dead Scutari, so I drilled a hole in his body, and planted a bit of wire. Now you can see he died while trying to get a javelin out of him. Near him, you can see a Gaul moaning. And finally, you have a Roman tribune trying to escape the final blow from the two Gauls, who are clearly enjoying themselves. 

SidneyR

For this themed entry I’d saved up seven French casualty figures, in 28mm from Old Glory Miniatures.  They’re suitable as either early or late Great War French infantry – at least to non-purists like myself.  They paint up very nicely, and look far better when undercoated than they do when “right out of the bag” – when they appear very shiny and not at all attractive – but they really benefit from a coat of paint.  Well worth persevering with in my opinion.

I added a few hand grenades, spare helmets and rifles from the bits box to complete the models.  The barbed wire posts are simple cooper wire bent and twisted into the 3mm plywood bases.

I experimented with the face tones of the figures.  Instead of my normal flesh tone (based around the Vallejo model Colour Basic Flesh), I mixed the flesh paint for these figures as a 50/50 blend of Vallejo Model Colour Green Brown and Vallejo Model Colour Neutral Gray.  

I wanted a sick, wounded, unwell tone to the figures’ skin, but I am not quite sure I got there.  The look OK on the table “in the flesh” (so to speak), but they look very dull in photos compared to previous attempts.  See what you think.

StefanK

The Death of Colonel Christian von Ompteda at Waterloo

Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Ompteda was a Hanoverian officer who served as brigade commander during the battle of Waterloo. He was born in Ahlden an der Alster in Lower Saxonia. After becoming a lieutenant of the Hanoverian foot guards he was badly wounded during the French Revolutionary Wars. When Hannover's army was dissolved after the Convention of Artlenburg he emigrated to England and was one of the first to join the King's German Legion. During the following years Von Ompteda served in several campaigns in Denmark, Spain and France. In 1815 he was colonel and commander of the 2nd Brigade KGL in Charles von Alten's 3rd Infantry Division at Waterloo. He found his heroic death during a daring but desperate attack in line formation with the 5th KGL Line Battalion by the order of the questionable Prince of Orange.

Allessandro Barbero describes Ompteda's final moments as follows in his excellent re-narration of the battle of Waterloo:

"Suddenly, the order came to deploy in line and advance at a walk; when his men were some sixty yards away from the enemy, Ompteda had the bugler sound the charge and urged his horse into the midst of the thick line of French skirmishers. The tirailleurs scattered. [...] Colonel von Ompteda was encircled by enemy infantry, and the French officers, amazed by his courage, shouted to their men to take him alive; but Ompteda, who was by then [...] beside himself, started aiming sabre-strokes at the heads of the men surrounding him, and someone lost patience. When lieutenant weatherly regained consciousness, the colonel lay dead two steps away from him, with his mouth open and a hole in his throat."

(Allessandro Barbero "The Battle", pp. 312 - 313)

The scene inspired me for this vignette. It shall represent the fallen colonel dragged away from his fallen horse by a comrade from the 5^th Line Battalion KGL. Maybe the scene differs slightly from Barbero’s portrayal but I wanted to have it a bit vivid and Perry offers such an amazing British officer casualty. Actually all the figures are from Perry miniatures. Three from the British Napoleonic casualties set and a slightly converted horse which I found on a rummage table at Crisis last year. As usual I painted the figures with Vallejy Model Colours and employed different types of foliage, static grass and modellin flowers to add some fauna to the scene. As a little trick I didn’t glue on the single British casualty yet because I’m thinking of replacing him by one or two Frenchmen which Ompteda killed with his final blows.

TamsinP

My entry for this bonus round consists of a set of cohesion markers for use with my 30 Years War army in FoG:R. They are 15mm - casualties from Donnington Miniatures; grave markers from Timecast.

The grave markers will be used for broken units; those with 2 figures will be used for fragmented units and the ones with single figures will be used for disrupted units.

TimB

I thought I'd get a bunch of dead Feudal Japanese done for the Ronin campaign this weekend, but all I managed to get done was two dead monks... 

Both miniatures are from The Assault Group. 

The one with the orange robe actually has the top of his head sliced cleanly off and for all the crap you can find on the internet I couldn't find a good reference picture of a freshly sliced open brain... (I'm actually glad of that!). He also had a longer sword which I clipped off to make it look like it'd broken (so it would fit on the base!) 

…and Curt

I decided to return to my greyscale Great War project in order to attempt a perspective to the 'casualty' theme: that is the refugee. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the plight of the refugee has existed as long as war itself. The terror of impeding violence, the disruption of livelihood, the dissolution of security and the mortal risk to loved ones - these are all things that are clearly written on the face of every refugee no matter their religion, colour, nationality or time in history.

The German destruction of the Belgian city of Louvain in August of 1914 is noted for contributing to the world's condemnation of the Central Powers' cause and pursuit of war. For five consecutive days the city was indiscriminately burnt and looted. Its famous library, housing one of the largest and most impressive collection of ancient manuscripts, was burnt and destroyed, as was Louvain's university. The church of St. Pierre was also badly damaged by fire. The citizenry of Louvain were subject to rape, robbery and beatings, but the most tragic was the mass shootings of hundreds of innocents regardless of age or gender. As Sir Edward Grey solemnly remarked upon the outbreak of  hostilities that summer, 'The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.'

So in these images I have tried to compose a plausible scene that would occur during those first weeks of 1914. Seen here is a column of Belgian refugees fleeing the German advance while their hastily raised countrymen march to the front to try to stem the tide. 

The figures are mostly new castings from Brigade Models' excellent range of Great War Belgians. The old couple with the wheelbarrow and dog are from Kawe's Westfalia Miniatures (meant for the Napoleonic period, but I find that they work quite well 100 years later). The cobblestones are hand painted, both on the figures' bases and the nylon roadway (being too cheap and lazy to get proper cobbled bases/roads).

...a matter of tone: same scene with a different camera with different settings...