Planning for the Rest of the Year and Beyond

One of the many enjoyable aspects of our hobby is planning. Of course, planning leads to lead and plastic piles, so it's fraught with danger and one should proceed with caution. One definitely shouldn't shop on ebay while taking pain medication for a tooth extraction.

As I hinted at in a previous post, I have some new projects underway. One is a French & Indian War  project - this has no defined parameters but I do know that I want to paint French regulars so that's what I'll start with.

The other project is a Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) project which will encompass both solo games and face to face games with a local 54mm wargamer. There are two of us in the area!

We have decided upon a game set on Venus. We'll likely use GASLIGHT to start, since it's one set we're both familiar with (I haven't played a lot of rule sets that aren't me just making stuff up).

That's what the French Foreign Legion figures from Armies in Plastic that I posted recently will be for - although I have both British and Russian colonial forces, French Legionnaires fighting lizard folk on Venus was my first venture into building proper wargaming armies (albeit in 15mm). The Earth colonial forces will play a small roll in the wars of the Venusian factions, so I don't need many of them, maybe 10 + a crew for a Gatling.

At least that's our current plan.

The aforementioned ebay shopping spree was not hypothetical but based on experience. I had two teeth extracted last Friday (not fun and not recommended, but the pain leading up to that was worse, so ...). The pain killer haze may have weakened my willpower. At least that's my excuse.

As a result, I purchased several boxes of Hat 1/32 ancients figures including: Roman triari, Roman hastati, Spanish infantry, and Carthaginians - they're short a few figures each but enough of each for  10-12 figure units. Except for the Gauls, these will make up one of the Venusian factions (for my own notes, I'm calling them Asterians). 

Hastati not pictured - they haven't arrived yet

But wait! What about lizard folk? 

Ah yes, a classic Venusian trope and one of my favorite D&D monsters to boot 

For them I am thinking a mix of 28mm (hear me out!) and 54mm figures. 

The latter are exceptionally difficult to come across in any quantity or a price I could afford in any quantity more than a handful.  However, SCS Direct sells a figure that will pass for a lizard warrior and is available in relatively inexpensive packs of mixed creatures. It was seeing them painted up on Quantrill's Toy Soldiers that sold me on them. One pack yielded me 6 such figures (10 is my starting goal):

By their smooth skin and serpent necks, I have inferred that they inhabit seaside marshes and are fond of Venus's vast oceans.

Size comparison to an Armies in Plastic Russian.

For a leader type, I picked up a 54mm figure from Iron Wind - a lizard shaman. I guess Iron Wind has a game about magic-users or something and a whole line of figures for it. To be honest, this figure's existence inspired the idea of uniting different tribes (read: figure scales) of lizard folk as my original plan was just to field a force of 28mm lizard warriors. I'm still awaiting delivery of this one, eagerly at that!

Eventually I plan to order some Wargames Atlantic 28mm multi-part lizard warriors. The box includes  parts for 24 figures for less than $35 usd which is quite a bargain, although you do have to assemble them yourself. Much like Ikea costing less because you have to do the tedious part.  

The figures come with a variety of head and weapon options but i'll be sticking with classic melee weapons. Sadly they don't come with bows or any warriors with shields. For those, I'll probably pick up some Reaper figures - Bones or Dark Heaven.

In any case, to my mind, the 28mm figures make fine pygmy lizard warriors.  

I have some Reaper Bones lizard folk to serve as proofs of concept:

A 28mm Reaper Bones mini next to an Armies in Plastic Legionnaire.

 As an example of what I intend visually, I painted one up quickly last night. I'm pretty pleased for what amounts to a single rushed paint session. Although in close up I am finding so much to fix!

The gloss is subtle on these figures perhaps due to the general lack of smooth surfaces?

And another comparison example:

In Space: 1889, the Russians have a force on Venus and they wear the white tops / green trousers. He probably should aim lower.

The SCS Direct set also includes harpie figures that I think will serve nicely as Parrot People (they are found in the jungles of Venus. Duh.),  to be supplemented by the Hat Gaul figures (one of the poses has a winged helmet and one pose is naked, good enough for Parrot People for me!) and maybe some Chin Toys Aztecs. Those latter aren't cheap and they only provide eight in a box.

What about all of the other figures in the assortment? Some will be painted, many will end up in my son's toy soldier bin.

Yes, all of this represents exponential growth of my plastic pile. And painting queue.

On the plus side, my Austro-Hungarians and Italians are moving along nicely and their portion of the pile is steadily decreasing. Hopefully this weekend I'll sneak in another game of Trench Hammer.