Since I am on a colonial kick, I thought I would add one of the many maps I have made for both miniatures and mounted paper counters I made to look like miniatures (to some degree). I blow up the maps so the hexes are two inches for the mounted paper counters and 3 inches for 10mm miniatures. I have many maps for all periods. The 19th Century/Colonial include Waterberg, Peking, Mukden, Plevna and Sedan to name a few with others in various stages of preparation. The units per side range from 15 to 35 depending on the battle. For the mounted counter games, I wanted a map that could fit on a 30" wide table and fit counters that were rectangular that look more like units. I will try to post some of the counter art later.

Switched to some Colonial Sudan figures for some variety and while I waited for some more WWI Austrians and Russians from Dave at Pendraken. I am working on a Khartoum game with what I normally use, a hex battlefield with 3 inch hexes. The steamer was designed to fit that size. The Dervish figures painted up nicely though the pictures do not reflect it. I used a earth colored undercoat and two drybrush coats of white (for the Ansar) and bleach bone (for the Beja/Fuzzies). I used the NW Afghans for cavalry with a few mixed in Arabs from the Dark Age range (all Pendraken). I am working on some Egyptian cavalry lancers which will need to be a conversion since Pendraken does not make them. Fortunately, I only need one unit for my Khartoum game. Currently, working on the Khartoum fort and some Dervish vessels for ferrying troops to land in the rear of Khartoum. Lots of fun and great 10mm figures from Dave make this any easy range to work with in this scale. I wish the Dervishes had a few more poses and some Fuzzy rifles but maybe I can get more creative with some conversions. The standard bearer was an easy conversion to a Fuzzy, just a head swap.

A couple of more pics of my Austrians. A completed machine gun unit and a GHQ unit. The GHQ unit combines the pendraken Austrian command with some Pendraken Wurtemberg command converted to Austrians. I have run out of Austrians to paint so I will probably return to the Russians.

Some Variant and Modified Austrian Figures

Some pictures of Wurtemburgers painted to be WWI Early Austrians. I like the way the mounted and foot officers turned out. The other picture did not turn out as well as I would have liked but it shows the shrunken heads of the Austrian machine gunner. I swapped his head out with a regular sized head from the infantry troops and the modified machine gun is on the stand. Obviously, I have not finished the base.

Reply On Using Pendraken EW British For Additional Russians

I will hopefully try them soon but I am on an Austrian kick at the moment and I ran out of Russians except for a few Cossacks. Painted up the Wurtemburgers to see how they would look as Austrians. The mounted generals are great for Austrian mounted officers. Need to clip off the feathers on the general with binoculars. The infantry are kind of a mixed bag. I like the way the trumpeter turned out and will use him on an Austrian command stand though I clipped the kind of funky too large bar on the top of the trumpet. I have not painted the drummer yet but the drum looks awfully small and way out of scale. The running troops aren't really any better than the standard Austrian running pose and the rifle is too long and needs to be clipped. I like the infantry officers with drawn sword and will definitely use them. The infantry firing pose is good but not sure it fits in real well with the two standard poses which predominate my infantry stands. Need to add a little glue or green stuff to the end of his trousers so it conforms with the long trousers of the Austrian infantry. Now for the shocker. I pulled out the Austrian machine guns units. WHAT is up with the heads? Did the Russians have a voodoo doctor because they all suffer from a bad, bad case of shrunken heads. Clipped off those heads and did a head swap with the normal infantry. Since they will get some handling, I drilled a small hole for the green stuff to get it better anchored. Then some supper glue and add the head. After drying a watered down dose of tacky glue on the seams and waiting for painting. Looks like it was a successful operation. I will try to post some of these this weekend unless the wife has other plans for me.

Ideas to expand the variety of poses

I ordered some Wurtemburgers and early WWI British for some possible variety for my Austrians and Russians. The Wurtemburgers will hopefully expand my Austrians and they already have back packs. I may need to add a little tacky glue around the shins so the pants look right. The early WWI British will hopelfully expand my Russians. I accidently ordered them with packs which I will need to clip away. Then add a thin band of green stuff for the blanket roll. We see how they work out.

Here are some pictures of painted up and mounted Austrians. The online blue color is a lot more true blue than they really appear. The grey blue does not seem to show up well. I added back packs to the infantry except the officer and artillerymen. The officer on the infantry base is a head swap and so is artilleryman looking at a map. Anyway, this gives some idea of the Pendraken Austrians at least how I choose to paint them. The coloring is dark blue base, then dry brush GW shadow grey they a final dry brush of slightly lighter shadow grey.