Miniature Wargames Free Figures, Wild West Exodus

This months issue of Miniature Wargames has free figures from the Wild West Exodus game, now owned by Weyland Games.

I don't know much about the game but it seems to be steampunk using 30 mm (?) plastic models. These two retail for £17 the pair.

The models do not immediately impress. The plastic is one of those semi-resin types but does stick together easily with standard plastic glue. The models are fairly adjustable and lend themselves to a degree of customisation.

And the finished model is actually pretty decent - much better than the bits would suggest.

As these were free, I decided to lay around a bit with a different painting technique.

I undercoated them in Humbrol aluminium spray, which gives a metallic light grey and rather grainy appearance, and then coasted them with Tamiya Clear Red.

I was very pleased with the result: see above.

Adding a little Tamiya Clear Yellow overpaint gave some pleasing  highlights. All I did to finish off was to paint in a few details in Vallejo brass.

I will use this technique again. Next time I might try Humbrol silver or gold as the undercoat.

Adeptus Mechanicus Galvanic Servohauler 2 - Mobile Crane

This is a a great model of a crane on a rotating platform attached to what looks like a railway wagon low loader. I chose to attach the claw to the end of the chain as being more 'Grimdark' but a standard hook is also supplied.

The Techpriest is there purely to show scale but the fire extinguisher and toolbox come with the kit.

I glued the fire extinguisher onto a corner of the bogie.

I can see this looking good in a Steampunk or Weird World War II setting.

This whole kit set is great value for £25.

Highly recommended.

Infinity Engine's V(ictoria) 2 Secret Weapon

Infinity Engine were back at SELWG.

Their display always looks great with unusual brightly painted Wellsian and Fantasy miniatures.

I was taken with their new Steampunk missile launcher and bought the first one they have ever sold!

And here it is sitting in the low sun of a Martian summer - other wise known as my lounge carpet.

Production is decent with just a few rough bits to sand and air holes to fill. I strongly recommend cleaning thoroughly before painting. I didn't which gave me issues at the primer stage.

I modelled it with the rocket loose as if it's at the point of being fired with the arms swinging away - that way I can get the missile off during a game.

You can buy one here.

IHMN Venusian Self Propelled Artillery/ AoS Oldhammer Stegadon Mash-Up

I acquired an Oldhammer Stegadon howdah without the stegadon off eBay, stripped it clean and painted it to match my AoS skink/IHMN Venusian army.

Now, as it happens, the Oldhammer Stegadon is more like a Triceratops and, as it happens, by chance I have a few very old Natural History Museum Triceratops knocking around. :)

'Twas but the work of a moment to respray the hard plastic dino toy, stick on the howdah, add a skink Mahout and stick it to one of my Venusian swamp bases - lot o' swamps on Venus, don'tchahknow.

The 'Stegadon' has stopped to munch on a giant Venusian swamp flower.

And off we go.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Xmas

The Klaus Mob are about to launch their Xmas job: the highlight of the year.

The Boss with his henchmen: note the holstered Mauser.

The Snow Boys soak up bullets like, well, like a snowdrift: they can fly as well.

Santa's Elves with attitude: note the glitter guns.


Ready for the club Xmas game.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Mwah, ha, ha ha.

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Only he ain't dreaming now.

 Dive, dive, dive

I think the Nautilus may have bitten off more than it can masticate on this occasion, when it investigates a new island that has just arisen out of the Pacific.

Captain Nemo puts the pedal to the metal -so to speak.

The Nautilus gets away.

This is a big reaper Bones mini in 28 mm, retailing for the very reasonable price of £30. The casting is excellent and everything went together smoothly with just a little milliput to fill in the joints.

Although I did have to boil him a bit to straighten one of his legs so it fitted the socket in the base.


I decided on Humbrol spray slime green as an appropriate base paint and added dark green wash and lemon yellow highlights.

IHMN, West Wind's Professor Erazmas

Professor Erasmus of the Occult Research Section of the British Museum confronts a London Fremlins beer cart suspected of smuggling dangerous narcotics into the East End.

Erasmus is a West Wind Model from their amazing Empire of the Dead range.

The base is a resin steampunk base that I have had for a while.

Fremlins was a brewary in Maidstone in Kent. The site is now a shopping arcade that has reatined the famous Fremlins Arch .

IHMN - Ironclad Miniatures Sanwar Review

I bought a couple of packs of Sanwar from Ironclad Miniatures at the Crystal Palace show but one and have just got around to painting them.

From their VSF range, the models are vaguely Star wars sand people but equally do very well for In Her Majesty's Name steampunk cults as well as VSF. they are armed with blunderbusses and jezails, long-barrelled muskets. I also bought a great three-barrelled cannon and crew.

I chose to paint them as cultists with suitably blood red robes.

Great models: recommended.

Life On Mars

Popped over to my friend Shaun's last week for a game that he'd set up. The Martians were on the move against Imperial Japan.

A small group of Imperial Japanese Navy marines move to intercept the Martian forces.

The Japanese are supported by automata designed by Professor Sony. In the background you can see a reconnaissance balloon.

Steampunk Mars

This is what Mars may have looked like before the solar wind stripped its atmosphere when it was warm enough for water to exist as a liquid.

A series of delta - type structures all at the same height suggest that there was a water table near our even above the surface for most of the northern hemisphere.  Of the table was above the surface then a shallow ocean may have covered all the blue areas.

The lack of a detectable coastline suggests otherwise but there are ways that coastline might have been smoothed out,  such as tsunamis.

Anyway, this is a potential early Mars.

I feel a steampunk plot coming on.

IHMN - Rough Diamonds

Sergeant Murphy leads a team of skirmishers in an exercise on Salisbury Plain.

In Her Majesty's Name - Jolly Good Chaps

Some Jolly Good Chaps of the sort that built The Empire, dont'cha know.

Sourced from Warlord Games Zulu War range and eminently suitable for IHMN.

Pip, pip!

In Her Majesty's Name Steampunk Nautilus

Captain Nemo comes ashore from the Nautilus after a long and demanding voyage of discovery

The Nautilus is from Ironclad Miniatures, the three pounder deck gun from The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company, Captain Nemo from Westwind Productions and the pier and jolly boat from Ral Partha.


The Nautilus is in desperate need of a dry-dock refit and a lick o'paint.

Steampunk Armoured Assault Tea Pot

Meridian make a range of Prussian and British steampunk miniatures, their Steam & Aether range.

This is an upcoming model: the armoured assault teapot.

And believe it or not they intend this to be a PRUSSIAN model.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

It's British, don't you know. How could an armoured teapot be anything other than British?

I need to lie down - and drink a nice soothing cup of Earl Grey.

Prussian, forsooth.

Her Majesty's Aerocutter 47

An aerocutter is a small  flying boat usually armed with a five barrel Nordenfelt mechanised organ gun capable of firing 500 rounds per minute. It relies on galvanic cells powering cavorite panels for lift and a Clayton & Shuttleworth steam engine for motive power through a pusher-propeller and to recharge the cells.

It is used on Mars as a mobile desert patrol vessel capable of carrying a squad of infantry or as a supply vessel for isolated outposts located away from a convenient canal. It is armoured and can set down on a flat surface as well as water.

In short it is a jack of all trades, the Royal Navy's colonial workhorse.

IHMN: Sanders of the River

I bought a few little toys at Salute, cough - yes I know.

One of them was a Sarissa laser-cut steam launch suitable for VSF, steampunk or just colonial skirmish games.

This is a great kit and great value for money for ten of Her Majesty's Guineas.

I painted up the sides, sunshade and boilder and gave it a good coat of Army Painter tone varnish.

Pip, pip, old fruit.

Sarissa Hansom Cab

The hansom cab is an iconic symbol of Victorian London and no game set in this place an era should be without one.

Sarissa now offer an inexpensive laser-cut model for £5.

I simply sprayed the model black and added a few brass highlights.

The result is pretty damn good. Of course there's no horse and driver but still excellent value for the money.

IHMN, Royal Artillery on Mars

"Six-legged chappies, three rounds of cannister, fire..."

The model is Warlord's 7pdr from the Zulu Wars. Just right to support my Martian Rifles.

IHMN, Naval Brigade

A naval shore party to back up the Pongos in red coats.

These chaps can be relied upon to bring a bit of professionalism to a bloody encounter.
We've got some sailors and officer with a Nordenfelt mounted on a gun carriage and another officer leading a squad of Royal Marines under command of a sgt.

Pip, pip.

Her Majesty's Martian Rifles

The staunch defender's of Her Majesty's Dominions on Mars, the Martian Rifles.

Models from Warlord Games.