Chain of Command Morale tracker

I should be building and painting stuff for our LRDG convention game in november, but it seems such a long way off that I'm constantly drawn to other projects. I started to build the Caproni bomber that will serve as a target for the good guys, but building planes is such a bore. I enjoy looking at planes, but not building them. Even worse is painting them, and by coincidence, a large part of the Caproni fuselage is taken up by windows -- which means I have to paint the insides before gluing the fuselage together. Boooring!

The cockpit interior and the two bomb racks that will fit inside the Caproni. And I can't be arsed to paint them.

Receiving the Chain of Command rule book last week didn't help, as I got inspired to do some more 28mm painting. I really enjoyed painting the Crusader British figures earlier, and yearned to paint some more. In the rule book I saw a picture of a rather camp German officer, and remembered a set called "The St. Albans Four" that the renowned sculptor Richard Ansell did as a tribute (or perhaps joke) for Richard Clarke. I got the idea to use two of the figures for morale trackers, mounting them on casualty markers from Warbases. I highly recommend Warbases by the way, great products for good prices, and very good service.

Sid and Rich in metal versions.

The figures depict the four main culprits of the St. Albans wargames club, which was the spawning ground for TooFatLardies. Both I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! and Charlie Don't Surf! started out as their club rules. (Much like Bolt Action started out as a WW2 version of second edition 40k that Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson used when gaming at the Perry Twins' house.) The figures were included in the Bolt Action range, since Richard Ansell also sculpted their french line. Richard is a very talented sculptor and has done work for a lot of companies, including sculpting a 1/48 scale WW2 range for North Star Miniatures, now available from Scarab Miniatures. Ironically, Bolt Action got sold to Warlord games who then produced the Bolt Action game in cooperation with Osprey. The St. Albans Four were then re-released as a Christmas Truce pack! (If anyone fancies them Warlord Games is having a free shipping campaign until the end of August.)

The dial spins around to reveal the numbers 12 to 0.

I painted Big Rich the same way as I painted the Crusader brits, in fact I had my blog post up on an Android tablet while painting to see which paints I had used. The only difference was that I needed some red and gold for his hat and that I painted the boots brown instead of black. The bottles were painted green and washed with gloss black paint.

Big Rich toasting his great find!

The base was textured the same way as the rest of my brits, but very carefully to avoid jamming the dial.

Hugh Jarce? Nah, I'll paint him later.

The figure is a good likeness of Rich, but apparently has too small feet.

Oh well. Back to the Caproni again...