Welcome to "Adventures in Lead", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming. The figures and terrain on this site are mainly for a campaign set in exotic "Indostan", a distant land bearing remarkable similarities to 18th century India during the Seven Years War. Bits and pieces from other projects may pop up here as well from time to time, including colonials, gladiators, pirates, dinosaur-hunting and even some RPG'ing.
The actual campaign journal and after action reports for the Indostan campaign can be found on their own blog - "Indostan: The Jewel in the Crown", the link to which is found by clicking the small image below-left.
If you do find anything remotely interesting on this blog please leave a comment, it's what keeps these sites going and their authors motivated - Thanks for looking.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Royal Navy Sailors and Captain

While planning the start of our Indostan campaign, Dave and myself decided that the first scenario will involve some Pirates and the Royal Navy. We already have a handful of sailors and a stack of pirates that belonged to our late mate Rotary. Unfortunately he never really got a chance to game with them himself, so hopefully he can have a chuckle looking down on our little games.
To even out the Royal Navy I painted up some Foundry pirates, that Dave had bought for the very purpose, in royal blue and white. Although during the period there was probably no uniform to speak of, it gives the figures the impression of belonging to a crew. The other sailors are from the Foundry Napoleonic boarding crew, are so out of the time frame completely, but are such nice figures.
The Captain is a ring-in, one of the better figures from the Old Glory European Captains pack. Again there are many typical Old Glory shockers in there that suffer from contortionist like poses, broken swords and pigeon chests, but they are fairly priced at $20 US and can be used for many different purposes.
They were all painted with "house paints" and Army Painter. (Click the images to enlarge)

The Captain and some of his crew.

All aboard a little tender.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Old Glory Pathans

I purchased a bag of Old Glory "Pathan Tribesmen with Muskets and Jezails" a long time ago and they have been kicking around on the lead pile since. I must say that Old Glory is usually a bit hit and miss, but their Pathans are probably some of their finest figures. In saying that they do exhibit a bit of Old Glory "charm".
I have gotten around to prepping most of the 30 figures (that are pretty reasonably priced) and during this process discovered that all the Pathans in a firing stance were missing the right sleeve of their poshteens (Afghan sheepskin coats). This isn't a huge deal, but does pose a problem when painting them, because their robes and their poshteen are different colors and meet at the shoulder. I remedied the problem with a small strip of greenstuff, that will hopefully give the illusion of a sleeve.
Quite a few of the Pathans are kneeling or sitting and these are my least favorite poses. I understand that Pathans would adopt these poses in real life, but kneeling/sitting miniatures can look a little odd, especially when out in the open.
Below are the first two I've done. Painted with "house paints" and Army Painter, they were fairly quick and easy, and for Old Glory don't look too bad at all. (Click the images to enlarge)
Two Pathans walk into a bar.
A Pathan with fashionable greenstuff sleeve.