Ainsty Castings Assorted Weird West Figures

I have mentioned on my blog before that I am keen to get into Wild West skirmish gaming and to that end I already have the two Shadows of Brimstone (SoB) board-game starter sets and the THW Weird West rules supplement, High Moon, both of which I reviewed on my blog earlier. See here for SoB and here for High Moon. Obviously, I got a bunch of figures with the two SoB sets but what else do I have in the way of Weird or Wild West figures? The answer to that is loads of figures, but sadly most need re-basing and re-painting. They were bought many years ago. Some are over 40 years old! However, I have started to actively collect more modern manufactured miniatures, starting with these two sets from Ainsty Castings Weird West range, which I bought earlier this year.

 

These three figures shown directly above and below are from set WW01 The Good Guys 1 and consist of a gunfighter, a townsman and an Indian princess. The gunfighter is armed with twin Colt .45 revolvers and could just as easily be used as an outlaw. Indeed, Ainsty have named him as Billy the Kid, but I won't be using him as such. My preferred choice is as a generic gunfighter. I do wonder why Ainsty would class such a notorious outlaw as a "good guy?"

The townsman is named Abe on Ainsty's webstore, after Abraham Lincoln, whom students of the occult will know was secretly a vampire hunter! What? Have you never seen the film, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? I'm more likely to use him as a townsman, possibly a doctor, which is why my version doesn't really look like the former U.S, president. He is armed with a hefty axe.
The title "Indian Princess" does not sit well with me. I see her more of a squaw, warrior or scout. SoB features an Indian Scout character as one of the heroes and provides a figure for the male version but not the female version. She'd fit that role admirably. She is armed with a hunting knife.

The next set, WW02 Bad Guys 1, shows why these are described as Weird West as opposed to Wild West figures. They contain a Victorian vampire, a werewolf and a zombie (mislabelled a mummy on Ainsty's webstore). Rules for all three types of villains appear in the High Moon supplement, making these a "must have" buy if you own this set of rules.

All six figures are very well sculpted and were a lot of fun to paint. I can use all of them in High Moon, but only the good guys and the zombie in SoB. Rules for vampires and werewolves in SoB don't exist for this game at the time of writing.
Sets WW01 and WW02 cost £7.50 each or you can do what I did and order set WW03 Good Guys and Bad Guys which contains both sets for the reduced price of £14.00, saving you a quid. Expect to see more Weird West and Wild West posts on my blog in the future.

Ainsty Castings Armoured Pick Up Truck and Wrecked Car

Last time I told you that I had placed an order for three Ainsty Castings 28mm scale resin vehicles but I only told you about one of them - the Derelict School Bus. So, here are the other two vehicles that I bought - set 8056 Armoured Pick Up Truck and set 8050 Wrecked Car. Both come from Ainsty's Streetwise: Car Park range.

Vampifan gets in on the act again to give you an idea of scale. Don't worry, he isn't getting paid any extra for this!

My only criticism of the Pick Up truck is that I wish the floor in the back section was much lower down. As you can see from the photo above there is very little clearance between the floor and the tops of the surrounding sides. Okay, it probably is this way to make it easier to be cast in one piece but I still find it a bit jarring when I compare it with my WWG card model pick up trucks. On the plus side, you can easily fit a figure with a 25mm diameter base in the back of the truck.

The wrecked car is an absolute beauty and you can see straight away that this is just so much scrap metal. All four tyres are missing. One of the headlights have been removed, as has the engine hood. The bodywork is full of dents and bullet holes.

I painted the glass parts of both vehicles in Foundry Black Shade 34A. For the bullet holes in the windows of the wrecked car, I painted the cracks around the bullet holes in the windows with Foundry Arctic Grey 33B. The area directly surrounding the bullet holes was done with little dots of Foundry White 33C. If you paint over the bullet hole, as I did a few times, just repaint the hole in black. To finish off the windows I gave them a coat of gloss varnish, being careful not to paint it over the actual bullet holes.

The pick up truck was painted in Foundry Chainmail 35A and given a variety of ink washes over various parts - Citadel Badab Black, Citadel Devlan Mud and Citadel Asurmen Blue. Since Games Workshop stupidly renamed all of their paints and inks I have no idea what they are called now. Most of the truck was given a black ink wash. Some panels were given a blue or a brown inkwash for that patchwork look.

The body of the wrecked car was painted using the Foundry triad of Bright Red 15 paints. Note that on the Armoured Pick Up truck the area between the wheels is solid resin. It looks odd at first but once you paint it black and put the model on your gaming table it is not noticable at all. I wonder if any of you would have spotted that from my photos if I hadn't pointed it out. I certainly wouldn't have.
The Armoured Pick Up Truck has a solid look to it and looks like it was built to survive in a post apocalyptic world. Add some weapons to it if you want to use it in a Car Wars type setting. As for the wrecked car, it is a great piece of scenery, ideal for depicting a run down part of your neighbourhood. As with the Derelict School Bus reviewed last time, these models have been reduced in price by the good folks at Ainsty Castings. The Wrecked Car now costs £4.00 and the Armoured Pick Up Truck now costs £5.00. Both are good value for resin cast vehicles.

Ainsty Castings Derelict School Bus

A couple of months ago I ordered three 28mm scale resin cast model vehicles from Ainsty Castings. The jewel in the crown was this model - set 8054 Derelict School Bus from their Streetwise: Car Park range.

I have always wanted an iconic American yellow school bus to add to my collection of vehicles. They are almost impossible to find here in the U.K. so when I saw that Ainsty Castings had one in their catalogue I knew I had to have it. I waited a long time to buy. If Ainsty hadn't announced a sale with 20% off the price of all their models I might still be waiting now. Anyway, I ordered it and now I'm a proud owner of it.

I know it is a wreck and not roadworthy, but that doesn't bother me too much. Also, I know that WWG have a school bus in their Mayhem Vehicles set but I really don't like that version. It looks fine from the back but from every other angle you can see it is not the same as this model. It is just the WWG coach with a new skin. The shape is all wrong.

Here's Vampifan showing off as he stands on the roof. "Look at me, ma. Top of the world!" The model came with three wooden platforms to fix to the roof and three sets of wooden barricades for fixing to some of the windows. I deliberately left them off as I have other plans for them. As you can see, other wooden planks have already been sculpted onto the model.

This side view of the bus shows just how big the model is, as Vampifan stands next to it. The base measures 9" (23cm) long by 3" (8cm) wide and the bus is 2" (5cm) tall. It is not solid resin as the inside has been hollowed out to help keep the weight down.

I used a Rotring technical drawing pen to write in the word "School Bus," the registration plate and the "1974" date, rather than trying to paint them. The windows were painted black and given a coat of gloss varnish for that glassy look.

I primed the model with Foundry black paint, as I do with almost all of my figures and models. I had to give the bus five coats of yellow paint to get it looking as good as it does now. I know that if I'd used Games Workshop's foundation paints I'd have got away with just two coats but I no longer use GW paints. To be honest, I didn't consider it a chore. It was just something that had to be done and I got on with it.
The detailing on this model is of a very high standard. This is a great model for use in a zombie apocalypse game. It could be the centre-piece of numerous scenarios. A small group of survivors could be holed up inside it and in dire need of rescuing. Or it could be the source of a plague of zombie kids. Or just use it as an awesome piece of cover.
If you want one, I have some good news for you. Ainsty have reduced the price of it from £20.00 to £16.00. Yes, it is still expensive, but look at the size of it. It is a fantastic model and I'm looking forward to using it in my ATZ campaign. Next time I'll show you the other two Ainsty vehicles I bought.