Stones & Skirmishes: 28mm Balearic Slingers

Today, we're taking a little detour back to 28mm and diving into Antiquity: Balearic Slingers by Victrix. These miniatures are individually based, making them perfect for skirmish systems like SAGA and others.

Every now and then, I try to revisit and finish old projects, even if I don’t plan on expanding them further. I use these opportunities to keep training my "painting eye" and, more importantly, to clear some much-needed space. That’s exactly the case here: once finished, this unit will be heading to a new home as I'll be putting them up for sale shortly.

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Painting: Civilians and animals for 15mm and 28mm

In order to continue adapting to the new circumstances after my eye surgery, there is only one thing that really helps: practise, practise and practise some more.

As I still had a couple of civilians and animals on my to-do list.
Since these mostly serve to decorate the gaming table and therefore tend to remain in the background, they seemed to me to be the most suitable objects for practice.

I tested different colours and techniques, focusing primarily on training my spatial vision – let's see what ultimately proves to be the best long-term solution for me.

Fleeing 15mm civilians with a really big dog to guard them!

A shepherd whose dog is currently grooming itself 😎

15mm cattle

Pigs and piglets for 28mm - the piglets can be used as pigs for 15mm too!

My shepherd at work.

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Terrain work in progress: Scratch building an Oasis agriculture - last update 29.6.2025

One of the intended uses of my newly painted palms is to depict an oasis agriculture - usable for settings in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in the Levant for ‘Operation Exporter’ (Palmyra etc.).

In my case, it will be a well oasis, of which I want to schematically depict the well itself, a water collection basin directly adjacent to it and the distribution via canals to the individual fields.

In order to be able to use the fountain in different eras, I will build both a wooden water crane and a small stone platform next to the fountain on which I can place a housing for a diesel engine for more modern times.

Update 29.6.2025

Moving on with growing even more plants for my rising oasis 😎

Update 25.6.2025

My desert oasis starts taking shape

Update 24.6.2025

Scratch built some more vegetables:

A few Citrus trees

Tomato shrubs

and a few pumpkins modelled out of Greenstuff

Update 23.6.2025:

Prepared some plants that together with the already finished palms I will use to represent the three-layer farming system. Made from cheap China plastic plant I completely re-painted them using my airbrush.

Update 22.6.2025:

The stones of the water channels are set and painted, to depict the water I use ModPodge Glossy, which now has to dry for 48 hours.

Well and water basin made from Styrodur.

Bucket for the wooden water crane under contruction ...

... and finished.

The centrepiece of my planned oasis is finished and waiting to be painted: the fountain, water collection basin, wooden cradle and the bucket for the fountain, as well as the water pipe.

For size comparison with 28mm and 15mm figures.

My oasis starts taking shape slowly but steady - centre piece is the water distribution and on the right the first fieldd to grow fruits and vegetables, grass to feed the goats and so on.

Pictures and information regarding some background of my completed Oasis can be found in this post:

https://utgaards-blog.blogspot.com/2025/07/terrain-building-oasis.html

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Terrain work in progress: Palm trees for 28mm and 15mm - Updated 29.5.2025

As I want to depict an oasis cultivation and need more palm trees in general and need more palm trees in general, it was time to paint the ones I had ordered from China some time ago.

However, of course I don't want to use them as they were delivered - apart from the unnatural plastic shine, the colours are also anything but true to the original.

Accordingly, all of them will be completely repainted using an airbrush before I base them.

Here are the stages of the repainting - I will update this post accordingly.

Trunks basecoated, pre-shaded and repainted using different inks.

Treetops are just basecoated with a dark Green from below and already look not too bad now.

Basecolours done, followed by 2 highlights.

Trunks and treetops have received their final drybrushs each and are now ready for basing.

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Terrain: A mediterranean house in 28mm

For our 28mm project, which is set in the Levant as part of ‘Operation Exporter’, we naturally also need suitable terrain.

While the trees and palm trees I built for the 15mm games can also be used in 28mm without any problems and I still had a few suitable stone walls in stock, the situation was different for buildings.

Fittingly, I had kept some MDF kits from Micro Art Studio from an old Freebooters Fate project, which fit perfectly into the Middle East setting. This one is called "Cabana Maduro".

As I was under a bit of time pressure to get everything ready by CONflict Rhineland 2025, I'll add the little details that bring a scene to life later: Barrels, sacks, clay jugs etc.

And some more pictures from the WiP stage:

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28mm projects: Arab Legion for the Battle of Habbaniah and Operation Exporter 1941

After a long break in the 28mm scale, I now had the opportunity to paint a few figures for it again.

At the end of last year, Max and I decided to start a joint project for a participation game that we wanted to present at various cons.

For the setting, we decided on an excerpt from ‘Operation Exporter’, more precisely the battle around Palmyra.

For the rules, we decided on ‘What A Cowboy’, which we are still adapting to our chosen setting.

While Max painted the Frenchmen of the French Light Desert Company, I took on the part of the Arab Legion.

And here is the completed squad of the Arab Legion - maybe the foundation for a complete platoon, such as for Chain of Command?

For WaC the figures represent 1 Lieutenant (Gunslinger), 1 Sergeant (Shootist), 2 Corporals (Greenhorn), 2 groups of normal soldiers (Henchmen) and 1 special group of soldiers (also Henchmen) equipped with a Lewis LMG.

The Lewis LMG team initially consists of irregular Arabs from Artizan Miniatures, the rest is from Woodbine from their WW1 range.

The complete squad - a start for more maybe?

The leader of the pack - maybe Glubb Pasha himself?

My squad leader.

One of my Lance-Corporals.

And my 2nd Lance-Corporal - he will lead my 2nd squad (still to do)

Special Soldiers Group - Irregular Arabs acting as my Lewis LMG team for now.

A group of Soldiers.

And another group of Soldiers completes the Rifleteam.

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