Carts before the Horses

In my previous post I briefly talked about the difficulties with following schedules in my hobbies and this time I have another perfect example of how strict plans have to be abandoned sometimes. When it comes to miniature painting, I always face a huge scheduling conflict. Should I work on the army I started painting for a wargame, or rather paint the minis that are needed for the RPG campaign I run, or maybe paint these miniatures that are not really needed, but look too much fun to skip?

So little time and so much to do! Spoiler alert! Silversand players, stop reading! Since I’m running an RPG session next weekend and a caravan of carts play an important role in the story, I had to put the Roman legions on hold. To be completely honest, I also needed a horde of orcs too, but there was absolutely no chance to finish them on time. Never mind, the players will have plenty of occasions to face those greenskins anyway!

I had four different carts from three manufacturers:

A small cart from Colonel Bill

Another small cart from the Colonel

A Roman raeda from Warbases

A two wheel cart from Wizzkids Deepcut Miniatures

I bought most of these minis at Colours 2019. The first three were made of MDF and required assembly, but the fourth one was made of plastic, no assembly was needed and was sold white primed. This was my first time working with MDF minis, I was excited to see how difficult the assembly was and if there was any difference between painting them.

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I loved working with MDF: the parts were neatly cut, no filing was needed and excess PVA was easy to remove. I really considered keeping the carts unpainted: carts are made of wood, so were these minis and – surprise, surprise – they actually looked like wood.

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But this is a miniature painting blog, so I painted them. 😊

I wanted to have a fairly simple paint scheme for the carts: a basecoat of Zandri Dust, a wash of Agrax Earthshade, a drybrush of Zandri Dust, edge highlight with Ushabti bone. Ropes and metal parts were painted Screaming skull and Vallejo Gunmetal grey.

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The raeda, which is the ancient Roman equivalent of the coach got a bit more fancy, but still simple paint scheme: a basecoat of Zandri dust, a wash of Gryphonne sepia (Agrax earthshade has a bit dirty look, and I wanted to have something more subtle here), no drybrush, just an edge highlight with Ushabti bone. The inside and the canvas top was painted with Aphotecary white and got a Ceramite white drybrush, the red details were painted with Blood red, got a wash of Gryphonne sepia and were highlighted with Blood red again.

As you can see, I added the spare yoke from the MDF cart set to the plastic cart – this way it looks more complete to me. The result might not be perfect, but it is definitely fit for purpose and I enjoyed working on these miniatures a lot.

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Since I plan to use these miniatures both in RPG’s and in wargames, I have varnished them, which hopefully gives them enough protection.

Plastic vs. MDF – comparison:

The plastic cart has a more structured surface, the additional rope and metal details are also represented and the planks are not completely straight and flat but more crooked. Thanks to this, the final result looks better and more realistic. Since it was made from one single piece, I missed working on the assembly and the areas covered by the wheels were very hard to reach.

It was fun working with MDF carts, the assembly gave me the real DIY experience, which I truly enjoy. On the other hand, every surface is completely flat, every line is absolutely straight and parallel with other lines, which gives the carts an unnaturally sterile look. The smaller details aren’t represented either.

The MDF absorbs the paint better (even after multiple layers), therefore slightly diluted paints work better on it.

It’s difficult to give a verdict: I enjoyed working with the MDF carts more, but I prefer the way the plastic one looks. These are two completely different approaches, both have advantages and disadvantages and both of them are valid options.

These carts are pretty versatile: they can be featured in any ancient, or middle age scenarios or fantasy settings. I can hardly wait to use them in my games!

But something is still missing, right? Hopefully for not too long!