Numidian Horse III

I thought people might be interested to read how I paint horses.

Essentially, I paint them with acrylics as described in the previous post, then lighly varnish them to protect the paint.  Over the varnish I paint a mixture of oil paints (brown and Paynes's grey) and Linseed oil.  I then selectively rub this off with the little foam sqaures that come as packing with miniatures; I have plenty of them!  This is similar to the method described in the Foundry Painting and Modelling Guide, except I do more painting of detail up front, and use acrylics rather than enamels.

The oil paint settles into the lower areas of the horses.  It takes a week or so for the linseed to evaporate.

When thoroughly dry, I'll return to the horses to add white socks, on some, and paint in the metal bits.

The observant will note that quite a few of my Numidian horses have bridles; this is because I have rather more riders than horses, and had to steal a bunch of Native American horses.  Bridles and feathers aside, they look great!

Above are the riders, primed red.  The figures are a mix of Foundry, Crusader, A&A, Gripping Beast, a Renegade mahout and a couple of Foundry Greeks.  It is safe to say that I am scraping the bottom of the barrel of suitable miniatures in my lead pile.  The pins on which they are currently impaled, will eventually be cut done to 2mm length, and located in the holes on the backs of the horses; the shields will be added at the very end.

Operation Zama- The legions are massing!

We've been making steady progress with the painting of the Romans and Italian allies for our Command and Colors Zama game at Bletchley and Salute in April 2010.

Keith at Aventine http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/ has been a staunch supporter of the Zama Project, and is painting two legions of their miniatures (216 minis).  Above, the first legion is completed aside from the 32 Velites (all pictures are clickable). 

Another shot of Keith's Italians; the  allied cavalry, with LBMS designs, look particularly fine!

These Principes have been painted by Craig Davey, who has volunteered to base one of the remaining 2 legions; like me, he has finished 2 units.

Finally, above are the Aventine Legionaries I painted in the summer, before I became lost in the plains and deserts of Numidia. I have planned time to paint the remaining 5 units early next year.

A particular thanks to Keith, who recently and kindly rebased his miniatures to match mine!  I'm really please with the way all the units match because of the shield transfers, red tunics and common basing style.

Numidian Horse II

A quick in-progress shot of these, after the 3rd painting session, blocking in the colours. 

I'm trying a different technique on these, compared to my last batch.  This time I want the horses' legs to be almost black, so I've painted them a mix of black and tan.  Once I have painted the horses eyes in (a dark brown), and retouched the bay colour, I'm going to hit these with an oil paint/linseed wash...

Here's a brief extract from my eldest's cartoon log of the old-school AD&D dungeon adventure I've been running.  The observant may note that the party has swelled in size with the addition of a druid (played by youngest son) and his badger.  The badger has proved a more capable fighter than several of the other party members...  We don't have a badger model; Harry appears to have drawn the giant rat that we use in his place, but tail-less !

This week the party entered a throne room, but decided discretion was the better part of valour when they found that they faced with a fiery-eyed lich, casting fire magics.  A minority of the party wanted to return to reason with the lich... this led to much soiling of pants and a very rapid retreat.

A later encounter with a faerie led to an enjoyable riddling contest, through which the party ultimately won a magic, talking stave.

"Earth born sword I stab the sky, but bow down low for passersby.  So what am I?"

Masinissa's Numidian horse

These are the second half of my Numidian light horse for Zama; this week I have prepped 21 minis to go with 9 that I bought already part-painted.  Most of the horses are going to be bays, with black lower legs and some sock.  The dead horses at the front are Crusader eBob mounts.  These were spare because I find them a tad too long in the leg compared to most of the Foundry horses I've used, but the slim, bendable legs makes them great casualty figures.  I'm planning to do a basic paint job in acrylics, and them add some arty oil washes over the top.

9 of the minis have been painted or partially painted by Alec at BillyBonesWorkshop.  I really like what he's done with the skin tones, and will try to copy them on the riders I will be painting.

I'm getting tight for time; going to have to move fast with these!  When they are all complete, I'll be able to field 66 Numidian light horse, a good proportion of what we need.

Beat-Pot Aelwrin

Beatpot Aelwrin led a slave revolt against the Lunar Empire.  He gained his name from his use of kitchen implements as weapons (his cauldron helmet and a cleaver which you can't unfortunately see in this photograph).  He was later converted to the Lunar Way by Jar-eel the Razoress. 

Conversions from Foundry miniatures.

Gunda the Guilty

Gunda the Gunda the Guilty is the daughter of a valkyrie who was conquered and raped by a cruel philosopher. When she was 12 she claimed by combat her first pack of wolf-pirates. She escaped is a close friend of Harrek (the chap with the polar bear skin).  IIRC her magical spear means that she absorbs the guilt of anyone she kills with it.

Lance and Laser model; Foundry viking companions.  I use her as a hero, in HoTT terms.

The Eye's have it

I've completed finishing and basing the second unit of Carthaginian Levy (above), these are minis mass-painted by Greg, and detailed and based by myself.  This time I spent an extra 15 minutes on painting in the eyes.

After listening to the comments on the previous unit, I decided to go with as small a white dot as I could manage, and then to apply a dark ink in the eye socket and up to the brim of the helmet.  The left element (above) is from the new unit; the right is from the the original.  I'm pleased with the effect when viewed from a distance.  I feel that the "new" eyes are quite effective, from a distance; so I gave the unit an appropriate stantard!

I'm going to leave the remaining Numidian foot until reinforcements arrive from Paris, and sort the cavalry.  The above 24 minis will roughly double the size of my Numidian horse.  I was lucky enough to purchase 9 part-painted on eBay which has given me a head start!

Shaker Temple Quakebeasts

These are the quakebeasts of the Earth Shakers, shown yesterday.  When they beat their tails on the ground, the earth trembles!

The riders are converted Tin Soldier Scythians (a nice and somewhat overlooked range), and the beasts themselves are from Schleich.  The bulk of the Tarsh Exile soldiery are provided by my Pictish army, which I'll show another time.

Cannibal High Priestess of the Shaker Cult

Here is the gigantic high priestess of the bloody Maran Gor Shaker Cult travels in her processional wagon, drawn by six blind cave oxen and escorted by her virgin cannibal cultists.

The Shakers make the barren ground around their temple fertile, by ploughing the corpses of victims into the soil.  They defend their realm by summoning massive earthquakes, and eat parts of their captives to gain their magics. 

All the pictures are clickable.

The model is based on http://www.celtic-webs.com/theunspokenword/books/wf.html

I built the wagon from the bitzbox and greenstuff.  The oxen are converted from Front Rank.  The chains are silver (strictly should be copper, the cult metal of earth religions).  The queen herself is very heavily converted from a Reaper Rat King model. 

At one stage, my son Jack dropped the completed but unpainted model; did I swear?  Yes I did!

The cultist miniatures are converted from Foundry, Citadel, Shadowforge and Gripping Beast. They were superbly painted for me by Nick Speller; the colours he chose are especially effective!

Tomorrow- the Shaker quakebeasts.

Harrek the Berserk

Harrek in Gloranthan terms is a superhero; the equivalent of JarEel from the earlier post.  His sentient polar bear-skin cloak is the skin of a god.  I depicted Harrek in the act of bursting through a Lunar Phalanx. 

The mini is Lance and Laser.  He has seen a lot of use; in HoTT terms I used him as a Paladin because of his magic resistance, alongside Prince Argrath and Gunda the Guilty (and supported by 5 Riders and a flyer).  The three hero line up proved very effective and helped me win at Berkeley in'05.

Pimp my Dinosaur

This is Hugg'e Brrr, a Trachodon mage from Dragon Pass.

In Glorantha the different types of dinosaur have different qualities.  The Trachodons, in particular, are highly magical, so this is, surprisingly, a HoTT Magician element.  Hugg'e was thrown together one night whilst I was watching Starsky and Hutch, hence his unusual name and pimp chic.  The miniature is a lightly converted Copplestone dinosaur.

Sir Ethilrist

In the Dragon Pass Game, the dapper and puissant Sir Ethilrist is the leader of the fabled Black Horse Troop, and once looted Hell.  My model has him riding the legendary Hell Hound that he brought back with him. 

This model was very easy to make; my mate Ian found a prepainted Hell Hound, that needed a minimum of work, and Sir Ethilrist is a nice old GW knight from the bits box.  Needs a pennant.

When I get back to Gloranthan gaming, I'll need to model the black horse troop.  These guys ride on demonic (vaguely draconic) steeds, has to be a suitable model out there, somewhere...

First of the Carthaginians

This is the first of 4 units of Carthaginian levy infantry for the Zama Project.  These boys, along with the Thureophoroi, will form the 1.6m long Carthaginian second line.

These were generously painted by Greg Privat, and retouched (after unfortunately experiencing a good kicking during the crossing) and based by me .

As an experiment I didn't paint the eyes in on this unit.  I'd welcome opinions as to whether they would be better with eyes very lightly dotted in, similar to the Numidians, below.

Werewolves; Gloranthan style

This unit represents the Telmori tribe of Dragon Pass, bursting from concealment in a forest (the picture is clickable).   There are a full tribe of these, and they are invariably allied to Sartar.  Each Telmori is twinned with a wolf brother, and many Telmori are cursed with the ability to magically transform themselves into wolves.  The magic of the Telmori, like that of the Lunars, is cyclical and they are at their strongest during the full moon.  They only use stone weapons.

The big wolves are lovely old Grenadier critters, and the Telmori themselves mostly Black Tree or Foundry Picts.  The fully-transformed Temlori is an old TSR Ravenloft mini.

I'm really proud of this unit; I am ashamed to say they've only been on the table once, at Salute in '06, and this is the first time I've got around to photographing them.

Storm Walkers

These are sky-clad flying Runepriests and WindLords of Orlanth, and a Sylph, from my Gloranthan armies.

Foundry minis, and a lovely old Citadel elemental.  Click for tattoos!

Looking at these, I find myself thinking how good they would look as a larger unit.  Much of my Glorantha stuff was done as single elements for HoTT, but these days I like units with bigger footprints and may return to expand them at some stage.

Very Very Heavy Cavalry

Dinosaurs ridden by Dragonewts

Triceratops family

Brontosaur with Sartarite crewman

These are a few shots of some of the dinosaurs from my Gloranthan Collection, which last saw action at Salute in 2006 with Greg's Dwarf Mine terrain.  The top two are Schleich, many of whose dinosaurs are very convertable to 28mm gaming (see also my Triceratops on the Glorantha thread).

I keep finding old models I forget I even made; perhaps the War of the Ring rules will help me to get them onto the table, soon...

Newer Numidians

Here is the latest unit of my burgeoning Numidian army.  This is one of two projected units of Numidian "Auxilia"; troops in a slightly denser formation than the previous light infantry.

14 of the 18 minis were painted by Greg and retouched by me, I painted the other four.  The minis are a mixture of Foundry, A&A and Crusader (the eagle-eyed will spot that a couple of Foundry Spartans and Greeks have crept in; the Greeks were nekkid so I gave them greenstuff robes). 

I've now finished 68 of the 200-ish Numidian/Carthaginian foot.  I'm managing about 30 a week, so there must be at least another month's retouching/basing to go...

War of the Rune

These are pictures of a game we played last week, using my Spartans and Assyrians as Lunar Empire surrogates, to clash with Ian Notter's Praxian Sable and Bison clans.  All the pics are clickable.

 Praxians on the left; Lunars force marching forward on the right.

Massed Bison Rider clan

Pesky Sable Clan, with their nasty bows

My one success was managing to catch the stationary Bisons with my Phalanx

We used GW's War of the Ring rules.  I'm cautiously impressed with the old school nature of these; massive units, buckets of dice.  Not rules to be taken especially seriously, but the potential for a fun game there; the huge units looked damn good, too.

The outcome?  I had some success against the Bison clan, but the Sables shot me to pieces during the approach.

Euglyptus the Fat and Fazzur Wideread

In this Gloranthan HoTT element, Fazzur Wideread,  the veteran Lunar general, is remonstrating with his superior, Euglyptus the Fat, during the Battle of Building Wall.  Due to Euglyptus' incompetance the Lunars went on to be soundly defeated; I rather regret not adding the barrel of eels in which Fazzur subsequently drowned him! 

I am pleased with the Euglyptus conversion, which is from a GW 40K scribe.  Some figures I actually painted myself, for once!  Not something you see every day.

Baboon Troop

This is one of my old Gloranthan units, the Baboon Troop.  They are one of the smaller tribes that roam the plaines of Prax.  

It is composed of the old Citadel 25mm baboons.  I'd really like to redo it sometime, with the newer, larger Lance and Laser baboons...

A few Spartans more...

Thanks for all the visits yesterday! 

Today I'm posting the balance of my Spartan army.  Together with the Tegeans, cavalry and peltasts (shown in earlier posts), I suppose that I have roughly 200 miniatures, the majority of which are Foundry WotGs, superbly painted by Nick Speller.  All the pictures are clickable.

Phalanx 1

Phalanx 2

Ekdromoi (younger Spartans trained to run out of the phalanx to catch enemy peltasts)

Ekdromoi detail

Allied Hoplites (some painted by Andy Bryant, and some by myself)

So what I need, next, is time enough to paint a similar size Theban (or Athenian) army for them to fight.  Ideally I also need a manufacturer of larger 28mm minis to conveniently produce a range of hoplites in Peloponnesian War helmets, such as Pilos and Thracian, to flesh this hypothetical opposing army out!  Ideally with vertical spears, because the figures in the attacking poses are so hard to rank...

Aventine and Empire Models Elephant Size Comparison

Mithridates on TMP was asking how the Aventine http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/ and Empire elephants compare sizewise. 

Accordingly, I've bluetacked the Aventine Royal elephant together, sans trunk and tusks.  It is supposed to be rearing, but I've put all 4 feet on the ground for comparison purposes; it is the unpainted model at the front.

From the above view, you'll see that they are both pretty well the same size to the shoulder; roughly 53mm.

The build of the two elephants torsoes is not dissimilar.  The legs and feet are similar sizes.  The Empire body is rather longer, at 58mm to the Aventine's 49mm.

The big difference between the two is in the heads.  The volume of the Empire head is perhaps twice that of the Aventine, largely because is is very much broader, with a bigger forehead and eyes set wider (perhaps rather too wide) apart.  The elephant has a very large helmet and crest on the beast.  I prefer the smaller Aventine head, but can live with the bigger head on the Empire model because it is such an imposing beast overall, with excellently depicted armour.

Broadly speaking, the two elephants would work well together.  I'll be adding Aventine elephants to my Seleucid elephant corp as soon as they can sculpt them, and I can get around to painting them!

30 Spartans!

Mercenary peltasts

Spartan Cavalry

These are older minis from my collection, which I'm gradually photographing for t'blog. They were painted for me around 3 years ago by Nick Speller, and are the principle support troops for my Spartan army, which I hope to photograph en-masse, soon.

All the minis are Foundry World of the Greeks. Nick did a great job on them!