Later Thracians

I'm planning a very large Successor To the Strongest! game for Salute, and as such I need several more units of light horse of various nationalities. This unit is my first of Thracians, distinguished as such by their characteristic helmets, long boots and flowing cloaks. I didn't want early Thracians, with the soft caps, but rather later ones suitable for Lysimachus' army at Ipsus.

All of the riders are Wargames Foundry or Aventine Miniatures. Many are converted with heads from bought from Aventine, and all ride lovely Aventine horses. I added flowing cloaks to any minis that lacked them, which I think gives a real sense of movement. They were all painted by Shaun McTague - he did a fine job- and I highlighted and based them around 6 months ago- I only just got around to finishing them though.

I chose to depict them, skirmishing, in a Cantabrian circle.

In other news... if anyone was waiting for Geek Villain mats, I have them stock again.  I've also bought in a lot of cloth mats with a 7.5cm grid for people wanting to play TtS! with smaller 6mm or 2mm minis, or other games such as with Mark Backhouse's Strength and Honour. You can find the mats here. Finally, I'm back on editing the Renaissance rules, which are moving forward again, albeit at a glacial rate. I'm not yet ready for playtesting, but I'll keep you posted.

Niccolò da Tolentino

This is Niccolò da Tolentino, commander of the Florentine coalition at the Battle of San Romano. He was painted by the very talented Redzed (Shaun Watson), some time ago. All the photos are clickable.

He's accompanied by a unit of Florentine knights painted by Shaun McTague and myself. Aside from Niccolò himself, the knights are mostly Perry plastics, lightly converted with beautiful high feather headdresses from Mirliton in Italy. I've given many of them giornea tunics. I've tried to get close to the famous "Rout of San Romano" painting. 

I bases on my trusty FK&P6's, Ian Notter flocked and I tufted. The unit is 18 strong, that's how I do all my mounted units, these days. I plan a full Florentine army with lots of militia types.

Here's Niccolò from a different angle, from which you can make out part of the magnificent standard that Pete of Pete's Flags has designed. It's huge and stunning. The red flag in the previous image is also by Pete- Orsini, if I recall correctly, hence the bear.

In other news, it is the final day of my To the Strongest! Flash Sale today (Friday). I've added some new items and further reduced the price of some other items, some of the stuff is 30-50% off. You can find them here.

Here's a clickable version of the full-unit shot.

Flash TtS! Early Summer Sale

I've put a bunch of To the Strongest! products on sale for the next few days.  

There are rule books, chits,  bases, magnetic sheets, terrain pieces and tokens on sale.

Discounts vary from a modest 10% to a mighty 50%. Get them while they are hot- sale must end on Friday!  

In other news, I'm currently working on a TtS! scenario for the battle of Ceresole 1544, and (re)painting another regiment of ECW horse, some minis shown below. These will become a Royalist regiment, probably Prince Maurice's, who were at Roundway Down. Maurice's had red cornets so I'm giving them matching red sashes.