Portable Parthians

 

I have, perhaps unwisely, started another army. I have a gap for a lightweight ancient army that I can carry on the train to distant tournaments such as Britcon and Godendag or Glasgow. These are the horses from the Gripping Beast Cataphract set combined with (mostly) riders from the super Aventine Miniatures range. I'm experimenting with basecoats; a couple have gold and chrome primers, above.

Below, for a bit of a laugh, I'm trying the "nail varnish" metallic shades from my ScaleColour 75 boxes; paints I have never previously used, and, frankly, never expected to ever use.  They are really odd, but I have a feeling that they might just work. If they do work, there are some other even bolder colours I might try later on, some pinks and a green... it might become a very flamboyant army!

Racking II and prepping

It has been on the hot side for painting, so I've either been writing TtS! army lists (for the July-Ancients  and August-Medieval releases), racking the BigRedBatCave or prepping minis. 

Above is the main area of the cellar, now racked along one side with six 90cm wide storage racks. There is potentially room on the other side for some more- perhaps three or four. That is pretty much the last storage space I can generate in this house. Once that's full, I'll have to start selling stuff in order to fit new things in. And I still have a ton of boxes in the loft that I need to move down into the remaining spaces, perhaps enough to fill them.

Below are some minis which will become Parthian cataphracts. My plan is to use (mostly) Aventine miniature riders on plastic Gripping Beast steeds, alongside some of the GB riders from the new Parthian set. The advantage of using the plastic Nisean chargers is that the army will be light to transport, so I can use it at tournaments like Britcon or Godendag to which I travel by train. I will spray paint these in metallics (per the two test figures on the left, Gold-fingerrrr) and then paint the non-metallic areas and ink wash. Sounds simple- probably an awful lot of work in it, for which reason this army may not be ready in time.

By the way, I just booked my tickets for the To the Strongest! tournament at Britcon in Nottingham in August- it's a great show, and I really like Nottingham, too. I hope to see some of you there!

Racking

Above, today I've been racking the BigRedBatCave. The main cave is around 30' long by 6' high and should take a good few minis, although, I fear, by no means all of them. It should enable me to reduce the number of minis in the house, somewhat, to the relief of my beleaguered family.

I'm also working on a new project, of Teutonic bent. Here are some new standard bearers; mostly Foundry, some Black Tree. Later they will be joined by some Victrix. I'm trying to build in a lot of variety in the standards, and as many horns as I can find.