Showing posts with label Celtathon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celtathon. Show all posts

Friday, 19 July 2019

Gallic Horse


Here are some photos of my extended and re-based Gallic horse. These are, strictly, part of my Gallic army as seen  at Salute in April, but they weren't needed for the Mancetter battle. Shaun McTague very kindly painted a dozen more for me, which I mixed in with the 36 I already had, to give me a generous total of 48. Each unit now consists of a whopping 16 miniatures. This gives me a broadly similar representational scale between my infantry and cavalry units. I'm gradually adding extra cavalry to bring my other armies up to the same standard.

Almost all of the minis are Wargames Foundry. I took the opportunity to "tart up" the existing figures and re-based onto my 20cm grid-half bases, which fit together to make a unit 19cm wide by 13cm deep for the 20cm grid. The photos don't do them justice.  :-(


These are half the heavy cavalry that I require for my 2020 To the Strongest! Salute game. The other half will be "Romanised" Gallic horse- semi-uniformed types, proto auxiliaries, in fact.

I've been basing a lot of other great stuff- I hope to post some more photos, next week!

Wednesday, 13 March 2019

Celtathon V


I've been posting less, of late, on account of all the basing I've been doing for my Mancetter 61CE Salute game. 

Above are the warbands for the game. The sharp-eyed will observe that five bases are still "blank" - I have just completed the 175 required minis but not yet based them. 


Here's a closeup. Each warband consists of around 36 minis (so there will be 650 in all). The minis are a mixture of all the larger Celtic ranges, particularly Renegade, Black Tree, A&A and Foundry. Many are conversions. Most were painted by Shaun McTague or Nick Speller, with some by Shaun Watson. I did some snagging and many of the shields. The bases are grouted and primed and, in a few cases, partially flocked. There's a heck of a lot of flocking to be done...


Here is a closeup of many of the blank bases. Each unit has two- a TtS!20F and a TtS!20G that fits across the back and can be angled or turned about to indicate disorder. You'll see I've chamferred the edges to give them a nice low profile, fitted magnets into the holes and primed them in an earth shade.

The slingers are mostly done, too, and you can see them here. The laager and the chariots are all complete. All in all, there should be around 900 Britons on the table, and perhaps 600 Romans. In the finest traditions of Salute, the glue will still be drying on the road to Excel!

If you are coming to Salute and would like to play in one of the two games (10AM and 2PM), please drop me an email at the address above left, and I will book you in. I also have a couple of free tickets that I can give to people familiar with TtS! who can play/help to run the games. I hope to see lots of you there! I won't be selling at Salute but if you'd like to buy anything from the BigRedBatshop now, and collect at Salute, that's fine- just let me know and I will refund your postage.

Tuesday, 19 February 2019

Larger laager


Not the best photo, but this is finished. This gives me four foot of wagon laager for my Salute Mancetter battle. I'd like eight foot, but four will have to do for now! You can see the rest of the laager, which was painted in 2015, here.

Sunday, 17 February 2019

Celtathon IV


I've made good headway this week with the Mancetter 61 CE project, for Salute. I now have 70% of the required minis on the new-style bases. The main outstanding requirement is for three more trays-worth of the warbands (above, front). I have 2/3 of the 310 required minis painted and Shaun McTague is plugging his way through the remainder. The image above doesn't show the chariots or the wagon laager, which are largely complete. I think I am broadly on-target- although there's a heck of a lot of grouting and flocking to come! There should be rather more than 800 Celts by the time I am finished, 12' of warbands and 12' of light troops.

Below is a shot of an earlier incarnation of the Celtic army, with their Roman opponents in the distance.


I'll be running the large Mancetter "To the Strongest!" participation game at Salute. If you'd like to play in one of the two 2-hour sessions, please email me at the address (above, left) and I'll book you in.

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Celtathon III


Last night I decided to make a start on the main basing effort for Salute- the warbands. Here are the first six. These first units will be relatively quick wins because I'm re-basing my existing Celts onto larger bases- each unit will eventually have c.24 minis on the front base, and c.12 on the rear base- I've not yet put the rear rank miniatures on the base. The bases are from my 20cm set, the TtS!20F and the smaller TtS!20G that fits behind it. Since each unit will be on only two bases, they will be quick to deploy and easy to move.

The process is to slice the top layer off my current cardboard bases, carefully, with a sharp craft knife, and then stick this layer (grout and flock intact) onto the prepared bases (chamferred edges, with fitted magnets and primed).

Next I'll fill in the rear ranks and get another three units on bases. After this, the task becomes harder as I still have minis that need finishing and they are all singles. I hope that I will have enough minis to build 17 units, altogether- around 11' of frothing warriors!

Thursday, 7 February 2019

Celtathon II


I've mentioned that I'm building a huge British army for Salute. Here are the light troops, part-based - the Britons will advance up the hill, screened by a mass of raw slingers. The 45 slingers on the left have been re-based onto my BatBases for the 20cm grid, but need extra grout and flock. Last night I found myself musing that I'm re-basing some of these minis for the third time. :-/ The 45 to the right are new minis, based and recently grouted with my patent BigRedBatGunk. 

Below are the light cavalry. Eight newly-painted minis have joined 12 veterans to form two units of ten. These will be in the game but may not see much action, since the Roman wings are screened by forests. Still, they look good! :-)


Of the rest of the army, I now have roughly 530 warriors painted, with 90 more out with Shaun McTague. I'll need to get my skates on to finish, in time!

If you are coming to Salute and would like to play in the game in one of the two sessions (AM/PM), please drop me an email (the address is on the left of the page). If you are able to help me run it, please mail me- I have a couple of spare entry tickets!

Monday, 14 January 2019

Celtathon 1


I've mentioned that I'm putting together a large army of Britons for my Mancetter 61 CE game at Salute. Here are the first of (hopefully) two groups of reinforcements, fresh from the brush of Shaun McTague.

I have around 300 painted and based warband minis already, and these c.150, with 50 from my loft-box of "reserves", give me around 500 minis. My plan was to add another 100 Black Tree minis, to increase the variety of poses, but I've been waiting for these for 7 weeks and am very nervous about whether they will arrive in time for Shaun to paint them- or, indeed, at all. :-/  If anyone has any unpainted (or painted) Black Tree Celts that they are prepared to part with, please drop me a line!

Once all the minis are finished and married up with the shields that I've been working on since Christmas, I plan to re-base the entire army at 16 units on my new-style wobbly-edged bases. I don't have very much spare time, so it'll be a challenge! I also need to base around a dozen units of slingers and some light horse.