Showing posts with label Miscellenia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellenia. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Wargames Drought Continues

I have been worked far too hard by my employers, and fear that it is now rather more than 3 months since my last wargame...   However I have had time for modelling and have bought more than a few minis (especially Napoleonics), and painted quite a few too.

I have been very taken by some pics that Keith at Aventine sent me this evening; really great-looking Praetorians; I'll be having some of these!  I've nicked a picture off their site, below.  Lovely minis, and the officers are even better. They are in the shop, here.


Normal service on this Blog will be resumed in due course...

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

Ancient Warfare


As I was about to put the final brushstrokes on my final 18 marines, I was very amused when Ancient Warfare Magazine arrived this evening, with this on the cover.  This chap is the spitting image of some of the figures I have on the table!

If you don't already subscribe, I'd really recommend this publication; it is an outstanding read, and there are always some pictures of McBride-quality.  The research is of academic standards.  You can subscribe, here...http://www.ancient-warfare.com/cms/issues/ancient-warfare-v-5.html

Monday, 29 August 2011

Statue


I was sorting through some old fantasy models recently and came across this; I gave it a quick repaint and will use it in an ancients game, soon, perhaps in a town.  The model on the top is the Salute Hannibal from 2004, and the plinth is scratchbuilt.  Could do with some lettering on it, really, and some distressing.  

I'd really like some roadside tombs, as well.  If anyone can suggest a source for any in resin or metal (aside from the Monolith ones), please drop me a line.

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Happy Easter, one and all!

A very happy Easter to all my readers and fellow bloggers!

The weather in the UK has been fantastic; I painted outside until 7, yesterday evening.  The old climbing frame in the background, looks a bit like one of Paul Darnell's forts!   The lilac is in bloom and looks fantastic.  Today (Saturday) the weather is even better, I can't recall ever having  experience such a run of beautiful weather in April.
 

On the painting table are the 6 part-painted Huns I mentioned recently and 4 previously-painted Huns, for style comparison purposes.  The old Huns are pretty scruffy by my standards, tatty sculpts with average eBay paintjobs.  However I think I can make the bases look good, so hopefully one won't notice the minis, too much.  And they are scruffy Huns, anyhow, lather lacking in sartorial elegance! There are also 7 Roman command figures that I seem to have developed "painter's block" over.

Friday, 22 April 2011

The Gallipoli game at Salute 2011

This was one of the most impressive layouts I've seen, and my photos (taken on my phone) don't nearly do it justice.  What got me was the 3 dimensional quality of it; it looked like it had been carved from a massive block of foam.  It turned out it HAD  been carved from a massive block of foam!  It rose 2-3 feet from the sea at the front, up into the hills at the rear.  I chatted with the designer and manufacturer, from Grand Manner (curses have forgotten his name), and he explained that he had based it on topographical maps of the area.


Aside from the mass of it, the detailing was great (figures too).  I could make out the strata in the stone in the side of the cliff.  Top job!


I was daunted by the quality of it, could never produce something like that myself.  I didn't hear if it won an award, it certainly should have. There are some very much better pics of it here.

Wednesday, 20 April 2011

I'm back!

I've not posted for a week or so after a break in Paris and Salute.
Gloarmy Greg and his wife stayed here over Salute,  which was great, and it was also a lot of fun meeting some of my fellow bloggers in the flesh at the show, including (but not limited to) Iron Mitten, Saxon Dog and Andres of Einar Olafson Painting.  I chatted with James Morris about his beautiful Ethiopian set up.  Also met Nick Speller and gave him some more stuff to paint for me, and Paul Darnell who delivered a pretty piece of terrain which I'll photograph later.   Saw local boy George Moraitis.  Also met lots of others (apologies if I missed you)!  I helped Greg with his very pretty Memoir '14 game, but not nearly as much as I should have (sorry Greg).

Of the games I saw, my overall favourite piece was the Gallipoli terrain, which was simply the finest bit of terrain modelling I've ever seen. Astounding!   Saxon Dog/Paul Darnell's game and Ethiopia were very impressive, too.

I didn't spend much money, except on a copy of the Hail Caesar, rules which are presently giving me an unfortunate sense of deja vue, as they rather remind me of Warmaster, which I never took to.  Except they includes recipes for cooking milk-fattened nails, which Warmaster certainly didn't.  I have a serious hunch I may regret the purchase of the rules... but I suppose I might give the snails a go.

I finally finished basing the Late Romans tonight; photos to follow, tomorrow I hope!

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

200 Followers!

Welcome to everyone who has signed up as a follower, and a particular welcome to "The Man Cave", who is number 200! 

I've run out of catapults for the moment, but include a picture here that I've shamlessly nicked from the net, of the ballista I'd like to build next.  Well, like this one, but a bit bigger.


Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Mystery Solved

I came across my 30 missing BTD cavalry, tonight, hidden in the back of a box.  Embarrassingly, the command figures I thought BTD had failed to send me in September were with them, so I've bunged BTD an apology, and an order for another 21 cavalry which should give me plenty to be going on with...

Tonight I played a second game of Command and Colors Napoleonics, which was even more enjoyable than the first.  We played the second Rolica scenario, which has just about the roughest terrain I've ever seen in a C&C game.  I managed to win, playing the heavily outnumbered French, which was very pleasing!  Some lucky rolling was involved... top game. 

Wednesday, 5 January 2011

Theme for 2011- Early Imperial Rome

I've given some more though to what I'm going to paint this year, after the French Indo China, Ancient Germans/Laager and Marian Romans that I've previously mentioned as Q1 objectives.  I've decided to concentrate on Early Imperial Romans, because:-

  • I have a lot of EIR units part painted, that I should be able to finish relatively quickly
  • I also have a huge amount of unpainted EIR lead so it will save me money
  • I really like EIRs and want to run a campaign; my favourite Roman text is Tacitus' Histories
  • They would look great for a big display game, in 2012
But will I be able to stick to my plan?

Sunday, 2 January 2011

New Year's Honours

I just heard that this blog won the Figureblogotheque English Language Best Blog of the Year award for 2010, and would like to thank all those who voted for it!  Merci beaucoup!  I'm delighted to have won it.  

If you don't know FiggyBloggy (my affectionate nickname for it) it is a blog roll of wargaming blogs, which is run by my good friend Greg Privat, in France.   I visit it, from time to time, to see what new wargaming blogs are out there; it is particularly good for foreign language blogs.  A good portion of the traffic to this blog comes frome there, and if you have a blog it is a pretty good idea to list it there.

What a nice start to the New Year!

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

On the Painting Table for Q1 2011

I’ve been planning what to do in the first quarter of the year, up to Salute.   After Salute, I hope to collaborate on a very big project for Salute 2012, which will take up much of my time.

Mini Marian Legion: I bought 30-odd painted minis on eBay, and Nick is going to paint up another 40-50, which will give me the 80 minis I need for another 80-man mini legion of 10 x 8 man cohorts.  This is the representative scale we used for the game with Simon MacDowell, and if I can get 7 or 8 such legions finished (and hopefully get friends like Nick and Dr Simon to muster  a couple more), then I could run a tidy little campaign using Simon’s rules to fight the battles.

Wagon Laager: This was a project that I started in January 2009, and which has been “resting” since then.  I need to finish prepping the 50-odd figures that will “man” the laager and send them off to Nick, who is superb at painting Celts and Germans.   I’ll then paint the wagons and base the minis into them.  I’ve not seen a big wagon laager in 28mm so this will hopefully be fairly unique. 

Indo China: I’m very keen to finish the above weapons company, which will give me a complete Viet Minh battalion, together with another company or two of French, and the rules I’m trying to write.  After this I’ve loads of tanks, trucks, guns and half tracks to do...  I like the 20mm stuff as one can fit a little bit of modelling into the odd spare half-hour.

Odds and Ends: I need to varnish and base the Germans on my painting table, and the EIR cavalry. Frustratingly, I realised last night that I’ve only painted 9 EIR cavalry, and need to paint 3 more command figures.  Still the 9 are coming on nicely.  They are actually really nice minis... some of the BTD stuff is really OK.

So that's me sorted for Q1 2011!  Plenty to do... I wonder whether I’ll be able to stick with my plan? 

Saturday, 25 December 2010

Merry Xmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a Happy New Year!

I hope that you, and your family enjoy a fabulous Christmas and that everyone has received lots of lovely new toys!

Oddly, the advent of Christmas has started me obsessing about  painting some more Early Imperial Romans.   Must be something to do with all the Nativity stories.  ;-)

Cheers, Simon

Monday, 25 October 2010

Another hobby

My eldest has got a place to read Ancient History at Kings College.  As part of this he will be learning Latin, and this made me nostalgic for the period form 1974-1976 when I did GCSE Latin (my efforts were ultimately blessed with an A!)

The same course I studied (Cambridge Latin), is still in use, and I bought the updated version of the books I used to use way back, when.  I have been thrilling to the old phrases, such as "Caecilius est pater", "Metella est mater" and "Cerberus est canem".


I've been making good progress and am now on book 4; my ultimate ambition is to be able to read the great Latin classics in their original language, such as:

Monday, 11 October 2010

Red Letter Day

I received a package today from Mike of Relic Miniatures in the USA, with some of his lovely generals (Military Man, and the Gallic chief).  I'm very excited by these models, and Mike has very kindly sent some more samples of his Tarentines and some very nice foot figures, too.  I promise I will take photos over the next few days. 

I also received some pics from Keith at Aventine of their own new Tarantines, which look fantastic; I've placed an order, and also ordered some of their new Spartacus range, too (mostly the cavalry). If you've not seen this latter range it is well worth a look as they are on the same Copplestone dollies as the Companion range.

It is amazing; a man waits 20 years for sone nice Tarantines, and then 2 great ranges come along at once.  ;-)

And finally, as icing on the cake my BTD Roman cavalry arrived; a complete order and within 4 weeks of placing it, which is a personal best for them.  Nice minis too.  I'll be back for more.

So excited have I been by the recent plunk of lead on hallway floor, that I placed an order in the Foundry 20% off sale, to celebrate!

Friday, 8 October 2010

Marlburian Digression

Tonight Ray Lucas kindly invited self and local gamer Nigel along for a 10mm scale Marlburian game.  I grabbed a couple of snaps of the splendid battlefield (but regret not having used a flash).  I was the Imperialists, defending some villages and a stream (foreground), whilst  French  General Nigel was busily outflanking me on my right.  We didn't get all that far, but it is safe to say I was fretting about my exposed wing.

I told Ray that I loved the way the minis were mounted in 6's on 20x20 bases, and that what he really needed was a big 5" hex mat to put them on!  He looked at me like I was a heretic. But I think those battalions would work superbly on some sort of grid using stripped down rule system and card activation.  Made me wish I owned a couple of armies myself, to experiment with.  I shall have to get him down for a C&C game....

Ray's Corporal John Marlburian rules are available on his website.

Thursday, 23 September 2010

A Little Camp

These are the tents for a 15mm-scale camp I'm making for my mate Ian as a slightly belated birthday present.


It'll consist of 9 Baeuda tents and a small guard, and will match some pallisades I made last year.

I thing these are smashing little products.  I hope that Baeuda make the praetorian tent to go this their 28mm equivalents, 'cos I want one!

Monday, 20 September 2010

I've not gone away...

... just busy.

At the moment I'm repainting 9 celtic cavalry, because my celts are becoming outnumbered by my expanding Roman armies.  I'm also working on a 15mm camp as a belated Birthday present for Ian, and renovating half an ala of Roman cavalry that I have never been entirely happy with, because I feel the GB riders are a tad too small....  photos to follow in a day or two.

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Shots of Greek Countryside

Whilst on holiday I decided to take some pictures of the Greek countryside, which might be useful to people modelling terrain.  We were staying in Lefkas, which is an island on the west coast of Greece, near Corfu.  I was extremely surprised by the sheer number of trees; also by the presence of many coniferous trees, which I'd not expected to see this far south. 

Firstly a couple of shorts of olive trees; more than 50% of the trees I saw were olives.  They have a silvery hue to their leaves and were, in general, a paler green than other trees around them.


The above orchard included some low, spongy-looking bushes.  Note how many scrubby trees there are on the very steep slopes of the hill in the background!


This olive orchard was only 200 yards form the other, but had rather greener undergrowth.


This shot shows mixed woodland, with olives in the foreground.  The lovely pencil-thin trees are cypresses, and my first priority will be to source some, as they would be very useful in Italy, too.  They often appeared darker than the other trees.  I want at least 2 dozen.  I saw one solid forest of cypresses, which had no leaves at all on the lower half of their trunks due to lack of sunlight.


Some of the cypresses, above, had multiple trunks.  At least I think this is a cypress.


This shot shows more mixed vegetation; think and thicker cypresses, with a range of other, lower trees.  Note the variation in colours.  One could legitimately mix pine trees in with this, there were quite a few around the coast.


Here are shorter trees; one saw these on poor soil, slopes and high ground.  Maybe scrub oaks?


Lastly, this beautuful tree was very high up; no idea what it is but it goes to show that there was plenty of variety in the vegetation.  BTW Ground colours varied from dusty, to rich red-browns where soil had recently been dug.

I hope these are useful if anyone is thinking of modelling terrain around the coast of the Adriatic.

Monday, 6 September 2010

Ionian Interlude

During my recent hols, my family went to Lefkas, an Island off the West coast of Greece.  I was delighted to find (and go for a day cruise on) this wonderful ship, the "Odysseia", which you can see below drawn up on a beach where we swam and had a barbecue.


It isn't a true galley; although wooden throughout it has a keel and angine, and can only take one bank of oars on the deck.   It also has a bar.  However it did, very much, look the part!  It has been used in several historical dramas.  It has a shallow draft and was very easy to beach and un-beach, in much the same way as the ancient greeks must have.


On the return trip they turned off the engine and raised the sail, which carried the boat along at a good pace!

The captain, Dimitri, was a jolly soul, very much from the school of Zorba, and made it a great trip; I'd heartily recommend the experience.  The boat sails from the resort of Nidri, and the tour is very good value at e40.

Saturday, 14 August 2010

Mike's Pikes

Mike on TMP (LEGION 1950) has kindly sent me some photos of a little army he and Mary have knocked together, in Chicago.


Above is a (clickable) collage showing much of the army, which appears to be mostly Foundry.  The army is so large that I couldn't fit all the photos in the frame, and so the photos of the right wing are missing.


The phalanx is extremely imposing!  A total of 12 x 32 man units.  Quite a wall of lead... I like the impact of all the lowered pikes, although all my own will be vertical for storage reasons.


I gather that there are 96 Companion cavalry, alone!


This looks like Alexander, to me.

There must be around 800 miniatures in the army, in total, and from what I can see they are almost all Foundry; by far the largest Macedonian army I've seen.  Very impressive.