Showing posts with label Operation Zama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operation Zama. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 January 2010

Bring out yer Dead!

I've started work on the casualty figures for the Zama game.  I'm going to paint the elephants (except for the ones I've sent to friends to paint), and later, when I have enough of the infantry casualties prepped, I'll send them to Greg to paint.

Each elephant will be a bit different; the first has a victorious Aventine Italian on it:




The second is really gutted..
Below are two from Gripping Beast.


...and here are the first (of many) infantry casualties, mostly Etruscans kindly donated by Keith at Aventine, and lightly converted.

The first dead elephants (but not the GB ones) are available from Aventine, and profits will be donated to "Help for Heroes":

http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=128&osCsid=f598b15086bef29d4dd842caabf32a84


Monday, 11 January 2010

Numidians Done'n'Dusted

I've finished the bulk of my Numidians (most of which were painted by Greg) and I thought it might be interesting to run through what I have, and how I store them.

2 generals; Juba and Masinissa
96 citizen levy, troops raised from the urban centres
36 tribesmen from the hinterland
4 dead horses below:-


40 tribesmen with javelins
10 tribesmen with slings
10 tribesmen with bows
6 elephants (cohabiting with my Macedonian phalanx) below:-


66 light cavalry without bridles (mostly below):-


Other Numidian troops I need for Zama:-
2 more elephants (hopefully the Aventine Africans will be ready in time)
9 cavalry with bridles; mostly Spanish mercenaries.  Nick is painting these, and I'm really looking forward to them as they will be very distinctive.
6 more cavalry without bridles... just so that I have a round 12 units, or 4 "wings" of 3 units as I think of them.
8 elephant casualties
Sundry other casualty figures

And at some stage in the next year I will want a couple of units of Imitation Legionaries, in mixed Roman and Greek successor gear.  I'm hoping that I may be able to work it so that they can also serve as Pontic and Judean ILs.

The storage boxes (below) are the "Really Useful Boxes", which I store all my minis and terrain in.  I line them with steel paper from Coritani.  I chose them because they are fairly cheap, rugged, waterproof and because they stack neatly.  I am, unfortunately, running out of places to put additional boxes; I may have to sell some minis from armies I'm less passionate about, so that I have room to store the Roman and successor armies that I'll be painting over the next year or so.



Saturday, 9 January 2010

Carthaginian Militia Completed

These are the Carthaginian Levy miniatures that Gloarmy Greg Privat originally painted, and I've gone on to highlight and base.  There are 96 of them here; I've just finished the second 48.  Please click on the image for a better view...



They will form half of the Carthaginian second line in our Zama Project  (and represent only 7% of the total miniatures in the game!).

 

Most of the figures are Crusader, with a few Foundry mixed in for variety. Next, I have 48 Bruttians that Greg has painted to highlight and base...

Friday, 8 January 2010

Elephants' Graveyard!

Dead Nellie has arrived, with her sisters!  I designed her because I wanted a dead African elephant marker for our Zama game (n.b. there are 2 Gripping Beast resin dead elephants with howdahs, at the back of the photo, for size comparison purposes).  This thread shows the progress of the green.  As far as possible I've tried to make it look like the small African Forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) that we believe the Carthaginians utilised.  It is perhaps 40mm to the shoulder.


I'm going to use 10 Dead Nellies (and the 2 GB elephants) for our Zama game.  This is beacause I don't expect that the Carthaginian elephants will survive much more than 20 minutes into the game!  I intend to customise each one slightly, making them into little dioramas.
I'd like to offer a huge vote of thanks to Keith at Aventine, who very, very generously moulded her for me for free with the metal at cost.   As ever, Aventine's production quality is absolutely excellent; no flash and only one small vent to be trimmed away.  Aventine have said that if anyone wants one, to drop them a line and they will sell them at a modest price, with any profit on the minis going to a worthwhile charity.  If you want one, contact Keith via http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/contact.html
It's hugely exciting to see something that I have designed, cast professionally!

Sunday, 27 December 2009

Carthaginian Levy



These are the chaps I last showed on the 13th; all finished bar basing although I have run out of gloss spray varnish.  The were originally painted by Gloarmy Greg, but I've done quite a bit of work on retouching and on the shields.  Whilst they await their protective coat, I've started work on the shields for  the 48 Bruttians (Carthaginian allies from Southern Italy) Greg has painted for me who are to follow.

Saturday, 26 December 2009

Things to Do for Zama...

With Xmas out of the way, a man's mind turns to war!  We've a lot to do before April.  I'll return to this page and cross things through as they are completed.


Essential things I am doing for Zama
Base 48 Numidians
Repaint/base 32 Velites
Paint and base 20 Spanish skirmishers

Finish and base 48 Bruttians (24 done)
Base 3 more command stands
Base 9 Numidian bodyguards
Paint and decorate 8 terrain boards

Desirable things I am doing for Zama
Make, paint and decorate 2 decorative end boards
Paint 6 dead elephants (4 done)
Paint casualty minis


Things other people are completing for Zama

4 Roman legions plus cavalry (2 done)

128 Carthaginian veterans
24 Numidian cavalry
Paint 4 dead elephants
Paint 2 Numidian elephants
Make a dozen olive trees


After Zama
Paint lots of elephants
Paint a whopping great phalanx
Paint soem Etruscans and Volscians
Paint the wagon laager
Paint more Roman Auxilia
How I want some Tarantines...

It'll be a busy year!  (Updated 13/2/2010)

Sunday, 13 December 2009

When the levy breaks...

... Hannibal will need to throw in the Veterans!



These are the last 48 of the Carthaginian second line for Zama; levy citizen spearmen.  Essentially speedbumps to slow down the Roman army; we are going to make each unit fight as Auxilia, but with 2 hits instead of the more usual 4.    Gloarmy Greg painted these for me (merci!!) but most were smashed up in the post, hence the detatched shields, spears and general chipping.  :-(  On the plus side, they are recovering very nicely in the BigRedBat equivalent of Toy Hospital, and I hope to have them ready by Xmas.  So far, I've refixed all the spears, cleaned the old glue off the shield backs and started on restoring the paintwork.

The other 144 levy figures are finished (48 similar minis, 96 Thureophoroi standing in as levy). 

Saturday, 12 December 2009

Dead Nellie

I'm trying to sculpt a dead African forest elephant for our Zama project.  This is because I don't expect any of the actual elephant models in the game to survive past the first 15 minutes!   Ideally, I want a dead model to replace each live one when slain.

It is safe to say that it is an at an early stage... I feel that I have the shape very approximately right but none of the details are added, yet.  It's much smaller than most elephants we see, at roughly 40mm to the shoulder.

Friday, 4 December 2009

Masinissa's Cavalry- Completed!

Here are the 66 Numidian light cavalry, Prince Masinissa himself, and 4 horse casualties for our big Zama project.  I've just finished around half of them, and retouched the bases on the older batch to match.  The picture is clickable...




The figures are a total mish-mash; Foundry Numidians and Greeks, A&A, Gripping Beast, Crusader and Renegade, but work rather well together.  They had their first outing last night, and I'll be doing an after action review of their first battle, over the weekend.



I'm really pleased with the overall impression.  I might wack some "dust clouds" on the bases...   Next year I'll add a final 6 figures to take the number to 72.  And Nick is painting a Spanish bodyguard unit for Masinissa...

Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Zama Table II


A progress shot of the table for the April 2009 Zama Game.  The objective is to make a board 18' long by 4' deep. 

So far, I've made 9 x 9mm MDF sections, each 600mm x 1200mm.  I've glued 10mm thick styrofoam to the top, unisng NoMoreNails.  I am pleased to report that there appears to be little or no warping.  The foam is a little soft and prone to damage, but I expect that it will toughen up when I apply gloop and paint to it at a later stage.

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Plains of Zama

These are some of the components for the 18' long table I need to make for Zama.

I'm using 9mm MDF for the boards, with a 10mm thick laker of styrene to be stuck on top using No More Nails.   Later, hexes will be inscribed into the styrene.  I have another 30 or so sheets of the styrene down in the cellar. I'm designing it so that it can be used for either an 18'x4' table, or an 8'x8'.


The MDF was surprisingly heavy to carry 200 yards to my car, and when I measured it later at home, I discovered that the chap in the shop has cut it to the wrong size (604mm wide instead of 600mm; it doesn't fit the styrene), so I'm going to need to carry it back!  Grrr.  At least he didn't under cut it, I suppose.

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Numidian Cavalry ready for basing


30 yes 30 cavalry!  And I painted all but 2.  I'm going to need to leave them for a while before basing, as the linseed oil on some of the horses is still not fully dried.


My Aventine reinforcements have arrived.  The left two columns are my two new Pyrrhic nellies, and a selection of spare parts that Keith has sent me which I'll use for conversions... more anon.  I appear to have enough crew for 5 elephants!  The centre two columns are reinforcements for Zama, and on the right are a host of beautiful transfers from LBMS.

Monday, 16 November 2009

More Noobidoobians


I painted 7 of these, to match two I bought ready painted on eBay.  The bases will all need to come off, as I will be multibasing.  I'll try to salvage as much of the terrain as possible, as it is well done.  I've not painted most of the javelin heads as I intend to do this later after matt varnishing (I bought out Antenociti's entire stock of Testors last week!).

Next I have to mount the 21 other Numidians on their horses, and do some snagging.  I should be able to start basing the whole lot later this week.  Huzzah!  With a bit of luck I should have them finished in around a week, so I can get back to the final 4 regiments of Numidian foot that need finishing and basing.  It'll all be over by Xmas.

Saturday, 14 November 2009

Almost the last of the Numidians...



Greg has finished the last couple of dozen Numidians, which look great! I asked him to do these a little lighter in skintone as I wanted some with lighter skins within the unit.

Here's a link to Greg's Blog. I highly recommend it; worth visiting for the Zombie Hampster, alone!

http://gloarmy.blogspot.com/2009/11/pour-simon.html

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Always look on the bright side of life...


These are the completed Numidian riders for 21 of the horses in the earlier pic. They rather remind me of a notorious scene in a Monty Python film. 

I now just have 6 or 7 horses and riders left to paint....

Zama Bruttians

Mon ami Greg has painted Hannibal's Bruttian veterans for the third line at Zama.  Bruttium is a region in the toe of Italy that allied with Hannibal, and many of the Bruttian veterans accompanied him when his army was recalled to Africa to fight Scipio.  These will form the three units on the right of the rear line at the SOA battle day http://www.soa.org.uk/, and at Salute 2010.



(Photo shamelessly nicked from Greg's website).  The minis are a mix of Crusader Oscans and Aventine Etruscans (the ones in the Italo-Corinthian helmets).  I'll do shields and spears when the minis arrive here, later this year.

Greg's website is below; always worth a visit!  I hear rumours that he is working on a large, secret project...

http://gloarmy.blogspot.com/

Thursday, 5 November 2009

... and here are some that I prepared earlier.



The 30 Numidians I'm working on at the moment are taking forever to paint, so in the meanwhile I thought I'd show the wing of 36 Numidian cavalry I painted last year (the pic is clickable).  These are just painted to a good tabletop standard; I'm more concerned with getting an impression of mass, than a perfect paint job.


The closeup above shows the 12cm wide base I've adopted for light cavalry, so that I can get a better impression of movement.  The idea is that the riders are coming forward on the right, presenting their shielded side to the enemy and then turning away on the left.

The figures are a mix of Foundry, Crusader and A&A.  Just after I finished them last year, I dropped a box of 30 on the stairs; I was rather cross!  I managed to get them looking OK, again, in the end.

Friday, 30 October 2009

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.

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

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.

Monday, 26 October 2009

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...