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

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Numidian Royal Bodyguard

These miniatures were splendidly painted by my mate Nick Speller, and based by me.  They form the Royal bodyguard of my Numidian army.  Numidian Kings often recruited Spanish cavalry "with bridles" for this role (at least in Caesar's time).  They are also the final unit my the Numidian army, which now has just under 300 minis.

I've used whatever figures came to hand; some (late lamented) Companion miniatures, sent to me by Mike Adams in the US, two Crusader Spanish and a couple of A&A Numidians.  The horses include some Aventines, and the splendid standard is Aventine.  I added rosettes and fringes to the horses to give them a Spanish flavour.


 And here they are from behind.  This shows the irregular basing style I favour on all my cavalry.


These'll be Masinissa's bodyguard at Zama.  

In other news... I hope to start the 6th terrain board today.  We also have a table number at Salute, but I don't know exactly where in the hall it is, at the moment.

Thursday, 25 February 2010

More Boards...

 
So here's my life for the next month; these are boards 1-3 of an eventual 8 or 9, for Zama.  The furthest two boards are 60% complete; they still need a lot of highlighting and will need some selective  flocking (although the final theme is going to be brown).  

The nearest board is perhaps 25% done.  The next step will be to trim the fields using my Wahl.  Then I will apply texture, and finally a basecoat of Chocolate Brown Sandtex (which trick I picked up from the "Touching History"  books).  

I also need to check that my plan to use a template to superimpose a hex grip on the finished boards, will work.  It occured to me, yesterday, that the standing crops may prevent the template from lying flat on the boards.  Gulp.  I'll test it before I start board 4; on future boards, I may need to apply the crops after the grid. 

The scale of the venture is daunting...

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Carthaginian Relief Column!

I am indeed considerably relieved to see the arrival of these Carthaginians., into the collection of fellow Muswellian, Dr Simon.  Aside form the 200  Aventine Romans we still need to paint, these are pretty well the last major units required.  The pikes on the spearmen will be replaced in due course...

There's more about them and additional photos on Dr. Simon's Blog.

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

A Little Board

This is the first of eight terrain boards for the Zama game with basecoat applied (the final colour will be a dustty light brown).  I've tried to break up the flat terrain with fields, ditches and tracks; I'll probably get more ambitious as I move along the battlefield.  The cream-coloured fields will be dyed or painted in due course.  I've tried to avoid making the texture too rough, so that we can move the pieces across it, with relative ease.  I hope that the ploughed fields will look good when finished.

When it is complete, I'll attempt to add a hex grid to it...

My take on Zama is that the battlefield is essentially flat, agricultural land, with a few scattered trees (olives and a type that looks a bit like a cypress), in autumn.  There is going to be a lot of brown, and dried grass.  If anyone knows any different, please let me know ASAP!

Monday, 22 February 2010

Not my Triarii!

In fact these are Craig Davey's new Aventine Triarii,  for his Roman legion.  The command pack isn't painted yet, but I'd hazard that they are under the brush, right now.  I really like the painting style and the bold vermillion ed he has used.  The crests are very jaunty; I'll do mine the same (eventually).



 
 Fabuloso!

Saturday, 20 February 2010

Bletchley Battle Day; 8 weeks today...

 
It's not less than 8 weeks to the SOA Zama Battle Day at Bletchley, and I've decided that I now don't have time to start any fresh miniatures, so the above casualties minis will be my last, which is a pity as I'd like to have a lot more.  I still need to finish and base 100 or so minis that Greg and Nick Speller* have painted, and make the boards.  

*Nick has painted the Spanish and Scipio at the top of the frame; I've mounted them on temporary bases whilst I varnish them.  The final 2 dead nellies are on the right.

Friday, 19 February 2010

Le Dead Nellie

Mon ami Greg Privat has painted his dead elephant for our Zama game (each of the main contributors is painting one, and we'll randomly swap them on the day).

 
Greg's elephant is very spectacular, and he's done a lot of conversion work on the piece, giving it a squashed tower, padding and a chain headpiece. Luvverly work!

 There are some more pics, and progress pics, on Greg's Gloarmy blog, which is always worth a visit.

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Not my Dumbos

A couple of my collaborators on the Zama project are painting up their dead nellies.

 
The above is Craig Davey's poor beast; I very much like the way he has positioned a wounded velite and a dead Carthaginian next to it.  Both poignant, and also has a sort of "yin and yang" symmetry.  Top stuff!

Greg Privat of Gloranthan Army is working on one, and has gone for a very grand approach indeed!  This link goes to his post; I'd strongly recommend having a look!   Greg has also started painting the last few Bruttians for the Carthaginian army, and some casualty figures.

I've got my last 2 on bases, and will start painting them shortly.

Monday, 15 February 2010

Not my Legion

This is the first complete Allied legion for Zama, owned and painted by Aventine Keith. 

On the day, this legion will probably have my white-shielded velites, and the red shields will be screening Keiths will-need-to-be-painted-soon Roman legion.  They'll be in 4 units of 8 figures, 2 stands deep.

And here they are from behind... I do like all the red tunics!

Sunday, 14 February 2010

Board

The time has finally come to grit my teeth and start decorating the 8 terrain board we need for Zama, so today, I started work on a test board.  This is one of the 9 mdf/styrene boards I fashioned back in November.

 
Above is the board with patches of tebby bear fur PVA'd to it.

 
Above, my youngest son has trimmed the fur "fields" with electric haircutting shears.  This was pretty quick to do.  The "wolf" fur on the right makes a pretty good crop; the shorter, paler fur at the back, will make useful long grass.  I've also roughly scribed some "tracks" into the board.

I intend the overall look of the boards to be a dry, dusty autumn look, with mostly harvested fields, some ploughed fields and scattered olive trees.  However, none of the terrain will have any impact, whatsoever, on the battle.

Saturday, 13 February 2010

My own Velites Finished

Here are the 32 velites from yesterday; thoroughly finished.  These will probably be my only contribution to the Roman legions in our game (although I have an emergency reserve of 32 part-painted Renegade Principes in case we are struggling; I hope not to go there, though).
 
The shields are a mix of Renegade and Aventines, and the transfers, mostly VVV and some LBMS.  I was particularly pleased with the way the grass came out.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Not my Carthaginian Veterans WIP

These are half of the Carthaginian veterans, that Nick Speller is paintign for his own collection.  They are not fully based yet, but are looking very good!  They'll be in 2 ranks in the game, but I love seeing them deployed in 4 as they look even more menacing.

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Not my Roman Velites!

These are most of one legion's velites for our Zama project, painted (very nicely indeed) by Craig Davey; I really like what he has done with them!  I gather he used a lot of vermillion.

The figures are the new velites from Aventine.  They have 8 different poses so far, and I have heard on the grapevine that more are to follow.  There are 3 different shield types (2 not shown here).  One of the things I really like about Aventine is that is is possible to build large units where most or all of the figures are different from one another.

I'm currently finishing 32 Renegade velites, and unfortunately they aren't a patch on these.  :-(

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Not my Spanish!

These figures are part of a Spanish contingent painted by Nick Speller for our Zama game.  He's also painting a good proportion of the veterans.  Nick's a top chap who paints a lot of minis for me. 

 
Spanish foot
 
 
Celtiberian Foot
 

Spanish Cavalry

Spanish light cavalry

Nick has painted Masinissa's bodyguard for me; I'm very much looking forward to seeing them!

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Not my Romans!

I'll have nothing to show for a few days, so I thought I'd show some pictures from one of the collaborators on the Zama Project.  These are all Aventine minis being painted by Craig Davey, who has given me permission to post these photos.  He is clearly an exceptional painter!  He's almost finished his Allied legion, and has a second Roman legion to go...

 
Allied Legion Hastati and Principes

  

  
Allied Legion Triarii


Allied Legion Cavalry

  
 Command Stand

 
Velites Work in Progress

I'm very much looking forward to meeting Craig, and also Keith and Adam from Aventine, shortly before the Bletchley game in April.

Friday, 29 January 2010

Zama- Tentative Deployment Plan

I worked with Ian last night on the deployment for the game, revisiting the deployment we tried out last year, and making a few minor tweaks to it.  The game will be played with (slightly adapted) Command and Colours boardgame rules.  We used single C&C blocks to work out exactly where the units will be positioned (each block represents 8-16 miniatures, or roughly 400 to 1000 real men).

 
Roman Left (above): the player will command the left flank cavalry and the left Allied Roman legion.  His Carthaginian opponent will have a relatively small and somewhat outnumbered command!


Roman Centre (above): The Romans are deployed, behind a screen of velites, with gaps between the maniples to counter the Carthaginian elephants.  The Roman centre player will command the other 3 legions.  The Carthaginians are in three lines (mercenaries, levy, veterans) behind a screen of elephants.  Pencils show where the section boundaries will be.

 
Roman Right (above):  The Roman right player will command Masinissa's Numidian infantry and cavalry.  Again, they heavily outnumber their Carthaginian/Numidian opponent.

We have also tentatively agreed a small number of special rules that, we hope, will recreate the poor performance of the Carthaginian elephants and levy on the day (I'll publish these later).  What we need to do next, is to playtest the scenario two or three times  to make sure it is balanced....

One small by-product of the planning is that we added a few more units of Carthaginian light troops, taking the total number of minis past 1400!  At the same time, we reduced the number of elephants to 10, which will save me a fair bit of painting time.  The width of the board remains unchanged at 16 feet.

Thursday, 28 January 2010

Dead Nellie 2

This is the second dead elephant I've finished.  I'm currently also painting 2 Gripping Beast resin dead elephants with towers, in parallel, and some Celts I hope to have finished by tomorrow.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Dead Nellie 1 Done

Here's the first dead nellie (I hope to paint 8 or so for our Zama game by April).  You may recall that I myself sculpted dead nellie, a recently deceased African Forest elephant, and Keith at Aventine very kindly cast it up for me.  The victorious Roman is also from Aventine. 


Shield design LBMS.


The arrows are plastic broom bristle, with the end crimped with pliers.  Very easy...


I'm very pleased with the way it came out.  It was a very simple paint job.  I have a second model almost completed, photo to follow tomorrow, I hope.

If you would like a dead nellie, youreself, Aventine are selling them and very kindly donating the profits to "Help for Heroes".

Sunday, 24 January 2010

Bruttians Completed

'ere they are in all there Bruttish glory:



This is the first of two units.  Greg Privat (who originally painted the figures; I detailed and did the shields) is painting the extra figures I need for the second unit, which is 2/3 complete.  These are all Crusader figures, and very nice ones, too.  The decision to cast the heads separately, means the plumes are great and I've not lost a single feather during assembly!


Friday, 15 January 2010

Brute Squad

In parallel with yesterday's Dead Nellies, I'm making a start on the 48 Bruttians Gloarmy Greg painted for me before Xmas.  You may recall from earlier posts, that these southern Italians form part of the Carthaginian 3rd line at Zama.



Greg has done a fine job with these.  They just need the odd highlight, spears, shields, varnishing and basing.  I've pre-painted the spears and shields so I reckon they represent around 2-3 weeks work.

The minis are a mixture of Crusader Oscans and Aventine Etruscans.  The Aventines are somewhat larger, but I think they'll work together.