Showing posts with label Painting table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Painting table. Show all posts

Friday, 8 March 2013

Starting the guards


Above, I've mostly the figures that will be the peltasts for my guard phalanx, and below are some Polemarch figures who I've lightly converted, and who will join some similar-looking Foundry Successors to form the agemata.  Chap on the front right, is a Foundry Perseus; note the winged sandals!

Monday, 18 February 2013

New Jenga phalanx WIP


A quick WIP shot, of most of the phalangites for the 4th and 5th pike blocks for Raphia, mustering on their Jenga painting blocks.  Most of these were painted (very nicely) by Raglan, but I needed to replace his pikes with my blunt pins, re-base and repaint most of his crests from black to the red I'm using for my phalanx.  I spent a very long evening yesterday, painting the 60-odd required pikes.  Yawn...

In other news I've been plugging away with my draft set of Ancient rules, which are now 9,300 words long.  I reckon that they will be more than twice that, when finished.  I managed to work out how to upload them onto my iPad as a pdf, and they are now stuffed to the gunnels with hyper-links, so it should now be possible to navigate around them easily.  I'm going to try running tomorrow's game from the iPad... 

Out of curiosity, does anyone use iPads or laptops at the wargames table?

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Cleopatra is a harsh mistress...


I'm plugging away with my Ptolemaic phalanx, but it is proving quite a job! 

Above are batch 4 (blocked in, not yet stained) and batch 5 (half painted, right), which, when finished, will give me the 96 phalangites I need for my second and third pike blocks (of 11!).  I'm going for varied bright colours for the tunics based on the new Stephane Thion Lagid Army book.

I've fired off 100 pikemen to Dr. Simon's painter, to get them blocked in and will be getting another 64 painted ones from Raglan, so I think I'm slightly ahead of where I need to be at this stage.  No room for complacency, though! My mate Nick is going to paint Ptolemy and his bodyguard, too, which is a result.  I'll be using Aventines for these.

I've also been amending my draft rules to include heffalumps and long pointy sticks.

Finally, my mate Ian has lent me his treasured Bar Kochba account of the battle, which looks like it will be invaluable for understanding deployents and what actually happened on the day.  Already I've decided that I'll be drawing up parts of my phalanx 6 deep, perhaps even deeper... 

Thursday, 20 December 2012

A centimetre a day...


As I've previously mentioned, I'm painting a Ptolemaic pike phalanx for our Raphia game, at Partizan in June.  This is, I hope, going to be a very large phalanx, indeed, and I expect that it will occupy the bulk of my painting time for the next 5 months.

I'm currently painting pikemen in batches of 18.  Some almost finished miniatures are at rear left, and a big batch of primed minis are in reserve in case of bad priming weather.  I'm also incorporating a few minis from eBay purchases.

I find I can prepare, paint and base 18 miniatures in around a week; it dawned on me that my 4-deep phalanx is only growing at a rate of 1 centimetre of width each day.  :-(

I'm also a bit worried becuase I'm part way into the project, but at some point in early January a new publication is coming out on the Ptolemaic army, and there is a danger that I might find I've painted them all wrong.  Gulp. 

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Jenga Phalanx



These are a continuation of a very old project, which is to build a Ptolemaic phalanx on a grand scale, for use in a grand re-fight of Raphia at Partizan in early June next year.

The plan is to combine these beautifully sculpted Polemarch Machimoi (Egyptian Phalangites) from Gripping Beast, with their Foundry equivalents.  I absolutely love the tall crested helmets, which I assume are based on the Sidon stelae.

When I started this project (over 2 years ago!), I made the mistake of using an Army Painter primer.  This provided a convenient base colour, but created a surface textured like fine grain sandpaper, which wasn’t at all good to paint over, and which put me off the project after I’d only managed to complete 30 miniatures (one shown in the link, at centre).  This time, I’m stripping the remaining primed miniatures and using my trusty can of Halford’s white.  The Jenga blocks are mounts for ease of painting.

I need an awful lot more of these miniatures to build a phalanx of the large size I covet.  If you happen to have a bag of these Polemarch phalangites, or the similar Foundry miniatures in the link, that you always meant to paint but never quite got around to, please drop me a line.  I’d be delighted to swap for them, or buy them off you!  

Friday, 16 November 2012

Hoplites

Just so you don't think I've gone off and left you, a quick and somewhat blurry WIP shot of the 32 Foundry hoplites I've just finished (pre-varnish and basing).


I hope to get to grips with them, tonight...  because other projects beckon, of which more, anon.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

November painting table


A quick shot of the painting table.  The celts at the back are "stuck", I just can't bring myself to work on them, some hoplites have pushed in (othismos, anyone?) and I'm painting some more goths at the front.  I'm also re-painting 18 other Greek hoplites, not shown.

The 3 goths or saxons at the front right, in red, I bought painted in a bag at the Bristol warboot around 6 years ago.  They are lovely (beautiful triangles on one tunic fringe), I wonder who painted them?  

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

A rare night's gaming


Last night a near-full muster of the local Muswell Militiamen gave my draft rules a bit of an outing along with my Celts, who haven't seen daylight since Zama.  The game went pretty well; despite losing their flanking cavalry, the superior discipline of the legions eventually told, and led to them breaking the line of warbands.  I have a handful of revisions to make to the rules, and expect to give them another outing next Tuesday, with Gorgeous George's Greeks.

My painting table is below.  Inexplicably an unexpected Gothic invasion is delaying work on the chariots.  The Goths, who have languished unnoticed in amongst a box of Vikings for 3 or 4 years, charged forth with a shout of "Paint me! Paint me!" and are consequently in the process of being tarted up and expanded to 24.  Worse still, some part-painted Celtic foot have pushed in behind them... and there is a chap carrying a tray of what look to be unripe tomatoes....


Monday, 1 October 2012

Traffic Jam

The painting tray is overflowing with chariots.  My plan is for a first wave of 9, but I want to go to eventually muster 20 or so.  Most of the crews have gone off to Nick to be painted (he'll do a far better job with plaid than could I).


In the foreground are the chariot horses, which I hope will be fairly quick to paint...  and I need to finish basing the cohort of Dalmatians on the front left, to clear a bit of space!

Thursday, 20 September 2012

More Auxiliaries, WIP

In the interests of breaking a recent slump in my posting, here are the early stages of my seventeenth auxiliary cohort.  They were underway before Partizan, and, although I currently need another cohort of auxiliaries like a fish needs a bicycle, I want to wrap them up and clear the painting table.


The nicely painted command figures are from the batch Legatus sold me; most of the rest came from a batch of dreadfully painted miniatures I foolishly bought on eBay.  I've blocked in most of the base colours, and they were coming on very quickly until I got distracted by another project, of which more, tomorrow....

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

Mustering for Partizan


Four nights to go; every required Roman (or auxiliary volunteer) is now on a base, and half of the bases are painted.  I do hate flocking, though, and am not looking forward to the 4 nights of intensive flocking activity ahead of me.  Flocking hell!  :-( 

At Partizan on Sunday, the Ad Castores game will be right in the middle of the main hall.  We'll be using Dr Phil Hendry's Augustus to Aurelian rules- if you are attending, and fancy trying them yourself, please post a comment or drop me a line and we should be able to fit you in.

Friday, 24 August 2012

Equites

 

These are the last troops I need to muster for our Ad Castores game; an Ala of 24 cavalry, and 6 Praetorian bodyguard cavalry.  They were all painted by Dr. Simon's mystery painter mate, but I have highlighted the horses and wlll also be highlighting the shields, then staining, varnishing, basing and flocking.  I only have another 5 or 6 sessions before the game... gulp.

Sunday, 19 August 2012

More Praetorian WIPs


I've not had a chance to post regularly, as I've been very busy, preparing for the Partizan game.  Here are some of the most recent units, which I'm in process of basing.  At the rear is a cohort of auxiliaries formerly of Legatus Hedlius' collection (re-based and expanded to 24).  At the front are 2 cohorts of Praetorians from the brush of Nick Speller, which he very kindly rushed to me.   I'll post proper pics, as time permits...

I now just have one Ala of cavalry to finish and base, and a bunch of terrain pieces.  It is going pretty well!

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Praetorian WIP


These proud (and clickable) guardsmen are half of the two Praetorian cohorts I hope to deploy at Partizan.  They were superbly painted by Nick Speller; I added the transfers and touched up the shields.  Hopefully Nick is beavering away at the command stands... when I base the second lot, I'll add the static grass.

Steve Saleh only sculpted a single pose of Praetorian, so the unit is necessarily very uniform!  IMHO this uniformity doesn't matter quite so much in the case of spit and polish guardsmen.

Courtesy of recent purchases, I should be able to deploy a couple more cohorts next year (and I'll certainly be buying the later EIR Praetorians from Aventine, too, when the standing poses come out).  Happily, a lot of Praetorian cohorts were deployed in 69AD...

Thursday, 12 July 2012

Praetorians WIP


Mate Nick Speller recently sent me the first of two planned instalments of Praetorians, and I just couldn’t resist getting transfers onto their shields (on which I still need to do just a little highlighting and detailing).  These are all Foundry models from the Saleh range, which I do love passionately, even though there are no varied poses.  In the background are the newest two cohorts of auxiliaries which I need to grit my teeth, and flock!

Saturday, 7 July 2012

Yet More Romans

2 more cohorts painted by Dr. Simon's mystery painter, who has handpainted all the shields, very nicely.  I'm going to do a little shading, weathering and paint the bases in an earthshade; hopefully basing, from tomorrow, in time for Greg's parade on the 17th.  These are going to be German cohorts.  Only one more cohors pedita remains to be painted after these, for the game... although I did buy enough BTD minis to complete one more cohort at a later date, in the sale, this week. 


Today I'm also basing the red-tunic auxiliaries- photos in a day or so.

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

More Romans, WIP 2

Five long painting sessions has these boys painted up, barring shields (the transfers are hopefully on the way from LBMS).



This is the first time I've painted the cavalry contingent up alongside the unit's infantry, I quite enjoyed it, although 30 is a lot of minis to handle at the same time.  I've used a lot of Devlan Mud; am belatedly becoming quite attached to it.  I think the weather might be just about good enough to spray a coat of gloss varnish on them... 

Saturday, 30 June 2012

More Romans WIP...


This is a unit I bought (poorly painted) on eBay, with a dozen additional figures primed and added.  They are going to be a Cohors Equitata, but not a standard auxilary unit... more anon.  Since the above photo they have had 2 more painting sessions and are now pretty well blocked in.

Before the game on 2/9, I have these and another similar cohort to paint and base.  I also have 2 painted cohorts of auxiliaries to retouch and base, two cohorts of Praetorians to add shield designs and base, and hopefully 42 more cavalry to finish/base if they come back from the painters, in time.   Lastly, I need to paint some command stands: busy, busy, busy!

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Auxiliary Ala WIP shot

A terrible WIP photo but you get the drift.  Black Tree figures from Dr. Simon's Mystery Painter, with a little highlighting and such forth.  Basing tomorrow!


They are going to be Ala Siliana, from North Africa, who fought in the 69AD Civil War.

Monday, 4 June 2012

Gallic Auxiliary II- Operation "Silk Purse"

Just a quick WIP shot, the new 24 are coming along nicely, and I've substantially retouched the other 24.  Hopefully basing tomorrow.