Tuesday, 1 August 2023
Herding Cats
Friday, 14 July 2023
Some of our cataphracts are missing
Here are some of the humbler horse archers. I bought most of these assembled, on eBay, but they needed a little repair work which I did last night. I am going to need a whole lot more of these- I have a hunch there's a bag of them somewhere in the loft.
I am also searching for some Parthians I was working on earlier this year. I stored them away, for safety, but I cannot for the life of me locate them; they are probably in one of five hundred unlabelled Really Useful Boxes. :-/
Realistically they won't be finished in time for the Britcon tournament next month in Nottingham, so I'm eyeing my collection for other relatively portable armies. Incidentally, if you are free on the weekend of 12th/13th August we are very keen to find another player as we currently have the Dreaded Odd Number of players. It's a relaxed event, not too competitive, pint of beer at the side of the table sort-of-thing. Last year I quite enjoyed seeing the Lardy stuff in the annex, and spent too much on books and the Bring and Buy. If you think you might be interested, please email me.
Friday, 7 July 2023
Nine out of forty cats
One of my four major projects for this year is to get a long-projected Parthian army on the table. Phase I includes these forty cataphracts, which is more than enough for a standard To the Strongest! game (the photo is "clickable). So far nine are partially painted. Phase II will provide 24 horse archers, most of which are happily already painted by chum Nick Speller, and phase III will double the numbers of cataphracts and triple the number of horse archers, and add some stalwart Daylamite hillmen and foot archers.
The miniatures are a 50/50 mix of Aventine (back) and plastic Gripping Beast Parthian riders (front), all on Gripping Beast horses, for reasons of portability (it is intended to be a "travel army"). The two types of riders match well stylistically. The Aventines fit neatly onto the GB horses, and provide a variety of poses and the necessary command minis and standards. The only major changes I'm making is to replace the plastic konti with metal ones, because they are slimmer and more pleasing to the eye.
With any luck I'll have them finished for our TtS! tournament at Britcon in August- I hope to see some of you there - please email me if you'd like details.
In other news... I've just updated the Free To the Strongest! Army list eBook, and am in the process of sending a copy out to everyone who has ordered a copy in the past. If you want, you can download it for free from here. I've also put the Ancient and Medieval Army list books on promotion for a few days, and some of the chits are 25% off.
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
Portable Parthians
Below, for a bit of a laugh, I'm trying the "nail varnish" metallic shades from my ScaleColour 75 boxes; paints I have never previously used, and, frankly, never expected to ever use. They are really odd, but I have a feeling that they might just work. If they do work, there are some other even bolder colours I might try later on, some pinks and a green... it might become a very flamboyant army!
Friday, 23 June 2023
Racking II and prepping
It has been on the hot side for painting, so I've either been writing TtS! army lists (for the July-Ancients and August-Medieval releases), racking the BigRedBatCave or prepping minis.
Above is the main area of the cellar, now racked along one side with six 90cm wide storage racks. There is potentially room on the other side for some more- perhaps three or four. That is pretty much the last storage space I can generate in this house. Once that's full, I'll have to start selling stuff in order to fit new things in. And I still have a ton of boxes in the loft that I need to move down into the remaining spaces, perhaps enough to fill them.
Below are some minis which will become Parthian cataphracts. My plan is to use (mostly) Aventine miniature riders on plastic Gripping Beast steeds, alongside some of the GB riders from the new Parthian set. The advantage of using the plastic Nisean chargers is that the army will be light to transport, so I can use it at tournaments like Britcon or Godendag to which I travel by train. I will spray paint these in metallics (per the two test figures on the left, Gold-fingerrrr) and then paint the non-metallic areas and ink wash. Sounds simple- probably an awful lot of work in it, for which reason this army may not be ready in time.
By the way, I just booked my tickets for the To the Strongest! tournament at Britcon in Nottingham in August- it's a great show, and I really like Nottingham, too. I hope to see some of you there!
Wednesday, 14 December 2016
Parthian shot
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Updated Parthian Size Comparison Shot
Monday, 16 November 2009
Successor and Parthian Cavalry Size Comparison Shots
Finally, we have the riders. Please note, the Empire rider has a separate head (not included). The A&A and Empire riders are larger than the 1stCorps, but would probably work in different units. Thanks very much to 1stCorps, A&A and Empire for the sample miniatures.
Once Zama is out of the way, I'll hopefully be building an Eastern army and I'd be happy to use any of the above miniatures.

















