Friday, 30 January 2009

Confessions of a Basing Nazi Part 1

Greg of Gloranthan Army has asked me to describe how I do my basing.

Now I'm liberal in very many ways, but politically just to the right of Genghis Khan in terms of my approach to basing. My bases must all be exactly the right size, a standard colour and finish, matt varnished, substantially waterproof and without a hint of warping. Any figures I buy are rebased to my standard, as are most figures I sell.

In this first post I shall list the main tools I use:-


This big box of gunk largely consists of plaster and sand/small grit, but I also add a pigment to save on painting time. I also use a strong Wood Glue and a good springy palette knife that comes to a fairly fine point.


This is my static grass, and trusty Noch puffer bottle.


And this is a colour guide I made a couple of years ago, that shows the stages in the process, which I'll describe in the next post. I use it to check that my different armies are based on similar colour bases.

The 8 stages are terribly time consuming, and there must be quicker ways of achieving the same result; nonetheless this is my way, and the ONLY TRUE WAY. n.b. the colour have been a little washed out by the lighting.

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Dum de dum

Nothing very much to report. I'm trying to finish off a few odds and ends, namely:-

3 legionaries to complete a group of 8
2 ballistae and crews to feed the maw of eBay
A solitary middle Imperial Roman, kindly donated by Greg, who I need to finish my first MIR unit
3 celtic archers to complete the final 4th archer unit of my gallic army (at least 3 units of archers too many, but I had the painted figures)
3 Pictish flags for the 3 units I recently based

Finally, I need to finish a beautiful Thracian standard bearer, that I originally primed at least 2 years ago. He's such a lovely mini (and very complex to paint), that I've shied away from painting him all this time!


My intention is to finish off these odds and sods, to clear my painting table for Greg's gladiators. These lovely minis need basing, and I'll probably add a few highlights to the helmets and swords to make them shinier; I believe that helmets should be really bright. I hope you won't mind, Greg?

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Roman Artillery


These are cart-mounted Ballistae that, whilst strictly part of my EIR Army, I sometimes use with the Caesarians. They were surprisingly time-consuming to assemble...

Tonight I have been basing my final Pictish unit and rebasing some Pictish and Viking archers, and sticking more bits of yet more carts together.

Saturday, 17 January 2009

Coh. I Batavorum Eq.


This is the unit of Auxilia I finished in December; I'm really pleased with them. I'd been planning them for at least 3 years! Mostly Foundry Salehs, but some Copplestones and a couple of Black Tree minis, too. Oh, and a Crusader Centurion!



LAter on, I'll talk more about my plans for the other Auxilia Cohorts.

Friday, 16 January 2009

Marius Falls Back



Chastened Roman legionaries retire through Mutina.

Most of the buildings, including the superb villa, were made by my Scottish friend John S. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get him to build me some city walls at some stage, since there are so many rapacious Germans wandering around Italia at the moment!

The villa roofs lift off. The rooms inside would look great with mosaics... need to lay some, one day.

Thursday, 15 January 2009

Celtic Army en masse

Secundus was asking what I have on his blog, and here they are; 5 units of lights, 8 Warband, 2 smaller warbands of Auxilia or "Hilltribesmen", 3 units of heavy cavalry and two of lights. Around 2/3 of these were painted to a fantastic standard by my good friend Nick S, and I painted or repainted the remainder, and based. Figures are a mix of A&A, Renegade, Foundry, Newline and Gripping Beast. The picture is clickable...

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Woe, Woe and thrice Woe!

Marius' army, under my command, yesterday suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the German army.

The Roman army was deployed along a low ridgeline just to the west of Mutina:
The Germans attacked along the line of the Aemilian Way:










The German centre was led by Boiorix, hero of Vercellae:


A German left hook piled pressure against the Roman right. An attempted Roman counter attack by an outflanking force against the rear of the German army ended in disaster, with German cavalry, charged in the rear by Numidians:
However the Germans demonstrated that they could fight just as valiantly to the rear as to the front, by killing the Roman General leading the attack!



By the end of the game the Germans were lapping around the Roman wing in a most alarming way. A second German attack against a weak point between the Roman left and centre also inflicted serious casualties. Here Romans can be seen retiring into Mutina, whilst Marius leads the rearguard:One glimmer of hope for the Romans, is that the majority of the casualties were suffered by supporting allied (generally light) troops, and that most of the legionaries lived to fight another day; which is just as well as the German and Celtic army now controls Italy north of the Apennines...