Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Watching Paint Dry...


I'm progressing all-too-slowly with the blue-shielded cohort- it now includes 19 of the 20 minis I bought on eBay, and 5 more I have just painted to match. It'll have an aquila command stand by the time I finish. For all their dubious authenticity, the blue shields do look nice...

The veterans cohort lurks half-painted to the rear, awaiting their command minis, which I hope to start painting tomorrow.

Thursday, 2 April 2009

A Brief Intermission...

I'm in essay writing hell at the moment, and hardly getting anything painted; consequently my painting tray is backing up with painted, primed and part-based figures. Click for a closeup...


At the front is a unit of 20 nicely painted Caesarians that I bought on eBay, and want to retouch and expand to a 24 plus a seperate legion command stand. The LBMS shields look great... behind them lurk a unit of 24 Black Tree legionaries (half the figures are painted) that are going to represent time-expired veterans, recalled to the colours. They are going to be my personal tribute to the 2000th anniversary of Teutoburgerwald. Altogether, around 5 weeks of painting, I reckon, even if I wasn't busy!

Here's a pic of Greg Privat's splendid Innsmouth participation game from Salute. Eldest son and his mate are helping run it.


Hopefully I'll have a bit more time when my essays are in, in 2 weeks time....

Friday, 20 March 2009

Many Completed Thureophoroi...

I do love a mini with a Thureos! Here are two new units of 16 Crusader Thureophoroi painted by my very able mate Nick Speller, and based by me.



Here are my original two units of converted Foundry peltasts; I must say I somewhat prefer these minis to the Crusaders. The figures are slightly taller and very well formed.



And finally... all together! These are the nucleus of my early-Mithridatic Pontic army. I hope that, after Salute, Nick will go on to paint enough minis to complete all 4 units at 24-man strength...

Saturday, 14 March 2009

Thessalian Cavalry



I'm in between big projects, so I thought I'd stick up a photo of a unit I part-painted earlier (mostly painted by Andy Bryant). I experimentally based them in tetrahedrons on long, narrow bases; I was trying to catch the feel of Alexander's cavalry formations. Alas I've not taken to the feel of this approach, and I'm thinking of rebasing them, perhaps at the same time taking the opportunity of giving them shields and calling them Successor or Macedonian guard cavalry.

This week I shall mostly be painting 7 EIR legionaries, and prepping a unit of 24 Auxilia.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Completed Galatian Mercenaries!


Galatian mercenaries, hired from the Celtic tribes on the central plateau of Asia Minor, were not uncommon in Successor armies. These depict mercenaries serving the Ptolemies, and are loosely based on the reconstruction in the Ptolemaic Montvert; I'm very pleased with them. The images are clickeable, and previous posts show the various stages of painting.


Is it my imagination, or is the woman in the background, below, smiling as they approach her? ;-)

Saturday, 7 March 2009

Galatians pre-basing

Took me 2 long evenings just to paint on all the ironwork and torques! Shields tonight... then I can think about basing.

Friday, 6 March 2009

Another Empire Models Comparison Shot

I thought it would be useful to take a closeup shot of one of the samples Mario kindly sent me (this is clickable), and write a brief review.


The model I'm comparing Mario's figure with, is one of the Foundry Successors, designed, I believe, by Steve Saleh. I'm not an expert on Successor Gear, so won't address this; but from what little I know, both appeared to be realistically dressed.

Mario's models arrived with very little flash on them, and the detail is extremely crisp (just look at the ties on the linothorax!). I received 6 bodies and 8 heads, but have only showed a couple here for reasons of time.

By my (approximate) measurements, Empire's model is 28-29mm from the soles of the feet to the eye, compared to 27mm for the Foundry. You'll see I've used greenstuff to fix the Empire Models head in place; I did this because I felt it needed a bit more neck than if I'd placed the head directly in the socket; without this he'd be slightly shorter. Heightwise, I'd have no hesitation in using both within the same unit.

The main difference between the two ranges is in the legs, and particularly the lower leg, with Empire's perhaps 2.5mm longer than Foundry's. I'm very familiar with the Foundry models, and my first impression was that the Empire looked a little "leggy"; but on reflection, I suspect that the Empire range is closer, than Foundry's, to natural human proportions. The legs and arms of the Empire models are also much more slender and naturalistic. One thing that tends to make the legs on the Empire models look longer, is the shortness of their tunics; the one on the above figure is amongst the longer ones (and looks fine to me), but I did feel a little uneasy about the shortness in one or two of the other poses (see previous post). Another point about the legs on both models, is that they are set quite wide apart; I'd have preferred them to have been nearer to each other at the top. Not all the Empire legs are set this far apart, though.

The Empire model is rather broader in the upper body than the Foundry. Detail (such as the pteurges and folds in the tunic) is crisper and less exaggerated on Empire than on the Foundry model.

The Empire Egyptian Machimoi drummer is really lovely; bags of character!


To sum up, I really like the naturalistic feel of the new Empire Models range. The wide selection of heads and poses will mean that it will be possible to assemble units where all of the miniatures are different from each other. Also the heads could also be used for conversions of other minis, helping me to build, perhaps, the Maccabean army I've long dreamed of. I will put my Empire minis in different units to my Foundry minis (because of the legs), but that's just me, you may be happy to mix them. I will certainly be buying some shortly...