Friday, 8 May 2009

Boduognatus of the Nervii


Whilst I'm painting my newly-levied Roman Legion (which is going to take a few weeks), I'll display a series of photos of command stands from my armies.

Thia first depicts Boduognatus, King of the Nervii. I converted the mini from a Foundry German, giving him a Renegade head and making his horse rear slightly. Nick Speller painted him beautifully, and I based him. He usually commands my Gallic cavalry wing.

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Legions of the Planned...

Last year I settled on a structure of 24 minis to the Cohort (1:20 representational scale). However, it has been becoming clear to me that I also want a structure that will enable me to field battles with up to ten Legions to a side. With ten Cohorts, and 240 minis to each Legion, I’m clearly never going to have ten of them!

So I’ve decided to create a parallel structure, with smaller Legions of 51 minis; a 3 mini command stand and 2 x 24s.

This should be fairly straightforward to do. The main implication is that I’ll need to paint 3 extra Cohorts to match “odd” cohorts, like the blue Caesarians I posted recently. I'll also need an additional half a dozen command stands, with shield designs matching the legions. Then I should be able to field 10 of the smaller "legions"... which would mean that I could field the OOB for Caesar's larger Gallic War battles (or one side of a big Civil War battles). I think it’s do-able…

Monday, 4 May 2009

Coh. II Gallorum Eq.

Hi, this is the latest unit to join my legions; the 2nd Cohort of Gallic auxiliary infantry, originally raised in Lugdunum (Lyon) during the reign of Augustus. The unit served for part of its life in the Roman army in lower Germania, fought in the 69AD civil war, and later ended up in Britannia. The unit still lacks its mounted component (6 cavalrymen), which I'll have to sort out later.

I bought these minis, painted, on eBay, and then substantially repainted and rebased them. They are all Black Tree figures; I think that the BTD Auxilia are really nicely sculpted. If you like these, you might like to see my other (Foundry) Auxiliary Cohort:- http://bigredbat.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-01-22T07%3A57%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7

Friday, 1 May 2009

First Cohort

This is the first installment of the first cohort of my EIR legion; eventually it will have 10 stands (each stand represents a century). The figures are from BTD (although the command are from Foundry and Crusader)- not the world's greatest sculpts, but they made a pleasing change to paint from the scores of Saleh EIRs I've painted previously. I replaced the BTD shields with Foundrys, because these are a better shape IMHO. The BTDs are a mm or two taller, which seems appropriate for the first cohort!

Here's a comparison shot of the BTDs next to some Saleh Foundrys. I have 6 cohorts of the latter completed, which puts me slightly over 2/3 of the way towards completing the legion (42 out of 64 legionary stands).

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Battle of Asculum AAR

Tonight, a nearly full muster of the Muswell Militia, refought the second day of Asculum 279BC, using the C&C Ancients rules and Ian's (Donnington Roman and Xyston Macedonian) 15mm figures.

Below is the deployment. The Romans on the left were led by Ian and George, and the Italian Greeks and Macedonians by myself as Phyrrhus, with Chris and Dr Simon on the wings.


We Macedonians launched two stonking attacks, which should have worked.... honestly. Our first was a rush forwards by the pike phalanx in the left centre, which recoiled under a hail of pila, after failing to make any impact on the Roman line (presumably the Tarentines had failed to take to the pike). The second was a "mounted charge" on both wings with elephants and cavalry (below), which were both smashed by lucky counter attacks by the Roman cavalry.


The final shot, below, shows the situation late in the game. The Romans remorselessly ground us down to a 12:10 "Phyrric defeat".


A simple but thoroughly enjoyable game; I hope we'll play it again, sometime.

Thursday, 23 April 2009

17th Caesarian Cohort


This is my 17th Caesarian Cohort. I bought 20 of the figures on Ebay from "Pool of Paint" who also kindly supplied the transfers I needed to finish the unit, and painted 7 more myself, to match. I'm really pleased with the overall effect; these are my first Caesarians to have shield transfers.

Because they have unfeasibly expensive imported blue paint on their shields, I shall consider them to be one of the Praetorian Cohorts that served in the Civil War that occured after the death of Caesar.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Spot the difference!

The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that in a week's painting, I have managed to half paint a mere 7 miniatures (the ones at the front). I suppose I did also manage to do base the trees below, but it doesn't seem like a lot of progress. :-(

26 palm trees, courtesy of ebay. These are nifty products that cost £1.20 each including postage, but need basing. They stand up to 20cm high. I like the trunks and the fact they are fairly rugged; I need to buy some silfror tufts for the bases.

It has occurred to me that I now have a more than adequate selection of desert terrain, and no desert themed armies. I have started to think of ways around this...

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...

Thursday, 5 March 2009

Empire Models Size Comparision Shots

Mario Kkounnous of Empire Models (http://www.empiremodels.co.uk/) has been kind enough to send me some size-comparison shots of his new range of miniatures, and some crisp samples which look really nice and which I intend to pore over, later tonight- I'll post a brief review in due course. The figures on the left in each photo are from the Wargames Foundry World of the Greeks range, and the painted figures on the right from Marios' new range.



I thought it would be useful to post these, as there has some concern has been expressed on TMP that they might be excessively tall; you can see that each is very similar in size to the Foundry World of the Greeks figure next to them. This suggests to me that they will fit heightwise with Foundry, Crusader and probably with the new Gripping Beast Range, which I'd expect to be Foundry-sized.


One comment I'd make, is that in the photos it appears that the hands are quite large; having compared with the samples, this is not the case in reality and it appears to be foreshortening in the photos.


I'd like to thank Mario for being so responsive!

Latest Galatian WIP


So here the are boys (easy to tell they are boys!) in their pre-varnish state; they are fully painted, aside from shields and metallics. Last night I washed them using a very much diluted coat of Ronseal walnut woodstain, which has brought out the musclature nicely (but unfortunately you can't really make it out from the photo, which is again too light; try clicking on it for a slightly better view). When I take the next photo I'll take more care.

I was very pleased with the woodstain wash, and will be using it on pretty well all of my future painting.

There will be another post soon on an unrelated but very exciting Ancients topic later today; stay tuned...

Monday, 2 March 2009

Galatian Update


A couple of days hard painting; yet it doesn't look a lot different to the last photo! I've painted hair (head and elsewhere...) and black-primed areas that will later be metallic. Next I need to paint straps, boots and plumes, and think about using a wash.

As part of my time saving objective I've decided that I'll paint metallics on after varnishing. This will enable me to spray gloss and then matt the figures, rather than needing to use a brush.

I must say I'm enjoying painting a unit in one go. I usually paint in groups of 5-8 minis; it's a nice change to see an entire unit shaping up together. I hope I'll have this unit finished in around a week.

Saturday, 28 February 2009

Galatian Progress

A quick update on my regiment of naturist Galatians; flesh tones completed, I'm starting to work through the cloaks, spearshafts and hair colours. They are moving along at a fair pace (by my standards at least!).

Friday, 27 February 2009

Celtic Reinforcements!

Attracted by reports of plunder, two more celtic tribes have migrated into Northern Italy.


I have decided to imaginatevely name them "Warband 9" and "Warband 10". They differ from their Warband 1-8 relatives in 3 ways; they are more widely spaced on the bases (20mm frontage rather than 15mm), they have smaller shields and are mostly armed with javelins. This is because I intend to use them as "Auxilia" in C&C terms, rather than Warband per se; they are faster moving, happier in bad terrain, but lack the deadly charge of their fiercer neighbours. I hope to eventually have 4 units of these.


These were more than ably painted by my mate Nick S, who did a very fine job on the plaid and shields. I based; you may notice I'm starting to use the Silflor tufts alongside the clumps I make, myself.

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Getting ahead in the Thracian Army


Teres, King of Odrysia is waiting for his army of Thracian tribesment to muster... his mate Acarnas says he should have a couple of bevvies and chill out a bit.

Teres marks a new low for me. I suffer from a terrible lack of focus, and often will buy or paint a unit from an army that is no use whatsoever on its own. This, however, is the first time that I've painted a general who has no troops to command. I do want to raise a small Thracian army, but it is quite a way down my list.

I painted Teres on the left, but bought the extremely nicely painted Acarnas on the right, on eBay- I can't recall who from, if you painted him, please drop me a line!