Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Newer Numidians


Here is the latest unit of my burgeoning Numidian army.  This is one of two projected units of Numidian "Auxilia"; troops in a slightly denser formation than the previous light infantry.

14 of the 18 minis were painted by Greg and retouched by me, I painted the other four.  The minis are a mixture of Foundry, A&A and Crusader (the eagle-eyed will spot that a couple of Foundry Spartans and Greeks have crept in; the Greeks were nekkid so I gave them greenstuff robes). 

I've now finished 68 of the 200-ish Numidian/Carthaginian foot.  I'm managing about 30 a week, so there must be at least another month's retouching/basing to go...


Monday, 12 October 2009

War of the Rune

These are pictures of a game we played last week, using my Spartans and Assyrians as Lunar Empire surrogates, to clash with Ian Notter's Praxian Sable and Bison clans.  All the pics are clickable.


 Praxians on the left; Lunars force marching forward on the right.


Massed Bison Rider clan



Pesky Sable Clan, with their nasty bows



My one success was managing to catch the stationary Bisons with my Phalanx


We used GW's War of the Ring rules.  I'm cautiously impressed with the old school nature of these; massive units, buckets of dice.  Not rules to be taken especially seriously, but the potential for a fun game there; the huge units looked damn good, too.

The outcome?  I had some success against the Bison clan, but the Sables shot me to pieces during the approach.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Euglyptus the Fat and Fazzur Wideread


In this Gloranthan HoTT element, Fazzur Wideread,  the veteran Lunar general, is remonstrating with his superior, Euglyptus the Fat, during the Battle of Building Wall.  Due to Euglyptus' incompetance the Lunars went on to be soundly defeated; I rather regret not adding the barrel of eels in which Fazzur subsequently drowned him! 

I am pleased with the Euglyptus conversion, which is from a GW 40K scribe.  Some figures I actually painted myself, for once!  Not something you see every day.

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Baboon Troop


This is one of my old Gloranthan units, the Baboon Troop.  They are one of the smaller tribes that roam the plaines of Prax.  

It is composed of the old Citadel 25mm baboons.  I'd really like to redo it sometime, with the newer, larger Lance and Laser baboons...

Friday, 9 October 2009

A few Spartans more...

Thanks for all the visits yesterday! 

Today I'm posting the balance of my Spartan army.  Together with the Tegeans, cavalry and peltasts (shown in earlier posts), I suppose that I have roughly 200 miniatures, the majority of which are Foundry WotGs, superbly painted by Nick Speller.  All the pictures are clickable.


Phalanx 1


Phalanx 2


Ekdromoi (younger Spartans trained to run out of the phalanx to catch enemy peltasts)


Ekdromoi detail


Allied Hoplites (some painted by Andy Bryant, and some by myself)

So what I need, next, is time enough to paint a similar size Theban (or Athenian) army for them to fight.  Ideally I also need a manufacturer of larger 28mm minis to conveniently produce a range of hoplites in Peloponnesian War helmets, such as Pilos and Thracian, to flesh this hypothetical opposing army out!  Ideally with vertical spears, because the figures in the attacking poses are so hard to rank...

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Aventine and Empire Models Elephant Size Comparison

Mithridates on TMP was asking how the Aventine http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/ and Empire elephants compare sizewise. 

Accordingly, I've bluetacked the Aventine Royal elephant together, sans trunk and tusks.  It is supposed to be rearing, but I've put all 4 feet on the ground for comparison purposes; it is the unpainted model at the front.



From the above view, you'll see that they are both pretty well the same size to the shoulder; roughly 53mm.



The build of the two elephants torsoes is not dissimilar.  The legs and feet are similar sizes.  The Empire body is rather longer, at 58mm to the Aventine's 49mm.

The big difference between the two is in the heads.  The volume of the Empire head is perhaps twice that of the Aventine, largely because is is very much broader, with a bigger forehead and eyes set wider (perhaps rather too wide) apart.  The elephant has a very large helmet and crest on the beast.  I prefer the smaller Aventine head, but can live with the bigger head on the Empire model because it is such an imposing beast overall, with excellently depicted armour.

Broadly speaking, the two elephants would work well together.  I'll be adding Aventine elephants to my Seleucid elephant corp as soon as they can sculpt them, and I can get around to painting them!

30 Spartans!



Mercenary peltasts


Spartan Cavalry

These are older minis from my collection, which I'm gradually photographing for t'blog. They were painted for me around 3 years ago by Nick Speller, and are the principle support troops for my Spartan army, which I hope to photograph en-masse, soon.

All the minis are Foundry World of the Greeks. Nick did a great job on them!