Saturday, 20 February 2010

Bletchley Battle Day; 8 weeks today...

 
It's not less than 8 weeks to the SOA Zama Battle Day at Bletchley, and I've decided that I now don't have time to start any fresh miniatures, so the above casualties minis will be my last, which is a pity as I'd like to have a lot more.  I still need to finish and base 100 or so minis that Greg and Nick Speller* have painted, and make the boards.  

*Nick has painted the Spanish and Scipio at the top of the frame; I've mounted them on temporary bases whilst I varnish them.  The final 2 dead nellies are on the right.

Friday, 19 February 2010

Le Dead Nellie

Mon ami Greg Privat has painted his dead elephant for our Zama game (each of the main contributors is painting one, and we'll randomly swap them on the day).

 
Greg's elephant is very spectacular, and he's done a lot of conversion work on the piece, giving it a squashed tower, padding and a chain headpiece. Luvverly work!

 There are some more pics, and progress pics, on Greg's Gloarmy blog, which is always worth a visit.

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Viva Espana!

I received an unexpected package in the post from Nick Speller today, containing the Spanish cavalrymen for my Numidian General's bodyguard.  He's done a fine job on these, as ever!   The minis are Companion, Foundry and Crusader, mounted on whatever horses I could find; a couple of the Aventine horses mixed in very nicely.  I added rosettes, medallions and fringes to some of the horses, for a Spanish flavour.  Ole!

 
I'll base them over the next week, and post a proper picture when they are done.  They may well become my nicest cavalry unit.

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

And now for something completely different...

I played a 1941 Western Desert game last night, with Ian "Erwin" Notter, using adapted Memoir '44 rules (you can see Rommel's "hand" in the background).  We commanded roughly a brigade each. 

 
These minis are absolutely ancient; when I last played with them, Consul was but a gleam in his father's eye.

I launched an attack on the right, then an attack in the centre.  Here my lancers are about to bravely charge the enemy anti-tank screen (successfully as it turned out, although they had all perished by the end of the game).  

There was gratuitous destruction, with more than half the total troops on the table slaughtered, before we called it a night.  The central ridge changed hand half a dozen times.  At one point a panzer company broke through to the British gun line, but was destroyed by the gunners firing over open sights.  I think I may have gained a moral victory...

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Not my Dumbos

A couple of my collaborators on the Zama project are painting up their dead nellies.

 
The above is Craig Davey's poor beast; I very much like the way he has positioned a wounded velite and a dead Carthaginian next to it.  Both poignant, and also has a sort of "yin and yang" symmetry.  Top stuff!

Greg Privat of Gloranthan Army is working on one, and has gone for a very grand approach indeed!  This link goes to his post; I'd strongly recommend having a look!   Greg has also started painting the last few Bruttians for the Carthaginian army, and some casualty figures.

I've got my last 2 on bases, and will start painting them shortly.

Monday, 15 February 2010

Not my Legion

This is the first complete Allied legion for Zama, owned and painted by Aventine Keith. 

On the day, this legion will probably have my white-shielded velites, and the red shields will be screening Keiths will-need-to-be-painted-soon Roman legion.  They'll be in 4 units of 8 figures, 2 stands deep.

And here they are from behind... I do like all the red tunics!

Sunday, 14 February 2010

Board

The time has finally come to grit my teeth and start decorating the 8 terrain board we need for Zama, so today, I started work on a test board.  This is one of the 9 mdf/styrene boards I fashioned back in November.

 
Above is the board with patches of tebby bear fur PVA'd to it.

 
Above, my youngest son has trimmed the fur "fields" with electric haircutting shears.  This was pretty quick to do.  The "wolf" fur on the right makes a pretty good crop; the shorter, paler fur at the back, will make useful long grass.  I've also roughly scribed some "tracks" into the board.

I intend the overall look of the boards to be a dry, dusty autumn look, with mostly harvested fields, some ploughed fields and scattered olive trees.  However, none of the terrain will have any impact, whatsoever, on the battle.

Saturday, 13 February 2010

My own Velites Finished

Here are the 32 velites from yesterday; thoroughly finished.  These will probably be my only contribution to the Roman legions in our game (although I have an emergency reserve of 32 part-painted Renegade Principes in case we are struggling; I hope not to go there, though).
 
The shields are a mix of Renegade and Aventines, and the transfers, mostly VVV and some LBMS.  I was particularly pleased with the way the grass came out.

Friday, 12 February 2010

My own velites WIP


A quickly snatched photo; the minis are now repainted, with new shields and mounted on BRBbases covered in BRBgunk.  Hopefully they'll be finished today!  I'll take a proper photo tomorrow.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Not my Carthaginian Veterans WIP

These are half of the Carthaginian veterans, that Nick Speller is paintign for his own collection.  They are not fully based yet, but are looking very good!  They'll be in 2 ranks in the game, but I love seeing them deployed in 4 as they look even more menacing.

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Not my Roman Velites!

These are most of one legion's velites for our Zama project, painted (very nicely indeed) by Craig Davey; I really like what he has done with them!  I gather he used a lot of vermillion.

The figures are the new velites from Aventine.  They have 8 different poses so far, and I have heard on the grapevine that more are to follow.  There are 3 different shield types (2 not shown here).  One of the things I really like about Aventine is that is is possible to build large units where most or all of the figures are different from one another.

I'm currently finishing 32 Renegade velites, and unfortunately they aren't a patch on these.  :-(

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Not my Spanish!

These figures are part of a Spanish contingent painted by Nick Speller for our Zama game.  He's also painting a good proportion of the veterans.  Nick's a top chap who paints a lot of minis for me. 

 
Spanish foot
 
 
Celtiberian Foot
 

Spanish Cavalry

Spanish light cavalry

Nick has painted Masinissa's bodyguard for me; I'm very much looking forward to seeing them!

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Renegade Velites

 
Here are 32 Renegade Republican Roman velites.  I've had them for a year or two; they were going cheap on eBay, and I couldn't resist a bargain.  However it turns out they do need considerable TLC.  Most of the shields fell off, because they have been glued on after painting; don't you just hate that?  

I'm painting them as "insurance" for Zama, in case Keith or Craig can't get quite enough Aventine velites painted in time.  I've given some red tunics so they will better match Keith's and Craig's minis.  They will look OK, when finished, in about a week's time I hope.

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Elephants- Before and After

I've finished two more dead elephants, displayed here next to their live equivalents.  All the elephants are Gripping Beast resin; tidy little models.  I must say these are very nice products; very nicely sculpted; I wonder whether GB designed them for their own Zama project?  I picked up the two dead models at the Salute B&B for a fiver. the pair.  Bargain! 

 
 I've tried to make the dead elephants match live ones I painted two or three years back.

 
Transfers are LBMS, arrows are made from broom bristle.  I can make and fit an arrow inside two minutes!  Expect to see many more...

 
I tried to make the two models just a little different from each other, by adjusting the trunk position and adding a wounded crewman to the left-hand one.  I did a bit of retouching on the two live elephants I completed earlier.

4 dead nellies down; 2 to go!

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Not my Romans!

I'll have nothing to show for a few days, so I thought I'd show some pictures from one of the collaborators on the Zama Project.  These are all Aventine minis being painted by Craig Davey, who has given me permission to post these photos.  He is clearly an exceptional painter!  He's almost finished his Allied legion, and has a second Roman legion to go...

 
Allied Legion Hastati and Principes

  

  
Allied Legion Triarii


Allied Legion Cavalry

  
 Command Stand

 
Velites Work in Progress

I'm very much looking forward to meeting Craig, and also Keith and Adam from Aventine, shortly before the Bletchley game in April.

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Nuclear Family

In line with the current trend towards wargaming-related cartoons (congrats again Iron Mitten), I'd thought I'd post a Birthday card that my middle son created for his mum.  This shows the BigRedBat clan in typical domestic mode, clustered around our antiquated Panasonic TV.   


The artist has depicted himself, bottom left, then smallest Bat, Mrs Bat, the eponymous Bat at his painting table, with painting light, and eldest Batson hunched over his laptop.

He knocked this up on a graphics tablet; I think he did rather well!

nb Buy hair tonic; start diet!

Monday, 1 February 2010

More Celtic Reinforcements

I treated myself to a day off "Zama" and based these figures which were painted for me by chum Nick Speller around 6 months ago.

 

They are the third "open order" warband he has painted for me.  Most of my other celts are based 8 to a 6x6 base; these chaps are in 6's, have slightly smaller shields and are predoninately armed with javelins.  In C&C(A) I think of these as "Auxilia", with the others being "Warband". 

Figures are a mix of Black Tree, Renegade and Miniature Design Studios.

Friday, 29 January 2010

Zama- Tentative Deployment Plan

I worked with Ian last night on the deployment for the game, revisiting the deployment we tried out last year, and making a few minor tweaks to it.  The game will be played with (slightly adapted) Command and Colours boardgame rules.  We used single C&C blocks to work out exactly where the units will be positioned (each block represents 8-16 miniatures, or roughly 400 to 1000 real men).

 
Roman Left (above): the player will command the left flank cavalry and the left Allied Roman legion.  His Carthaginian opponent will have a relatively small and somewhat outnumbered command!


Roman Centre (above): The Romans are deployed, behind a screen of velites, with gaps between the maniples to counter the Carthaginian elephants.  The Roman centre player will command the other 3 legions.  The Carthaginians are in three lines (mercenaries, levy, veterans) behind a screen of elephants.  Pencils show where the section boundaries will be.

 
Roman Right (above):  The Roman right player will command Masinissa's Numidian infantry and cavalry.  Again, they heavily outnumber their Carthaginian/Numidian opponent.

We have also tentatively agreed a small number of special rules that, we hope, will recreate the poor performance of the Carthaginian elephants and levy on the day (I'll publish these later).  What we need to do next, is to playtest the scenario two or three times  to make sure it is balanced....

One small by-product of the planning is that we added a few more units of Carthaginian light troops, taking the total number of minis past 1400!  At the same time, we reduced the number of elephants to 10, which will save me a fair bit of painting time.  The width of the board remains unchanged at 16 feet.

Thursday, 28 January 2010

Dead Nellie 2

This is the second dead elephant I've finished.  I'm currently also painting 2 Gripping Beast resin dead elephants with towers, in parallel, and some Celts I hope to have finished by tomorrow.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Dead Nellie 1 Done

Here's the first dead nellie (I hope to paint 8 or so for our Zama game by April).  You may recall that I myself sculpted dead nellie, a recently deceased African Forest elephant, and Keith at Aventine very kindly cast it up for me.  The victorious Roman is also from Aventine. 


Shield design LBMS.


The arrows are plastic broom bristle, with the end crimped with pliers.  Very easy...


I'm very pleased with the way it came out.  It was a very simple paint job.  I have a second model almost completed, photo to follow tomorrow, I hope.

If you would like a dead nellie, youreself, Aventine are selling them and very kindly donating the profits to "Help for Heroes".