Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Hellenistic Bodyguard Cavalry

 

This is a unit of  cavalry that I've just refurbed (it is clickable).  They were originally painted as Thessalians for an Alexandrian Imperial army (see photo below).  I bought them, mostly completed, from Andy Bryant; finished the painting, then based them in rhomboids.  But I was never happy with the basing, and also realised that Alexander released most of his Thessalians when he issued purple cloaks to his cavalry, so they would be rather limited in their use.

 

Sooo, I've issued them with shields and crests for their helmets, and now they will be the bodyguard for various later successor generals.  They will see a lot more action, that way, as I'll be doing Hellenistic armies after Salute!  They will also substitute for Carthaginian cavalry at Zama (I have no shame!).  Later I shall paint 6 more to make two full units.  The LBMS transfers worked very nicely...

Sunday, 28 February 2010

BigRedBat's War Cabinet

One of the younger scions of the BigRedBat clan has laid claim to the room where I've traditionally stored my legions.  Accordingly, as part of a negotiated withdrawl, it was agreed that I could put a storage cabinet in another room.  I found a fantastic one at Ikea; the Bergsbo.  My son and I assembled it today, and this afternoon my troops marched to their new home with banners flying and flautists piping.

What excites me about the Bergsbo cabinet is that has the perfect dimensions to take an unfeasibly large number of the "Really Useful Boxes" in which I store all my minis., with almost no wasted space.  It is deep, and all the shelves are adjustable.   In (and above) the cabinet are no less than 68 storage boxes, of various sizes, containing roughly 3000 28mm miniatures and almost all my terrain.

Another benefit of the new cabinet is that it is now a lot easier to access the miniatures I need for a particular game, and I can see the labels on the end of the boxes.  Oh happy day!

Saturday, 27 February 2010

Completed Republican Roman Triarii


Craig Davey has completed the command stand for his Triarii; I think they are absolutely splendid!  The figures are all from the new Aventine Republican Roman range.  I particularly like what he has done with the standards and plumes.  The detail is beautiful, have a click!  Jealous, I am!  

Friday, 26 February 2010

On the Painting Table

In the brief intervials between slapping gunk on boards, I've been trying to base some of the last units I'm contributing  to the game.  Below are some Spanish cavalry painted by Nick Speller, that need matt varnishing and basing.

 

And below here are some Foundry Thessalians painted by myself and Andy Bryant, that I'm in the process of converting to shielded Hellenistic cavalry.   They will stand in, on the day, as Carthaginian heavies.

 

Thursday, 25 February 2010

More Boards...

 
So here's my life for the next month; these are boards 1-3 of an eventual 8 or 9, for Zama.  The furthest two boards are 60% complete; they still need a lot of highlighting and will need some selective  flocking (although the final theme is going to be brown).  

The nearest board is perhaps 25% done.  The next step will be to trim the fields using my Wahl.  Then I will apply texture, and finally a basecoat of Chocolate Brown Sandtex (which trick I picked up from the "Touching History"  books).  

I also need to check that my plan to use a template to superimpose a hex grip on the finished boards, will work.  It occured to me, yesterday, that the standing crops may prevent the template from lying flat on the boards.  Gulp.  I'll test it before I start board 4; on future boards, I may need to apply the crops after the grid. 

The scale of the venture is daunting...

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Carthaginian Relief Column!

I am indeed considerably relieved to see the arrival of these Carthaginians., into the collection of fellow Muswellian, Dr Simon.  Aside form the 200  Aventine Romans we still need to paint, these are pretty well the last major units required.  The pikes on the spearmen will be replaced in due course...

There's more about them and additional photos on Dr. Simon's Blog.

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

A Little Board

This is the first of eight terrain boards for the Zama game with basecoat applied (the final colour will be a dustty light brown).  I've tried to break up the flat terrain with fields, ditches and tracks; I'll probably get more ambitious as I move along the battlefield.  The cream-coloured fields will be dyed or painted in due course.  I've tried to avoid making the texture too rough, so that we can move the pieces across it, with relative ease.  I hope that the ploughed fields will look good when finished.

When it is complete, I'll attempt to add a hex grid to it...

My take on Zama is that the battlefield is essentially flat, agricultural land, with a few scattered trees (olives and a type that looks a bit like a cypress), in autumn.  There is going to be a lot of brown, and dried grass.  If anyone knows any different, please let me know ASAP!