Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Dead Nellie 6 (B-23)

This is the last of my Dead Nellie models; I call it "Scipio Triumphant", and it's  the one I'll be giving away when we swap Dead Nellies at Salute.  The figure is the Perry miniature from the Spartacus diorama.  I may stick a couple of broken standards on the base, later, if time permits.


23 days to Bletchley...  played another playtest last night.  I ran the Romans but the cards and dice were conspiculously not on my side!  "Scipio Triumphant" may be a bit optomistic...

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

Dead Nellie 5 (B-24)

I'm very pleased with this one (number 5 of 6).  It includes the only Aventine velite that I've managed to paint during this whole Zama project.  I do intend to paint plently, later on...


The poor chap held his shield slightly too high!


Its now only 24 painting days to Bletchley.  I'm still up to my elbows in flock; I think I've managed to find most of what I need, though.  I estimate I've spend rather more than £100 on flock, alone, for this project.

Monday, 22 March 2010

Test shots of Figures on Boards

I'veput some figures on the boards to show what I mean about the colour.  Essentially the base colour is a good match, but I'm certainly going to need to get some green vegetation on there!   Unhelpfully, there seems to be a UK-wide shortage of Silflor at the moment.  :-(


Below is a Dead Nellie, who probably tripped up in that drainage ditch!


I'm shortly going to raid Modelzone in search of vegetation ideas.

Sunday, 21 March 2010

Pictures of the Real Zama

I thought it might be useful to show some links to photos of Zama I found on the interweb, which explain why I've made the terrain colours a bit muted (some might say a bit grey!).  

Here's the approach to Zama at sunset:-

http://www.woodbrothers.tv/image.axd?picture=2009%2F11%2FWood+Brothers+-+Zama+sunset.jpg

And this picture, in particular, is very much what I'm trying to capture:-


http://www.woodbrothers.tv/image.axd?picture=2009%2F12%2FWood+Brothers+-+battlefield+of+Zama.jpg

The field is slightly browner than mine, but appears to be an umber-type shade.  I wanted to achieve a very dried out , dusty post-harvest look.  In hindsight, I could have bunged a bit of yellow ochre into the mix when highlighting, which I do with the mix I use for basing.  I'll need to work in some clumps of dark green vegetation.  If anyone could whip up some trees looking like those, that would be very helpful!

The below looks like it is taken much earlier in the year, as it is a lot greener, but appears to include an olive grove (I have one on order):-

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/95148729_137d2b6ba9.jpg

Flocking hell...

I started the flocking stage yesterday hoping that it would be a quick job, but one test board later (and that far from completion), it is clearly not going to be the case.  Below is the test board before flocking:-


and after...


The flock disguises the dark brown edges where the base board paint had soaked into the fur, and makes the field edges appear less regular.  I 've also been applying it on top of the fur which makes it seem more natural.  What I haven't done, yet, is to apply flock around the drainage ditches. I intend this vegetation to be greener, to inject just a little colour onto the brown-grey boards.

I'm estimating 3 hours per board, now, to complete flocking.   This should use up all my spare time before I start work.

Saturday, 20 March 2010

4 weeks to Bletchley, 5 to Salute.

4 weeks today we'll be listening to the opening lecture at Bletchley.  Gulp!  I've got up early to polish off domestic duties and try to get a full day in on the terrain.

In other news, my period of "resting" will shortly be coming to an end, as employment (finally!) beckons.  It's a good job that the boards are nearly complete!  Post Salute, I expect that I'll have to become a less frequent (but regular) poster.

Friday, 19 March 2010

Quick Zama update

Last night Ian and I had the best playtest so far.  The game was exciting, and felt fairly balanced.; the Carthaginians were very slightly ahead, but we'll fix that.  I was particularly happy because we have felt able to strip out most of the special rules we had been testing, so it is now fairly close to vanillla Command and Colors.  The elephants, in particular, are now in 5 units of 2 and but a mere shadow of their former stompy selves (although they did stomp my Carthaginians a few times, in blue-on-blue incidents!).

Today I received a package from French Greg Privat including the last of the Bruttians, and some casualty minis, all looking very nice.  All the Generals arrived from Nick Speller earlyer this week, and they look great too.  So with the exception of a few more casualty figures that Nick is working on, and the olive trees band hay ricks currently being fashioned in the Scottish glens by my mate John, I now have all the stuff that I'm responsible for.

This afternoon, I'm sticking fields to the boards; tomorrow, hopefully doing some detailing (tufts of grass, etc.).  And I've put in an order for 700 more 5mm map pins...