Sunday, 18 April 2010

Zama- "B" Day Deployment

Today I'll post some photos of our Zama game which was fought yesterday at the SOA Battle Day in Bletchley, and which we will fight one more time at Salute.  All phgotos are clickable.

Above is the 16' long field of battle before the arrival of the armies.  I was very pleased with the terrain, and the details that John Smillie made (olive and other trees, and the haystacks) set it off nicely.

Here is a view along the battlefield from behind the Carthaginian left rear.  If you look carefully, you can see the ladders on the haystacks!

And, finally for the moment (below) an aerial view of the battlefield; Carthaginians in the foreground.  The three lines of the Carthaginian deployment can be distinctly made out, with their elephants in front.  You should also be able to see the four Roman legions with their "elephant channels", and Numidian foot deployed to their right.   The two central legions have red shields, and the outer allied legions, white.
 

Friday, 16 April 2010

Eve of Battle!


Hannibal and Scipio parley on the battlefield of Zama, on the day before the battle.

Tomorrow at the crack of dawn, Muswell Militia and various associated malcontents will be driving up to the SOA Battle Day event in Bletchley to fight our version of Zama.  Hannibal has won every practice battle; but I have a feeling in my waters that Scipio will pip it on the day...

Hope to see some of you there!  

Monday, 12 April 2010

Yet more generals...


Here are some of the figures that Greg Privat painted for me, and I based.  These are Aventine Etruscans, and will be commanding one half of the Roman centre.  I'm still busy trying to finish off basing the Bruttians Greg painted for me; I'll get there!   I very much like the standard, which I think depicts Hercules.

Sunday, 11 April 2010

Towering haystacks and Carthaginians

My mate John has made some more trees and some "Roman" haystacks for me.  There are pictured on his blog
and should help to indicate that the battle was fought in the autumn period. I need to add a small pole coming out of the top of each one, as you see on Trajan's column.

In other news... 15 minutes ago I finally finished the boards.  Now I just have a couple of units to finish basing, the casualty minis to sort out, some counters to make and suchlike....  very doable.

Dr. Simon has also just posted pics of his Carthaginian contingent; I'm delighted to see them ready for the fray!

Saturday, 10 April 2010

No more snowballs...

After a week's reflection, I decided that the white map pins were unbearably... white.   Today my long suffering accomplace Ian came around and we pulled out the 350 pins we hammered in last Tuesday and replaced them with 350 pins I'd sprayed beige.  We then put another 350 pins into the remaining 4 boards, which are substantially complete (they just need a bot of drybrushing on the vegetation).


This is the board with the new pins, which are much less obvious than the white ones.  I'm very pleased with them!  A big thanks to Ian for his help.

Thursday, 8 April 2010

Keith's Zama Legions (B-8)


Aventine-Keith has just sent me this picture of the 2 legions (less 4 units of velites, not shown, which I've done) that he has painted for the Zama game.  Romans left, allies right.  They represent just under 1/3 of the Roman army for the game; can't wait to see them "in the lead"!   Not long to go, now...

Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Carthaginian Sub-General (B-9)

This grizzled veteran of many victories will command the Carthaginian centre.  The miniatures are Crusader or A&A, with the right hand standard from Aventine (I need to paint a design on that!).  Nick Speller painted them very nicely, for me.  I will admit I wasn't keen on the minis, in the lead, but they painted up splendidly and I'm delighted with them.

Tuesday, 6 April 2010

Snowballs in the dust... (B-10)

Now having spent 3 months producing a set of rather realistic-appearing terrain, my mate Ian and I have just spent an evening fixing little white balls all over it....   

The reason for this madness, is that we need to mark out the hexes that are (nigh-on) essential for Command and Colors. Each hex is around 13cm across the flats and will hold one unit (there are c.120 units in the game).  I decided that the minimum we could get away with, in terms of indicatiing the hexes, is a map pin marking the apices. 

To position the map pins, we made a template from a thin sheet of clear plastic, marked the apices out, and cut a 10mm cross at each one.  We then pushed the pins through the plastic into the foam, carefully removed the plastic sheet, and whacked each pin with a hammer, which anchored them in the MDF beneath the foam.  The really nice thing about the map pins is that they can be removed without damageing the boards in the event that we want to use them for non-hex games, at a later stage.

You can just make the plastic sheet out by the glare, below:


Below is the board with the plastic removed, and some punic troops drawn up in line.


Whilst the pins are slightly obtrusive, they are, unfortunately, a necessary evil. There will be around 750 map pins across the entire table.  I'd like to than Ian for his help with the 4 boards we finished!

Monday, 5 April 2010

'arfer table

This is the right hand side 8' of the table, finished (bar the hexes).  The main change since the last photo are that I've dyed the lighter fields to darken them, and drybrushed all the tufts of static grass to make them blend in.  On the day, there will be trees and haystacks. 


I'm really pleased with how they came out!  Tomorrow Ian is going to help me with marking some hexes out.

Sunday, 4 April 2010

Hannibal (B-12)

Here is the great man himself.  He seems to be remonstrating with the levy spearman; perhaps the levy want to retreat, but the veterans won't let them through.  Tough! 


These minis were painted by the very talented Nick Speller.  I varnished and based them.   They are Crusader except for the nice Aventine mini on the left and left-hand vexilla (Aventine do great standards).  The Hannibal is, appropriately, an old Salute giveaway miniature. 

Only 12 painting sessions to Bletchley!  I've still got 2 units of Greg's Bruttians to finish and base, the casualties to complete, the boards to drybrush, hexes to mark out, packing and a couple of other minor tasks.

Still Frantically Flockin'...

...I just started the final flock of board 8.  Today I'm listening to Johnny Cash and Cat Stevens, who are making the work light.

Here's board 7 which has more ditches, and which is consequently more lush than the average:


In total I think I've used around £150 worth of 10 different grass and flock products.  The vegetation still needs to be drybrushed.  I'm very pleased with the small amount of Silflor "weeds" I bought, which are tufts with small "leaves" attached; I'll be buying more of them.

Saturday, 3 April 2010

Board dressing

I've been frantically flocking my terrain.  My concept involved a lot of bare earth, and it looks like it'll be realised (if only because I don't have enough silflor clumps or time!).  The lush, green vegetation will be largely confined to the ditches, and I'll be drybrushing it lightly at the end, which will hopefully tie in in, better.


Greg, this is what the rest of the fields should look like, finished.

Friday, 2 April 2010

A shwubbery!


My mate John Smillie has completed the olive trees that I have long coveted.  He made them  individually using sea-moss and wire, and I think they are far superior to the bottle brush trees I usually use.  I just need to paint the bases to match my terrain, and add some Sliflor.  He's promised to make me some Cypress trees, which would look very good with my Roman buildings, using the same method.  He's also making some haystacks...

This is the last weekend I have to finish flocking the terrain boards... should be busy!

Monday, 29 March 2010

Generals Wanted!

Muswell Militia and friends will be running what we hope is the largest ever Command and Colors (Ancients) miniatures game twice over the next month. The battle we are refighting is Zama and will involve 1500+ miniatures, deployed in roughly 120 units, on a 4.8 metre long table.   The scenario somewhat resembles the C&C Epic Zama scenarios, but is rather bigger.  We’ve extensively play-tested it and it should be a pretty even game; it will take around 5 hours to play, including breaks.  There’s a good deal about it elsewhere on my blog: http://bigredbat.blogspot.com/search/label/Operation%20Zama

Up to four generals are needed for each side, for each refight, and we are looking for additional players to general on both sides on both days. It would be helpful if these have prior experience of playing the C&C(A) boardgame, whose rules we are using. However, C&C is a very accessible system, and we can teach the basics to a wargamer in 20 minutes or so.  We’ll also have someone on hand to offer advice...

The first outing will be at the Society of Ancients Battle Day, in Bletchley, on 17th April; here’s a link to their page: http://www.soa.org.uk/battleday/

The second will be at Salute on 24th April, at the Excel Centre in Docklands: http://www.salute.co.uk/

If you are available and would like to play in either game, drop me a line at simon dot miller at lineone dot net, and we’ll see if we can fit you in… they should be memorable games!

Sunday, 28 March 2010

Boards on the Tabletop

I put four of the eight Zama boards on a table yesterday, and they joined up nicely.  I've still not finished the flocking, but I've done enough to know that it'll all work.  The boards are a little browner in real life than in the photo.


Yesterday I raided the local pound shop, and bought enough camping mats and doublesided tape to put a padded backing on each of the boards, as below.  I'm hoping that this will protect the surface of the boards when they are stacked up against each other, and protect my table top, too.  It only cost £1 GBP per board!


Saturday, 27 March 2010

Carthaginian Mounted General (B-20)

This represents the nameless commander of the Carthaginian right wing cavalry at Zama.  The general is a converted Aventine Pyrrhic mahout, and his standard bearer Crusader, with an Aventine standard.  Both horses are Foundry WotGs.  Very ably painted by Nick Speller, and based by yrs. truly.


In most of the playtest games, the horse he commands and their Roman opponents have pretty well wiped each other out.  The general has sometimes survived the slaughter and gone on to help lead the Carthaginian foot.

Friday, 26 March 2010

Scipio Africanus! (B-21)

Here's the first of four Command stands, painted by Nick Speller and based by me.  Scipio is the overall Roman commander, and an excellent tactician, who hammered the final nail into the coffin of Carthage at Zama.


Most of the figures are the excellent new Aventines, but the mounted General is a Crusader miniature. 


Scipio will sit on the Roman Baseline.  He's not going to get into any combats, in our game.


As here, I usually inscribe a name on the rear of the command stand. 

Only 3 more weeks to finish everything up!

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.