These are the tents for a 15mm-scale camp I'm making for my mate Ian as a slightly belated birthday present.
It'll consist of 9 Baeuda tents and a small guard, and will match some pallisades I made last year.
I thing these are smashing little products. I hope that Baeuda make the praetorian tent to go this their 28mm equivalents, 'cos I want one!
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Monday, 20 September 2010
I've not gone away...
... just busy.
At the moment I'm repainting 9 celtic cavalry, because my celts are becoming outnumbered by my expanding Roman armies. I'm also working on a 15mm camp as a belated Birthday present for Ian, and renovating half an ala of Roman cavalry that I have never been entirely happy with, because I feel the GB riders are a tad too small.... photos to follow in a day or two.
At the moment I'm repainting 9 celtic cavalry, because my celts are becoming outnumbered by my expanding Roman armies. I'm also working on a 15mm camp as a belated Birthday present for Ian, and renovating half an ala of Roman cavalry that I have never been entirely happy with, because I feel the GB riders are a tad too small.... photos to follow in a day or two.
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Coh. I et II Bataviorum Eq.
I'm delighted to have finished basing my second Batavian Cohort and the cavalry detatchments of both Cohorts (below). All pictures are clickable.
The second cohort (below) is broadly similar to the first cohort. Most of the minis are a re-paint from an eBay purchase, with some BTDs and a couple of Crusader minis thrown in (I really love their cornicer, please remind me next time I am critical of a Crusader sculpt).
Below is the veteran 1st Cohort, from early last year.
And finally, below are the combined cavalry detatchments of the two cohorts. Each of the Batavian cohorts had 4 (later 8) turmae of cavalry, that could be grouped together to form substantial cavalry forces.
I'm pleased with the below; I took an old cavalry regiment (another eBay purchase) of Foundry Caesarian Celts, whipped the shields off, replaced a couple of minis with BTDs, and all the shields with shields nicked from my Foundry Ancient Germans in order that they would match the infantry. I tarted up the bases and horses a bit, and they look the biz.
So now, with 7 cohorts painted, I'm pretty near to finishing the Auxiliary infantry expansion programme, and I've made a small start on the Auxiliary cavalry, of which I'll need another 66. Gulp.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Shots of Greek Countryside
Whilst on holiday I decided to take some pictures of the Greek countryside, which might be useful to people modelling terrain. We were staying in Lefkas, which is an island on the west coast of Greece, near Corfu. I was extremely surprised by the sheer number of trees; also by the presence of many coniferous trees, which I'd not expected to see this far south.
Firstly a couple of shorts of olive trees; more than 50% of the trees I saw were olives. They have a silvery hue to their leaves and were, in general, a paler green than other trees around them.
The above orchard included some low, spongy-looking bushes. Note how many scrubby trees there are on the very steep slopes of the hill in the background!
This olive orchard was only 200 yards form the other, but had rather greener undergrowth.
This shot shows mixed woodland, with olives in the foreground. The lovely pencil-thin trees are cypresses, and my first priority will be to source some, as they would be very useful in Italy, too. They often appeared darker than the other trees. I want at least 2 dozen. I saw one solid forest of cypresses, which had no leaves at all on the lower half of their trunks due to lack of sunlight.
Some of the cypresses, above, had multiple trunks. At least I think this is a cypress.
This shot shows more mixed vegetation; think and thicker cypresses, with a range of other, lower trees. Note the variation in colours. One could legitimately mix pine trees in with this, there were quite a few around the coast.
Here are shorter trees; one saw these on poor soil, slopes and high ground. Maybe scrub oaks?
Lastly, this beautuful tree was very high up; no idea what it is but it goes to show that there was plenty of variety in the vegetation. BTW Ground colours varied from dusty, to rich red-browns where soil had recently been dug.
I hope these are useful if anyone is thinking of modelling terrain around the coast of the Adriatic.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Ionian Interlude
During my recent hols, my family went to Lefkas, an Island off the West coast of Greece. I was delighted to find (and go for a day cruise on) this wonderful ship, the "Odysseia", which you can see below drawn up on a beach where we swam and had a barbecue.
On the return trip they turned off the engine and raised the sail, which carried the boat along at a good pace!
It isn't a true galley; although wooden throughout it has a keel and angine, and can only take one bank of oars on the deck. It also has a bar. However it did, very much, look the part! It has been used in several historical dramas. It has a shallow draft and was very easy to beach and un-beach, in much the same way as the ancient greeks must have.
On the return trip they turned off the engine and raised the sail, which carried the boat along at a good pace!
The captain, Dimitri, was a jolly soul, very much from the school of Zorba, and made it a great trip; I'd heartily recommend the experience. The boat sails from the resort of Nidri, and the tour is very good value at e40.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Batavian Progress
Here are some progress shots of my second Batavian cohort. I've finished repainting (below) the 15 minis I bought on eBay; they have come out very nicely, indeed, and the fact they were bought painted probably saved me 4 or 5 nights work. In the background is the first cohort; I judge that the reinforcements are a little better painted.
Below are 9 other miniatures that will add a little variety; Crusader, Blacktree and Foundry. They should be finished tonight or, more likely, tomorrow.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Mike's Pikes
Mike on TMP (LEGION 1950) has kindly sent me some photos of a little army he and Mary have knocked together, in Chicago.
Above is a (clickable) collage showing much of the army, which appears to be mostly Foundry. The army is so large that I couldn't fit all the photos in the frame, and so the photos of the right wing are missing.
The phalanx is extremely imposing! A total of 12 x 32 man units. Quite a wall of lead... I like the impact of all the lowered pikes, although all my own will be vertical for storage reasons.
I gather that there are 96 Companion cavalry, alone!
This looks like Alexander, to me.
There must be around 800 miniatures in the army, in total, and from what I can see they are almost all Foundry; by far the largest Macedonian army I've seen. Very impressive.
Above is a (clickable) collage showing much of the army, which appears to be mostly Foundry. The army is so large that I couldn't fit all the photos in the frame, and so the photos of the right wing are missing.
The phalanx is extremely imposing! A total of 12 x 32 man units. Quite a wall of lead... I like the impact of all the lowered pikes, although all my own will be vertical for storage reasons.
I gather that there are 96 Companion cavalry, alone!
This looks like Alexander, to me.
There must be around 800 miniatures in the army, in total, and from what I can see they are almost all Foundry; by far the largest Macedonian army I've seen. Very impressive.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Coh. I Raetorum
So here is my latest (clickable) cohort of Auxilia, on patrol in the countryside. These are Raetians (from the area covered by modern Switzerland/Southern Germany); I've painted them up as Cohors I Raetorum because this unit ended up as part of the British garrison. They are armed with the gaesum, a barbed spear with a metal shaft, becuase I wanted to paint a unit that looked distinctive compared to my other units.
The miniatures are mostly lightly converted BTDs and Foundry Caesarians (I'm rather proud of their greenstuff shorts), with a Crusader tribune. Terrain is by my mate John Smillie.
Below are the final 6 stages of the painting process. I'm really pleased that I managed to finish them in 10 sessions, however some of them were quite long sessions! This is extremely fast work by my standards.
Session 5 - Helmets- paint and highlight
Session 6- Paint spearshafts, scabbards, baldricks, cloaks plus highlight
Session 7- Paint spearheads, highlight, borders on cloaks, silver decorations, swordhilts, crest on tribune. Wash with Army Painter Softtone
Session 8- Gloss spray varnish minis, selectively matt varnish minis. Attach shields, glue minis to base
Session 9- Texture base,
Session 10- Paint bases, weathering on shields, stick on Silflor tufts, static grass
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Batavian Intermission
This afternoon I'm finishing the basing of the Raetians, who are looking very fine. However, my enthusiasm for all things Auxiliary continues unabated, and I'm hoping to finish one more unit before my hols. This will be Cohors II Batavorum Eq., comrades of Cohors I which I painted last year, and my 6th unit of auxiliary infantry.
I bought 15 minis on eBay which are painted to a fair standard. They will need to be substantially repainted but which will give me a head start. The other 9 minis are a mix of Black Tree, Foundry and Crusader to add a little variety. I also intend to do a little work on Cohors I to help it to better match some of the succeeding units.
Monday, 2 August 2010
Raetian Auxilia III
My Raetians are coming on...
I'm 4 painting sessions in, on the 24 miniatures.
I probably have another 3-4 sessions to go, plus a couple for basing.
I'm 4 painting sessions in, on the 24 miniatures.
- Session 1 paint/transfers on shields
- Session 2 base coat on mail (a 50/50 mix of black and Boltgun Metal)
- Session 3 tunics, base and highlight, shorts, base and highlight
- Session 4 flesh, base and highlight
I probably have another 3-4 sessions to go, plus a couple for basing.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Coh. II Brittanorum Eq.
The I and II Brittanorum were Roman auxiliary cohorts, raised in Britannia some time after 43AD. They probably fought with Vitellius in the 69 AD Civil War (most of the auxiliary units I've modelled so far are from the garrison of Britannia).
Above, I have finished 16 additional Auxilia to match the 8 spare from May, which has enabled me to form a Cohort II Brittanorum. I intend that both British cohorts will ultimately become Equitata, so each will need a contingent of 6 cavalry. If anyone has any spare Foundry Caesarian Gallic cavalry, I'm in the market for a swap!
The figures are all Foundry Saleh's except for the command stand which has a Crusader centurion and cornicen (I am sometimes somewhat disparaging about Crusader, but these are very nice minis) and Foundry Copplestone signifer and imagifer. This time I remembered to sculpt knee breetches on the latter three, so that they match their comrades.
Here is the original cohort, the I Brittanorum:-
The next cohort will be the Raetians (see previous post). I've also decided that I'll also need to paint, down the line, another cohort each of Gauls and Batavians along with their integral cavalry contingents.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Raetian Auxilia II
Here are the Raetians, again, primed and ready to go. I hope to be able to paint them in around 7 sessions, as they should be the amongst the simplest Roman figures to paint because of the whopping great cloaks. But I still have 2 or 3 sessions basing sessions remaining to complete the British Auxiliaries, so I hope that they will be finished in around 2 weeks time.
On the subject of primer, I used a can of Army Painter and an not at all pleased- despite my best shaking, the minis have an unfortunate gritty texture. I actually had to wash them to get surplus powder off them! I'm going to do some careful testing to establish whether is the product, or the heat.
I'll be using the excellent LBMS transfers and have some here, left over from an earlier project.
Saturday, 24 July 2010
More Auxilia...
While I'm putting the finishing touches to my second cohort of British Auxiliaries (photo in 3-4 days), here's a shot of the next unit. I prepped these around 2 years ago and they have been waiting on the sidelines. I really should be painting pikes but instead I intend to speed-paint these... possibly next week.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Phalanx Done(ish)
Here's the refurbed/extended phalanx I've been working on recently, finally complete(ish). I say complete(ish) because I've decided that it ideally needs another 32 figures to bring it to 128, which is a much more Macedonian number, but they will have to wait a while for reinforcements as I'm working on another phalanx, now.
On the battlefield they will doubtless be formed up 4 deep, but 8 looks great.
The rear view (above) shows that only the front 3-4 ranks have linen armour.
All but one of the minis are Foundry (there's a solitary Bronze Goat in there somewhere).
Unusually for me, I did paint most of the figures in this unit, except for the first 2 dozen that were beautifully painted by Andy Bryant, whose style I have tried to imitate. The last 30 minis were painted using the fast method I described in a recent post, using sprays and dips as much as possible.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Pimp my Phalanx
Here's a quick update (clickable) photo of my first phalanx, which is now around 80% complete. Newly painted minis are joining the 50-odd minis I already had painted; there's a lot of rebasing going on, too. You can see a lot of shields part-painted at the front, and the final 24 part-painted minis at the rear. I hope to have the unit finished by the end of next week.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Experimental Phalangites
Whilst I'm painting what seems like an endless number of phalangites for my first Macedonian phalanx (33 from scratch, and retouching 11 others), I thought I'd also paint a few test figures for later units.
The first mini on the left is a Crusader phalangite, with a Polemarch shield. This was an annoying mini to prep (I hate the tiny sharp bits of metal that you often find on Crusader minis, left over from vents), and I find it a little dumpy, with rather fat legs. Details like fingers and toes are less well defined than on Foundry minis. I think I'll paint all my Foundry's first...
The middle figure is an Aventine elephant crewman, with a Foundry shield. I love the helmet on this figure and want to fit some into a mixed unit along with some Foundrys and Polemarchs. I presume Aventine will sculpt some, later, with greaves (which one obviously doesn't need in a howdah!). I did this one in expensive purple clothing and a silver shield, as an Agyraspid. It looks OK, but I think it would look better still with iron or silvered armour to go with the silver shield, and perhaps paler clothing colours.
Figure on the right is a Foundry peltast who has been consripted into the rear ranks of the phalanx.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Painting a Phalanx in 21 Easy, Easy Stages
I'm using the below method to paint pikemen in groups of 12 or 16 for my big pike project. Although there are a lot of steps, each one is pretty quick and I can finish a batch in around a week. I've tried to rationalise the process and include lots of shortcuts such as Army Painter and the use of spray primers and varnishes.
Stages in the Mass Phalangite Paintjob
1. Spray prime minis brown (I’m using Montana Gold “Palish Brown”)
2. Paint linothorax and sword hilt white
3. Block in tunic and plumes in various colours; highlight
4. Paint coloured trims on some linothorax
5. Block in flesh tone, then highlight
6. Paint leather straps brown, and retouch brown around tops of boots, base and back of shield
7. Highlight leather straps
8. Paint hair black or brown, highlight
9. Paint helmet cheek guards black
10. Drybrush base in earth brown.
11. Apply army painter “soft tone” dip (except over shields)
12. 1 coat gloss spray varnish
13. 1 coat matt spray varnish
14. Paint shield facing, helmet, greaves, cheekguards Vallejo brass
15. Highlight with brass mixed with a hint of silver
16. Apply army painter “strong tone” to shield and helmet
17. Spray paint pikes “Desert Yellow”
18. 1 coat gloss spray varnish on pikes
19. 1 coat matt spray varnish on pikes
20. Paint pike heads black, then dark silver and highlight.
21. Attach pike; retouch
The sample figures at the top are at different stages; the first is at stage 3, the second is at stage 16 (I just need to paint the cheekguards on his helmet). The third is finished, except that I need to matt varnish him as I skipped the spray matt stage. Bronze-faced shields are the easiest thing in the world to paint!
Monday, 21 June 2010
Evil Empire targets Muswell Militia
So I'm on my way to work this morning, and next to the bus stop, perhaps 100 yards form my front door (and right next to the "Maid of Muswell", our local waterhole), a Games Workshop has sprung up overnight! I can only assume this is a targeted attempt to plunder Muswell Militia's wargames budget. ;-)
More seriously, I don't buy much GW stuff these days aside from the odd pot of paint, but I welcome their arrival, nonetheless. It is an interesting place to put a wargames shop; not much passing trade, but there are thousands of well-heeled teenagers around here. Possibly a shrewd marketing strategy... time will tell.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Pikes, Pikes, Pikes
My main theme for this year is going to be pikemen.
Here's the painting tray. I'm actually painting 2 different phalanx simultaneously, each of which will eventually be 99 minis strong. Each finished phalanx will be 24 figures wide and 4 deep, with most figures based in 8's, and a 3 figure command stand. During games, I'll subdivide them into units of 32 or 48 depending on which rules I am using.
The first phalanx is a refurb of my Macedonian phalanx, from which I'm removing the dust clouds prior to more or less doubling it in size. Some of these are at the bottom right, with newly primed reinforcements top left, and some recently finished troops bottom left. I've developed a relatively speedy way of painting pikemen, making extensive use of spray paints, spray varnishes and dips, that should enable me to finish at least a dozen minis a week. I'll write this up later on. This unit will be the first to be finished, hopefully in around 4 weeks time.
The second is an entirely new Egyptian successor phalanx. Some of these are top right, almost finished (sans pike), and I already have 14 completely finished and stored away. This unit will mix Foundry and Polemarch minis, and have longer 100mm pikes; should look great!
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Hoplites
I've added another 8 hoplites to my phalanx. One day I hope I'll have enough of them to challenge my rather more numerous Spartans!
The two new elements are front right (photo is clickable). Six of the eight were mostly painted, and IIRC I picked them up in a figure exchange; painted to a better standard than I manage! I have painted rather less than half the minis in the unit. Shields are a mixture of LBMS, VVV transfers and hand painted designs. All the figures in the unit are Foundry, except one Crusader mini (front, 4th from right). The Crusader isn't nearly as nice as the Foundry's. IMHO ; he has a wimpy little helmet crest and his forearms are a bit short.
I find hoplites very slow to paint, I think it is the individuality of their equipment. Give me Romans any day...
I find hoplites very slow to paint, I think it is the individuality of their equipment. Give me Romans any day...
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