Wednesday, 20 April 2011

I'm back!

I've not posted for a week or so after a break in Paris and Salute.
Gloarmy Greg and his wife stayed here over Salute,  which was great, and it was also a lot of fun meeting some of my fellow bloggers in the flesh at the show, including (but not limited to) Iron Mitten, Saxon Dog and Andres of Einar Olafson Painting.  I chatted with James Morris about his beautiful Ethiopian set up.  Also met Nick Speller and gave him some more stuff to paint for me, and Paul Darnell who delivered a pretty piece of terrain which I'll photograph later.   Saw local boy George Moraitis.  Also met lots of others (apologies if I missed you)!  I helped Greg with his very pretty Memoir '14 game, but not nearly as much as I should have (sorry Greg).

Of the games I saw, my overall favourite piece was the Gallipoli terrain, which was simply the finest bit of terrain modelling I've ever seen. Astounding!   Saxon Dog/Paul Darnell's game and Ethiopia were very impressive, too.

I didn't spend much money, except on a copy of the Hail Caesar, rules which are presently giving me an unfortunate sense of deja vue, as they rather remind me of Warmaster, which I never took to.  Except they includes recipes for cooking milk-fattened nails, which Warmaster certainly didn't.  I have a serious hunch I may regret the purchase of the rules... but I suppose I might give the snails a go.

I finally finished basing the Late Romans tonight; photos to follow, tomorrow I hope!

Friday, 8 April 2011

Very Late Romans

I bought 32 of these boys 4-5 years ago on eBay, and they have finally made it to the front of the queue.  The shields, in particular, are beautifully hand painted (have a click!).  I've painted 16 figures to match (at the back), and later will add spare shields that I had the presence of mind to buy, at the time, from the seller, to round out my first two 24-man Auxilia.  I'm also planning to rebase the 16 minis of the right, which look a little bit too regular (and my basing has improved).


They are all Foundry minis, sculpted by the Perrys.  A lovely range, just a tad on the small side for my tastes.  Some day I might replace them with bigger GB or perhaps the new Muskateer minis.

Saturday, 2 April 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela III and Final Part

...being the remainder of Dug's game 1 (all pictures clickable).  

In the above, it looks to me like the Persians in the centre are pressing forward onto the Macedonian pikes- not something I'd fancy, personally!

Elephants' graveyard.

 Companions pushing forwards, in the centre.

Above, the Companions are well forward, and one of the phalanx blocks seems to be half way to Babylon, already.  I wonder whether the chariot is Darius?

Final shot of the battle above.  I understand that the Macedonians won by a fair margin, and the following 2 games, too!  Looks like the players had a fun day.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela II

Some more photo's of Dug's excellent game. There are an awful lot of elephants in the Guagamela scenario; rather too many, in my view.  But they look good...






And my favourite two closeups... the pikes, in particular, look brilliant!  It is the first time that I have regretted that my own pikes are all vertical.


Thursday, 31 March 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela

At the Society of Ancients Game Day, last year, one of the players was a chap name Dug.  Dug caught the C&C Ancients bug very badly, indeed, and barely a day has gone by without a few photos of one of his games thudding into my Inbox.  

His latest game is the Epic Guagamela scenario. Apparently they managed to fight this huge battle three times in a single day! 

Below are some photos; the closeups were taken by Mark, who also played at Zama.  Dug has an impressively large collection of minis... I also rather envy his large gaming shed.  You don't tend to get gaming rooms like that in London.  :-(




Above is a closeup of the Persian hordes.  The Macedonians do look somewhat outnumbered! 

I shall post a few more photos as they come along...

Monday, 28 March 2011

Coh. I Legio Secunda Traiana Fortis


My first Middle Imperial Roman unit (pictures clickable; worth it for the LBMS shields...).  I bought these painted on fleaBay, painted one more mini to match, replaced the shields and rebased.  Whoever originally painted them was very talented.  I aspire to a small army... some II Parthians, Lanciarii and a unit with the Dura Europos shield.

My impressions of the A&A miniatures are very favourable. I've ordered (and received) some more.  Minis that look somewhat dubious on their Website, are actually very nice in the hand...  Most or all of the Romans were sculpted by Aventine Adam, I believe.


Now I can't decide whether to paint another pretty unit of MIRs, or some French Napoleonic artillery, by way of a change.  Tough call...

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Can a man have too many Romans?

This is the first of a number of Middle Imperial Romans units that I intend to paint.  I bought 23 of these, nicely painted, on eBay, and painted one more to match.  I've taken them off their WAB bases , retouched and removed their shields (they had oval shields, which feels wrong with Segmentata).  I've given them Black Tree Scuta, becuase I feel the A&A are a little irregular in size.  I hope to start basing, tonight...
I will be doing a Late Roman army too, lots to do...