Thursday, 7 July 2011

Not my Epic Arausio


This is Dug Page Croft's epic Commmand and Colors refight of the Battle of Arausio.  This battle, in 105BC, between invading Germans and Romans, ended in a terrible defeat for the latter, perhaps worse than Cannae in terms of number of casualties.  It is thought to have led to the reforms of the Roman army, under Marius.


Dug's games are looking very impressive...


Apparently the Germans slaughtered the Romans in both of Dug's refights!  If I remember correctly, they won when I played the game, too, some years ago.  Warband can be pretty hot, in C&C.

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Full Muster of Militiamen

Out microclub, Muswell Militia, boasts that we can fit our entire membership in a telephone box; well not this week!  No less than 5, yes 5, players were present for a very enjoyable game of Black Powder.  In fact, we were only missing Gloarmy Greg!


The game went very quickly and there are signs that we are mastering the rules.  We are now able to use all the available figures and bring the game to a conclusion in around 90 minutes. We used Dr. Simon's Mexican Intervention figures- there are rumours of the arrival of reinforcements and possibly a campaign setting.

I've been away because I've been very busy painting Napoleonics, but I'll be getting back into ancients for at least a week or so because I need to finish some Romans for Greg's "Big Parade" challenge on 14th July; I want to be able to deploy my complete Early Imperial Roman Legion, for the first time.

Sunday, 12 June 2011

Not my Pink Pikemen

My friend Craig Davies (who was one of the principle collaborators of last year's Zama project), has sent me some photos of some of the beautiful new Aventine pikemen that he has painted.

He says that the shield transfers he has used are LBMS, designed for Crusader, so are a little bit big, but they do go right to the edge of the Aventine shield with a bit of careful trimming.


He has based the colour scheme on this picture from the Vergina tombs:-


I think he has done a superb job!  Lovely basing, too.

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Hills part deux

I've spray painted the six hills that I started yesterday, and some of them can be seen, below.  They still need tufts and other vegetation added, which I'll do later this week.  I'm really chuffed with them; a good result for a minimum of effort and no cost.  Not like me at all...


The game shown is described on My Very Own Spanish Ulcer blog.

Monday, 30 May 2011

Hills

I've decided to refurbish some old GW hills, to match my Zama Boards.  


My plan is to partially texture them as above, spray them to match the terrain boards, and then add tufts for a bit of variety.  The nice thing about these are that they are hollow, and so will sit nicely on top of my very textured Zama boards (which are currently doubling for Mexico, and which will very likely also stand in for Napoleonic Spain).   If anyone can suggest where I can get some more (perhaps larger) hollow hills, please do comment below.

Thursday, 26 May 2011

Sagittarii

These are the chums of Tuesday's slingers; I painted 4 to match an eBay purchase (from Solway Arts and Crafts IIRC), and based.  They were pretty quick to paint, using Army Painter.  Mine are the ones with blonde hair.


I usually double-depth base my light troops, but did these in single depth so that they can support a (projected future) unit of legionaries. 

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

250K Page Views! And some Slingers.

A kind thank you to all my visitors; my page count (since March '09) slipped past 250K this afternoon!  Please do keep dropping by here, and to my very new Horse'n'Musket blog, on which I next expect to post, tomorrow.


Here's a (clickable) unit of late Roman slingers I just finished.  I bought eight painted on Ebay, painted four more to match, gave them shields based on a Notitia design, and based.

I converted 2 figures to have staff slings, or fustibalii, and you should be able to make them out, below.  These started as spearmen.  I repositioned the arms and made the slings with twisted fine wire and a tiny bit of greenstuff.  They came out very well, I'll do more at some stage.


Ultimately, these will be in a separate army to my Late Roman Perrys, because they are rather larger minis, and I am nothing if not ruthlessly sizeist.  I aspire to a second army of mixed Black Tree, GB and Muskateer, like Jon's.