Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Ala Gallorum Petriana, and 400K!

This is my second Ala of Auxiliary cavalry; the Petrian Gallic wing.  These were probably raised at the beginning of the first century, and served on the Vitellian side, under Caecina, in the 69AD war. After the war they came to Britain and were stationed in Northumberland and Cumbria for the next hundred years or so.


These were painted for me by Dr. Simon's excellent mystery painter, but I did quite a bit of highlighting on them, too, varnished and based.  Pics are clickable.  All the miniatures are Black Tree.  At 24 men, it is the right size for a Quingenary Ala, but as a wargames unit, it is a little unwieldy, and I shall probably make future units a little smaller at 18 figures, and consider them to be understrength.


In other news, the tracker ticked past 400K visits today!  Thanks very much for all your visits, so far, and onwards and upwards to the half million!

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Some Ancient Vikings for Sale!

I'm making some space in my War Cabinet for new projects by selling a couple of armies I'm less passionate about.  These Vikings are a mixture of the early Wargames Foundry range, with some Citadel and, I believe, a couple of Old Glory.   They were re-painted and based around 5 years ago, to a good tabletop standard. They are magnetically based on card on a 20mm frontage.  Pics are clickable.



I'm looking for around £3 per mini which comes to £72 plus postage; am also open to swaps.  You can post here in comments, or email me at the address on the front page.

This link is to my other for sale items.

Cheers, Simon

Monday, 1 October 2012

Traffic Jam

The painting tray is overflowing with chariots.  My plan is for a first wave of 9, but I want to go to eventually muster 20 or so.  Most of the crews have gone off to Nick to be painted (he'll do a far better job with plaid than could I).


In the foreground are the chariot horses, which I hope will be fairly quick to paint...  and I need to finish basing the cohort of Dalmatians on the front left, to clear a bit of space!

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Relic Miniatures Gallic Chariot

I mentioned in yesterday's post that, along with all the wheels, Mike from Relic Miniatures kindly sent me a sample of one of his chariots, which I'll briefly review here.


Above is the chariot, straight out of the bag.  The figures are very nice true 28mm, but I won't focus on those, as my current interest is much more in the vehicle and steeds.  

You'll see how lovely and slender the chariot pole is, and the frames on the cab.   The wheels I frothed over in my earlier post.  The whole piece appears to be cast in a strong pewter, which helps give strength to the slender pole.  There was no flash, but there were a number of small vents to clip and file away; however this didn't take long.


Above, I quickly assembled the piece, which fitted together very nicely.  The photo isn't great but you might be able to make out the crisp detail underneath, such as the ropes.


Above is the assembled Relic chariot, and below is one of my "Frankenstein" chariots, for comparison.  I think you'll see that the Relic chariot is rather more elegant, in a number of areas.  Firstly, the very nice Relic horses above are much more animated than the Newlines I will mainly be using.  A very minor observation is that, as this is a Gallic chariot, these are small horses, rather than the ponies that would likely have been used in backward Britain and Caledonia.  The chariot frame is very detailed with ropes and one of the more svelte frames I've seen, and the chariot pole is lovely and slender.


You'll have gathered that I'm quite a fan of the Relic model, and will certainly add more to my fleet when time and funds permit.  Thanks Mike!

Friday, 28 September 2012

Got wheels

A timely delivery of Relic's very nice chariot wheels has enabled me to replace the clunkier Wargames Factory wheels.  Here is the "before"...


...and below is the rather more elegant "after"!  Much closer to Wetwang, I think.


At Mike's suggestion, I have further shortended the chariot pole, which I think really helps with the look of the chariot.  I've built oval-shaped bases out of plastic, laser cut ply and magnetic sheet, so that I can make the chariots skrimish.  The round plywood disk raises the chariot to the level of the bases of the horses.

Mike also kindly sent me a complete chariot, which I'll assemble over the coming days, and post here; it's a lovely piece.  Thanks Mike!

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Chariot Wheel Size Comparison

I'm constructing a fleet of chariots for my Ancient British, and I though others might like to see some of the wheels that are out there.

Firstly, this is the ideal I'm aiming towards; a wheel of similar size and proportion to those on the below chariot reconstruction.  You'll notice that the rim is pretty thin... this isn't a feature on many of the models out there!


Below are the wheels from the models I've collected so far.  Isn't it astonishing how varied the size and shapes are? 


The smallest wheel is from Black Tree Designs; at 12mm diameter, it would suit a 15mm model better than a 28mm!  Laughable.

The second, is from the more recent Foundry range.  It is in my opinion too small, and has a very ugly thick rim; looks like it should be on a wheelbarrow.

The third, from Newline Designs, is rather elegant, if a little on the small side for me (I guess it is true 28mm).  It doesn't have a raised hub, though, which is a pity.

The fourth, from Relic Miniatures, arrived today from Canada and is lovely (thanks Mike!).  It is a good size and very elegant.  It is ready drilled on the back to take an axle, too.  Absolutely my favourite wheel; it is beautifully modelled and cast.

The sixth, from Renegade Miniatures, I quite like, even though it has a thickish rim.  If I didn't have Relics, I'd certainly look at these.

Finally, the Wargames Factory wheel is the largest by around a millimetre.  Again, I was planning to use these, until Relic's lovely pieces arrived.  I now intend to save these and use them as waggon wheels for a projected baggage train.


I'll do a picture review of the very nice Relic model in a few days time.

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Cohors Hedlium

The official name of this cohort is Coh. I Cannefatium, but they will operate under the name of their prefect, Hedlius (I bought most of the minis, painted, from Legatus Hedlius).  They will be brigaded alongside my Batavians, who they joined in the 69AD revolt.


I finished them just before Partizan but this has been my first chance to take photos.  They are mostly Foundry Salehs with a slight admixture of Black Tree for variety.  In general I'm going to use Salehs for all my German and British-origin cohorts, and Black Trees for Danubian and other cohorts.