Friday, 4 October 2013

A few Romans more

I've been trying to match Andres's style of painting and finish a Roman unit that he mostly painted, some years back.   I'm nowhere near as good, but they look OK from 12" away, and that will have to do.  Andres is sending me shields for them.


I'm also about to complete one further unit of Numidians, and Caesar's personal standard bearer, to go with Andres' Caesar model.

A huge thanks to Caliban Paul for sending me a rare Companion Roman Command pack last week!

Monday, 30 September 2013

More crewmen and a captain


Nick also painted these archers for me, which I've just finished basing. Please do have a click, they came out very well! They will form the crew of my ships, along with their rather intense captain (below), who was painted some years ago by Andres at Einar Olafson.


Sunday, 29 September 2013

Augustan Marines


These chaps have been recruited from the brush of Nick Speller*, and will be part of the marine contingent for my Roman boats.  They are based on an image in the Osprey Roman Marine book, and may well be Greeks, as the Romans recruited heavily into their navy from Greece and Egypt.


The figures are Foundry Thebans, equipped with Roman auxiliary shields, and with metal armour painted as leather.  Steve from LBMS very kindly resized the transfers for me.

I only rarely base minis singly, but elements just aren't going to work, shipboard.  I am half tempted to work up some sort of Roman naval skirmish game.  Later, I will need to make a sabot for these, in case they get should get their land-legs.

*I applied the shields and an ink wash

Monday, 23 September 2013

Numidian reinforcements

My Roman army has recently expanded rather more quickly than that of its Numidian opponents, so I have decided to add a few more units before the final Thapsus game at SELWG.  Here they are, part based.  A few more cavalry and lights will follow.


I painted somewhat more than half of these, with others from eBay and a few more possibly painted by Redzed.  Tonight I'll get some grout on those bases. I am also delighted to have recently sourced a small but rare unpainted Companion Miniatures Numidian army from mate "Happy", that should add lustre to Juba's hopes of an African Empire.

In other news, Aaron has recently had a crack at the ancient rule-set called "To the Strongest!" that I am developing, and wrote a very enjoyable account of the battle.  If anyone would like to try them, please pop me an email at the addess on the front of my blog.  

Wednesday, 18 September 2013

Society of Ancients

At Colours, I ran into the Society of Ancients stand, again.  The SOA (particularly Phil Steele) work tirelessly to publicise the ancient end of the wargames hobby.  Here's a shot of the portable Bosworth demo game they were running at Colours.  I would commend you to join, if not already a member, as there's often something of interest in Slingshot.  Not to mention, on a more mercenary note, the discounts that they have arranged with various figure manufacturers and other organisations... 


Phil showed me some of the lovely old Tony Bath flats that Phil Barker has passed to him, and which he is restoring, but I sadly forgot to photograph them.   He also kindly introduced me to John Curry, who is running The History of Wargaming Project, which is about creating an archive of wargaming records, books and other materials.  Something to think about in the future...

Monday, 16 September 2013

Colours Day 2 - Epiphany

I have seen the light!  On day 2, I managed to steal an hour from my game, to go around the show.  I made a beeline for the Bruce Weigle game I'd heard about on WD3.  This was every bit as good as rumoured...


The rolling hills and valleys were the best I've ever seen, and I can well believe he researches the terrain in a light aircraft!


I loved this village.  The minis are the old Heroics and Ros range, but beautifully painted and on very low profile bases.  Very tasteful.


It all looked very realistic.  The build quality was stunning.  I pestered Bruce for details of construction, and he was very forthcoming.  Such a nice chap.  I shall have a go at making some myself, later this year...

I completely failed to take photos of any of the other games, including the highly photogenic Hammers Slammers game, the excellent Marne game with many yards of hanging basket moss, the impressive yet bonkers Leipzig "skirmish" and an Eastern front game.  So... back to my Thapsus game (below) for games 3 and 4. Gaze upon the majesty of my reed banks...


Of the 4 games, Scipio won two and Caesar two, so I'm happy that the scenario is balanced.  I was also very pleased that three out of the four games came in under two hours, and the fourth just over 2, as 2 hours was my target duration (about as long as I reckon anyone can concentrate, at a show!).  


The most pleasing thing was that my To the Strongest "Lite" rules were easily picked up by the players, who were soon able to run without me, which was just as well as there were lots of visitors for me to chat to.  In particular, we had nine or ten children in total play across the four games, and they seemed to love it, each playing for the full two hours. Very well behaved and articulate kids, too, and all phenomenally lucky!  The nine year old with red hair (below) was amazing.


All in all it was a splendid weekend.  I met tons of people.  I have the worst memory in the world for names and faces, so this list won't be complete, but it was great to meet Raglan, nose-stick Matt, Barry Carter, Mark and (I think) Carlo, Henry Hyde, very nice Wargames Holiday chap, CoC Richard, Trevor Halsall, Phil Steele and John Curry, amongst many others...   Hopefully I'll be sending copies of the rules out to those who asked for a set, tomorrow.

Particular hanks to Ian Notter, Nigel and Jean for all their help in lugging 1000 metal miniatures and the terrain up and down all the steps, and helping to run the game.  Also many thanks to the team at Newbury and Reading for running such a well-organised event and giving me such a nice space for the game.

Does anyone know who makes this resin fort, please?


I bought this off a mate and want to buy some more bits to expand it.  It's 25mm or 28mm scale, I believe; that's a 28mm figure in the gateway.  The sections are 12cm wide, which suggests they are built to take DBx elements...