Thursday, 17 December 2015

Pike Fever II

I'm afraid that I have been too busy painting pikes for much posting. However, here are some WIP shots of some of the units.


Above are the better part of two phalanx blocks, a mix of my painting and Craig Davey's. These just need shields, snagging and basing. These will be scruffy leukaspides with white shields.


Above is a new unit of argyraspides silver shields painted by Shaun McTague. These need pikes attaching, varnish and basing. 
Shaun is currently painting another 125 leukaspides and chalkaspides bronze shields for me, to go with the 30 or so finished minis below. All of these will need to be varnished and based.


Finally (below) are the two blocks from my last post.


In theory, if I can find time to finish and base all of these minis, this would give me another 1.6 metres of phalanx to join the 2 metres that I already own. This would make for a most satisfactory Raphia at the WHC in April!

Monday, 7 December 2015

Pike Fever


It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post and this is because in the meanwhile I been modelling like a madman. Above are 2/3 of the minis that I recently bought from Craig Davey, now re-piked, re-shielded and mostly re-based. The blue helmets are Ptolemaic Agema, and the red Peltastoi. I'll take a proper photo when the bases are finished.

I have decided to use the remaining weeks of 2015 by basing up more phalangites- I intend to add a whole metre of pikemen (240) to my phalanx for my big Raphia game at the Wargames Holiday Centre in April. I am just about 2/5 of the way there! I will be able to carry the phalanx to Basingstoke in the bags under my eyes.  ;-)

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Pikes, pikes, pikes.

At the Wargames Holiday Centre I was running four games at the same time and briefly ran out of both pikemen and Hellenistic cavalry. I've therefore decided to invest in some more miniatures, below are some Foundry pikemen that I've bought from chum Craig Davey. 


I've removed the previous shields and am going to give them some snazzy new shields that I've bought from Mike at Relik. These have a Medusa head and are perfect for Ptolemaic shields, being identical to the ones in Soldat Lagide. I need to paint twice as many again.


Below are 48 odd pikes; I need to do twice as many again.


Finally I've based up a wedge of companions painted by Nick Speller (left below) and rebased my Thessalians into rhomboid (centre below). These still need to be flocked. I am in the process of recruiting several new regiments to join them; I hope to end up with 8 or 9, enough for 2 cavalry wings each for two large armies.


I shall need them all; I plan to run Raphia again in the spring at the Wargames Holiday centre over the weekend 22nd to 24th April.

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

Norfolk bows


Here are the archer counterparts to the earlier billmen, again beautifully painted by Patrick Connor and based by me on one of my new Bat bases. Those Perry plastics are really lovely. :-)


A pleasant surprise is that they are fairly rugged- not at all brittle. Now I just need another 22 elements and I'll have the pair of armies that I need for a game. I had better consult my army list...

Monday, 16 November 2015

Norfolk billmen

I mentioned a while back that I have bitten the bullet and started to collect my first medieval army. These stunning minis were painted by Patrick Connor and I've unit based them on one of my new MDF "bat bases", of which more anon.


I really like the Perry plastics (and metals) and I am certainly going to need a lot more of them!

In other news, there are a couple of places left for the second To the Strongest World Championships on Saturday February 13th 2016. If you are available please drop me a line via my email address on the left and I'll put you in touch with the organiser. Loan armies are available.

Lastly, yesterday I posted a new Mongol Conquest list in the Later Medieval booklet, which was written by Peter Ryding with a little assistance from me. Looks like a fast "shooty" army with an interesting twist...

Thursday, 12 November 2015

Last weekend at the Wargames Holiday Centre

Last weekend I had a super time running a weekend of To the Strongest! at the Wargames Holiday Centre with Mark Freeth and 14 gamers, many of them veterans of previous events. I'm afraid I was too busy to take very many photos but here are a few that I snapped during brief lulls in the fighting. All photos are clickable.


Above, we ran four games at a time (eight in total). The below game, set in the Peloponnesian War, was one of my personal favourites. The Athenians have the Spartan lights penned into a corner of the table - they chased them off and they returned several times. I believe that Spartan discipline led to them winning most or all of their games. For this game we used a pair of the 20 cm gridded DeepCut mats.


Below is a shot of the action; being flank-charged by Thessalian cavalry whilst double-disordered is no one's idea of fun! That's one of the hills I've re-flocked in the foreground.



Above the three-dimensional nature of the WHC terrain is a nice change from flat boards. Below, a one hit-unit of Roman Principes is flank-charged by Celtic fanatics. Gulp.


This game featured Germans (I used my Celts as proxies) fighting Polybian Romans at Arausio 151 BC. The Germans rather had the better of it, but then they did back in the day, too.


Finally I have a few shots of the Late Roman scenario, which featured Huns and Goths ambushing a Roman baggage train near Chalons in 451 BC.



Above the Martenses are inspired by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre (who died in 448BC, but then, who is counting?). Below is a charge by massed Gothic horse by painter mate Shaun.



Above an ala of light horse lurk improbably in the woods. Below, the Roman baggage train escaped in this game but was "bagged" in the other.


We had a great weekend- I reckon we fought around 2 dozen battles. Even I got to play in a couple of games, notably an epic uphill struggle against Emperor Baz' Spartans, in which he gained a moral victory. There are more pics on his blog.

A fine time was had by all, many thanks to Mark Freeth for hosting. Mark and I have set a date for another TtS! day in the spring, on the weekend 23rd to 24th April. I'll be bringing new scenarios and a lot of new troops, too. We are almost at maximum capacity for the venue so early booking is recommended! Mark can be reached at the Wargames Holiday Centre.

Friday, 6 November 2015

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53 boxes of minis loaded for a weekend of TtS at the Wargames Holiday Centre, I reckon there are just over 4000 miniatures plus terrain. Should be a riot! I am hoping that I've not forgotten anything...