Friday, 19 August 2016

Yet more basing

Here's another project I have been working on this summer for a gig at the Wargames Holiday Centre in late September. Each unit consists of nine or ten Numidian light cavalry mounted on two of my 20cm grid bat bases that lock together. The riders are depicted circling to throw javelins, and include some Roman casualties. All are metal miniatures, mostly Foundry, A&A, Companion and conversions.


I have more or less finished basing seven-and-a-half units (below) out of a required ten. A lot of the minis are from my collection, retouched and re-based, but others have been freshly painted by mate Shaun McTague.


I am also in the process of basing eleven units each of 18 light infantry. When fully mustered this army will include 100 light cavalry without bridles, 200 light infantry, 100 formed infantry, 6 elephants and some bodyguard cavalry. Enough to fill 10 Really Useful Boxes...

We still have a couple of spaces for the gaming weekend which will be held in Basingstoke over the weekend 22nd to 24th September- if you fancy coming along, please email me at the address on my blog and I'll mail you details.

Thursday, 18 August 2016

The basathon continueth


Above are my first Tarentines and the twentieth phalanx from my last post, now grouted but as yet un-flocked. Below is Alexander's second squadron of Companions; presumably led by Hephaestion. I have a slow burn project to depict Alexander's army of the Persian campaign. These were painted by Nick Speller with some highlighting by me.


Lastly below are my first unit of Thracians from a purchase on eBay or LAF. Lovely work by the original painter.


Most of these are intended for the large Raphia game on Sunday at Partizan in Newark- if you are coming please do say hello, or stay and turn a few cards!

Sunday, 7 August 2016

The last phalanx


I'm sure that this isn't my last ever phalanx, but it is almost certainly the last one I'll base this year. This is my twentieth phalanx block; a suitably round number to pause on. Most of the minis were painted by Shaun McTague, with some detailing added by me. They are a mix of Foundry and Polemarch phalangites and all have Sidon helmets, my favourite style of ancient head-ware; they join my Ptolemaic phalanx.

When deployed four ranks deep the entire phalanx will cover a frontage of four metres. Later I hope to add an Alexandrian phalanx and an Antigonid Macedonian phalanx, and perhaps a couple of units of Spartan phalangites. I would love (one day) to accumulate 32 units so that I could depict a 1:1 taxeis of 1500 minis, drawn up 16 ranks deep. Muwhhahaha....

When the basing is finished this unit will join the throng for my big Raphia "to the Strongest!" game at t'other Partizan on Sunday week, 21st August. If you'd like to play in the game (and haven't already) please drop me a line and the address on the front of the blog. I hope to run it twice and, with around 2K minis, there will be room for plenty of generals!

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

A Civil English War


Had a fun day of chat and play-testing my forthcoming ECW rules with Andrew Brentnall (co-writer) in his Suffolk fastness. Above and below is the warm-up scenario, Montgomery 1644. I lost two of my three commanders in turn two, but still almost managed to turn the game around.

Below, for the main event, Naseby, Andrew has brought in a senior military advisor in the form of John D-Z. Andrew's 10mm ECW minis were both very numerous and beautifully painted, and the below wasn't the half of them. The terrain wasn't too shabby, either.



Above the lines are closing; below my Royalist veterans were gaining a slight ascendancy over the riff-raff in Parliament's front line. On the whole, though, the battle as a whole was not going well for ye Kinge (me) by the time I needed to hit the road. Prince Rupert was wounded and his cavalry were recoiling. The mechanics worked very well, though, so I was pretty chuffed!


Sunday, 10 July 2016

New Sagebrush steppe mat

On Friday I received the first batch of a new Deep-Cut mat design. It is so new that it doesn't yet have a name but I am calling it "Sagebrush steppe".


This is a design that I encouraged Deep-Cut to make, because I wanted something a more arid surface than the green "plains" mat that I use for most of my gaming. It has patches of a dry soil with faded grass and bushes depicted- here it can be seen with some of the Numidians I am in the process of re-basing. It matches my bases pretty well, which is very convenient and not entirely accidental. I think it'll suit parts of Spain, Italy, Asia and North Africa. It is also perfect for the Old West and will do service for Prax when I get my high llamas on the table.

In the official close-up image (below) the mats look more arid and more yellow ochre than they do on the table in daylight. There's a lot more green in them than the below image suggests.


The new mats are in the Bigredbatshop in a variety of sizes and with and without grids.

n.b. Next week it is very likely I'll have to put up the prices of all the mats in the shop - I buy in Euros and, post-Brexit, costs have risen by over 10%. If you are buying in Dollars or Euros, of course, the mats are currently very much cheaper than they were two weeks ago!

Saturday, 9 July 2016

Ten Green Bottles...

...turn out to be highly efficient weights for holding down Batbases whilst the superglue cures, that will hold the magnets in place.


They will also provide a useful lubricant for the baser, later today during the basing process.   :-)

Thursday, 7 July 2016

A Midsummer Night's Gaming


I had a very pleasant outdoor game this evening with mate Ian using my new pike and shotte armies. The armies were freshly sprayed wooden blocks. It took about an hour to purchase and spray them, a useful investment of time compared to my usual insanely high ratio of painting to gaming time. Youl'll be able to make out the pike battalia and troops of horse. The terrain cloth is a very nice 4' x 3' Deep-Cut "fields" mat with a 10cm grid.

Tonight's game was based on the Montgomery 1644 scenario that I recently played with Andrew Brentnall. The game was literally ended by dusk, unfortunately at an interesting stage.We had chatted too much and drunk too much Gavi di Gavi to complete it. Still, it was a whole lot of fun.


This is very circular for me because I remember playing my very first ECW game with Lego brick regiments just after the film "Cromwell" came out in 1970, with a set of wargames rules that I wrote especially for the occasion. In 1970 I lost; couldn't even win with my own rules! ;-) Mind you I wasn't doing a whole lot better tonight; plus ca change.