Thursday, 7 February 2019

Celtathon II


I've mentioned that I'm building a huge British army for Salute. Here are the light troops, part-based - the Britons will advance up the hill, screened by a mass of raw slingers. The 45 slingers on the left have been re-based onto my BatBases for the 20cm grid, but need extra grout and flock. Last night I found myself musing that I'm re-basing some of these minis for the third time. :-/ The 45 to the right are new minis, based and recently grouted with my patent BigRedBatGunk. 

Below are the light cavalry. Eight newly-painted minis have joined 12 veterans to form two units of ten. These will be in the game but may not see much action, since the Roman wings are screened by forests. Still, they look good! :-)


Of the rest of the army, I now have roughly 530 warriors painted, with 90 more out with Shaun McTague. I'll need to get my skates on to finish, in time!

If you are coming to Salute and would like to play in the game in one of the two sessions (AM/PM), please drop me an email (the address is on the left of the page). If you are able to help me run it, please mail me- I have a couple of spare entry tickets!

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Condotta rearguard


There's a mandatory unit of spearmen on the Condotta list, and I've managed (with Shaun McTague's help, and some minis from Richard Hampson-Smith) to field a unit that to replace the pikemen that were originally going to proxy for it.

Unfortunately Perry don't do an Italian spearman, so I have had to cut down pikes and use pavises in place of shields, but they do the job. The colours are Venetian. Again the flag is from Pete's Flags, on eBay.

These will be raw spearmen and, at Chalgrove, I do not expect very much of them! I might leave them to guard the camp. I need to get started on flocking...

Friday, 18 January 2019

Italian Condotta


Here are my Italian Condotta for Chalgrove. Last night I grouted the bases, and now just need to flock and tuft them. I am tempted to replace the pikemen with some spearmen that Shaun McT is painting, and add some tents for a camp, but other than that they are mostly done, which is just as well since I'm a little behind with my Salute preparations! The bases are currently raw umber which seems like an appropriate base colour. :-)

These are on FK&P5 and FK&P6 bases; I really like these because they are a good fit for both 15cm (2 bases)  and 20cm (3 bases) grids.

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

Celtic Shields IV


Shields finished (bar the backs- but no more photos, I promise!). The final stage was to paint and ink around the bosses. I'm really pleased with them- LMBS designs are stunning and, mixed in with freehand shields for variety, should look rather splendid.

Putting my commercial hat on... I've imported a limited number of rivers and tracks from Deep-Cut. They are printed on mouse-mat material, 28mm scale and ideal for quickly rolling out on top of one of the cloths I sell. You can find them here.


Monday, 14 January 2019

Celtathon 1


I've mentioned that I'm putting together a large army of Britons for my Mancetter 61 CE game at Salute. Here are the first of (hopefully) two groups of reinforcements, fresh from the brush of Shaun McTague.

I have around 300 painted and based warband minis already, and these c.150, with 50 from my loft-box of "reserves", give me around 500 minis. My plan was to add another 100 Black Tree minis, to increase the variety of poses, but I've been waiting for these for 7 weeks and am very nervous about whether they will arrive in time for Shaun to paint them- or, indeed, at all. :-/  If anyone has any unpainted (or painted) Black Tree Celts that they are prepared to part with, please drop me a line!

Once all the minis are finished and married up with the shields that I've been working on since Christmas, I plan to re-base the entire army at 16 units on my new-style wobbly-edged bases. I don't have very much spare time, so it'll be a challenge! I also need to base around a dozen units of slingers and some light horse.

Friday, 11 January 2019

Celtic Shields III


It may not look especially different to the last image, but I've painted in the edges on all the shields- it took me three paint sessions- well worthwhile I think. Lots of careful colour matching. 

Next I need to paint some of the shield ribs (I'll leave most white) and after that the 130-odd shield bosses. Then there's inking, varnishing and the shield backs- perhaps another four sessions, in all. I suppose including cutting and preparation there will be around 15 evenings work to produce 150 shields - it'd take a lot longer if I was doing one pack at a time.

Monday, 7 January 2019

Celtic Shields II


Here are the shields from the last post with the LBMS transfers applied- I love LBMS transfers! I've found I can apply around 20 an hour, whilst watching TV.

A couple of learning points that people might find useful:

  • All sculpted metal shields are asymmetrical, to some extent, so take plenty of time checking that the transfer is the right way round. There is always a right way and a wrong way!
  • A clay-shaper is a really useful tool for gently pushing the transfer into contact with the shield around the boss.

Next I need to paint the edges and backs of the shields, the ribs and the bosses- perhaps a week's work. These should be sufficient for the expansion to my Celtic army for Salute, which will be a theme on this blog for the next three months.