Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Celtathon III


Last night I decided to make a start on the main basing effort for Salute- the warbands. Here are the first six. These first units will be relatively quick wins because I'm re-basing my existing Celts onto larger bases- each unit will eventually have c.24 minis on the front base, and c.12 on the rear base- I've not yet put the rear rank miniatures on the base. The bases are from my 20cm set, the TtS!20F and the smaller TtS!20G that fits behind it. Since each unit will be on only two bases, they will be quick to deploy and easy to move.

The process is to slice the top layer off my current cardboard bases, carefully, with a sharp craft knife, and then stick this layer (grout and flock intact) onto the prepared bases (chamferred edges, with fitted magnets and primed).

Next I'll fill in the rear ranks and get another three units on bases. After this, the task becomes harder as I still have minis that need finishing and they are all singles. I hope that I will have enough minis to build 17 units, altogether- around 11' of frothing warriors!

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Laager extension


I wanted to add a short extension to my Celtic laager, which will be the backdrop for the Britons in my Mancetter Salute game, bringing it to 4' wide. The wagons are from Irregular and, I think, Redoubt. The minis are from various sources painted by both Shauns with others from eBay. It'll look great when based!


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.