Thursday, 20 May 2021

Ipsus Nellies WIP

I'm getting not one, but two new herds of elephants ready for the huge Ipsus game at the London GT in September. On the left are fifteen "Indian" Indian elephants, and on the right fourteen "Macedonian" Indian ride-on elephants. 

The reason I need 29 more elephants is that we don't believe the howdah was in use at the time of Ipsus, and most of my previous elephants have these, so it's a perfect opportunity to collect more models. When these are finished and "in the field" I'll have six different elephant herds. As well as the two above, I'll have Successor Indian elephants with towers, Successor African elephants, Seleucid armoured elephants and Carthaginian African elephants.


The "Indian" Indian elephants are a real mixture. At the front are seven of the relatively new resin Aventines, lovely light models. Further back are some veteran Vendel and Essex elephants, and other pachyderms whose origins are lost in the mists of time. I still need to add crews and finish the basing. After Ipsus, these will, later, form the core of Porus' herd when I do the Hydaspes next year, or the year after. These were mostly painted by Dan Toone.


Here are the the "Macedonian" Indian elephants. They will be crewed by a mahout and a single pikeman and escorted by Greek-style archers. They will form an elephant screen across the front of the two Ipsus armies. These still need some detailing, weapons adding and basing. These were painted by Shaun McTague and Dan Toone. They are such lovely models that I'm tempted to add a few more, before the game, if time permits.


Above is an earlier version of the Ipsus game that I'll be running at the London GT in September. The new version will be 50% larger than this, with around 3000 minis on a table almost 6m wide, quite possibly the largest ancient battle run at a show- certainly the largest I've ever run by some margin. The pike phalanx alone will include some 1500 minis. 

Both this and chum Tim's Rome vs. Hannibal Battle of the Trebbia will be ten player games. They will be played at the London GT at the Lee Valley Athletics Center, on Saturday 25th September. You can book tickets for it below- there are only 20 tickets in total, and some have already sold, so don't leave it too late! If you come, you'll get to play both games and see all the other things going on at the event. 


There's a big TtS! tournament on the day after, Sunday 26th, too, the details of that are below. Why not make a weekend of it? I certainly plan to. :-) I'm prepping minis for a secret army.


It's been far too long since we have gamed properly! I hope to greet the post-apocalypse in some style- and I hope that some of you will be able to join me!

Friday, 14 May 2021

Dungeon level, revisited

Some of you may recall that I've been trying to create some much-needed additional storage space- got to put those minis somewhere! This is my dungeon level, now with added lighting and (much needed) waterproofing. Still some work to do... but coming along nicely.

You can see last year's dank hole here.

In other news I've a lot of modelling underway but nowhere and no time to take photos until next week. Also I'm getting together the end of May release of the Medieval Army List eBook- there should be three or four new lists and other new material. At the moment we have a new 100 Years War English list, for action in Britain as opposed to the continent. Also there's a Golden Horde list and a nice list for the obscure but interesting Zanj Revolt against the Abbasids; think Spartacus meets Isis.

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

Liegeois Civic Militia

 
As a by-product of my big Swiss project, I ended up with a lot of Perry plastic minis that didn't look quite right for the land of mountains and superior hard cheeses, either because they are wearing gambesons or carrying bucklers or in the wrong clothing colours. Some of these minis are superbly painted by the likes of David Imrie and Lionel Bechara. It occurred to me that I could conscript them into the Burgundian army as the numerous civic militias of the Low Countries cities, who wore uniforms and marched to war under the banners of their guilds. They served the Dukes of Burgundy (and later the Habsburgs) with considerable reluctance and inefficiency.

n.b. You can click on the images for a close-up.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the right flags. At this point Mats Elzinga very kindly stepped forward and volunteered to produce a set of flags for the guilds of the city of Liege. I have eight guilds represented here. They all wear red except for the Meuniers (appropriately, the Millers) who have a yellow and black clothing theme, based on their guild flag. A few guilds had blue themes, perhaps a future project.

I found his flags were so pretty that I needed to paint more units in order to be able to use them all, so Shaun McTague very kindly painted up another 40 or so minis, which I highlighted. My chum Ian Notter flocked them- a considerable undertaking as they are very densely based in blocks of 16 and it's very hard to get in amongst the feet. I added tufts and flowers.


And here they are, all together! There are 99 minis, in all. I'm not entirely sure what I'll use them for, yet- possibly to fight a projected French army, since I rather doubt that they fought the Swiss (at least under their guild flags). But I'm delighted to own them. There are at least three or four lists in the To the Strongest! Medieval Army List book that I could use them in. I have told Mats that if he produces more flags for other cities (Antwerp would be really nice) then I'll make up some more units.

A huge thank you to Mats and everyone else who helped. I gather Mats will be producing the flags commercially, at some stage, they are quite lovely and without them I wouldn't have persisted with the project.

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

Plastic boxes


Last night I accidently knocked over a tray of round metal shields and they rolled all around the dining room floor. I was making coffee, and my wife very kindly volunteered to help pick them up, asking where she should put them. I said “Please put them on top of one of the plastic boxes.” 

When I came back in the room, I found them on the table, instead. I asked her why she’d not put them on one of the boxes; she said “I couldn’t see any plastic boxes.”

That’s why I love my wife. 😊

Friday, 23 April 2021

Burgundian pike

Here are some Burgundians that were painted form me some time back by Shaun McTague and Lionel Bechara. I highlighted and finished last August. They languished in the basing queue until chum Ian Notter very kindly flocked them last month, after which I tufted. I'm trying to clear the decks of mostly-finished units before a summer basing push.

The unit is a single block of pike, for use on a 20cm frontage. All of the minis are plastic Perrys from the Mercenary set, and I used the flags that come in the box- they are simple, but effective. The six bases are my FK&P6a's, which are roughly 60x40mm.


I'm a bit worried for these chaps- they are very heavily outnumbered by the Swiss they will end up facing...

In other news I'm told that the tables for the London GT tournament on Sunday 26th September are starting to run short, so if you want to come along, you'd better get your booking in sharpish! The event  is themed Rome and Rome at War. You can bring any army from the following chapters of the Ancient Army List eBook- we’ll use the edition published at the end of March.
  • Frogs around a Pond
  • Kingdoms of the East
  • Rise of Rome
  • Rome’s Empire
  • Any army between 300 BCE and 300 CE from “Across the Indus”
If you don’t have a suitable army, I’m confident that we can lend you one. I could tell you what army I'm bringing, but then I'd have to kill you. ;-)

Friday, 9 April 2021

More Stradiotti

 

I've just added a second unit of splendid Perry Stradiotti, beautifully painted for me by Shaun Watson, to my Venetian army, bringing my total to twenty. These formidable light cavalry bring a certain style to my army, in their top hats, and no baggage train is safe!

For To the Strongest! games at shows, they'll operate as two units of ten, on a 20cm grid. But at home or when I take them tournaments they will fight in smaller units of 3 or 4 on a 15cm grid. I've based them on my FK&P6 bases which I can fit together to make smaller or larger units.

My chum Ian Notter very kindly flocked these for me to match the original unit- so well, in fact, that I can't now tell which unit is which! I added the tufts and flowers- less is definitely more, when adding the latter.

I've not had time to post much, recently, but with Ian's help I am close to finishing a bunch more units so more posts will follow shortly.

Thursday, 1 April 2021

Swiss army progress

Here's the latest progress on the Switzers. Above, the vast majority of miniatures are painted, and most are highlighted and inked. There must be 650-700 of the blighters, the majority painted by Shaun McTague but some by David Imrie and Lionel Bechara. I even painted a few from scratch, and highlighted most of them. Later I'll need to add a unit of cavalry, some halberdiers and, of course, their Burgundian opponents.


Above and below are the four trays (roughly 500 minis) of mostly-painted minis. These are grouped by canton, but there's also a tray-and-a-bit of minis in non-cantonal colours.



Above and below are the 8 (of a projected 18) mostly-finished units. My chum Ian very kindly flocked them for me, he's a demon with a puffer-bottle!  I've not yet added tufts, that's the final stage.

So, I hear you ask "when will they be finished?" I've reluctantly decided to delay that step until the autumn, because I have an even bigger project to finish this spring/summer of which more, anon. So I'll be putting them all in storage boxes, to clear space, and trying to find a place to store them! In the autumn I'll finish them off and make a start on the numerous Burgundian army.