British Nobles

As I promised here are some pictures of the British nobles on foot that I finished at the weekend. Unlike most of my British army these guys are metal mostly from Foundry (an ebay bargain) with a couple of metal Warlord Games miniatures.

Most of the foundry miniatures were basically three poses so I did some head and weapon swaps with spares from my bits box. Shields are a mix of Foundry, Warlord and Wargames Factory shields. Some are hand painted some are transfers.

The next unit of British infantry is undercoated and ready to go on the workbench so hopefully they'll be finished this week.

Cheers Jon

More Britons

Managed to finish off the light cavalry for my expanding ancient British army on Friday. These guys are from Warlord games but like my infantry I've mixed in bits from Wargames Factory Celts to give some variety.

The Warlord games cavalry came with some war hounds so I've added them to this unit to bulk it out and get me 6 bases from nine cavalry models. These guys are mounted on rendera 50mm x50mm cavalry bases with the usual sand and flock finish.

I've also finished up a unit of British Noble warriors on foot but no photos. Next up is yet more British/Celt infantry. Then I need to go back and revisit my Romans who need some more legionnaires painted.

Cheers Jon

Hail Caesar!

Well I final got something painted this last bank holiday weekend after what seems like weeks of hobby inactivity (holiday,in-laws coming to stay,work,kids sports etc etc). It felt rather nice to be getting the old brushes out I must say.

Anyway as you can see I've painted some Britons (a mix of Warlord games and wargames factory plastics). I've been rather inspired by my holiday to Wales and the release of Warlords Hail Caesar Rules to try and get my Roman and ancient British armies finished after a long lay off.

I've got a copy of hail Caesar on pre-order with Amazon much cheaper than buying it elsewhere but sadly taking a lot longer to be delivered.

Working on some British Light cavalry now hopefully this will be the start of a more productive hobby as so far 2011 has been pretty poor.


Cheers Jon

Crug hywel

Well I'm back from a very relaxing week in the Black mountains in Wales. As well as being a great holiday I've come back with lots of interesting hobby ideas. The Black mountains are on the Welsh/English border and as such must have one of the largest concentrations of fortifications anywhere in the UK.

My favorite was Crug Hywel (Hywel's fort) an Iron age hill fort. The surrounding ditch, remains of the stone walls and entrance way are all clearly visible. Despite not being the tallest hill around the views are stunning. As a defensive position it would have been a real bastard to attack. having climbed to the top I was in no condition to do anything other than breath heavily let alone swing a sword or climb over a stone wall bristling with angry Welshmen.

One thing I did think while I was clambering over Welsh hill tops (well other than "Christ my legs are killing me") was how often our wargames scenery doesn't really represents real world scenery. It's never any easy thing to reconcile, I could build the scenery around Crug hywel given enough time but it probably be almost unplayable in a wargame, on the other hand just sticking a hill on a flat table to represent the hill fort really wouldn't capture the feel of welsh

countryside.

There was quite a few Roman sites in the same area too all of which has kindle my interest in finishing the British and Roman armies I started last year but never finished. The arrival of Warlord games Hail Caesar! has also caught my eye.

Cheers Jon

First game of 2011

2011 seems to have coincided with my son finding some interest in dads little men. He tends to drift in an out of wargaming (well his only 9) but does own a space marine army for 40K (which I painted for him) and a small New kingdom Egyptian army for WAB which we painted together.

On Monday he decided he wanted a game so we went biblical I took my sea peoples and he took his NKE. both armies weighing in at a hefty 830 something points (We really must paint the rest up to have two 1500 pt armies)

My army had two warbands of 20 warriors, 10 Lybian skirmishers and four chariots one with my army general.

My sons army had two 10 figure archer units, 2 chariots one with his general, a unit of 8 axemen, a unit of 12 spearmen and a unit of 12 sea people mercenaries.

The game lasted five turns the first couple saw me heading towards his battle line under heavy bow fire that wiped out my Lybians. My warriors charged in and saw off his axemen but failed to rout his archers. Which in turn saw my warriors counter attacked by my sons sea peoples and chariots (in the flank) my warriors routed and where cut down. My chariots attacked and destroyed his chariots before failing to make any impact on his spearmen (losing 2 chariots in return). At that point I conceded as I was surrounded by hostile units (and it was my sons bed time).

The pictures above show the scene just before the start of the battle.

Cheers Jon

Roman Auxilla

Hi,

well the ancients project I started last Christmas is still moving along (very) slowly. I've finally got these two units of auxilla finished. All the miniatures are from warlord games mostly plastic except for the commands and two rankers which are metal. Under the Crusader rules these guys count as light infantry so I've based them three to a 40mm rendera plastic base. As usual there painted with a magic wash and then given some basic highlights.

As with previous units in this project my spare plastic models where hacked up and put back together with some green stuff to produce some casualty and disorder markers (one figure for casualty two figures for disorder) before being mounted on a washer.

The warlord games Auxilla are really nice my only quibble is that the spears/standards on the metal command are really thin and bendy I doubt they'll survive to many games before they need replacing. I would have preferred the option of command models in the plastic box set but sadly all 24 models in the box are rankers.

Cheers Jon

Roman cavalry

Hi all,

as is usual for me I've been sidetracked off the ancients project I started at the beginning of the year. However I finally got this unit of Roman cavalry finished. The miniatures are from Wargames Factory Roman cavalry set. I have to say the paint job on these is a bit sub-standard. I think the main reason is that the detail on these figures is very soft so it doesn't work to well with my chosen magic wash style of painting. A few other things I didn't like where

a) all the sword scabbards are empty even though most of the figures carry spears

b) the heads don't seem to fit to well giving some awkward poses

It's not all bad though the price is very good and the saddle cloth, horse and rider combo allow for the men to sit very tight to the horses with no horrible gaps. Also being plastic means conversions are easy. The three bottom pictures show my converted disorder/casualty makers which are all made from the basic box set.

All in all not the best Roman cavalry miniatures in the world but very affordable and easy to convert (if that's your thing). One last thing the shields are done with water slide transfers from the Warlord games Axillary infantry set as the shields from both sets are near as makes no difference in size which is handy.

Cheers Jon

British panzers and Roman veterans

Hi all,
my first project of this year is still ticking along at a reasonable pace. Here's some pictures of my latest models at the top we have my unit of Roman veterans, from Warlord Games. These are nice models and full of character. As usual I've built some casualty/shaken markers with the spare models from the box (first two pictures). as I said before being plastic these are easy to convert.

I've also finished the three Celtic chariots from Wargames Factory. Now their painted I think they're pretty good models. I should point out that the passengers are all Foundry metal figures as I wasn't keen on the options provided in the set. I still need to buy another three chariots to finish this unit. I'm still debating the casualty/shaken markers. These plastic chariots could be converted into some really spectacular casualty markers, but it could be a bit expensive when a dead infantryman would work.

Cheers Jon