And now for something Completely Different

 

   

Yes, I got cajoled into another side project.

James wanted to do another 15mm Project, one in pre-gunpowder times, and after a little too-ing and fro-ing, we settled on the Biblical Near-East, and the might of Assyria versus the rebellious confederation of Babylonian, Chaldean, and Median forces.  I got the latter team; prone to getting smashed for fifty years straight, but ultimately coming out on top.

Only 15mm he said, shouldn't take very long, he said.

Actually that was true.  Even with it only being a side hustle, I got my forces assembled and ready in just over four months:

Every nation under the sun!

The core infantry

Lydians and Cavalry

Chariots, obviously

All told it's a little over 200 pieces completed.

We've elected to stick with Hail Caesar, and each base will represent a single unit, with numbers of models further identifying small, standard or large units.  The only real exceptions being that 4-horse chariots need a big ol'e base all to themselves, and to get the impression of a phalanx over without destroying every spear tip, I put the Lydians in three ranks rather than two on a cavalry sized base.

I even knocked up a couple of regionally appropriate houses.

Neat!

Illustrations for the period show a mix of courtyarded buildings, and flat roofed houses with what appears to be reed thatch and a slight lean to the walls.  So I replicated one of each, more than enough for a typically barren ancients battlefield.  The courtyarded building has enough roof space for a standard infantry base.  The hut roof is made from cheap bandage soaked in watered down PVA!

As to the minis, well it may be 15mm, and a quick paint job, but I still indulged in some detailing and fancy effects.  This unit of spearmen includes some rough blending on the shields for example.

And daisies!

All the models are Essex Miniatures.  Solid stuff, and they cover everything you need.

Our first battle is actually scheduled for Early next month, so maybe we'll see pictures of both sides soon too.  It's going to be a mid-sized game, but I can already imagine expanding my forces to a more old-school sensibility.  I'm wondering if two bases per unit wouldn't be more appropriate....

Jeez, will the hoarding never stop?!

...
   

Model Miscellany

...

Time for another sweeping update, as we are still mainly indoors and painting continues.  I'll keep a couple of specifics back for their own posts, but here are some odds and ends from the last few weeks:

Lavender Hill Mob

At times it's almost felt as if I was running out of things to paint, but in truth there appear to be a good thousand or more mini's hiding about the apartment.  Still I'm getting close to the end of the Imagi-Nations project, for now, with the addition of two more infantry regiments and a pair of Artillery limbers.

Scarlet Pimpernels and Limbers

Similarly on it's last hurrah, is the Conan Board Game.  With the finishing of the bits below there are only a dozen or so mini's to go.

Bosonnian Guards

Both the Guards and the Skeletons below were essentially one session each. 

Undead

The skeletons in particular were largely drybrushed over a basecoat of brown and then extra shades of brown filled in.  Incredibly simple.

Speaking of simple:

Vroom, Vroom.

I added some more road, specifically curve sections , to my Gaslands etc. track.  just an hour or so with some craft paints, but the result is tolerable.

The biggest effort in this post, went into the 8 gentlemen below.

Splitters!

These are Jewish revolt slingers.  Auditing the stocks, I found these part built and in need of some love.  I added mantles (their traditional cloth 'scarves') and sling-stone bags with Green Stuff, and then gave the whole a decent paint job.  It is a nice change to work on small, simple units like these, and again progress was relatively quick.

Quite the Smorgasbord.  Variety is stimulating I find, as I am then never bored of just plodding out the same old uniforms or colour schemes, or using the same technique.  Always having a few options that should not take long is good to keep motivation going.

Next up, something unspeakably big, with some new effects tried on it...

...

Two armies Revived!

...

TML towers has been highly productive during lock down, one of the projects undertaken has been the rejuvenation of some sad looking old armies, I painted some 25 years ago!

My 20mm Romans and Celts were the first armies I created when I returned to wargaming after university.  They held a fond place in my memories, but to be perfectly honest, they did not look terribly great:

As was...

Based on cheap card, with rather basic flock, no undercoat, no shading, no varnish.  There were a lot of rookie errors here and the motley selection of Aifix, Revell, Italieri and Hat miniatures - gathered over about 6 or so years - had suffered further from being crammed too close together (both on their bases, and in file boxes in layers).

Fast forward one descent into chaos and isolation, and I girded my loins to the task.  I've already posted about the rebasing of the models, but beyond that there were more stages to pass through.

1. Retouch the paint work, notably the metals, woodwork and flesh
2. Spray a shaded glaze onto both the base and figures, the only reasonable way to do hundreds of multi-based miniatures.  In absolute fairness, I didn't put enough shade in the glaze, but it did work to a point.
3. Dry-brush the new bases and then add static grass.
4. Paint the base edges a nice uniform brown.
5. Spray varnish the whole lot.

And after a total of, I guess, ten or more hours of effort we get to the stage of everything being finished:

Celtic Hordes

Warbands

Cavalry and Chariotry

But of course, that's only half the output.

Roman Legions

Auxilia lead the Legion in

Auxilia Cavalry and a General's base

A total of roughly 560 models comprise the two armies.  These will work for a number of rule sets, but I have Kings of War Historical in mind for them first; within which the Romans represent about 3,000 points, to the Celts 3,500 or more.

Obviously, it will be clear they are still far from award winners, but the improved and mass-effect basing certainly makes them acceptable to return to a table in future.  The new bases are a nice sturdy 3mm MDF and the whole collection fills four file boxes fairly neatly.

Nostalgia aside, it is good to be able to go back to some of my oldest models, and put them back into service; they were far from in a sell-able condition, but it would have been a disgrace to throw them away.  Now they will hopefully serve again, for at least another quarter century.

Fingers crossed!

...

A long overdue project... Well there's time now.

...

Given I now have no commute, I can pretty much start work when I get up, finish early and have two more hours of the day for myself.  You have to take the positives where you can in the present climate.  Cooped up alone is not that unfamiliar, but a lack of external social opportunities is obviously not great.

Anyway, yesterday's project was a rebasing effort on a pair of my creaky old - but beloved - plastic ancients armies.  My Imperial Roman and Ancient British armies are a mixture of mostly 2025 year old models, and the present painting reflects that.  The old basing was if anything worse, being onto scrappy bits of card in threes and fours.  

They were stripped off the bases a year or so ago, and new bases were finally cut out of sheets of 3mm MDF a while after; but yesterday I finally bit the bullet of getting the piles arranged, repaired, and rebased.

Imperial Rome

The Romans are mostly Revell and Airfix, the latter needing most of their shields supergluing back on.  Thankfully, despite the near thirty year age of the Aifix figures, they do not appear to have any of the brittleness issues older models were notorious for.

The bases are 80x60mm, with the intention of each being a stand-alone unit.  For example a single infantry base for the Romans contains three ranks of five men with a designated officer model to the side.  This could represent a single Cohort, or half a Legion, subject to scale.  This basing is with a view to use in Kings of War Historical, but would work for Hail Caesar or other games.

Ancient Britons

The Celts are a mix of Airfix, HaT, Revell and Italieri.  Repairs were surprisingly few, but the chariots and scratch built light horse needed some work.  I had to resort to the brutality of a hot glue gun for some poor souls.  The large bases reduce individual risk to models, and also allow the warbands to look suitably disorderly.

The next stage is to get the base texture and colour sorted.  A lot of the models have old flock on the base, and the simplest solution looks to be the paint it light brown, if it falls off in the process it's no loss.  Sand will then be added to unify the whole.  After that it'll be touch ups of the worst paint damage - mostly spears, swords and helmets it seems - and then a shaded varnish to protect it all and finally give the models some contrast.

Which, in the present climate, may not take that long to get to...

...

Peloponnesian Warfare

Photo's from a game held long ago....

 Spartans versus Greeks

 Languid advance by the Greeks

Mass battle

 Close fighting

 Final moves

Played with Hail Caesar.  Figures my own collections.

A Rebellious Faction

Well, having not painted any for the best part of four and a half years, I finally got back to the Jewish Project and thoroughly enjoyed turning out a couple more units.

Firstly a third unit of 'Heavy' infantry; veterans, well practiced at fighting in close order and with the best - often looted - equipment:

 

These models are an improved mix of poses and equipment, thanks to the introduction of some Victrix Carthaginian spearmen.  More particularly, their set is a supply for a good number of oval shields and different helmets.

 

 Realising that human and animal designs were prohibited in the Jewish faith at this time, I've limited the shields to plant life and inanimate designs, so more accurate I think than the last unit I did.  The Mantles are much better here, with a more natural flow; thanks to the use of olive oil and a plastic rolling board to allow me to get the Greenstuff extra thin.

Next I did a unit of lighter guerrilla's, made only from the Wargames Factory Numidians.  At this point I would note I'm glad I bulk bought a 150 or so of these guys five years ago, as to date their new owner, Warlord Games, has not chosen to re-release them.

 

 These chaps use mostly the javelin arms, with only a couple of large shields, and a bunch of hide covered, wicker shields, I made simply from some etched plasticard.  I tried the classic Arabic head cover, using the mantle, on several models for some variety.

 

 These chaps would not lead the fighting line, but favour skirmishing, though they can support the mainline from the rear.

Whilst into it, I decided to produce a General, based on the Carthaginian Infantry commander in the Victrix set, he looks the part.

Johnathan, and a chubby priest!

 I'm not so convinced by his portly pal.  I wanted to do a Jewish Priest, but I certainly hit my sculpting limits here trying to put robes over a Numidian torso.  The finished figure is disappointing, but he'll have to do.  The Perry's can rest easy.

At last this is something like a battle array, with three units of heavy infantry, and two light, plus a commander.  Not a full army by any means, but progress is being made.

 About the size of a Warhammer Ancients army, i.e. too small by far

And a colourful force they are too!  Something I really like.

But now I must decide what to add next, and then do some more sculpting.  I think there is enough heavy infantry for now, bowmen and slingers seem to me to be the next choice.

The Holy Land

I managed to pick up a copy of a book I'd been after for quite a long time on eBay, Peter Connolly's 'The Holy Land'

 

 This book is a real treasure trove of information, but it is an odd creature.  The history is brief and almost simplistic; somewhat at the level of a Readers Digest/Popular History feature; but it distills the key facts in an easy to read form as a result; the use of extensive photographs and illustrations on every page gives the impression of a children's textbook more than anything.

 

Historically, the book begins with Herod the Great, and carries on through to the end of the first Rebellion, so covering about a century of increasing Roman subjugation.  The real strength of this, personally, are the reconstructions in the illustrations, suitable inspiration for my long idle Jewish Rebellion project.

That said, in an effort to make my Jews look unique, I did decide to give them the Mantle, shown in some textbooks,but in few contemporary illustrations - including Connolly's - of Jewish warriors.

 

So, I guess the book worked for me, as I've been busy assembling new miniatures.  Given I've the sprues for some 150 or so infantry it was about time I got back to these guys.  Above are a nascent unit of light infantry, armed with javelins only.

My green stuff skills have taken a step forward here with the use of a plastic palette rubbed down with olive oil to flatten out sheets of it on.  This gave me thin enough strips to get nice folds in, and to allow a more Arabic headdress use of the mantle, as shown in some illustrations to be experimented with.  These warriors, not being part of the well equipped fighting line, have mainly no shields or simple wicker and hide affairs, and only a few helmets; no Roman equipment.  Hopefully I'll get a couple of units created before I get sidetracked or bored!

As to the Connolly book, it is hard to find, I paid about £15 second hand for my copy, but it is worth it if this is a period of history you are interested in, and if you would like quality reconstructions of the buildings costumes and artifacts of the period.

Suitable inspiration for this wargamer at least.

Pre-Industrial Mediterranean Buildings

I picked up some more goodies from Warbases a few weeks ago, with a view to solving a couple of gaming problems.  One was some movement trays for Kings of War, the other a club scenery need (well, for me and my opponents anyway!).

I picked up some items from their new modular buildings range, a selection of simple structures that are basic but represent great value.  The simplest buildings I passed on as they would be easy to replicate; but that still left several pieces of great interest to tackle.  Enough to build a Greek style farm:

Additional parts are pretty obvious here

That stepped roof and the gate and portico would've been tedious to build in Foamcore, and doubtless not strong enough to hold together in the long term.  I can only recommend the Warbases range, given how cheap these simple models are they return on the investment whole heartedly.

I did nevertheless expand the set up to a walled enclosure, and a false front on the house to provide a little more imposing luxury.  The enclosure is large enough for a typical regiment of troops to occupy, whilst the walls are tall enough to ensure their privacy.  Also I carried out the zen task (view it that way, it makes it much easier) of tiling the roofs with thin card cut up into roughly equal squares.

To go with this I also threw together two more modest buildings, large huts; one with an attached pig sty.  Just reinforced foamcore with card doors and wooden roofs covered in card tiling.

Finished, plus two other small homes

The painting is my usual simple building style, though as befits some buildings of the period, the larger farm has indulged in a coat or two of lime wash to the the lower half of the walls.  These are the buildings I wanted the GW terrain effect paint for so the basing isn't what I hoped, but it'll look fine for the club.

Finished I think though designed with ancient Greece in mind, they wouldn't look out of place in Italy, Sicily, Spain or similar regions anywhere up to around 1850 or so.

Hopefully these will see plenty of action, but not too much damage at the hands of careless gamers!