Odds & ends.

My wife thought it the right time to replace my old painting desk. It is over 10 years old, and she thinks it doen't look right anymore between our other furniture. There were quite a few half-painted miniatures there which have been drifting from left to right, and front to back, some even for years. So now the time was right to get them finaly finished.

Among them several of the famous Mithril miniatures http://www.mithril.ie/. this range of miniatures exists since somewere in the 1980's and is solely formed around JRR Tolkien's world of Middle-Earth. I collect them since 1996, but have yet to paint most of what I have (many hunderds!)
Here are the models I've recently painted: a mounted Nazgul and some Corsairs of Umbar.

 In between cardboard boxes, basing materials etc I also found things I didn't even know I still had them. All very usefull for skirmish games. It realy was time for a major clean-up!

A picture of my new, and large painting desk will follow soon.
After this, it will be back to unit-painting now. I plan to start on yet another 48 figs unit of pikemen, the last of the Wargames Foundry pikemen I have. I think...

This will probably be my last blog entry before the years end, so a merry Christmas and a wonderful 2012 to you all!

Stop the cavalry.

Just a quick message to show what I've painted last month.
A unit of Thessalian cavalry, Foundry made. I already had a few of them painted long ago, but the unit is now complete, and rebased.
I based a few of them on sinlge bases. You can see the benefit of this method of basing in the pics below: I can put them in wedge, in column or in line (or two lines).
I hope I painted them historical correct, more or less. It is not easy to find information on how these were dressed. And I didn't want them to look like Macedonian companions too much!
Let me know what you think of them.
All pics should be clickable to enlarge them.

Way too long ago!

First, I think I should apologies for not keeping my blog up to date. There aren't that many followers here, but that is probably because I don't update enough!

So, what happened since my last blog? Not that much, I'm afraid. I started this blog to encourage myself to paint more, and hopefully get some reaction from fellow wargamers.
I already painted more miniatures than I did last year, so there something possitive to tell! Not that it was that difficult, I only painted 93 28mm figs last year. My personal record is 209 28mm figs and 20 15mm figs in 2005. Counter now stands at 99, and I hope to add more before the end of the year.
We also played several games using the new and superb Clash of Empires rules. We (me and my gaming friends) like these rules a lot. No more super characters (as in WAB), it are the common (miniature) soldiers who have to do the work! I'm eagerly awaiting my copy of the first supplement, The rise and fall of Persia. Excactly the historical period of my main interest.

Some pictures of my latest painting:

These are the first two 1-battalion regiments of my Napoleonic Dutch-Belgian army. 24 figs a unit, and based for Black Powder. Perry Miniatares, naturaly! Plan is to paint a few units a year, and play the prelude to Waterloo, Quatre-Bras for its 200th anniversary (in 2015). Jeroen is busy painting the French. But we still have a lot to paint...
I also painted a Scipio model I got several years ago as a freebie, and recently found between my Macedonians.

Would you believe this is the first Roman model I painted?
For some reason I always liked Greeks, Macedonians or Persians more.

My latest are a few Greek skirmishers (Foundry) which have been kept in the drawer, because I didn't need them directly. I now have 40 of these, next to 24 archers and 12 slingers. Enough skirmishers for the moment I think.

Though we mostly play Clash of Empires now, I keep basing them as in DBx or Armati. You never know what it's good foor, and there are no problems for using them in CoE.

As a latest addition, I've been to Crisis '11 yesterday. Helping a bit with our club stand (HQ gams club). I've been visiting Crisis since it's first issue, I can't even remember how many years ago that was! But I still like this show. Less than half an hour riding from my home, spending the whole day there, not to mention my hard earned cash! I did not spend that much of money this year. Hardly any new lead, but the mountain at home is still huge!

Enough of this, and back to painting.

My painting, or the lack of it.

Hi, just a quick note on what I've been painting since the latest message. Not a lot, I'm afraid...

A Necromunda gang, for a campaign we are playing at our local club.
It's a Cawdor gang, for those who know the game.
And a tiny beetle VW car (6mm), I got for free at the latest Salute show. I gave the car away to my father, who has a lot of scale models of (mostly) race cars.
But he didn't had one as small as this one!

I'm currently painting a regiment of Napoleonic Dutch militia, but my interests keep drifting to other subjects, as there are Successors.
Oh, and I bought a copy of Clash of Empires at Salute. I have to play these rules in the near future. The rules look fine, and are already called WAB 3.0 on the www. We'll see.

To end this rambling, a pic I took of a fabulous looking table at Salute. I could watch this one for hours, as there was so much to see. Eye candy!

A look in the cabinet.

I made a few pictures of the miniatures who are now in my cabinet. All of my Greek and Spartan hoplites are there, as are my Macedonian/successor phalangites and some cavalry.
Everything is 28mm, as are most of my miniatures.

There are 3 blocks of 48 Greek hoplites made up of Foundry miniatures, and 1 of 48 Vendel miniatures.
Under them are my Spartan hoplites. 2 Blocks of 36 and 1 of 27, also mostly Foundry, with a few Gorgon and Vendel. Hidden in the left corner are my Theban Sacred Band of 18, all Foundry.

In the other cabinet are the Macedonian/successor phalanxes. A unit of 48 unarmoured Foundry on the right, followed by the famous Argyraspides. Currently consisting of 32 Foundry's but there are 16 more coming some day. In the middle are two big Vendel elephants, followed by two more units of 32 phalagites, made up of Old Glory. Underneat them are a unit of 12 cataphacts (old Newline), a command stand (Newline) and finaly 12 light Skythian horse archers.

Of course I also have Greek skirmishers, peltasts and a few horsemen. But as I see it, my Greek armies are big enough. For the moment.
The Macedonians/Successors are something else. I plan to build up the phalanxes to 48 figs each, and expand to at least 6 of them. Then I need more cavalry and light troops as there are thureophoros, thorakites and Thracians. And did I mention more elephants yet? The plan is to play all those big Successor battles, Raphia for example. And you can't play these with 100 figs a side, do you?

Any comments always welcome! (thanks Rudy)

Here they are, finaly.

Finaly, I have a new unit ready, more or less. I'll explain myself.
While I was working on this unit of Foundry hypaspists, I discovered that 1 miniature was missing. One of the blisters must have been a blister with only 7 miniatures in it.

Luckely, a friend of me got several hypaspists somewere hidden in his lead mountain. He dug one out, and I got it last thursday. Thanks David!
Unfortunately, I'm also short of 1 shield, so I'm still not painting. Guess I'll have to call my good friend again.

The rest of the unit is ready, so here are the pics. I hope you like it.
Troops are Foundry. Command figures are A&A miniatures that were hidden in a corner of my unpainted Alexander and Successors drawer. Currently 26 miniatures, and hopefully a 27th coming soon.
The bases are bigger then what I use normaly, but due to the poeses of the miniatures I could not fit them on a smaller one. So it became an elite open order infantry unit.

Oh, and if you want to know why it took so long to paint them, I brok my collarbone on 6 march, when I crashed with my bicycle. I'm still recovering from it. The bike is fine, thank you.

I'm now working on  something completely different. More news soon...

Oops...

I forgot to show a picture of my newly painted building.
And I also have pictures of the new command base.
Well, here they are:

I mixed the colour of Philip's cloack myself, because I wanted it to be a little more "prume" coloured then the purple I have.

Thanks for watching and reading, any comments always welcome!

Finally ready to start painting the next unit.

I've been too busy for a while with other things (as there is: work).
But now the next unit is ready to start painting again: A unit of hypaspists for my Macedonian army.

Spears and shields are glued on also.

My phalanx unit is ready for action!

A happy new year to anyone reading my blog, have great games and lots of 6's when you need them.

Yes, my 48 fig phalanx unit is now ready for battle!
I finished them just before the new year.

This is my first 48 fig phalanx unit, as I used to make those units 32 figs.

All of these are 28mm Foundry figs, except for the musician, which is a Vendel fig I still had lying around.
As you can see, a closely packed phalanx looks like a thick wood, thanks to their large pikes.

I still have to paint some more miniatures for a Philip of Macedon scenario which is slowly forming in my head. Lets see if I can stick to the plan...

I already have done some painting this year also.
I painted my first building for 2011.
Picture will follow soon.

Any comments, tips, etc. always welcome.