In a world, where my plastic army soldiers beat the s*** out of your plastic army men...*

First of all, a belated merry Xmas.
And of course also a happy new year!

My last painting for the year is done now. I did pretty well for my standards. I managed to paint 180 miniatures, all in 28mm! I know some people do three, four or more times that much figures in a year, but for me this is great. I just checked, and its my best year in painting since 2006.
I think this has much to do with internet. When I look back, I did over 200 miniatures a year before 2006, not counting the 15mm, of which there were also at least 100 or more each year. I'll try if I can reach that number once more next year.

But that's history and future plans, on to what I painted now.
A 36 figure unit or PLASTIC Celts. Yes, you are reading correct: PLASTIC.
It is the first time since the plastic revolution in 28mm wargaming, now several years ago that I constructed and painted plastic.  At first I thought it was very time consuming to put them together. Most are from Wargames Factory, and they have separate legs, a body, a right arm, weapon, a shield and a head. The left arm is part of the body. But that is a lot of glueing before you can start painting!
There are also a few Warlord Games Celts in the unit. these are easier to build (lesser parts), but you have to be carefull: not all bodies fit all legs. Which I found out after a few mistakes...
I also had not enough Warlord heads, so had to file of a few WF necks, to make them fit on the WG bodies.

I also had rub-on shield decals, which were part of the WF boxed set. They look very nice, but are a real pain to fit. I had to retouch every shield, and even pull of a few because they sticked only partly or on the wrong place.

But look for yourself, and tell me what you think of them. The pictures are not that great, but I must say that I like how the miniatures came out.

I also painted three more miniatures, which should fit in with them. the warband will be used as proper Celts, but also as fantasy Celts. So I also painted a hero, a huge Foundry model called Slaine, a witch (I think from Reaper?) and an army standard bearer (plastic Warlord Games).

I think more plastic will follow in 2014, but I'm not shure when excactly.
For those who wonder what happened with the two "Off to War" parts, well we did play the battle in our clubhouse! We got lots of attention from other club members, who had not seen shuch a big battle before. But more of this in the next blog message.

Keep gaming &painting!

*The title of this blog message is used (without permission...) from Pat Lowinger from the Southern California Warhammer Radio, now the Historical Wargames Podcast. His podcast (http://www.historicalwargames.org/) is one of the four I regularly listen to when painting.
The others are View from the Veranda, Meeples and Miniatures and Ancient Warfare Magazine.
Thanks for making them, and keep me inspired!

Off to War (Part II).

After a few pictures of the "rebel" army, here are a the pictures of the Macedonians.

Some lighter troops, as the Agrianians and the Thracian peltasts have crossed the river to protect the left flank of the column.

The Thracian commander has sought higher ground, to check if he can see any enemy troops.

On the right flank, Alexander with a few of the Companions is doing the same.

First troops in the column of heavy infantry are the Hypaspists, followed closely by Philip, the commander of the army, with his elite phalanx unit.

After them are 5 more phalanx units, making them look like a moving wood of pikes.

For those interested, the miniatures are mostly Wargames Foundry, with some Old Glory, a unit of Gripping Beast (Polemos) and a few A&A Miniatures as Hypaspists.

The scene is set, battle is upon us.
We don't have a date yet, it is not easy to get a date we (the friends and me) can come together to play the battle.
Who will win???

Off to War! (part I)

Due to personal reasons, and a few minor relays, it has been a while since a new update was posted.
I hope to be more regular in the future, but you never knows what will happen...

Anyway, I have been painting ancient Greeks and Macedonians for several years now, and think it is time to play a big game. The battle I would like to play is Chaeronea, taking place somewere in the middle of Greece, between a greek Alliance and the Macedonian army of Philip, aided by his 18 year old son Alexander,  in 338BC.
The battle took place between the Kephissos River (nort-east) and Mount Petrachos (south-west), so it would be difficult to catch a flank.

The rules we will use are Clash of Empires, with around 5000 points a side. That is a couple of hunderd figures a side.
The set-up of troops will be at the players decision, but the battle field will be more or less historical.

The Greek Alliance was made of mostly Athenian and Theban hoplites. I'm not going to give away too much details now, as some of my gaming friends are probably reading this. But a few pictures won't hurt.

Here you see the allied Greek army marching by a hero's shrine, set up to honour Perseus, who took off Medusa's head.  A priests is offering a lamb for good fortune of the army while it marches along.
The officers are checking and discussing the troops and the way they wil try to overcome the Macedonians.

 



Apart from hoplites, there were of course also a few mounted troops, peltasts and skirmishers.

The most famous of Greek hoplites, the Theban Sacred band is leading the rather large column of hoplites.
There were only 300 of them, so a much smaller unit than the other phalanx units!

The Greek forces as seen trhough the eyes of an eagle passing over.

Two more units of skirmishers are to be added to the forces, making the total over 300 miniatures.

The Macedonian army will be shown here soon. (I hope)

Last unit for the Macedonian army.

Hello again!
My last unit from my Macedonian army is now ready. The figures come from the Gripping Beast "Polemos" range.
(it is actually a Seleucid guard phalanx unit, but it was the only phalanx I had for the moment)

I used the famous LBMS shield transfers for the first time. The first transfers took a lot of time to apply, but a few shields further in the line, I got it under hand. It still took me a whole evening to apply the transfers.
I had then to paint the edges of the shield, first in black (the transfers are to be used on a white primed surface) and then with gold, as this unit was called the Chrysaspides. Which is classical Greek for Golden shields.
I don't know if I did something wrong, I don't think it looks perfect. But it is certainly good enough to play our games. No one will notice when there are a few hunderds of toys on a gaming table!

Do check them yourself.

It is the last unit I had to paint for a soon to be played historical scenario. More on that will follow as soon as we (me and the wargaming friends) have a date when we can play the game. Rules will be "Clash of Empires".

Unfortunately, I forgot to take some close-ups of the unit.
Maybe in the next update. If I don't forget...

Warning, a fantasy update.

I'm still (slowly it seems) working on a Gripping Beast /Polemos phalanx unit.
I hope to have it finished by next weekend.

In the mean time I'll share a few pictures of a small vignette I painted last summer, and forgot to post pictures of.

It is a limited edition piece produced by Mithril Miniatures and sculpted by Chris Tubb.
They make a huge range of Lord of the Rings miniatures.  Check http://www.mithril.ie/
It is called "Beregond fighting a Troll at the Black Gate".
And yes that is a Hobbit in the rear of Beregond. Either Pippin or Merry, I'm not shure about it.

I tried to make it look as good as I can, but I'm struggling a bit with highlighting black.

I'm still trying to make my pictures look better.
Any advice is always welcome.
Also on painting black , as next year I will probably start painting the Black Brunswickers at Quatre Bras!

"Official CRISIS 13 TSA picture report"

Here is the official Crisis report, by Tin Soldiers of Antwerp themselves.
Much more pictures then found on my blog!
http://www.youtube.com/v/Iau2NneAjUc?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=MZZs-ZwREUvJBVH_9SzGAA&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1

Crisis? What Crisis?

Well, another Crisis show is over again.

It was an excellent edition, the best ever I think!
And I've seen them all, being a visitor since the first edition. I was a little worried when I arrived, a quarter before the doors went open. There was a huge row of people waiting outside and I thought, oh no, that will take ages to get in! But before I could say that, we were all in! Great!

Lots of good traders, from all over Europe, with a wide selection af things we all can use. Or at least think we can! Most traders had a very good day I guess. Some people were running around with huge boxes or even trolley cars loaded with "da loot" (me included).
Really incredible wonderfull games were being played. Check the pictures. The bar is raised yet again!

The info centre at the entrance was also very usefull if you were looking for a certain trader.
I don't know how many people got in, but I think it must be a record. It was still possible to walk in between everything without being crushed by backpackers.
All in all, I had a great day. Thanks, Tin Soldiers of Antwerp!

Here are some pictures, so you can see for yourself.

 

 

A Napoleonic game in a friends house.

Since a few weeks I'm participating in a Napoleonic game with loads of 15mm figures.
We (3of us) are replaying Eylau, with loads of toys.

The battle was fougth in februari 1807 in bad weather between Napoleons French forces and the Russians. There were also some Prusssians involved, which have not yet reached our table edge.
They are dearly needed though (I play Russians), as the Russians are getting some bloody noses!
We have now played three evenings, but schedules prevent us from playing again in the coming weeks. It will probably be end of november before the game continues.

Table size is 1.80m on 3.00m. That is 18 TTS tiles, 2' square each!
A few pictures may better show the scale of the game.

You might find Napoleon himself in some of the pictures. He is wearing his grey coat and riding a white horse.