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)