Barbarians! Celts! Gauls!

Here is the next part of my painting backlog. This time about the Celtic/Galatian/Barbarians.
not a lot of figures painted for these, only a few small skirmish units. But they are needed just as much as any other part of the army!

These braves are armed with slings. Miniatures are from a few manufacturers, I think Wargames Foundry (old Perry range) and the ex-Newline range (now SHQ).

The second unit is armed with javelins and have a small shield. Miniatures are a mix of Wargames Foundry and Old Glory. Some of them have there hair dyed with white chalk to scare the enemy.

They were a quick paint job, using washes to get some depth in the colours.

There is also a fantasy part in my barbarian army. So here is the heavy siege artillery!

I bought this model a very long time ago (10 years ago?) in a sale. I believe it is made by Scotia Grendel. The crew are plastic left-overs from Wargames Factory Gallic chariots.

Next time the blog will report on new recruits for my hellenistic armies. It might be better to work on one project at a time, but that is so difficult for me. I recently bought Dan Mersey's Dragon Rampant fantasy rulesset, and now I want to have at least one army (well, max 60 figs) painted as soon as possible. I have loads of suitable unpainted figures, and finaly I might even start working on my non-GW Lord of the Rings figures. But I also have Greek mythology figures, and the rules are also usable for this setting.
Some hard decisions to make. If I only had the time to paint (and game) them all...

Freshly painted Celtic cavalry and more.

it has been a while since the last update. I've been busy with lots of things. Traveling is one of them. The Misses and me went on a citytrip to London for a few days, but more of that later, in another message.
And then there was Crisis in Antwerp several weeks ago already. As usual, I bought way too many new toys... But more of that later, in another message.
Even before Crisis, there was also a WW1 memorial weekend in Antwerp. I have made several pictures of the event. But, yes, more of that later.

I want to show some pictures of my latest painting efforts now, all for my (currently) small Celtic horde.
I started painting about a year ago on them, and now think I can call them a little army.
The fresh troops are a 12 fig unit of cavalry.

They come from the Gauls range of Wargames Foundry. They are a bit in the "huge hands & big heads" side of anatomy, but once painted they look great. Probably more to come.

Next is a king or general, being carried around on a shield.

This nice model is from that same Gauls range from WF.

The last figure is a necessary: a Druid.
And a blood thirsty one it is!

That's it for now.
Teh army now stands for 120 infantry in 4 units, 12 cavalry, 3 chariots, a druid and a king/general.

I'm currently on course to break my personal record in miniatures painting this year. If I can keep up to this speed, it must be possible!

Let the beast go!

I have neglected my blog for some time, but hey, I'm back now! I promised a fantasy update, so here it is. Pictures of my latest painted miniatures. 

As you can see, I painted a big rhino, crewed with some barbarians. It is a great model, originaly sculpted by the highly talented Mr Copplestone. Or at least I think he did. I bought this beauty from Mirliton, in Italy, but I believe it was first sold under Grenadier, probably late 80's or early 90's. It is probably the largest model I have ever painted, and most certainly the heaviest. It weights just under 1 kilo!

Here are more pictures. All pictures are clickable, for bigger size.

Except the big beastie, I also have aquired a small but nice unit of barbarians on foot. As it is fantasy, the weapons are extremely big. As they should be!
Also sculpts from Mr. Copplestone.

Especialy the giant has lots of details. I don't think the picture does justice to him.

On top of that, I also painted the last plastic Gallic warriors I had. Only twelve of them, but now I can turn the 36 men unit into two 24 men units.
Most of them are Wargames Factory, with a few Warlord models. I didn't had enough heads for the Warlords, but had lots of spares from WF. They did not fit properly, so I filed off the neck joints, and now it is hard to see what I've done.

I now have 120 Gallic foot warriors and 3 chariots. Time for some cavalry maybe?

Next saturday is also Crisis weekend in Antwerp.
If you'v never heard if it, check http://www.tsoa.be/crisis_general.html
See you there?

Third unit of Celts finished.

Yes! My third warband of 36 miniatures is now ready for battle. These fellows were painted in august. But I had a traffic accident with my bicycle, and needed some time to recover. I'm still not 100% ok (was I ever???), but I feel a lot better already. 

Anyway, some pictures of the wild folks.

The miniatures are mostly Old Glory, except for the three command figures, who are Foundry. Old Glory sells miniatures in 30 figures bags, and I don't think I will ever need that much. So Foundry it is.

I now have 3 units of 36 and 3 chariots. I still need to paint some cavalry, more chariots and some skirmishers to make it a small army, but I think I'm over half way with this project.

Unfortunately, I just can't stick to one project, so next update will probably be fantasy.

If I don't change my mind...

Chariots!

I did some work on my Gallic/barbarian army. Three fast moving chariots. They are from Wargames Factory, made in hard plastic. They are a lot cheaper then, for example Warlord Games or Wargames Foundry. For their price, they are certainly good enough, especialy if you need many of them. They also paint up very quickly.

But do check for yourself.

There are some problems though. For example, the necks of the horses don't fit perfectly, which is visible if you know where to look. And I had to cut off one leg of the sitting driver and glue it back on in a different possition. It did not fit over the pole. Shields are decals from the WF foot unit box.

Well, on to the next unit, which will be more Gallic foot. Who knows, I might build a real army of them by the end of the year!

Some more "Barbarians".

Just a quick note, to let you all know I didn't forget updating my blog.
I simply did not have a lot of time to update, so here are a few pics of my latest painting.

A unit of 36 wild Celts/Gauls. As you can see, lots of bright colors. Have I overdone these?
Models are from the old Newline range, now SHQ I believe. They are not as dynamic as the plastic Celts I painted earlier this year, but I like them!

Another thing I would like to ask: Does anyone remember these?

I bumped into them when I was searching something completely different, at the bottom of a drawer. They were my first painting guides when I was painting my minifigs real 25mm British Napoleonic army. That over 35 years ago! Boy, Am I getting old...

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!