Return to Ancients.

Ancients is still my prime wargames period. To be more precise, ancient Greece up to the fall of the Hellenistic kingdoms. This still is a fairly wide period, and if you also count in their possible enemies... I don't think I will ever have enough of them.
If I may give you a link to another blog with an excellent battle report and pictures of the battl of Hydaspes, head over to caliban-somewhen
20 Elephants on the Indians' side, truly spectacular!

Last year (2014) I visited Salute and bought some 1st Corps Scythian heavy cavalry. The figures were just new, and since I did not have any heavy Scythians yet, "had to buy them". Here we are, a year later, and finaly half of them actualy got painted!
The horses are a bit on the small side, compared to the Foundry Scythians, but other than that, great sculpts. One thing I didn't know when I bought them is that they come in a few pieces. You have a horse, a rider, a hand with attached weapon, a shield and a quiver with bow. It all had to be glued together, so quite a bit of superglue ended on my hands. Luckely I didn't glue my fingers on one of the miniatures, but I am out of superglue for the moment.

As you can see, nice, well detailed figures.

On top of that, I also got two other figures painted. These two Vikings were drifting along the painting table half painted since, well lets call it a long time. Over 18 months at least.
And now they are completed! Strangely enough, I don't have any other Vikings. I don't even know why I bought them. (Is that reason enough to start a new army?) It is a Viking king from Crusader Miniatures and a character from Gripping Beast. I can't find the king on the website anymore, so it could be I'm wrong on that one.

All pictures are still made on my painting table. I will try to have a proper "photo studio" ready net time.

Gaming-wise it has been a bit less recently. Only a few board games. The closest to wargaming we played was Command and Colors ancients. After several years of owning the basic box and three supplements, we are coming close to playing the last scenario of the basic box...

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???

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...

WIP & some painted scenery.

I painted some scenery last week. I needed a short break from the successor phalanx I'm currently painting.

First piece is an ancient Greek olive press. This model is made by Dave Bodley from Grand Manner.
It is a lovely piece, very quick to paint. Even by me!
Link: http://www.grandmanner.co.uk/Olive_Press--product--618.html
It will soon see service on a wargames table in one of our games.
The Foundry figure is added for scale.

The other thing that got painted recently is 75 cm fencing and the animal shelter from Perry's Medieval Cottage.
http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_62&products_id=2715
The cottage itself is yet to be painted.

The Phalanx unit I'm working on is from Gripping Beast's Polemos range.
At first I thought there were hardly any differences in the miniatures, until I started painting them. They look very similar to each other, but there are differences!

Maybe differences are not very clear from this picture, but I'll post better pictures when the unit is finished.
I plan (and have bought) to add LBMS shield transfers for the first time. Let's see what that gives.