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.

The last of the Greek skirmishers.

Just a short message and a few pics this time.
Well, I am cleaning out shelves of unpainted figures, and here are the last of the skirmishers I had lying around. I don't think I will need more in the future. I now have well over 100 Greek / Macedonian skirmishers!

Here are the last sling armed Greek psiloi. As always with my ancient armies, they are based on 3 cm x 3 cm bases, some doubled up on 6cm x 3 cm. Models are  Crusader Miniatures (from the Spanish range I believe, but not sure).
If it seems to you that the bases are floating just above the table, that is because there is also a strip of magnetic sheet underneat.

I also painted the last two javelin armed psiloi (Foundry Miniatures). I found them in between some Thracians and Skythians. I realy should clean out all my drawers and see what else is packed in the wrong place.

As you can see, I tried another background and lighting for these pictures. I am still not happy with them, the lighting must become better next time. The pictures are better though, I believe, but more tips are welcome (thanks Tim!)

I will put up a few pictures next week of an ongoing Napoleonic battle we are playing at a friends game  room. We are replaying Eylau in 15mm with over 1000 miniatures a side. And reinforcements still need to come on table! More on that next time.

The latest painted miniatures.

Hello again!
Here are a few pictures of my latest painting efforts.
I painted a unit of 15 Agrianians. They were ready by the end of august, but I still had to make a picture of them.

I wanted them to look very different from my other skirmishers, so they all have the same white shield with the Macedonian star on it. As they were a elite unit under Alexander the Great, I also used miniatures that had helmets on.  Nobody will take them for the usual javelin-armed skirmishers I think!

Next are some Greek Hoplites. I already have a lot of them, but reorganised them into 36 fig units. So I needed some extra. Most of them  are from Crusader Miniatures, but there are also a few from the old Vendel range. All have Vendel shields, as they will enlarge my Vendel units. I had to use some Crusader Miniatures because Vendel is not available anymore in Europe. The range was sold off to an American seller.

And some more Crusader Miniatures hoplites!
They will enlarge my Foundry hoplite units, and have been giving Foundry shields.

I still have to varnish the figures, which shows at the borders of the decals on the shields. This will be unvisible when varnished.
I now have 5 hoplite units of 36 miniatures and one 48 miniature unit of levy hoplites.
Oh, and a small unit of 20 Theban Sacred Band. (not counting the Spartan hoplites here!)
That wil be enough for a scenario I have planned: Chaeronnea!
For this I have to paint 1 more unit of Macedonian Phalanx and a few (10) light troops. I am currently working on the lights, and the phalanx will follow shortly.

Just one more picture to share.
A Macedonian foot commander.

It is a from the Foundry "World of the Greeks" range.
Lovely model, isn't it?

SAGA Warband.

Hello again!
Well it did not take as long to post a new message as before, did it?
I promised to show you my new Saga Warband. It was painted in may if I recall correctly, so it is not that new.
But here it is.

 

 

It is a 7 points Byzantine warband. Normaly this game is played using a 4 to 6 points army. This one is 7 points because I should read my armylist first before I order figures. The Byzantine Emperor has an extra cost of 1 point.

 

Most of the figures are made by Mark Sims Crusader Miniatures, except for the Emperor (with page) and two of the Varangians guards. The emperor and one of the Varangian are from Gripping Beast and there is one other Varangian from Foundry.

 

Here is a close up of the Big Man himself: 

And a few other pictures of units. All shields are hand painted.

What do you think about the models being photographed on my gaming table? Does it look better than on my painting desk with black background? Let me know!

That's it for now.
I hope to play a game with the warband soon, and another update is already being planned. Yes, I'm painting miniatures again!

Men in Black.

Hi there! No, I'm not dead (yet). It's just that I was not doing a lot on the wargaming front. So why should I post a new message here? I have finished my Saga Byzantine warband (7 points as it seems) some months ago, but that was about it. I have yet to play the first game with them. Well, now I'm back! The very few figures I did paint in between will get a separate message soon, but I have not taken any pictures yet. I have primed some miniatures, and now it's painting time!

Picture update for 2012.

At last, the promised pictures of the last miniatures I painted in 2012.
First, some Thracians. These were primed over a year ago, and are now finaly part of a still growing unit of Thracian javelin-armed warriors. They are from the excellent Foundry World of the Greeks range.

There were also a few Thracian skirmishers with bows painted. (Crusader Miniatures)

After these came a Successor general from 1st Corps. The sword was broken off, so I drilled a tiny hole in both sides and fixed it with a tiny iron rod and some superglue.

Last but not least is a large (36 figs) unit of Napoleonic Dutch Jaegers. They are from the unsurpassable Perry range. Really wonderful gems of miniatures!

Detail of the command:

I'm still busy painting my first Saga warband. At first I only bought 4 points, but now have some extra miniatures to make it a 6 points warband.Pictures promised when I get them ready for battle!

A belated review of my 2012.

January is already over halfway and I still have to let you know what I've done in november and december!
So, belated, here it is.

First of, I did some wargaming, really!
We played a few ancient games using the excellent Clas of Empires rules. We used to play a lot of Warhammer Ancient Battles 1.0, but when 2.0 came around, we simply gave up. Armati (mostly intro scale) came next, a game we liked and played a lot. We will play this again in the future.
And now we have Clash of Empires. This looks a lot like WAB, but without the super characters. A general is just that, and not a superhero/killermachine.
If you would like to know more about COE,
check out http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/clash-of-empires

I also played a few games of the popular Saga, though I don't own the rules.
You only need a handfull of figures to play, but it is a fun skirmish game. I wouldn't call it a real historical wargame, It's more a game with model soldiers than a wargame.

On to painting. After Crisis '12, I had a real surge to get some miniatures painted before the end of 2012.
I painted all the miniatures that were already primed. Some were lying in the drawere since, well lets say a very long time.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem with uploading pictures from my pc for the moment. So no pictures yet.
I hope to upload the pictures soon.

I also painted my first miniatures for 2013. Byzantines from Crusader Mins for a Saga warband. The warband is not finished yet, but I hope they will be in the near future.
I also painted two yurts from the fantastic Grand Manner range of scenery models. Not cheap, but probably the best you can get!
See for yourself: http://www.grandmanner.co.uk/home/Home.html
The yurts are great models for anyone having steppe nomads from Scythians over Huns to Mongols.

That's it for now.
Thanks for reading, and please comment if you like it, or not.