Summer Update

Well, summer here seems to have been and gone, I would like to be wrong.

Meanwhile, back in the wargames hut ...

... some Romans I am doing for a friend.

Caesarian Romans from Warlord Games.

 

MDF bases by Warbases, scenic material to follow.

 

A recent game with my friends left one of them disappointed at the lack of charging action so I picked up some Norman Knights from Conquest Games.

15 Mounted Norman Knights.

Build details will follow in a later post.

Multi-part horses, I wonder how they will pan out.

And some foot sloggers to help them out.

44 Norman Knights on foot.

I wonder how the plastic swords and spears will hold out.

As usual a post will follow.

And finally a box arrived in the post with some more sprues.

A sprue of AWI artillery costing £2.50. Warlord sell two in a box for £18 so I got two sprues (go figure).

Some AWI Command to lead all those unused AWI other ranks that I have accumulated.

AWI Hessians to bolster another Hessian unit in the pipeline.

I have some work to do clipping all of these out and glueing them together.

It will be a fun job.

 

Hot Today

First day I've been outside without a jersey (sweater) on.

Too hot to paint or play.

Am not complaining, it's been a while since we've seen the sun here.

Crann Tara - British Infantry

I purchased some British line infantry from that nice man at Crann Tara at the weekend. (Thanks Graham)

http://cranntaraminiatures.co.uk/

Here they are unfinished with Warbases sabots heading for the FIW.

They are number 2 or 3 in the painting queue and they are such nice figures I'll try and do a good paint job on them.

As you can see they are nicely cast with almost no flash and the bayonets look quite robust compared to others that I have encountered.

I reckon I'll have to use my brand new paint brushes on them.

Wish me luck.

My Day at Carronade 2017

Scotland's biggest and best wargames show drew me and a chum to Falkirk this morning. We arrived a wee bit early but we were allowed in and I made my way to my booked flea market table.

I didn't have much to sell and selling was incredibly slow but I did manage to move a couple of units of Caesarian Romans and an AWI unit.

I did not manage to sell my Roman Villa or a few units of WSS infantry and a gun although everyone said they were beautifully done. There's always the next show.

After a quick refuel of chips and a burger I mosied around a bit talking to quite a few chums before splashing some cash on the traders.

I got some brushes for £4.40.

I'll find out how they work next week.

Hope they keep their points.

I am hoping to build up my Teutonic Order collection to use with To The Strongest so I bought some more Teutonic Order Knights.

Some Hungarian Knights

And some Serbian Knights

And some Turkish Sipahis which I hope to convert into Turcopoles.

Next up were some British infantry for my FIW collection from that nice man at Crann Tara. The nice man didn't have all the figures I was after but he offered to post them on, free of charge, as soon as possible. What a nice man. Can everyone go and say 'hello' to the nice man, he's called Graham.

http://cranntaraminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/

Meanwhile, back at Pendraken I snapped up an army pack of Achaemenid Persians to act as opponents to my other armies.

Some 40x20x2's from Warbases.

And, Finally, a Roman Stone Granary by Warbases which won't be very Roman by the time I am finished with it.

Keep an eye on this blog as I will post further developments.

Finally, finally, a big thanks to the Falkirk guys who run a smooth operation for the best of the Scottish shows.

Roman Villa in my Back Garden

My Goodness, it is bright today, first day of the year that I have been outside without a coat. I took the opportunity to photograph my Warbases Roman Villa without setting up my lights indoors.

It looks like this.

Quite impressive isn't it?

I have joined up all the buildings, based them, and they fit neatly inside the lid of an A4 paper box.

I attached the portico roof securely for strength reasons but left all the other roofs detachable in case the villa needs to be occupied.

The main room has a mosaic floor, in this case 'the Kidnapping of Europa'. Time Team will be pleased. I wonder who Europa was, I'll need to 'google' her.

The side rooms have plain flagstone floors as I only had 3 days to do it :)

The new owner looks like he will defend his villa to the last.

The villa (28mm) is from the Veni Vidi Vici range of Roman buildings by Warbases and retails at £35. I tiled the roofs with their Roman Roof tiles using a sheet and a half at £2 each, these will be available on their website soon. The garden area has tufts and flowers from my stock.

http://war-bases.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=65_198&product_id=1381

The figure (28mm) is a Caesarian centurion by Warlord Games.

The painting is by my own fair hand and disguises discrete applications of filler around the corner joints. The exterior walls are Ivory White, interior walls are Afrika Sand/Burgundy, roofs are Terracotta (unsurprisingly), woodwork is Burgundy, all by Howard Hues and the grey is Dawnstone by Citadel.

Back On Track

Sorry things have been quiet recently.

Normal life often gets in the way but then I've been a wee bit unwell, then my grandson was a wee bit unwell too which made my daughter very tired which would have made me a bit more tired too if I hadn't been called for jury service which made me quite tired anyway.

Hopefully things will get back on track soon.

The Portable Wargame - First Quandary

OK, I started basing figures on 40 mm MDF squares so each figure has a 10mm frontage.

They are OK-ish.

I think they are too spaced out.

This is one of my not-7YW units using a 10mm frontage.

It looks fine. I use them with rules that utilise single figure casualty removal so 10mm leaves room for stubby fingers. I also use them with Black Powder which doesn't use figure or base removal.

This is a 32mm base so figures get an 8mm frontage.

They are a bit tighter.

Here's a 32mm base and a 40mm base for comparison.

So Guys, help me answer the quandary, 8mm frontage or 10mm frontage. My original thinking was for 40mm square bases, largely because I had some to hand. Now that I can see the figures ranked up I'm more of an opinion towards 32mm square bases.

Answers by reply to this blog post.