I'm Back!!!!!!

Back burner project, have had this on hold for so long now, it really needs finishing off, and with the advent of the new plastics from Victrix, the possibility of a Roman opposing force, is now a viable proposition
The story so far

The army has moved a little further forwards, I now only have the Cretan Archers, Greek Cavalry, and the command bases to finish off, and I have a Basic Impetus army.

I have made a start on the two remaining unit bases, but the man himself, is still bare metal!!

Bit of groundwork to do on some bases too, but thats not too taxing.

2015 could be the year this lot finally gets to fight a battle.

Casualty Counter, and a Greek Horseman

Not much to report, been away for a few days break, so not much time to mess around with paint n figures.
Worked out how to do my casualty markers, saw the idea on another forum somewhere, and here is my attempt

The dice can be moved around to record the number of hits taken by the unit. This one is for my Tarantine cavalry unit, the figure is from A&A, with the addition of a Crusader Oscan head.

















Also got the first of the Greek cavalry unit finished off, just another four to add, and thats another unit to add to the growing force!!

Once again, he's an Aventine miniature, hopefully the finished unit will look the part.

Today I Have been Mostly Painting.....................Elephants

Managed to get the crew sorted on the second elephant, and a bit more work done on the supporting infantry figures.
The army itself is slowwwwwwwwwwwly creeping towards completion, in its Basic Impetus format, I'm now collecting more figures, to build it up to a Full Impetus army.

Only the Cretan archers, Greek Cavalry,Guard Cavalry and the man himself to do now!!  May be finished by Christmas :-)

Plastic........................Fantastic?

A while back, Doug Powell gave me a sprue from his box of Victrix Miniatures Later Greek Hoplites. I have finally got around to sticking one of them together, just to see how they would compare with my Aventine stuff.
To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out!!
Right. here's a quick review, and we start the ball rolling, with a few sprue pics! Now I have no idea how many different sprues there are in the box, nor how the figures go together, so this could be interesting!

You appear to get eight bodies on each sprue, a selection of different arms, eight heads and some seperate helmet crests, the spears and shields, a couple of shield aprons, plus some scabbarded swords. I think that certain arms will go with certain bodies, but without any instructions, I can't be certain.

They are nice clean looking models, and have some lovely detail. Some reviews are saying that the models are inaccurate, well they look like Hoplites to me, and to be frank, thats good enough.

I cut off a selection of bits, and made up a figure. There was a certain amount of clean up required, as always with plastics, you will get mould lines, and where the bits are cut from the sprue trees. A bit of work with a sharp knife, and some files, and we were ready for some glue action.
I used my good old Humbrol Liquid Poly, and the plastic responded well, with all the parts welding nicely together.

Here he is, the finished product, with an Aventine Italiote Hoplite, and to my amazement, they actually look just fine together!!
Would I use them in the same unit? Probably not, but I would certainly recommend the Victrix models.

So, the pros and cons of using the plastics: Well, they are relatively cheap, you get 48 figures in a box, and if you shop around, you can pick up a box for £20. The models are very well detailed, and they go together nicely too. They fit in Ok with the more popular metal ranges, but I would not use them together.
One box will get you 4 bases for Impetus, with 12 figures on each base.



Being plastic, there is more work involved, you have to have a level of modelling skill to put them together. Plastic, by its very nature, is fragile, and breakages will happen.
All in all though, I can't really find fault with the figures, and will invest in a box or two, when I get around to building my Syracusan army.

Back Again - With Some Italian allies

Yes I know, I was going to just have the one blog!!
Somehow, I managed to get a small amount of enthsiasm together, and finished off one of the unit bases for my Impetus Pyrrhic army!!

An Italian allies base, they could be Samnites, or Bruttians, or any of the various tribes that went over to the side of Pyrrhus.

Bit of a labour of love, as the figures used were not great. They are mostly Crusader Miniatures, and they were a pain to paint. I had to replace all the shields, with A&A Miniatures ones, as the Crusader shields have no suitable transfer sheets from LBMS, and I did not fancy attempting freehand designs. The figures came with seperate heads, a novel idea, but more farting about to get them right. General detail is a bit sof tand very plain,  none of them have a side arm of any description too.

The command figure is from Aventine, he's really a Roman officer, but I quite like the figure, and he could have pinched the kit off a dead Roman.

I await the arrival of the new Aventine models for the Samnites, as they will hopefully be, bloody excellent, then i may feel a bit more inspired to add another couple of unit bases.

Next, I hope to finish off the elephants, and Greek Cavalry

Back Again

Ok
Radical rethink time!!  I have decided to keep two blogs going for a while. I now have a different approach I'm messing about with, more later.

BLOG MERGER

I have decided to merge my two blogging efforts into one mighty blog!!

if you want to continue following the feeble efforts involved, in getting this project finished, slip on over to

http://nigelh-viewfromtheduckpond.blogspot.co.uk/


and join the party over there

cheers faithful followers :-]]]

A Fresh Start!!

I've rebooted this project, as I badly need to get something finished this year, and this army is just about my only hope of doing that.

So, on the desk we have, from left to right

Thureophoroi, and one of the elephants, with its crew

Thesssalian Greek Medium Cavalry, and in the centre, the leader of the Oscan unit.

Cretan Archers

Oscan Infantry unit, some of these are already done.















and completed so far, I have

Again, going from left to right

Macedonian Phalanx















Epirote Phalanx   

Tarantine Phalanx

Tarantine Light Cavalry

Slingers, with a couple of the Oscan Infantry in front of them.

My mate Doug has the other Elephant, and the Agema Cavalry to paint, so hopefully between the pair of us, we can crack out this army, and I get a game of Basic Impetus with it.

Oscans on the way

Got the first two finished, only another, ohhh ten or so, for the first Impetus base.
Tried out the new Doug bronze on these two, and its worked out quite nicely. Figures are from Crusader, with Gripping Beast shields ( LBMS don't have any transfers for the Crusader ones).

Also got some A & A Samnites in the post today, decided on a couple of packs, just to see how they fit with the Crusader figures

They need a bit of cleaning up, but nothing I've not seen before. I think they fit in perfectly well, and are actually nicer figures then the Crusader ones!!! I shall be investing in a few more of these I think.

Finally, I was pointed in the direction of a decent matt varnish, by my mate Paul Cotton

It goes on really easily, brushes can be cleaned with water, and it dries to a pretty good matt finish too. Well worth a look I would say

More Italians!!!

Started work on the next unit, this time its more Italian allies. Using figures from Crusader, A&A, and SHQ, as Aventine have not released any suitable figures yet :-[

These figures are hard work, need a bit of cleaning up, and the detail is nowhere near as good as the Aventine models. Crusader have different shields to all the other models, and no LBMS transfers available, so I have ditched them for replacements from Gripping Beast, and A&A. I think they will all look OK once I've done them.

I'm using the Doug Bronze method mentioned before, and so far the results are looking pretty good, I may have to do another Phalanx now, to replace my Epirote one!!

Hope Aventine return to the Pyrrhus range, and finish it off, with some decent Oscan types.

Bronze - A Receipe

The problem with painting Bronze Armour, well no two alloys will look alike, its all dependant on the mix in the metal itself. I have seen various differing takes on what painters feel the most accurate depiction would look like. My own efforts look a bit too orange for my liking, and I think its down to the fact that I use Vallejo Brass as a base colour, with a GWs Griffon Sepia inkwash.

I'm going to have a crack at painting bronze like my mate Doug does, as I think his results look pretty damn good.

Paints etc required, Vallejo Bronze, Vallejo Old Gold, Miniature Paints Bronze, W&N Peat Brown Ink, Liquitex Glaze Medium and Retarder.

Doug undercoats in white, then gives the figures a wash of dark brown, to help show the detail, and provide a first level of shading. 

First off, base coat of Vallejo Bronze, thinned with the retarder, try to use a few thin coats of paint, rather than one big thick coat. mix 50-50 Vallejo Bronze, and Old Gold, and use this to add highlights, it is an arse about face way of doing things, but it works!! Now shading, Miniature Paints Bronze, Glaze medium and retarder, in a 25% paint 75% mediums mix, work this over the armour, making sure the recessed areas get a good covering, follow up with a very thin wash of the Peat Brown ink. Once its all dry, go back and add a highlight of Vallejo Old Gold to the edges, and the very tops of raised areas. When you varnish the finished figure, make sure you go back, and recoat the armour areas with gloss, to make them shine. 

Simples, as a certain annoying furry thing would say!!

To Answer Some Questions

The paints used on the armour were Vallejo Bronze and Vallejo Old Gold, W&N Peat Brown Ink, and Miniature Paints Bronze. Doug has a certain method to paint the armour involving various Liquitex mediums, and the aforementioned paints.
The shields are all transfers, mostly from LBMS.
I would love to say its all my own work, but these models were painted for me.
I am changing the way I paint armour, to the same method Doug uses, as the effect is quite realistic..

Tarantine Phalanx

Yes its been a while, but i have the attention span of a goldfish, and various other shiny projects have caught my eye!!

Back again though, and raring to go.
This is the Tarantine Phalanx , painted by my good mate, Doug Powell. Just needs the groundwork sorting.
On the desk I have one of the elephants, some Greek cavalry, and some Italian allies.

Back to the Phalanx

Just picked up another box of beautifully painted figures from my mate, Doug Powell.  This tome its the Tarantine Phalanx, pics a bit later on.

Epirote Phalanx

Phalanx units, just like buses, wait ages for one, then two turn up at once!!!

Epirotes ths time, and this lot are all my own work!!

They do like good when combined with the Macedonians.

Really pleased with how these two units have turned out. 

Now back to work, and its Cavalry,Elephants and Cretan Archers next.

Macedonian Phalanx

Doug came over on Saturday, and presented me with a box of beautifully painted Phalanx. I got to work basing them up, and, hey presto, the first of the Phalanx Units for my Impetus army.

I reckon he did a fantastic job on them, and I'm dead chufed with the way they turned out.