The Legion Marches!

Though the blog has fallen silent since April I have been a busy bee behind the scenes and progress has been made on two of the four projects I set out in the last post. The first is my completed 300 point Punic Wars Roman Army for Impetus:

The Army arrayed for battle

The Roman Legion Close up

Numidian cavalry with Roman Cavalry in support on the right flank

Italian allied Infantry and Cavalry on left flank

Hastati with Gladii drawn

 

Triarii

The Generals

 

Skirmishing Velites

Roman Cavalry

 

 

Italian Allied cavalry

 

Italian allied infantry

 

 

Numidian cavalry plus unfortunate Gaul

With the Romans completed I have ordered 300 points of Carthaginians which came this week and plan to get started with the Libyan infantry which will hopefully appear on the blog shortly.  I also have a second Legion prepped and ready to paint that will bring my Roman army up to the standard 500 point Impetus army. With J painting some Carthaginians as well we will hopefully have enough for a 500 point game soonish.

All miniatures are by Baccus 6mm. Bases are 80mm x 30/40/60mm and are the premium laser cut ones from Warbases. Grass tufts from Tajima1 Miniatures.

Along with more frequent posts I am hoping to give the blog a revamp. Any suggestions on how to make the design more pleasing to the eye are most welcome.

Watch this space for my next post..............................Cultists!

T.

A quick update

This will be just a quick post to show off something I painted recently that I'm really pleased with. Below are some pictures of a recently completed (um ... completed today) miniature from the Perry Brothers' Agincourt to Orleans range. Before I started on it I decided that I wanted to try and paint it to a higher standard than usual. I was aware of other painters using wet palettes before but had never got round to making one myself and so for this mini I decided to stop being a lazy git and get round to it. I have to say it made a huge to difference to the standard of painting, and also the painting speed. It was very satisfying being able to get a 28mm miniature to a standard I was happy with and if you have never got round to using a wet palette before I definitely recommend it! I haven't decided what I'll use the mini for yet (I have five more in the unit to paint)- possibly the beginnings of an Impetus army? My 15mm projects have taken the back seat for the moment as I've become reacquainted with 28mm.
On a different note I just discovered the Broadsword Adventures ruleset (you can download a demo here). I've been looking for a generic, miniatures-based RPG-style ruleset for a while now and came across this whilst reading about the .45 Adventure pulp rules which Tom has. Both are made by Rattrap Productions and both have excellent reviews and so I may be tempted to pick up a copy at Salute 2010.
Anyway, pictures... The highlights and shading are a bit more pronounced than these pictures would have you believe.



























J

French cavalry, beware

Painting has been as slow as ever round these parts but I thought I would write a post about my progress anyway. Here are the first three archers for the English Hundred Years War army I am working on. Bar one Italian light halberdier (shown in an earlier post) they are the first 15mm miniatures I have ever painted. The miniatures in brown and red still need the odd highlight before they're properly finished and, annoyingly, I need to buy a couple more paints to do this.
I used Medieval European Armies by Terence Wise and The Armies of Crécy and Poitiers by Christopher Rothero (both from Osprey) as reference points and I am going to try and keep the colours I use quite autumnal. If anyone has any pointers with regards painting HYW colour schemes or heraldry then please do leave a comment as they would be very much appreciated!






J

The Eagle's Claw completed

So, finally, here is The Eagle's Claw in all their fully painted glory!






Record: P3 W0 D1 L2 F3 A7 Pts1 GD-4
They've been close to complete for quite a long while now. It has been one of those things where because they were basically finished I decided it was worth focusing on other things but never actually got round to completing the project ... until now. There was a slight delay when it came to applying transfers. I tried to apply them to the players' curved shoulder pads but, try as I might, I just couldn't get them to sit so I had to scrape them all off again with a craft knife. Anyway, here they are finished and ready for the field.

J

March of the Austrians (3)

Its been a month exactly since my last post; the blame for this can be fairly and squarely placed on the fine weather we have been having recently. It seems wrong to sit inside hunched over the painting desk when the sun is shining and there are barbecues to go to, so progress on the Austrians stalled slightly. Then the rain came back, I got back to work and have made lots of progress, in fact I have finished painting the little blighters! So.......

Step 7: Now all the white is done I can do all the fiddly bits. First up are the cuffs, collars and turnbacks. Turn backs are easy, cuffs are ok but those collars can be quite tricky. The trick as with all steps is to find the right angle of approach so you hit the area you want. These have been done in the regimental colours for Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9 as below:


Step 8: Next up is the musket which I do with Mahogany Sand/Brown 846 and GW Mithril Silver.

Step 9: Then its the back pack with Flat Earth 983 and Neutral Grey 992 for the rolled up great coat which is just done by dotting the raised areas.


Step 10: The brass plate on the helmet is done with Gold 996. These details which can be quite tricky are made so much easier to paint thanks to the excellent way these guys are sculpted allowing you to just run your brush along the detail to pick it out.

Step 11: The crests on the helmet are done with Flat Yellow 953, followed by black to give a nice neat stripe. This is the final step for the basic infantry and for me makes them look really smart.

Step 12: Next up I do all the last little fiddly bits like the drums, Officer's mounts, blood and hair colours on the casualty figures which makes a nice change from the production line approach.

The horses are the only stage at which I do more than one layer. I've used GW Devlan Mud wash which seems to work well.

Well that's, that. Quite a hefty amount of painting and from now on I think I will only take on single regiments rather than brigades at a time. However now these are done I have all the regulars I need for a division, so I can enjoy doing more interesting bits and pieces like cavalry, artillery, skirmishers and commanders. As ever if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Happy painting,

T.

March of the Austrians (2)

Step 6: Just a quick update to let you know that I have painted all the white on the Austrians, as you can imagine that's a lot of white! Now this colour is done they are well on their way to completion. I won't give a step by step for this bit as its pretty obvious what I have done from the pictures. However I will suggest to anyone thinking of doing big batches of 6mm is to break the painting down into separate stages and bruch strokes, then just focus on getting these done one at a time as it can be quite daunting to paint 216 figures in one go. However the knowledge that once these are done I will have 12 battalions completed; enough for a reasonable game keeps me going.


Next I will do the cuffs, collars and turnbacks in the colours of Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9. These are light blue and green. Next update soon (hopefully).

T.