All Change for the Akkadians

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Over the many years that I have been gaming, I have often heard people discussing the negative effects of a change in codex i.e. an official change to a set of rules or army list that renders an army or units that they use effectively useless. The codex change eithers removes that army or unit entirely from the lists available (the best example of this is the demise of the entire Squat/Space Dwarf race from the 40K universe) or severely lessens their fighting effectiveness.

I, personally, have never encountered this…until now!

Regular visitors will know that one of the armies I use to play the To The Strongest Ancients rules is an Akkadian army, representing a force from the city of Akkad dating between 2334 and 2154BCE. Up until now, the core of the army has been deep (i.e. double depth) units of Spearmen that are unwieldy to manoeuvre but have a lot of staying power.

I have duly painted up six units of spearmen, each of 48 figures, i.e. 288 figures in total.

A bit unwieldy, but plenty of staying power

The latest version of the lists, however, accompanied by a new v10 edition of the Even Stronger official amendments, has changed all this.

No longer are the Akkadian spear units deep: they have reverted to being normal depth.

Now I don’t actually have a problem with this - I get more units in my army, my force becomes more flexible tactically, and my army can now have an army standard, something I have always felt lacking in the pre-biblical lists - but that does mean that half of my 288 figures will now be sitting on the sidelines during a game rather than marching to victory with their comrades.

Luckily I have based them so that I can easily represent the change (I’ll just field the front two elements rather than former four, and it’s lucky that the command figures are in the second rank not the third where I’d originally intended to put them) but it still seems a shame that half the core army won’t now see action. Perhaps I’ll just field them as is, but treat them as normal depth!

On the plus side, however, as mentioned above I can now field an army standard so, as I wanted a different standard to my existing Museum Miniatures Z Range Sumerian unit standards, I quickly ordered a standard and some additional figures from Eureka…which leapt to the front of the painting queue as soon as they arrived.

Nice figures that size well with my existing collection. I still prefer the Museum Miniatures figures for their chunkiness (the axes and standard pole are a bit puny on the Eureka figures) but these make a nice change.

As I was already on the Eureka site, I also took the opportunity to buy some light javelinmen for the Akkadians. Even Stronger now allows mounted troops (such as my Akkadian Gish Gigir 4-wheeled battle cars) to be supported by lights in a way that means that I can take a hit meant for the battle cars onto the lights rather than onto the battle cars themselves. As the battle cars are my only mounted troops, so nasty to lose, and I don’t get that many of them, this is a very useful rule change indeed.

The Eureka lights are a bit stiffer in pose than my Museum lot, but do enjoy magnificently flowing locks of, presumably, black hair. I’d better look for a regimental barber figure too!

So it’s all change for the Akkadians, and I look forward to trying out the new, nimbler version of the army as soon as possible!

More from Sumer!

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One of my new year’s resolutions was to mix painting newly-bought figures with those forming the considerable lead mountain that haunts my dreams.

One significant component of the lead mountain is made up of the final units needed to complete a particular army, and one example of that has been, for quite a long time, the final unit of spearmen for my Sumerians.

Playing To The Strongest at 130 points, the Sumerians (or Akkadians or any other city state from around that time) definitely need four deep units of spearmen, and could really do with five, and maybe sometimes need six. I had five, and at 48 figures per unit, that meant I’d already painted 240 of the little devils. Hardly surprising that at that point I ran out of steam and couldn’t finish the sixth.

Those poor spearmen from the sixth battalion had been sat on my painting table, in a tray, trying to guilt me into painting them for over two years so, as I waited for the next batch of vehicles to finally finish motorising my WW2 Poles to arrive, I thought that they would be the next chunk dug out of the lead mountain.

And what a pleasure it turned out to be. I had forgotten how much fun it was to paint these chaps: all from Museum Miniatures’ excellent CAD designed Z Range. Basing them was still the same old pain (all those spears need to interlock), and I couldn’t remember how I painted the equids pulling the war wagon, but it was still a refreshing change from Poles, Cossacks or even Polish Cossacks!

And I cleared a space on the painting table too!

More Bits and Pieces

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Whilst I’m still waiting to find inspiration for my next major project, I thought I’d finish up a few bits and pieces from the lead mountain.

First up are a couple of Gallant Gentlemen for my Scots Covenantor ECW army:

Wallace-sized. The real one, not the shorty Gibson effort.

These are 18mm figures from Blue Moon’s new Scottish ECW range, and lovely figures they are too.

I bought these as a test to see how well they fitted in with my existing collection as I still can’t get the hang of whether 18mm figures are actually large 15’s, small 20’s or a scale all of their own!

With these, however, there is no doubt: they are too big to fit in with the Hallmark (via Magister Militum), Peter Pig and Khurasan models that form the main part of my 15mm ECW forces.

That said, a couple of comparative giants as Gallant Gentlemen fit right in with the concept of the GG, so I am very happy to have these two fearsome warriors on board!

As I said: lovely figures, but 18mm, so highly recommended if you want to field an 18mm ECW Covenantor army, but not if you want to field one in 15mm.

Next up was another general for my Classical Indians:

May the Fourth be with you!

These are more figures from Museum Miniatures excellent CAD-designed “Z” range of Classical Indians.

I’m always being told that I should field four generals when playing To The Strongest at 130 points. Now, with these, I can…and I actually needed a more cavalry-orientated commander for the later Indian armies anyway: by the time you get into the ADs, chariot-mounted generals are so yesterday!

Finally, I’ve had these undercoated on my painting table for, like, forever (as Daughter #2 would say).

Thundercats are go!

These are more of Khurasan’s excellent Felids mounted on jetbikes. I already have a couple of squads worth, so can now field a platoon.

These new versions are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and it’s interesting to contrast them (did you see what I did there?) with how I painted their predecessors:

Both look really good, but the old-platoon were painted with the base coat/wash/highlight method (i.e. each figures was picked up three times per colour) whereas the new ones, with the Contrast Paints, are only one coat per colour i.e. each figures was picked up only once per colour.

You can decide which is better!

Indian Cavalry Ride Out!

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As mentioned in previous posts, I’m expanding my Classical Indians to embrace later Indian armies: the Graeco-Indians, Kushans and Indo-Scythians and so on.

A lot of the differences involve the decline of the chariot balanced by the ascent of the cavalryman leading, eventually, to the era of cataphract-like cavalry supported by lights.

Here then are a couple of units that allow me to begin to effect that change: two squadrons of Indian armoured horsemen:

As usual, these are the rather excellent Museum Miniatures CAD designed “Z” range of Classical Indians: very nice figures indeed. These were painted with a base coat of metallic paint washed with Agrax Earthshade and then highlighted. All non-metals are Contrast paints.

More Romans

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As I haven’t got an all-consuming painting project on the go at the moment, I’m trying to knock off all those odd units that I bought but don’t actually need to field an army.

You know the one’s I mean: when you buy the raw lead for a new army, you go for completeness and get everything…EVERYTHING.

The first few units fly off the painting table on the wings of your enthusiasm, but you haven’t yet got enough figures painted to field the army.

The next, largest chunk of units appear on a regular basis but at a slower rate: you’re almost there. The last few units are a real struggle: you’ve had enough of painting (insert new army) and want to move on to something else, but you persevere and, finally, the new army is ready for action.

At the side of the painting table, however, are all those extra units you bought, for completeness if nothing else. The trouble is, you are now sick of the (insert new army), are more interested in playing with the newly painted contingent and, anyway, you don’t really need that extra unit of horse, those extra infantry, do you?

So these units languish in the lead mountain until, one day, bereft of something better to do, but in the mood to paint, you bite the bullet and try and remember how you painted the last lot…so that everything matches!

So it was with these Roman cavalry.

I field Caesarian Marian Romans. They have the option of a unit of Legionary Cavalry, but anyone worth their salt knows that the real work was done by the Gallic or ‘German’ horse. I already have a large Celtic army, so could always use some of them for Julius’ horse, even when they were fighting other Celts (you can never have too many Celtic types!).

At the time, as I’d just painted 144 Roman Legionaries, the thought of painting twelve more legionaries-on-horseback was beyond the pale, so these have sat patiently waiting for a coat of paint.

Nice figures from Baueda via Magister Militum. Easy to paint. Still didn’t enjoy it much though!

The Army Standard at the front is actually something I needed. They are figures from Capitan Games via the Stonewall Miniatures site. They are a bit big for 15mm, more like 18mm, but thus very suitable for an Army Standard.

Druids...and did anyone order a Chinese?

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I’ve been playing quite a lot of To The Strongest over Zoom lately, using my new-ish Marian Romans against the Celts. One thing my opponent likes fielding that I had never done are the Druids available as an army standard equivalent.

We’ve been using memory or a marker of some kind to represent said religious types, but I think it’s always better to get the proper figures onto the table so have been looking out from some suitable minis.

Something else led me to the Stonewall Figures website and their range of Ancients figures by Capitan. These include Gauls, and a quick browse revealed some rather nice Druids which I purchased immediately. Only a couple of days later these popped through the letterbox and were immediately accelerated to the front of the painting queue:

The rather fanciful obelisk is home made: some modelling clay stolen from Daughter #2 and roughly shaped into a monolithic shape. I then added some very rough horizontal-type ogham-style writing with a sharp edge. The obelisk was painted in GW Contrast Basilicum Grey with some green mossy details added. It still didn’t look quite right, so I very crudely filled the ogham writing with some acrylic dark gold paint, wiping off any excess.

I quite like the result, although it is a very large obelisk…which means that at least I shouldn’t forget to apply the re-play attack card bonus on the tabletop!

Anyway, the figures are lovely and highly recommended. The whole Capitan range is worth a look: they are quite large 15mm figures, but very nicely sculpted.

A Chinese Anyone?

Whilst waiting for the clay to set, my eye happened to fall onto a pack of MDF buildings sent to me as samples by Frank, the chap who runs MiniWarfare out of China. These were forming a small hillock on the edge of the lead mountain, so I thought I’d excavate and build them.

Regular readers will know that MiniWarfare produce some spectacularly good far eastern buildings for Burma/Malaya/Vietnam etc:

The burlap in the windows and door is mine.

The samples that Frank sent me were of Chinese buildings: two identical houses and a restaurant.

It’s the photography that’s crooked, not the models!

As with the Vietnamese huts, these kits are hyper-easy to build - much easier than 4Ground or Sarissa - and are therefore highly recommended for that reason alone.

Unlike normal, I decided to paint them using GW Contrast paints. The roofs on the houses are actually much darker than they appear in the pic above (obelisk coloured to be exact!) and please forgive the slightly brash colouring on the restaurant!

And now for the bad news: the MiniWar website is currently under construction, so you can’t buy anything at the moment. I do hope Frank hasn’t gone out of business due to COVID, so please join me in checking back every now and then.

I really must get my far eastern huts back on the tabletop soon: time for some Liongate or Bloody Burma!

More Classical Indians

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Having painted enough Classical Indians to field a 130 point Monarchist army, it was time to start looking at what figures I needed to add in order to be able to field other armies from the Indian sub-continent.

First up was obviously to check that I could field the Republican variant of the classic Classical Indians. Hmmm…in order to do that, I needed to paint up another unit of horse.

These have sat, undercoated only, on my painting table for some time but, once I’d actually picked up a brush and got started, were actually quite fun to paint. It’s always that first brushstroke that’s the hardest!

These are more of the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed “Z Range”, and very lovely they are too. I particularly like the cataphract command figure in the middle: full of life and animation. Okay, so the guys with the swords don’t look too comfortable, but this is a Raw unit after all, and the spear-holding figures are nice.

Now on to see what I need to make my Classical Indians into Vedic or Tamil Indians, and then onto the Graeco-Indians after that!

Classical Indian 2-Horse Chariots

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Regular visitors will know that one of my current projects is to build a Classical Indian army using the excellent 15mm CAD designed “Z” range from Museum Miniatures.

I already had enough figures to field a standard 130 point army for To The Strongest, which has already and quite successfully hit the tabletop a couple of time, but I wanted to add some units to increase it’s flexibility.

I say ‘increase its flexibility’ to mean two different things.

Firstly, I wanted to extend the figures’ use into other TTS armies, looking at the Vedic Indians as a starting point. This is an earlier army mainly consisting of chariots and javelinmen.

Secondly, I wanted to increase the tactical flexibility of the Classicial Indians. At the moment, I only have three commands, with my impact units being Elephants and Heavy 4-Horse Chariots. These are great, but risk being outflanked by armies with loads of lights. I therefore need more, slightly less powerful units as potential substitutes for the usual mighty, but inflexible, fist.

The lists all mention two-horse chariots as a slightly less powerful version of the heavy four-horse variety: less powerful so you get more of them. These would be ideal, except for the fact that Museum didn’t do them in their Z range.

Or at least they didn’t!

A quick e-mail to Dave, proprietor, with the request and justification, and within a couple of days (yes, days!) a two-horse chariot option hit the shop.

I bought nine!

These are, like the other figures in the range, lovely models and highly recommended. Great service from Museum as well. I feel ready for Alexander now!

Slow Painting!

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I’ve finally got around to finishing another unit of javelinmen for my 15mm Classical Indian army: seems to have taken me ages!

I’m not sure why things have slowed down so much, but I suspect it’s something to do with playing three remote games over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know if this is something that happens to you, but I find that I am either painting or playing, but not both in the same phase, as it were. Weird, as you would have thought that playing would encourage you to paint.

I think what I really need is a new project.

I have got projects to finish - another legion of Romans, more Classical Indians, more ECW, more Hoplites, more Alexandrian pikemen - but am not enthusiastic about any of them at the moment…and there’s nothing worse that trying to paint a unit when you’re not enthused. I shall have to have a hunt around for something new to start…so feel free to make some suggestions. Must be 15mm though, as I only game in that scale (and to mix scales is, I feel, the road to madness and bankruptcy).

That said, I am going to try and run my first remote game on Sunday, so am busy working out how to get the best position for the camera, laptop etc. A report will follow the game, so watch this space!

My First Painting of 2021

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No games to be had due to COVID, so it was back to the painting table for the first weekend of the new year.

First finished was a unit of Indian javelinmen. I now have enough Classical Indians to field 130 points worth, but adding various other units to the collection will give me a bit of flexibility of army list and allow me to, at a stretch, field other Indian armies such as the Vedics and Tamils.

As with the rest of the collection, these are 15mm Museum Miniatures painted with GW Contrast Paints.

Next up are some odds and ends that I really painted to give myself a rest from the Classical Indians: some 15mm Essex Confederate infantry that I had half painted a number of years ago.

I’m a bit torn with these Rebs: I have about 120 infantry done painted in a very similar fashion to the above. The trouble is, I don’t like them very much! I like the officers that I’ve just finished off, above, using Contrast Paints, but the rank and file that were mostly done using standard acrylics, and mostly done quite badly quite a few years ago, just don’t appeal. Part of the problem is that I like my units looking neat and light, and these look a bit dark and gloomy.

So, what to do? Do I discard the 120 that are done and start again, painting at a better standard than I could manage then, or do I use them as a refresher between other jobs just to get the army done: after all, will I really notice when they are on the table?

Answers on a postcard to the usual e-mail address or as a comment on this post…

Classical Indians: The Elephants

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An important part of any Classical Indian army are the elephants. They can form the spearhead of your attack: stomping any enemy units into submission. They are particularly useful against cavalry-based armies who haven’t encountered pachyderms before.

As with the rest of my Classical Indians , my elephants are from Museum Miniatures’ 15mm CAD-designed “Z” range, and very pretty they are too:

They were also very easy to paint: time-consuming, in that there’s a lot of elephant and crew to produce, but much easier to turn out than I had anticipated.

The elephants themselves are painted with a single coat of GW Contrast Basilicum Grey. Then each under-blanket is painted a dark colour, with the over-blanket a contrasting lighter colour. The rather natty designs on the over-blanket are actually WW2 tank decals (Soviet IIRC), and have turned out even better than I expected.

I painted the crew in situ but, if I have to paint any more, may consider painting them separately then mounting them. It’s 50/50: it’s fiddly to paint them in place, but quite difficult to get them mounted well, so you could ruin a paint job messing around trying to get completed crew figures in place.

Classical Indian Heroes

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Regular visitors will know that I am currently painting up a 15mm Classical Indian army using Museum Miniatures excellent “Z” range of CAD designed figures.

I had said that the next element to be worked on were the elephants: a massive task involving a mix of the elephants themselves (six of them) and their escorts (a load of light infantry types). I mounted the crew figures on their steeds, fixed them all to painting bases (a mixture of lolly sticks for the foot and bits of card for the nellies), sprayed them, and then wondered what I would do whilst I waited for them to dry. Gone are the days of sitting there with a hair dryer: with Tier 4 in full swing, I didn’t have any opponents anyway! I needed a quick painting fix, so decided to paint up the five “Heroes” that had sitting on the sidelines awaiting some attention.

Heroes need, in my opinion, to stand out from the crowd a bit, so what better figures to use than a selection from the “Indian or Arab Hordes” pack that Museum do. These are both striking and unusual, and suited what I wanted down to the ground:

I am loving these poses, and the way the figures are sculpted really allows the Contrast paint to do its work as well. The first two heroics - the chap kneeling down with a spear and the chap holding the two rocks - are some of my favourite casts ever. The close up shots reveal the sloppiness in my painting style, but they look really, really good when viewed at wargaming distance.

Highly recommended.

Enter the Heavy Chariots!

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No gaming at the moment as COVID restrictions are still in force, so it’s on with the painting: specifically adding units to my 15mm Classical Indian army.

The last week or so has been spent putting together and painting a couple of heavy chariot units:

These are figures from Museum Miniatures’ CAD designed “Z” range painted using mostly GW Contrast paints.

Just in case you’re after a bit of inspiration, here are a couple of notes:

  • The dark brown horses are painted using Cygor Brown diluted 50/50 with the Contrast thinner, then black manes, tails and lower legs.

  • The dun horses use Agresso Dunes as the skin colour, with black manes, tails and lower legs.

  • The grey coloured horses (a shade probably unknown to nature but looks good on a model!) are Space Marines grey with Basilicum grey manes, tails and lower legs.

  • The black horses are Templar Black Contrast for the skin, then a standard acrylic black for the mane and tail.

  • The crew skintone comes from a 50/50 mix of Cygor Brown and Fyreslayer Flesh

  • The chariot sides were painted Skeleton Horde, the black blobs in an approximate cow hide pattern, dark grey infill on the blobs, then stippled white in between.

  • The bases are Warbases large vehicle bases with GW basing material on top with a sprinkling of talus before it dried. That was then drybrushed in a bone colour and the edge painted as well. Then three types of shrubbery brush in clumps placed randomly. Then a sprinkle of mixed dark green and dark yellow basing fluff.

  • The whole lot then varnished in a matt anti-shine finish.

DSCN2099.JPG

  • The bright coloured shields are a bit fantastic (simple alternating stripes) but provide a nice contrast to the other colours

  • I decided to paint the chariot wheels and structure in the darker Contrast red for the same reason.

  • Finally, I didn’t touch up the figures after basing, especially the horses and lower parts of the chariots, as I felt that the models looked better with a bit of dirt and dust on the undercarriage!

Next up are the escorted elephants. That’s quite a big project, with each (deep) base containing two elephants-and-crew and eight escorts on foot. Three bases worth to do, so might take me a bit of time! Wish me luck…

Classical Indians: Some Cavalry

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Here’s the latest Classical Indian unit to roll (or rather gallop) off the production line: a base’s worth of cavalry.

As with the rest of my Classical Indians, these are 15mm Museum Miniatures figures from their CAD designed ”Z” range. They are painted with GW Contrast paints and mounted on a large vehicle base from Warbases.

The chaps chucking a javelin and the cataphract commander are lovely figures. I’m less sure about the swordsmen: they look like uncomfortably poor riders to me…but then, on the To The Strongest army list, the Classical Indian cavalry are all very poor quality, so maybe they suit!

Classical Indians: The Maiden Guard

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More Classical Indians rolling off the production line!

This time it’s the Maiden Guard:

As usual, these are from Museum Miniatures’ 15mm “Z” range of CAD designed figures painted mainly with GW Contrast Paints.

I know that the idea of the Maiden Guard in terms of being a battlefield fighting unit is somewhat, er, fictional, but the way I have constructed my TTS Classical Indian 130 point army list means that I only need one unit of Javelinmen, who can be Veteran, so I thought I’d just go for it and paint a unit of figures different from anything else I’m going to need. After five longbowmen units in a row, a change is as good as a rest!

And these figures are lovely. Rather than being your typical 15mm female warrior figures (basically men with two lumps of green stuff on the chest) these really are significantly different from the male figures in the range. They are slighter overall, with slightly emphasized hips, and breasts that actually look like the sort of breasts you might get on an athletic young lady rather than a couple of stray footballs!

As I hope you can see, they paint up very well too, and I would highly recommend them for anyone who needs Amazons or the like.

I’m moving on to the Classical Indian cavalry now, but here’s a couple of pics of the last on the longbowmen.

More Classical Indians

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I’ve had a chance to paint up another couple of longbow bases for the Classical Indians.

These are 15mm figures from Museum Miniatures “Z” range, and very nice they are too. I’ve painted them with GW Contrast Paints, and mounted them as elements of vehicle bases from Warbases. Most of the basing materials come from Boontown.

The fleshtone comes from a 50:50 mix of Cygor Brown and Fyreslayer Flesh. I’m getting more confident with mixing the Contrast paints now.

One more base of longbowmen to go, and then on to the Maiden Guard.

First of the Classical Indians

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Regular visitors will know that I consoled myself for the pain of the new lockdown (no training, no wargaming) with the purchase of new 15mm Ancients army to be used with To The Strongest.

The army I chose was Museum Miniatures relatively new “Z” range of Classical Indians: the “Z” means that they were CAD designed rather than being sculpted. I’ve been really happy with my “Z” Sumerians, really happy with the “Z” Greeks, so after painting a Baueda Marian Roman army, I was very much looking forward to the “Z” Indians.

And I was right to do so.

They are a dream to paint. The detail is excellent, and they take the paint really easily. These first two units, both of longbowmen, were each completed in a day (one Saturday, one Sunday) and I could have fitted a third in if I’d really tried.

I decided to break away from the way all my other Ancients armies are based (to the old Vis Bellica basing) and go with what had worked really well for my English Civil War armies: one element per unit on a nice big base.

I also decided to go a bit mad with the basing. I usually shove a layer of GW basing material on then dry brush a light shade on top, with flock or a tuft or two for decoration. Here, however, I went for it in a big way: same basing material and dry brush, but with patches of little stones pushed into the basing material before its dry (with watered down PVC on top to hold the stones in place). Then I added three different types of tuft, and two different type of flock roughly mixed together. I think it looks quite good.

To give you everything, these are 15mm Museum Miniatures Classical Indian longbowmen with infantry command. They are painted with GW Contrast Paints, with the excellent fleshtone achieved by with a 50/50 mix of Fyreslayer Flesh and Cygor Brown. The base is from Warbases (a vehicle base) with the flock etc from a variety of suppliers.

I’m quite happy with these, and looking forward to doing the rest.

Marian Romans are Go!

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It’s taken me about three months, but I now finally have enough Marian Roman figures painted to get the army onto the tabletop.

My target was achieved with the painting of a second Legatus (commander of a legion) and the first two Cohorts of my second legion.

DSCN1861.jpg

Those of you who visit this site regularly will see that I have differentiated between the legions by giving this second set blue-painted shields instead of the red ones used for the first legion. I was tempted to use black helmet crests as well but, in the end, decided that different shields were enough.

The figures are 15mm Baueda Marian Romans painted mainly with GW Contrast Paints. Shield transfers are from Little Big Man Studios, bases from Warbases.

This now means that I have 130 points of Romans to field using the To The Strongest rules: four commanders, six units of legionaries (three veteran), two units of veteran Gallic cavalry, and then a unit each of horse archers, Cretan archers and legionary artillery.

The Marian Romans laid out and ready to go!

Also good news is that daughter #1’s boyfriend is back staying with us for another week…which means the chance to take the Romans for a spin. Obviously I’m a little concerned with fielding a brand new army, as wargaming tradition has it that newly painted figures always perform really, really badly (especially if they are the best painted figures that you have ever done!), but I think I shall just have to bite the pila as it were and get on with it!

Roman Artillery

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I’m just finishing off a few more bits and pieces for my 15mm Marian Roman army before starting on the second legion (another 120 legionaries!). One of the units I need is the legionary ballistae or bolt-throwers.

Those of you who have been following this site will know that I am using Baueda figures for my Marian Romans, but Baueda don’t do any artillery yet, so it was back to the ever-reliable Peter Pig to pick up a couple of packets. That’s one of the things I like about the Pig: you can buy a big army, or you can buy a small packet or two to fill a gap.

The Pig don’t do Marian Romans, but they do have a very nice range of Early Imperial types. Yes these chaps would therefore be in lorica segmentia rather than mail, but maybe they were testing the prototypes of the new armour being introduced. As I understand it, the ballistae were manned by odds and sods from the 10th Cohort, so why shouldn’t they be dressed slightly differently!

The packs duly arrived and, on first glance, looked a bit small compared to the Baueda figures. This was, however, an illusion caused by pose and lack of helmet crest. They go together pretty well: certainly not badly enough to make a difference on the tabletop. I’ve just double checked the case I store them in, where they are next to Baueda figures: no real difference except, as mentioned, the helmet crest effect.

The figures are very nice: well up to Peter Pig’s usual high standards. I liked the ballistae themselves as well: simple, but with enough detail to make them look like what they are.

In fact, the only problem is that they now make me wish I’d gone a different route and gone for an Early Imperial army instead of the Marians, but then there’s always time to rectify that in the future…!



A Few Odds & Ends from the Painting Table

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Very busy at work this last week, so only time to complete a few odds and ends for the two projects I’m currently working on: English Civil War and Marian Romans.

I always find that having two projects on the go at any one time is better than having just one. If, like I do, you only collect in one scale (15mm for me) I also find that it’s best to use different manufacturers as well: alleviates the boredom factor.

First up, a couple of command stands for my English Civil War armies. Here I’ve used a couple of gentleman officers from Hallmark (via Magister Militum) as a random Colonel-type, and then a couple of spare figures from Peter Pig - one command, one artilleryman - as a Colonel of artillery. The mini-gabions are Hama beads filled with basing material!

The Hallmark figures are really exquisite and, if you use Contrast Paints like I do, really easy to paint.

On top of the above, I’ve now painted up the five Hero figures I need for my Marian Roman army. Representing Heroes is always difficult, as you need a figure that stands out a bit and yet is not being used for the rest of the army.

What I chose to do was to add a set of Peter Pig Centurion figures to my Baueda Marian Roman army.

One of the great things about Peter Pig (in addition to the huge range and lovely, very paintable sculpts that they do) is that you can ask them to give you a custom built pack of just one sculpt. So here I looked at one of their mixed command packs, chose one figure, and had a pack of eight of just that figure sent to me. Very handy indeed.