Greeks part 4

 After a confusing week of work, I was not able to get much done.

Here is the mostly finished base of skirmishers for the Spartan army.  You can see the extras in the background; they will make up most of the next unit in time.  Eight is the typical count in a pack of Xyston miniatures and I painted them all, not realizing that only 5 were needed.  Oops.

The base is from Warbases - the order came in, quite quickly I might add - and it is coated with the following:

A thin layer of the Vallejo texture is applied.  After it is dry, 24 hrs or so, a slightly diluted mix of Daler & Rowney Antelope Brown is brushed on.

But now, I am stuck.

The next step would be drybrushing to lighten the top, some flock and tufts added, then done.  But, I am not certain what colors to use as I do not have a suitable table topping to play on.  A good mat is the goal, so I will have to take a look around.  At least the last steps are easy enough, but I want to make sure to match the base to the mat reasonably closely, just for my OCD tendencies!

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Scots, part 4

More progress:

The tufts have landed!  The tufts are Gamer's Grass brand; I believe that I purchased these from GC Mini.  


After the glue dries - I secured the tufts to the bases with Matt Medium - the last step can be completed and that is to clean up the base edges.  Then, finally, they will be done.


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New bases for the Reptus, and Winner!

It has been a slow week for my hobbies, but I did manage to grab these:

These are the new bases for my Reptus troops, after I had to cut up the bases from some of the miniatures prior to stripping the paint.  I prefer round bases for skirmish types personally, so losing the square bases used previously is just fine.

And the big news of the week:  Over at the Palouse Wargaming Journal, Jon celebrated the crossing of some important milestones for his blog with a magnificent giveaway, and I won a copy of a book that I have desired for a long time, Neil Thomas' Ancient & Medieval Wargaming!  Pics will be posted upon arrival of course...


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First steps on basing

My second (or is it the 3rd?) order from Warbases arrived a while back, but of course the pics and post are slow to be produced.

Above are the three basic sabot base sizes that I will be using for Irregular Wars.  Unit casualties are tracked by Resolve, and a typical unit will have a Resolve from 3 to 5.  Figure removal will be an easy way to track the loss of Resolve.  Although the base sizes are irregular, they do have a similar width, which was a key to my plan.

Here is an example, using some unfinished (!) Huaxtecs.  The miniatures are on 25mm round bases, and they fit into the sabots very nicely, not too snug which will allow for some of the space to be taken up by a thin coating of paint.  Mesoamerican units will range from 3 to 5 Resolve, while most Spanish Conquistador units have a Resolve of 4.

These sabot bases will work very well for regular foot troops, but I have yet to figure out how I want to represent the small handful of Conquistador cavalry units, and artillery.  Base width once again will be the issue, and might require a bit of deviation from the plan for 1 figure = 1 Resolve that is set up for the infantry.


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Legion of Ever Present Glory, part 14

Another week, another pic of my poor, abused Tékumel miniatures, specifically the First Legion of Ever Present Glory:

I painted the base, and after letting that dry coated the back half with Liquitex Matte Medium, then quickly dumped an assortment of flocking materials on the wet medium.  I am a bit concerned about the interior spaces of the base, where the brush found it difficult to reach.  I hope that I have not, once again, painted myself into a corner with these miniatures and my basing scheme.  The fluid but reasonably slow drying Matte Medium should do the trick, though, as compared to PVA or a similar glue.

This first base of troops will sit under the dusting of flock for a while, then we will see if it worked...


Meanwhile, another pic of a slightly different part of the desk:

More miniatures, waiting their turn!


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Legion of Ever Present Glory, part 13

Another poorly lit pic:

Work continues on the rebasing of this fine legion.  On the left, the base has been replastered, and it will receive a new coat of paint shortly, then a new bit of flock for decoration.  On the right is the start of the command stand for the legion.  I have tried to save as much of the original groundwork with the command stand, but now I am not sure that was a good idea.  I will make it work, one way or another!

Also, one can see the difference in the shield trim.  I forgot to repaint the shield on the right-hand base before gluing it down.  Quite a difference.


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Basing, and a small conundrum

Slowly marching on here, and some pics to prove it:

Here you see one of the bases I will be using for the mass-battle portion of my Tékumel stuff.  On the right is a 60mm square of 3mm thick plywood, from Litko.  On the left is a piece of magnet, also from Litko.  The magnet is self-adhesive - one peels off the wrap from the magnet and it sticks to the bottom of the base.

And, the first test subjects (apologies for the quick and poorly-lit pics!):

Ah, my long-suffering First Legion of Ever Present Glory troops!  I popped them off their washers in order to glue them to the 60mm square.

The first rank of troops, glued down to the base.  With the front rank being ones with leveled spears, I took some care to get this rank far enough back on the base so that the leveled spears will be mostly on the base, mostly...

And this is as far as I got today.  Two issues popped up at the same time as I looked at this.  One, the miniatures are going to be tightly packed onto these bases - a good thing in my opinion but there is a catch:  it would be difficult to terrain the base if I glued all of them onto the base at the same time.  So, I will need to start the groundwork and then glue down the front rank, then finish off the base.

Second is a quirk that has lingered in the back of my mind for a while now, and it is the shields.  I do not remember where I saw the paint scheme - maybe the official Eureka painted miniatures or another pic on the 'Net, but I painted the trim on the shields red.  Now, in the 'canon' army guide to the Tsolyánu forces, it clearly states that the shield trim should be black!  Now, my rivet-counting and bricole-gathering days are pretty much over, but I think that the black trim might be better looking, and I am going to go with it.  It will not take too long to re-paint each unit as it comes up for rebasing.


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Basics

Although it is more to support my Half Continent project at Threwdish Ways, I have ordered a small quantity of bases for Impetus from Litko. These are a mix of 3mm thickness plywood: 80mm x 20mm, 80mm x 30mm, 80mm x 40mm, and 80mm x 60mm. I did order enough to have just a little something to start my project here!

But, what is my project for this blog? I am going to start with Classical Greek topics, both the wars versus the Persians and the struggles between the Greeks themselves. This is going to be a slow-burning project, as I am still amassing research materials. I have a few books, and some other rules - mostly for inspiration. Obviously, the minis will be 15mm but what manufacturers? That remains to be seen...