I'm back painting the October batch of another 60 mounted Plains Indians for Mark and thoroughly enjoying myself. I'm tending to paint in batches of 8 keeping the horse tones similar each batch but varied overall. For this second batch I wanted to keep the ponies fairly light on the whole to begin with including several greys. I must say that when removing the first 40 yesterday from the wine caps for storage it made me think about how spectacular the 400 + mounted warriors are going to look when Mark eventually gets to deploy them on his table next year! So this will be so far 128 mounted and 100 foot, the November batch will be another 60 mounted.
Photos look a bit overlit and please bear in mind these are 20mm Qualiticast figures. Satin varnish applied. I especially like the crashing horses. White horse eyes have been dotted out to reduce the human like appearance.
I'm now completing the last of my 3mm ancient DBA armies, the Marian Romans by painting 8 bases of heavy infantry along with a base of Auxiliaries, they will share the cavalry and skirmishers from the earlier Polybian Romans.
As you can see I now have everything stored in a lovely sparkly box thanks to my wife, I had to do the whole 'shut your eyes and hold out your hands' thing before being presented with it, never was a man so excited about a storage box! It's just about perfect and holds the 4 wooden cigar boxes containing 8 fully magnetised armies, the folding board plus terrain etc. With this about done I'm planning to make a series of 150mm x 150mm interchangeable terrain tiles marked out in 50mm square grid so I can use the armies to learn The Portable Ancient wargame alongside. I'm going to keep these one dimensional with terrain features simply painted on using textured paint only, a 9 x9 square grid to begin with. Thanks to Bob for the free PDF of the rules and I'm keen to see what I can do with project.
Marian Romans so far, the ships in the background had been gathering dust on the shelve so I think it's abut time I got them rigged.
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And finally for now, I present (drum roll please), 'Ancient wargame in a box', in the words of the late Paul Daniels 'It's Magic'.
Can anyone suggest a source for 150mm x 150mm tiles please? I'm thinking 3mm MDF possibly but other ideas welcome? Cheers.
Lee, plenty going on, agree 400 horsed Indians is going to look spectacular. The storage solution probably shows off the advantages of 3mm than anything else could. For 150 x150tiles, I am thinking the absolute critical point will be cutting accuracy and to that end, I would stick with either laser cut MDF or acrylic, but do a test piece first to check out any warping issues. A stroll around B&Q might bring up some possibilities
ReplyDeleteHi Norm, MDF was my first thought, I think if I go for 3mm and varnish it first it would be OK :) I have this idea in my mind and a clear picture of what I want to achieve with a stacking tile system!
DeleteCheers
Lee.
Your magnetised soldier box is a wondrous thing - my compliments. OCD has some big spin-off benefits. Over the years, I am surprised to find that I get almost as much pleasure from the storage as from the soldiers themselves, so my applause is genuine and sincere.
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly Sir, and nice to hear that you understand my enthusiasm for the sparkly box of tricks. The wooden cigar boxes ( as sold on ebay for a mere £7 each including postage) are objects of beauty to my eyes, I feel I need to order more of them while they are still there. Magnetising was a learning curve, I had a puzzling moment when I went to place the first army on the sheet and they just fell off. Turning the bases through 90 degrees did the trick, I still don't fully get this but believe it's something to do with polarity or some such? All good now anyway.
ReplyDeleteLooking mighty fine Lee. You have been a very busy boy!
ReplyDeleteThank you Ray.
DeleteLee
Wooden cigar boxes…who knew? Well you I suppose. Very classy.
ReplyDeleteCheers JBM, I keep looking at Cigar boxes on eBay now! Helps take my mind off things and of course it's portable :)
DeleteLee.
Game in a box, a cunning plan indeed! The 3mm figures and accessories have come up splendidly.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thank you Alan, I'm rather pleased with myself :)
DeleteLee
Your game in a box has worked out really well, now we just need to see you play with some more.
ReplyDeleteThe Native Americans/Plains Indians (or do we now say First Nations?) look great. They should look spot on once they are deployed onto the tabletop. Do you know what sort of tabletop battlefield Mark will be playing on?
ReplyDeleteYour 3mm Romans are, as expected, top notch. Well done 👏👏
Your Wargame In A Box set-up is impressive too. Regarding 150mm square tiles I’d agree with Norm - see what B&Q have. I bought some “marine ply” recently and then struggled to cut it to size (admittedly with a Stanley knife and steel straight edge). Only once I’d returned home did I realise B&Q would have cut to size for me ☹️ Well, first 5 cuts free, then 50p per cut. Oh well, I did manage to sort eventually, but with a fair bit of manual sanding…
Cheers,
Geoff