Essex Thracians

More re-touched figures from my old Pontic army, this time Essex Thracians. They are quite nicely posed, running forward with cloaks billowing. Which is why I didn't bother with any cloak patterns - too difficult to do across those large folds! For me, anyway...

Callinicum at Claymore

Yesterday we took the scaled down version of Callinicum to Claymore, along with the home painted battlemat. We played two good games with plenty of time to spare, both sides winning one. In the first game, it came down to a giant heavy cavalry melee across the centre, which the Romans won by a single unit. It could have gone either way. In the second game, the Persians won by 24 figures; not so close, and in this game the Romans made the slight error of piecemeal commitment of the heavy cavalry, for which they were duly punished. This scenario is so tight that even a minor error can swing the balance. Which seems about right. There was quite a lot interest, embarrassingly enough a lot of it from gamers in other periods asking where we got the mat! Which is nice, though. Pictures to follow...

On the painting tray for August

In July I managed to finish two units of 12 velites; 14 foot and three mounted casualty figures for Callinicum; 5 Garrison hoplites; and a bit of rebasing for my 15mm Russian Napoleonics. I reckon this is pretty much equivalent to 50 25mm foot figures. This was something of an experiment for me, since I've never really kept an exact tally before. I needed to know if my project to paint four legions for Zama is realistic. I reckon that on this form it will take me two months to paint a legion, and there are nine months to go. Which means that it's feasible. On the tray now are another 15 Garrison hoplites and the first legion. Let's see how many of those I get through this month...