A Bit of an Update

Things are not exactly back to normal after the house move. No gaming - not that I have time at the moment anyway - and nowhere to take decent posed photos. However, I have managed to keep painting, and now that the we have temporarily settled in to a rental property my output is picking up again.

First up: Caesar's legions.

I managed to dig out my little portable studio to take some shots. These are not the greatest, but they'll do, and they are certainly better than nothing. Above is the second legion I have completed since coming to Cheltenham. I finished this lot plus some casualties before the end of last year, but I have now been able to catch up with the piccies. Figures are mostly by Foundry, I think, with a good few Companion Miniatures thrown in. This is the first completed batch from the figures Roy kindly gave me when I arrived here. I was able to finish them reasonably quickly because they had mostly been well painted by somebody else previously.

Here they are in march column with their friends from the other legion I have managed to paint while starting the job here. This lot brought my total for 2015 to 433 infantry; 39 guys on horses; 12 guys on camels; and 2 Indian elephants with crews.

Next up is an army command base with that nasty man Gaius Julius Caesar, accompanied by a couple of standard bearers. This is the first thing I've finished in 2016. The man himself is by Companion Miniatures, the other two are from a command set by 1st Corps.

A slightly different view. Shield transfers are as usual by Little Big Men, taken from their legionary command sheet.

I decided to use two different standards just because.

And here he is on his own. When I bought the figures from Dougie back in Glasgow a while ago, there were quite a few Caesar command packs.

 Five in total. So I painted them all, putting one on the base with the standard bearers, and leaving the other four as singles.

I tried to make them as identical as possible. I have no idea what to do with the extras - possibly pass them onto a deserving gamer or something. There is such a thing as too many Caesars.

I have also finished some figures that were interrupted while I moved. These are Aventine Parthians, painted for Willy.

He wanted them based in closer formation than usual.

I went with quite a range of brighter colours (mostly), but no clothing designs. These are not meant to be the cream of the army.

Anyway, Aventine are always a joy to paint...

...and I had a lot of fun with their Successor state elephant, again for Willy.

I used VVV transfers for the blankie, applying them before the ink wash stage. I learned with the Indian elephants I painted last year that the transfers can look too pristine if left until last, so I decided to mucky them up a bit to make them fit better with the overall look. They were highlighted again along with the rest of the model at the end.

I decided that the tower would probably have been built from leather or wicker type material, held together by wood, so I painted that accordingly.

Shied transfers again by LBMS. This was real fun to paint.

And that's it so far, all up to date. The next thing I have to do is some work on the campaign so that the guys in Glasgow can play another battle...

On the Painting Tray: January 2016

Figures for Willy in Glasgow: an Aventine Successor elephant and crew of four, plus a dozen Aventine Parthian horse archers, including command. He wants these based in a closer formation than usual, to represent a transitional type moving towards the Sassanians, or a closer than usual formation for massed archery. I then have five Julii Caesares - yes, that's right, five of the same figure of the man on horseback, by Companion Miniatures. I'm going to paint them all the same, keeping one for myself that will be added to a couple of mounted standard bearers to make an army command base. No idea what to do with the others - yet. And if I get lucky, this month I will start yet another legion or two.

Towards the end of 2015 I finished two full legions of Marian Roman types. No photos yet, because of chaos created by the house move. Once I dig out my photography equipment I'll remedy that, and also do a final tally for the year.

Now that the family is here too, life in Cheltenham is beginning to settle down, so my painting should speed up again. Gaming will be a bit rarer than it was in Glasgow. There is a local club here, but it is quite a distance away. The plan is to go to larger shows rather than play at a club, which means less gaming overall, but more substantial bursts. This is a good location for travel, so it should be feasible. I'm already thinking of going to the Society of Ancients' Battle Day at Bletchley for the first time, adding my Romans to the mix for a huge game of To The Strongest! hosted by Simon Miller. It looks as though he has several others contributing, so it should be a big one.

In the meantime, the ancients campaign continues at a more sedate pace by email. Apparently the Romans lost against the Gauls of Tolosa, which means that I will need to update the strategy map and adjust army strengths. I'll then be able to work out what happens next...

On the Painting Tray: December 2015

Romans, of course:

Finishing off another Caesarean legion. Figures mainly by Foundry, I think.

This legion is mostly completed. They have embossed shields, and originally I was going to paint these with red designs on yellow backgrounds, but they didn't stand out well enough. So I changed my mind and went for black on yellow. I have managed to be a bit quicker with this legion because they were already mostly painted, and quite well too. These were among the large batch Roy gave me when I arrived in Cheltenham, and I am hoping to do them justice.

I am also intending to take them to Bletchley for the Pharsalus Battle Day in April. I have another mostly completed legion coming down from Glasgow when we move house in a couple of weeks' time, and I also have another two legions' worth of smaller figures from Roy. I think they are Essex and are meant to be Early Imperial, but they are all in lorica hamata so I have ordered some Gripping Beast oval scuta to turn them into Caesarean/Early Principate types. They already have a basic paintjob, so it won't take much to finish them off: some inks and touching-up along with the shields should do the job. If they stand alone as legions they should fit in okay. I may well mount them on slightly thicker bases to help the illusion.

Added to the six legions I already have finished, that will give me ten 80-figure legions quite soon; I reckon I should be able to get at least another couple done before April, giving me something like 1,000 legionaries. I reckon that lot should look the part. The plan at this point is, hopefully, to link up for Bletchley with Simon of the Big Red Bat fame for a large game using his To The Strongest Rules.