That's exactly what I'll do now - blowing off the dust of this blog. But of course I have my reasons for my neglect. I had to move, because my girlfriend finished her studies and became an assistant teacher in England. So we had to give up our flat and now I'm living for some time alone. Despite that, I'm in a very hot phase of my master thesis and don't have so much time writing my blog or shooting some photos (which, in fact, takes most of the time when making a blog). However I do paint a lot, because I don't have to do much else in the evening, but that has its positive side too - I can eventually finish some stuff. I'll try to make some new pictures, but my girlfriend took her camera with her, so I have to use an older one.
Besides the things mentioned above, I also took a week off, visiting my girlfriend. We were in Sheffield, which isn't so fancy, but nice though. We visited York, a lovely place with some history and a big church. Of course I'd to check a wargaming shop - you can't go to the motherland of wargaming without doing so! I was in the
wargames emporion, which was a very fine shop and offered a good variety of miniatures and systems, even though it was quite small (something you wouldn't find in Germany). And it was also cheap as well, so I had to buy some
greek ballistas!
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| Me, learning new techniques in Clifford’s Tower, the ruined castle of York. |
So, what are my plans? Currently I paint a lot of ancients. In the next year I want to play Field of Glory, a system which needs a lot of miniatures. So I have to keep painting. Luckily most of the miniatures I need are already bought. I just have to get it on! I also have some blog posts in the pipeline for months, which I should finish...
I managed to make some photos of stuff I finished in the last month. Unfortunately my girlfriend took her camera with her, so I had to rely on an older one. You'll notice the difference in quality, but I tried to make the best out of it.
First I'll show you my general base for Field of Glory. It can also be used as general in DBA. I used this superd
Zvezda set for the cavalry figures. As you may notice I changed the heads, because a barheaded general looks too much like Alexander for me - I want a Pyrrhos! The standart bearer is from
another Zvezda set. It has nice miniatures, but the poses arn't really suitable for wargaming purposes.
Second you can see two bases of velites. These were the skirmisher of the Roman republic. They are the first elements for my Roman army. I mixed
Zvezda and a
HäT miniatures to get some variety in poses.
I finished a battlegroup of greek peltasts some weeks ago and of course want to show them to you! If you want to know, what a peltasts was, check the Wikipedia article (it's really good), because I'm too lazy to explain it myself. In short, these were skirmishers, but more profession and better armed than the standard psiloi, who were recruited from the poorer classes of the poleis. Peltasts served as light and medium infantry and were especially good on rough ground. They became a common sight in greek armies in the 5.th and 4.th century B.C. and were also in use by the early hellenistic monarchies. They were namend after their pelte, a small shield.
I used this HäT set, which is great for every kind of light infantry. I converted some of the miniatures, because I wanted that all of them wear a helmet, so they look more armoured and differ from normal psiloi. I also replaced the spears with brooms (I highly recommend this blog article) and equipped all of them with shields. I employed the same colours I did with the poorer hoplites and the bowmen, because the peltasts were also drawn from a poorer class in Greece and should not wear expensive clothes in battle. The shield are held in colours, with white free hands, which are simple geometric symbols.
