Project: One Week - One Army. Part 3

To confess a defeat is never easy, but sometimes inevitable. The weekend was filled with work, not just painting, but also making scenery (not for me, so I unfortunately forgot to make some pictures).

At the beginning everything looked good. I deflashed my miniatures and made some minor conversions. Note the red spears of the cavalry and triairii. They are made of brooms and are much more durable than the soft plastic spears. The legionaries kept their pilum, because it's much shorter and is very detailed.

The next step was priming. I primed my miniatures in GW skull white, as one should always work with bright colours when using the army painter dip. The horsemen are missing on that picture.

I decided to start with the main bunch of the army, the legionaries. This meant painting 24 similar miniatures. Although I saved time by working on so many figures at once it was also very exhausting and sometimes frustrating. It took me all saturday and sunday to complete them. The picture on the left shows them in WIP status.

Even though I had a plan, I did not so much on miniatures monday and tuesday. Yesterday evening I applied the dip at last. They need to dry today. After that I'll white their shealds and put on the decal. Then they need to be varnished and based.

I failed my project. It started good, but I underestimated the work and my very own motivation and working speed. I didn't even finished 24 miniatures, not to speak of the whole army. This is of course a bit disappointing.

But I'm an optimist and always look on the positive things in life. The legionaries are nearly finished, the most work is done. I have never painted so many miniatures in such a short amount of time. The army as a whole is pushed a big step forward. And I'm motivated to get the rest done. So, in the end, not everything failed.

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 1

Hello and welcome on my blog!

This time I want to start a project and share it with you. The title is, as you may have seen, 'one week - one army'. To be more precise: I want to paint a polybian Roman army for DBA in one week, starting today the 24th of January 2013. I'll show the whole way, from deflashing, priming, painting, dipping, finishing and basing. First I have to admit that I already cheated because I have done two elements of skirmishers (called psiloi in DBA) in November. 

The background of my project is the following: a friend and I want to present a participation game on a wargames convention (the Do or Dice in northern Germany, 14th April 2013). Our theme will be the (first) battle of Ausculum 279 BC, which was fought between Pyrrhos of Epiros and the Roman republic. We have enough Greeks and Macedonians, but no Roman army! So my will hopefully visit me one the weekend and we both will only do one thing - painting (and probably some other hobby stuff as well).

Romans of the Pyrrhic wars. Picture from Johnny Shumate.

1. The beginning

I want to start with the DBA army list for polybian Romans. It requires: 1 cavalry (general), 1 cavalry, 6 blades (principes and hastati), 2 spears (triairii), 2 psiloi (velites), 1 camp. This means in miniatures: 6 horses, 6 horsemen, 24 legionaries, 8 spearmen, 4 skirmisher and the camp which will be made of 3 tents and 4-8 miniatures (civilians etc.).

My manufacturer of choice is Zvezda because they have everything I need and look very good. For the infantry I take this set. The cavalry is taken from this set. Civilians in the camp are taken from here. I maybe also add some miniatures from this HäT set to the scene. The tents are made from Rusus. I bought them on the Tactica last year (hey are missing in his shop).

The first step will be deflashing. After that I'll remove the paint, as some miniatures were painted before, and wash all of them properly. Then I'll prime them all with GW skull white.

The first 4 bases hoplites

After two weeks of painting (and some other stuff as well) I finally managed to make some pictures of my first quickshaded units. I'm also quite satisfied with the quality of the pictures, something which always annoyed me.

First, some thoughts on my choice. I took the hoplites because of several reasons. They were already deflashed, much work was done already. Then, (later) hoplites are very versatile - they can be used as opponents of  Philipp II. of Macedon and Alexander the Great or as allies. They are also suitable for inner Greek conflicts and southern Italian or Sicilian city states. I'll paint 10 bases of them, enough for every later Greek DBA army or a Field of Glory battlegroup. The miniatures themselves are also fine sculpted and fit good together as a phalanx.

The shields (called aspis in ancient greek) took most of the work. The decals are from LBM and add much to the unit, but they need much preparation. But I think the work was worth it! The grass on the bases is from Mininature. I used three different sorts.

The hoplites shown here are the poorer ones - they can't afford body armour and therefore only wear tunics. I used white and beige, because in my mind these guys are too poor to wear expensive colourful clothes.

Now, the pictures:

Welcome on my blog!

Welcome on my blog! 

You may wonder why I called it "An Average Wargamer". I believe that I don't have any skills I am particular good at. However, I want to show what I am going to paint and build because of some reasons. First of all, I want to get motivation by sharing my projects. Secondly, I would also like to get some feedback. Thirdly, I believe that there cannot be enough blogs with cool stuff on the internet and so I want to contribute something after years of only consuming.

In the following months and years I am going to share my projects with you. That will include not only pictures, but also thoughts, background information, scenarios, book reviews, and things like that. Anyhow, I know how important eye candy is! An therefore, before I begin to reveal my plans, I will start with some pictures:

A Panzerkampfwagen III J (only missing matt varnish)

A Sd.Kfz 251/1 (also not fully finished)

The might of Macedonia - a phalanx

 Macedonian cavalry - hetairoi