Project: One Week - One Army. Part 2

I'm very busy with my project and don't even find any time to write on my blog! So here's a short update:

I removed the paint on some miniatures using oven cleaner. It works well with badly primed soft plastic miniatures, but took some time too.

 

 

 

No paint left

Working space. I sit on the left, my friend on the right.

Cleaning the miniatures after deflashing.

I'll report more later!

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.

Raiders from the North - Thracian Light Cavalry

During my painting sessions in December I was able to finish some more units. One of them was a battle group of Thracian light cavalry. As you may have noticed I did two bases for them some time ago. The only thing I did was to add four more bases, so now I have a complete battle group for Field of Glory. The figures themselves are again taken from the hellenistic cavalry set made by Zvezda.

The Thracians were a people living north or north east of Greece, roughly in the region which today is Bulgaria. They were devided into many small warlike tribes and therefore also often made raids into the nearby territories of Greece and Macedonia. Thrace itself was rich of timber and metals, the Thracians often served as mercenaries in Greek and hellenistic armies. They were known for their skills as light infantry and cavalry.

The four new bases:

The battlegroup as a whole:

Grey Beasts - Hellenistic War Elephants

And once more I needed much time to update my blog again. I moved again because I finished my studies (just waiting for my last paper to be checked) and currently I try to find a job or something like that (isn't easy as political scientist and historian). Despite that I had some free time which I spend mostly on painting. Today I managed to make some pictures, so I decided to finally continue my blog and start the new year the right way!

I finished two hellenistic war elephants in december. They are made by Zvezda and are as usal very good looking. The box art indicates that they are fighting against each other, so maybe the battle of Raphia 217 BC is shown. They are both much to big for ancient elephants, but do look impressive on the battlefield. I'm also a big fan of these beasts, as they were a common feature of hellenistic warfare and despite other opinions had influence on the outcomes of battles (heraclea, ausculum, cynoscephalae, just to name a few). Two elephants make one FoG battlegroup and are enough to arm two DBA armies with them because all hellenistic DBA army lists only have one elephant maximum.

I painted the elephants and their crews in a bright and colourful way, to indicate their elite status in the army. Unfortunately the dip was very pasty, so it left some spots on larger surfaces (I diluted it afterwards).

Greek Peltasts

Hi,

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.

Blowing off the dust... with pictures!

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!

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.

Russian armour: my Soviet tank forces

Hi there,

in order to play a game properly I was fortunately forced to finish some tanks which were standing around for some time. I took the chance to make some pictures, so you can have a look!

All models are fast assembly kits. The decals are not included, and so bought separately (only very few fast assembly kits contain decals). I painted them all in the same way: black primer, GW catachan green, a black wash, drybrushing with catachan green and camo green. The dirt is a brown (I used a scenery colour).

1. BA - 6

These fast assembly models are made by Pegasus, one of the best manufacturer of plastic tanks. They are detailed, easy to build and very robust, which makes them perfect for wargaming purposes

2. BT - 7

Also made by Pegasus.

3. T - 34/76

Made by Armourfast. Though cheap and easy to build, they are not very detailed and can't keep up with Italeri or Pegasus.

4. KV - 1

Also Pegasus models. The box contains 4 turrets, which makes it very versatile

5. KV - 2

The same models as in 4., but with KV - 2 turrets.