Teutonic's

I've been promising to paint myself a Medieval army for years now and just never seem to get round to it. I still have some of the Perry's lovely HYW figures gathering dust somewhere. Earlier this week I spent a few days down in Evesham with chums Darren and Andy at Gripping Beast. In between coffee and chatting I found myself once more looking at the lovely collection of Teutonic's that sit in their cabinets. I could resist no more. I already have an unpainted unit of the heavy Knights so I decided to knock up a quick army list. After some horse trading I came away with 2 units of Crossbowmen, and unit of Foot Knights and a unit of Spearmen. I've just spent the past couple of evenings working on the first unit of Crossbowmen which got finished today.
I've decided to go for the "get the units on the table sharpish" approach and so these have been base coated, dipped in Army Painter and then had a couple of highlights added. Job done! I think this has to be the way ahead for me now as there is just not enough hours in the day to spend ages on each figure. And as I'll be fielding them, its not like they'll be on the table long anyway!! ;-)

Saxons!

Had a bit of a blast at getting my first Saxon unit done this week. There was only 8 figures needed to finish it off so I decided to try and get them all done and did. This unit has been painted over a long period of time so there are about 3 or 4 different painting styles within it, but I don't think it makes a big difference when they are all based up. Inspired by Messrs Imrie and Hilton's way of making their figures look grubby and battle worn I dirtied mine up. I was going to set them in winter and put a few dashes of snow lying on the bases but I'm not sure now. I liked the idea of them being a winter raiding party so may still do it. What do you think?

This blogging might just be working....

I must admit that the blog is giving me a reason for painting at the moment, which was the reason I wanted to do it in the first place. I'm finding that I'm looking forward to an evenings painting for the first time in ages. Not sure why, must be an inner ego thing lol!

Finished all the Romans apart from 3 shields for the extra ones I'm adding. I may try and take time out first thing in the morning and try and get them done and based as I have a game planned for tomorrow evening. I'll have to borrow my Numidian troops from Tim as I have none finished atm. Pleased with the way they have come out. Think they will look better once I've put a bit of weathering on the shields.



Managed to get these 3 Goths painted and coated with army painter too. Not messing about with these ones, just a quick highlight tomorrow then a Matt varnish and they can get added to the Saxon unit I've got on the go. :)

Progress

Well I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped over the weekend, but I did at least get some things done. The first 15 Romans are done with the last 3 undercoated and ready to go. Played around with the first of the shield transfers last night. They look great but don't fit all the way around. I think this is more to do with the shields being out than the transfers, but no matter, once the edges have been painted in they look fine. I'm putting the first two ranks on 40x40 bases so I can use them for Impetus as well as WAB. Not played Impetus yet but I've heard lots of good things about it so will give it a go at some point
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Other stuff on the go is these Goth Cavalry. I'm enjoying these but they will wait till I've finished the Romans, as will these 2 Perry's WotR figs that I've put together. The 3 Goth Infantry behind them will be going into my Saxon unit. These are going to be a quick dip job to get them done.



All in all, quite happy with how its going :)

PS. Thanks very much to Paul for the Gaelic Cav, they arrived today. Just the ticket ;-)

Celts

To add a bit of colour to the Roman army I'm going to add a unit of Celts. Renegade have a nice selection so I ordered a couple of their unit packs. The figures are nice, if rather static looking, but the one thing that really got me is that the swordsmen look like they are just about to open for England at the Ashes. How big are the swords?????? HUGE things. They'll have to go so will either trim them down or replace them with home made metal ones. I know that they can't be quite to scale because of casting considerations, but do they need to look like 40K Power Swords? I think not! I do however really like the leader figure. Really nice that one and should paint up a treat :)

Decided to definitely do 18 figures for the Roman Elites so prepped another 3 today. I'll try and get some more painted tomorrow after work. With any luck I'll have them all done by the weekend :)

If anyone has 3 Gaelic Cavalry going spare could you drop me a line? Either Foundry or GB only though as the ones I have are Foundry. Ta! ;)

Look Ma I'm painting!!

Managed to get another 4 figures painted this evening so happy with how its going. I think I'm going to do the Elites in units of 18 as i can then always use them as just normal troops. I'm also going to use the LBM transfers that I've got for them. Looking at how good they looked on Saxon Dogs Romans did it for me. Less work too!




Other projects on the go are this unit of Saxons I started ages ago. I'm going to fill the gaps with some of my new Goth Infantry to give the unit even more variety and also add a Thegn to the front rank. I've made them all muddy and bedraggled as I am thinking of doing them in kind of winter setting on the bases. Never tried it before but I think it could look good.

What 'ave the Romans ever done for us...?

This is the start of an irregular blog to help me focus on getting back into wargaming. I have been working in the Wargames industry for some years now and have found that my hobby has slipped away, replaced by work. Not a good thing as all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow!

The release (long awaited!) of WAB 2 has spurred me to once more take up gaming. I enjoy playing WAB, and although not the perfect game. it is fun, and thats the point of wargaming isn't it?
Enticed back into it by chum Tim Haslam I have had a couple of games now, all set in the classical period. As I don't make any figures for this period I had to look at what army I'd like for it. I settled on Caesarian Romans in the end. One reason is that I have always liked the Foundry ones made by Mark Copplestone, and two, because I was able to buy 4 well painted units and got given a pile of them all within the same week. So now, thanks to Steve Marshall and Dave Imrie respectively, I now have a lead mountain to paint up for the first time in a few years.

As I have already got 4x 18 fig units already I set about using these as the core for a 2000 pt army. The first unit up for painting was a unit of Elite Legionares to act as the armys shock troops. I've opted for 2x 15 man units, but this may change to just one 18 man unit yet. Still debating :)

Today I managed to get them started. I was going to use dip and then just highlight them, which is a wonderfully quick and effective method of producing wargames figures. Unfortunately I left my dip back at work, so I decided to paint them properly. They are the Elites after all!

I was rather pleased with my efforts for the first day. I managed to get 7 figures including the Centurian finished less the shields which will be done last. I have some LBM transfers for them, but debating whether to just hand paint a design on. I'll see how I feel when it comes to doing it :)