It's been a while....

Unfortunately I've had to put painting on the back burner for a good while, mainly so I can could spend more time making figures. I'm now at that point that I reallllllly want to get some painting done but what makes it worse is I'm in the US atm so can't.

So to fill my time I've been taking inspiration from other painting blogs on the net. Saxon Dog blog run by my good friend David Imrie is one of my favourites, and the fact he's currently working on my Late Romans makes it even better. He manages to create snapshots in time in his units which along with superb painting, make them an eye feast all round.

Another way I'm keeping my enthusiasm going is by planning a project. Now I have the first of my Late Romans out I am thinking of putting a force of these together along with some Goth opponents. Its an interesting period to game and paint and very colourful.

While planning this one of the biggest dilemmas is basing and rule sets. Before now I had based all my figures for WAB, and although my favorite rule set seems to be dying on its arse a number of new rule sets have me interested.



First of these is Clash of Empires. This is basically written as a successor to WAB and uses the same basing and familiar mechanics that made WAB so popular. There are some good twists to the rules though which make it a little more tactical is some ways, and it has more focus on command and control and does away with superheroes. No bad thing imho.

Next up is Hail Caesar. Now at first I though these would not be what I was looking for, but the more I read them the more appealing they become. This is a set of rules for wargamers who are not bothered about competing in tournaments and want a set of rules that can be adapted to work how they want them to work. There are no army lists, that's up to you. At first I thought I wouldn't like them as they were based on how Black Power works, and I thought it would be difficult for me as I don't have a lot of room for a huge gaming table. Hail Caesar does away with the huge moves possible in BP for a game more in keeping with the period feel. Another plus in my eyes is that basing is unimportant and that means that I can multibase my figures as there is no figure removal.

I guess I will get painting first and continue to mull over basing for a while yet.