Arguing with stairs...

Doesn't work.

Coming downstairs yesterday morning I missed my step so now I'm quite stiff and have to try and keep my back straight. Took quite a while before I could move and yesterday was a total write-off - first day I've had to take off sick for years. Ambulance eventually called - my wife had already left for work so I managd to call her and she was the one who really made the decision to call them - I as a bit on the white and clammy side. As she said 'You're in shock' Still trying to work out why the ambulance needed to come with lights flashing and sirens sounding! They arrived quickly, two nice young ladies who took my blood pressure a few times, checked my spinal column out, contacted the clinician and generally did a good professional job.

Much better today, but on painkillers and I should be easy to identify at Salute - I'll be the guy hobbling around slowly!

RAFM Wizards and Clerics

Well, this is the third posting of the day - but seemed more logical than putting everything in one.

I've continued to find more of my old 1990s RAFM figures, some of which will give me some useful command/wizard/cleric stands. One, of course, was the 'Khitai' stand:

These three are probably not on their final bases. The Pharoah type is from the Call of Cthulhu Range set 2937, Cultists.  The others are from the Wanders and Warriors sets, the one with the skull from set 3808, the staff bearer set 3801.

These will be kept together as a group. the monk/cleric at the front is from set 3804. I haven't identified where the two behind him come from - can't find them in the RAFM (or any other) catalogue, square bases show that they're not RAFM anyway.

Still a lot more RAFM of mine to find, plus I've sent off a birthday order that my wife Sandra can give me, also 'found' many of the Grenadier are still available - hard to find as some not in the online catalogue, others renamed/spread all over the place - so at some stage I'll be ordering some of them. I'll also probably get in a stock of some Ral Partha.

RAFM website

Ral Partha website

Grenadier Minatures figures

One problem is I'm finding, buying or casting lots of Chaos/Evil/Good characters, wizards, clerics, monsters, gods and demons but not many rank and file. For humans I can use available armies, but the elves, dwarves and goblins realy need to be sorted!

Irregular Miniatures Dwarf cavalry

Found them:

Admins DA21 Ogre

Continuing with putting things together, I've decided the Ninja carrying ogre previously mentioned will have to work for a living. As such, both him and the DA Range Ogre are to be based and added to an as-yet undefined Chaos/Evil army.

An eclectic mix of 90s Fantasy figures

There were a couple of periods when I dabbled in arcane areas such as D&D, most of these figures are from that era. Sadly, the figures are a bit the worse for wear and neglected...

A Fantasy Personality Julie Guthrie Enchantress number 854 from Grenadier and  RAFM armoured fighter  from Wanderers and Warriors set 3809. The enchantress looks a lot better than the photo suggests... I wish I had a lot more Julie Guthrie figure, they're really quite nice figures.

These are actually from the 70s - Lamming figures from my first sojourn into D&D. The warrior has a bow so mail rather than plate, 2 handed sword so no shield and a hand ax.

Early homecast from Prince August moulds.  It took a lot of attempts to get a few decent casts!

I have no idea who these pack mules are by...

Nor do I know who made the dire wolves...

Or the dwarves - though the one with the ax may be Irregular. I have a couple of Irregular dwarves mounted on mules or donkeys somewhere, just not sure where.

Khitai starter?

One of the things I'm doing is looking at some of my older figures. I came across this long-forgotten group from the 90s. Can't find out who made them - I'd assumed RAFM (Wanders and Warriors Range), but can't find them in the RAFM catalogue, second choice Grenadier but again no luck on my search.

Meanwhile, nicely Oriental, so although not really wizardish I think, with a suitable altar and a bit of touching up paintwork, might do the job as a wizard's grouping.

The downside of looking through the catalogues was 'want it.... want it.... want it....

It also gives me an incentive to find and catalogue a few more of these - I've  got all of the above RAFM range somewhere, the knight with the winged helmet in set 3809 looks quite spectacular. Also, must finish painting  the Chariot of the Apocalypse from the Demons of Darkness range...

A charity shop buy

Don't know what I'll use them for, but at £3.50 each these 25mm buildings seemed a good buy.

Let battle commence - Seleucid v Antigonid

With the initial rush of orders sorted I managed to pack the casting equipment under the table, dust the table down and start thinking about a game...

Didn't want to put the desert cloth over the table so that limited it to battles involving the Greek/Macedonian/Persian armies.  I grabbed a copy of DBA (turned out to be version 1.1!) and decided on early Seleucid v Antigonid.

It was a very unplanned, ad hoc affair. I grabbed some terrain, placed it with a tree line to mark one edge - basically to make it a 4x4 rather than 6x4 table - then started getting troops together. As I started sorting the Seleucids first, they got the far edge, placed as I got them out. Same with the Antigonids - out they came, oin they went. Bit of fine tuning then thought about what I would do with each side.

The Seleucid force was 3x3Kn, 1x2LH, 4x4Pk, 2xEl, 2x2Ps. Both armies had the general as a Kn element. I went for a slightly traditional setup - strong right flank cavalry, elephants as a link, then phalanx with left flank protected by the lights.

The Antigonid force consisted of 1x3Kn, 1x3Cv, 1x2LC, 6x4Pk, 1x4Aux, 1x2Ps, 1xEl. The Antigonids also had a strong cavalry right flank. The open centre was covered by the phalanx while the wood would be defended by the 4Aux. The elephant and 2Ps covered the left flank. This to me seemed to be a stronger defensive force than the Seleucids so acted accordingly.

This shows the two forces facing each other.

The battle started with Seleucid Right and Centre advancing as the Left held back. They started first. The Antigonids meanwhile took up their defensive central position as the cavalry headed towards the Seleucid Left.

Here, the Seleucids are trying to push the cavalry through while basically holding/avoiding  the  superior Antigonid phalanx. The Seleucid phalanx is meanwhile deploying to thwart the Antigonid cavalry movement.

Both sides elephants got pushed back (I forgot the rule that Knights should follow up ) while the Antigonid cavalry get stuck in on the Seleucid Left Flank.

This is where things went wrong for the Antigonids... the rules about conforming left the Antigonid General in an awkward position...

He promptly threw a 1 and got pushed back onto the Light Cavalry... dead General... and then the Seleucid phalanx took out the Cv element (the 4Aux were too far away to stop this flanking attack). Two elements lost including the General, Seleucid had only lost one element earlier... game over.

I should have taken a better photo to show the Cv element in it's phalanx sandwich!

An enjoyable little action. Everything seemed to flow naturally. The Seleucids got a bit bogged down on their Right, the Antigonids were unfortunate to throw a couple of 1s at the wrong time. The end was very sudden and I didn't expect it, so that worked well.

Now, what next - and when?

Space Tanks - the Garrison ST range

Perhaps a bit crude compared to modern day castings, I admit I like these and some day will field a few more...

Meanwhile, SKT released up to ST7 with several variations of other codes. The total number released was 15 different vehicles - but far more actually existed unreleased. They were officially listed as 1/300th scale.

I don't have photos of everything, in fact, a couple of codes I haven't identified yet, but this picture gives an idea of some of the range.

I started building up my forces a few years ago then stopped - the usual  loss of momentum. Colour scheme is based on German late WW2 camouflage, the figures in the first picture are ST1b, GEV Tank with old style turret.

These would be a scout platoon ST4 Light Scout GEV followed by missile units based on the ST1 chassis.

A couple of ST2 Tracked Heavy Tanks lead an ST8 GEV Heavy Mortar and an ST11 Series Dozer Tank with an ST2 turret.

 

The buildings are slightly over scale - perhaps better for 10 or 15mm models rather than 6mm - but look OK. They were picked up on a trip to Santorini.

Main failing of this range is the lack of infantry. There aren't any. Still, lots of other 6mm infantry figures on the market so no real problem.

Ninja in a basket...

... being carried by an ogre.

Some Admins figures are so cartoonish that there's nothing much you can do with them.

Thus Ninja in a basket, AD151:

And presenting Ogre carrying ninja in a basket, AD212:

The first was painted a long time ago and the goblin ninja is sort of fleshy  coloured - I prefer fleshy colours for goblins rather than green. However, I'm quite happy to do greenish goblins as well. Also mud coloured ogres. No attempt at shading here - total paint time for the ogre figure must have been all of 30 seconds. Subtle shading just didn't seem appropriate. The mould itself is flawed - a chunk of rubber broke off the mould between the ninja's head and right arm. Doesn't seem important somehow.

I have no plans yet for this figure. It comes completely under the heading 'a piece of fun'.

Wizards and Demons

More distractions...

One of the down sides of people asking for things you've already cast for your own use is that you tend to use them for that instead of painting them yourself... on the other hand, you also find yourself casting 'spares' of other figures or just wanting to use unwanted figures from that mould rather than put them back in the pot.

OK, lots of figures cast - I've just bundled orders together this time rather than 'first come first served' because of overlaps - and lots of spares...

The result is that the Vanha and Stygian infantry will be going elsewhere (tomorrow, Saturday or Monday) while I have lots of wizards and demons going spare.

The monolith and Demon Idol (painted as the demon or as a painted statue of the demon?) are both Admins, the burning sacrifice is my second one - it looks better in 'real life' than the photo. At the moment I haven't decided which of these, or which combinaton of these, to use on the wizard bases.

I used 2 Western style wizards.  One looks more Medieval, the other Celtic, again not sure how I'll be using them. The original intention was to use them on the same base, now I don't think it would work.

I decided on red as a good demonic colour. Two of these fliers have been put on single bases, the third held back for possible use on a wizard's base.

 The flightless demons I'm using as Hordes. I've used a winged demon sans wings as an 'officer'. Again, I held some back as possible extras on a wizards base.

The light shading on the plain red colours doesn't show up very well here - perhaps heavier shading was needed. Still, they look quite effective and used  en masse should both look good and be quick and easy to produce. 

This lot don't have specific armies yet. A Celtic style force is likely using lots of (probably MiniFig) Celtic infantry, possibly a few cavalry, Druid and raised demon flyers and hordes, General to be determined. I started thinking about painting some Celtic chariots  then reality came to my rescue... I already have 5 Stygian, 2 Assyrian and 4 Egyptian chariots half painted... so perhaps not a good idea just yet...

Another mammoth?

Why?

Felt like.

Back on track - catching up

Finished off 3 sets of Fantasy figures that had 'stalled' during my recent digressons.

Firstly, the tigers. I did 5 - 4 to give me 2 bases of beasts, 1 to be used later if I ever get round to the Amazons.

Of course I already had a Djinn but thought it might be useful to have one that fits in with the Turan/Tarun colour scheme. Have to admit I still prefer the original though.

Finally finished these off. First of all I put them on a sand base by mistake and had to paint over it, then I broke the wing off one by over rough handling and had to fix that. Here they are in the pregloss prebased version.

Went to visit my mother for a few days - no internet access but had to do something. So I set up Excel and put down most of the Admins Range (about 300 figures) - then went through the 150 pages hard copy of the mould list and copied them in. So I now have most of the Admins moulds sorted. Don't know why as I doubt I'll be doing anything with them, but it filled in a bit of time.