The trouble (?) with this figure is that it casts a lot easier and better than the javelin cavalry mould. Which means that instead of the javelin cavalry units outnumbering the horse archer units by 3:1, the ratio is liable to be reversed!
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| This lot are cloaked which makes it difficult to get arrows out. |
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| Less obvious was the fact that the cloaks don't allow for a good rider horse fit. Still, not really noticeable |
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| Current completed National Army figures finished so far this year. |
Getting there with the figures I'd sorted before Christmas...
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| Infantry archer conversion of horse archer conversion of the J/B/Sh cavalry figure PEC4... |
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| Still haven't removed the 'spare' bow from the bowcase, still working on the Eastern cavalry practice of carrying a spare. |
To be specific, just finished a unit I said I had sorted to 'get ready for next year'
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| White armour matches description of Tissaphernes' cavalry at Cunaxa. Pity Artaxerxes' men were dressed in white and Cyrus' in red! |
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| The varnish on this came up with a very gloss finish! |
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| Currently working on two of the other units I had undercoated before Christmas - light horse archers and some archers. Some at least of these should be finised in a day or two. |
... or a Greek version of the Sambre from The Ancient War Game...
If Dascyleum, 700 hoplites from a Spartan army were out foraging in Asia Minor - the Spartans under Agesilaus had invaded - when they ambushed by the Persian Pharnabazus with 2 scythed chariots and 400 cavalry. The Spartans lost about 100 men before the rest of the army intervened and drove the Persians off!
Basic DBX rules used but a couple of changes. Persian cavalry used as Knights rather than Cavalry - it's basically a cavalry charge so Knight fits the use better.In combat, - 1 if disorganised, for example, they are foraging and spread out or just surprised. Dice roll of 4-6 for them to get organised. Infantry 6" move, cavalry and chariots 12".
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| The Greeks are out foraging with the main camp some distance off table to the left. Spread out, wandering in all directions (OK, very unforage-like behaviour but..), inbetween a river and some lightly wooded hills. |
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| And behind those low hills, watching and waiting... |
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| A mad charge catches the Greeks completly unawares! |
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| And the Persians lose a chariot! On the other hand, the Greeks lose 5 elements! |
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| The Persian charge continues, cutting down more Greeks. |
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| As the Greeks start to get better organised some of them start heading back to the camp to get help. |
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| The Greeks nearest the camp even manage to catch some of the Persian cavalry and destroy them. The Spartan high command would probably be a bit irritated that one of the elements doing the damage seem to be Theban mercenaries! |
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| At that point the Persians called it a day and left. The casualty count was very much in their favour - took out 15 Greek elements for the loss of 1 chariot and 2 cavalry elements. |
Although it looks like a total rout (OK, it was) the combats were usually quite close, even with the Persians having advantages like starting off uphill, Greeks usually getting -1 for being disorganised and Persians having an overlap.The main advantage the Persians had was making the Persian cavalry Kn. Many combats were won by 1 or 2 but Kn against Sp give an immediate kill then - Cv don't have that effect. Hadn't realized that until after the first combat!
Overall, fast and furious fun game. Enjoyed it.
Still getting through my RAFM figures...
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| These are an Elder Thing and a member of the Great Race of Yith |
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| The Elder thing pretty much looks the same from the front or the back. |
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| The Yithian sort of has a front and back. |
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| Both of these figures were basically just dry brushed - very quick, quite effective. |
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| Bought as part of a job lot many years ago and neglected since then. I think that the ones in the lot I wanted at the time were a load of Syrian archers. I could have added a few more details to these but felt that it wasn't really worth doing - they'll do as they are! |
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| I have quite a few of these archers - my original Minifigs army in the 70's had 60 of the things. One of the Arminians seems to have sneaked into the unit. Even so, one unit only has 6 figures in it. |
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| Perhaps a bit of an insult to call the Arminians Hordes, but I already have one painted and one unpainted unit lying around as light infantry. |
These are all from the batch I bought from the US a few years ago. Worth buying then, but since then their price has gone up a lot and so has postage!
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| I've gone for quite simple block colour schemes. It's so long ago that I bought these that I can't remember what they are - which is an advantage as it's easier to think of them as civilian aircraft! |
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| Red seems to go well. Think it's a French seaplane, but as I said probably best not to know. The numbers are completely fictional, the MU stands for Miskatonic University. |
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| I think this one is a pre-war German fighter or light bomber I think an He60. The picture looks rougher than the model! |
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| I think this one could be the most useful. However, I don't have an undercarriage down option. |
The planes were bought from jsmwarplanes. Very basic, but I admit I like them and would have been quite happy to buy more. They seem to have upgraded the spec though - current models have propellors!
I think it's fair to say I'm more of a converter than a sculptor. Still, one project I've been thinking of seemed worth a try - though it's also part conversion anyway.
Thing is, never found a decently sized Cthulhu. On the other hand, there was a toy octopus I had that I thought I could do something with. So...
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| So the basis of the 'Conversion'/scatchbuild was a toy octopus and the wings off a toy dragon. |
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| The body is a mix of plasticene, green stuff and wood glue oversprayed a couple of times with textured paint. |
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| Size-wise it's a lot better but would have been a lot more impressive if it had been standing upright. Plenty of vegetation helps to hide the crude bodywork. |
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| The bigger size shows better here. Now, it looks like a serious monster. |
I think it's worth mentioning that my original thought was just to see if the project was practical - I hadn't intended to finish it it, just wanted to see if it would work. Hence the body is very crude and rushed. I also gave it tentacles as front limbs rather than arms.
Personal view? Crude, not the best bit of modelling in the world, but effective and it works. It certainly gives me the incentive to do a more careful standing version later.
Never got round to putting anything on the blog about my Tealight ironclads as per my article in Miniature Wargames back in 2013 (issue 366). Anyway, seemed like agood time to show my construction method for the turrets - mainly because of here http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2021/03/landships-and-improvisation.html
So here are the simple instructions:
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| Don't think it really needs any more! |
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| The ships themselves are quick, easy to make and can be mass-produced to give a cheap but effective navy! |
The original idea was to produce something based on the Huascar, an ironclad ram with a rather chequered history and which still exists. However, the basic hull is useful for virtually any type of wargames ship, for example triremes Anyway, I've also used this an incentive to put the article on Pages
Sorted. At least, for 28mm Pulp as far as the fences go, hedges OK for everyone.
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| The figure in front of the fence is a 20mm EWM Interwar British infantryman from a unit I'm painting up - so the fences are a bit big for them. |
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| Bought enough to sort things out once and for all (possibly).... |
