An unseasonal Christmas battle between good and evil....

 

While Steven was visiting we used his 15mm Christmas armies to have a little altercation. I'm the good guys at the bottom, he's out and out evil at the top... picture shows the armies positions after a few moves and the 'tough' part of my army is about to hit. As attack, I just thought 'charge' using my faster and better elements take out his... well, better elements. From this point on all the action took part on that flank while everyone else just stood and watched.

So Buddy and Jovie took on Jack Frost, Santa went after the Psycho Shooters disguised as prezzies while Rudolph sneaked round the side...

Rudolph didn't last long. Mind you, Buddie and Jove didn't either... At this point I was convinced Evil was about to win...

Santa (Ably supported by the Snowman) found himself facing Jack Fost as a couple of snow trolls starting sneaking behind them.

But the gods favoured Santa and Jack Frost just melted away. Taking into account losing the general and some dead evil shooters the forces of good won the day!

An interesting battle that finished up depending on luck more than anything - Jack Frost failed to turn anyone into a frog early on, many of the characters proved to be very fragile and combats tended to be short and brutal. Personal I seemed to just roll 1s and 6s - the 1s mainly being in the middle of the battle. Steven also threw a few 1s and 6s. It was quite spectacular. In retrospect I should probably have gone after Steven's weaker flank but the plan (mad charge into combat as soon as possible) worked so...

Meanwhile, both armies have been left with me so will be a available while when Steven visits over the New Year.

Christmas armies of Good and Evil

 

Steven has been spending a few days with us and he brought a couple of 15mm Hordes of the Things Christmas armies he's just finished. This lot is the Good Christmas army (Khurasan Miniatures). - text by Steven.

And this is the Evil army (Alternative Armies). Both armies are just what the respective manufacturers provided in their ranges, and bear little resemblance to the Christmas armies in the HOTT list. I tried to theme the basing for each army so they were distinctive but still definitely snowy. So the good army got a blue undercoat underneath the snow flock, and a quite uniform covering, to give a crisp, clean look. The evil army got a darker, more muddy, patchy look.

Good Stronghold. I added a skirting board made from card, a wall socket, plug and wire for the Christmas tree (hidden from view in this photo) and sculpted a cat on a rug. The cat is painted to look like my own cat, Henry.

Evil Stronghold. Alternative Armies house covered in snow, with icicles made from bits of melted plastic sprue. The tree is scratch built from a wire frame covered in modelling putty. This was the last thing I painted, literally finished the day before I came to my parents. It was packed before the glue under the snow flock had fully dried!

Santa is the good (Hero) general. The holly bushes are clump foliage with tiny balls of green stuff painted red. They were rolled as tiny as I could manage, but technically are still way too large.

With faithful Rudolph as a Flyer. Unbelievably I never realised, until Dad pointed it out, that the antlers are bent down. Now it is all I can see on this model.

The snowman (Hero)... The little girl miniature, being a 15mm scale child, is tiny.

Buddy and Jovie (Paladin) from the movie Elf, because why not. Green stuff toy box and a piece of bent wire to make the candy cane.

Toy Soldiers (Shooters). The challenge here was to make each one as identical as the others.

Nutcrackers (Blades). It doesn't show in photos, but these, and the toy soldiers above, have a gloss varnish. It seemed appropriate.

Evil Magician General. Jack Frost, an interesting painting challenge to make him look icy. I painted the base to look like magical iciness is spreading around him and cracking the earth.

Snow trolls (Behemoth). Pretty distinctive with their Christmas hats

Winter wolves (Beasts) by Demonworld, added to give another option (and because I had spares from the prehistoric project).

Evil Snowmen (Hordes). It was interesting to paint such a variety of colours on them to give a chaotic, haphazard look.

Evil Gingerbread Men (Warband). The first group I painted in this project.

Psycho presents (Shooters). It was fun painting the variety of colours on these.

Evil Christmas Trees (Lurkers). These were actually very finicky to paint and difficult to make look good

Lombard cavalry

 

Goth cavalry conversion with a long spear - so best match amongst the Gothic armies would be Lombards. Another unit like this and I have a complete DBA  army with 12 elements of Kn...

Simple conversion of a Sarmatian cataphract - remove the bowcase, add a sword scabbard and shield. Being a Gothic army, standard bearer is the Sarmatian standard bearer with a shield - I didn't bother losing the bowcase. 

At some point I'll do a few more  Goth conversions - infantry, probably use the Sarmatian infantry, change the shield and a longer cloak. I might put a 'coffin' shield together - the 28mm one I already have is too big but would form a good template if photocopied then reduced in size. Initial cavalry figure probably the same as for the Rhoxolani - cut down the Kontos as a javelin and give them a Gothic shield. Not sure where I'll source the archer from yet. 

In terms of time, this unit took about 3 times as long as any of the Arab units - I was painting them in tandem...

Fatimid infantry

 

3 x 8bw, front rank tear drop shields borrowed from the 25mm Normans Range!

Again, more fantasy Fatimids I suppose, but they look OK and give a good basis for a DBA Fatimid army.

Cult of the All Seeing Hand

 

Producing rifle armed Arabic type figures in robes allows me to produce Cultists quickly, cheaply and in large numbers... and could mean the early appearance of figures with both black and brown robes.

Quality of the Rose rifles conversions aren't all that good - the head swap is pretty dire.

Looking around for a standard design I thought about all those horror movies where people have an eye in the palm of the hand. Rough picture of a clawed left hand with an eye in the centre and a cult is born! Have to admit, I like the symbology of this figure!

First of the Arab spears

 

Compared to the cavalry I've been painting recently this lot just whizzed past... started them and they were finished!

The Arab figures are a bit crude but look effective. Probably shouldn't have given everyone striped robes, just seemed right... Anyway, the next lot are being painted red as cultists with guns, so not every robed Arab type will have stripes.

I expect to be painting a lot of these figures on a wide range of bases.

Rhoxalani cavalry

 

First 6 base unit of Rhoxalani cavalry. 

There are four different figures in this unit - standard bearer, 'officer' is the horse archer figure on the fully armoured horse, horse archer figure on the unarmoured horse and standard cataphract conversion with the kontos cut down to javelin size and Sarmatian infantry shield added. 

My hope is to complete a further three of these units over the next few weeks/months/decades to give a good basis for an early Rhoxalani army. 

Moulds RY161 and RY162 Fantasy Medieval Arab infantry

Moulds now back from Pete. This one consists of robed Arab infantry, I have done a couple of test runs and they seem OK.

 

And this lot are the Turkish style tunic and trousers figures. Normally I wait a month or so for the mould to post cure a bit more but think I'll be churning out regiments a lot sooner than that!

Fantasy Muslim regular cavalry 2

 

This finishes my 'establishment' for my nominal town/sultan's regular  cavalry force.

Probably should have spent more time on the standard!

Meanwhile, going through the painting production line are a unit of Sarmatian Rhoxalani and a unit of nominal Lombards - lance rather than javelin armed! I'm currently looking at doing 3 Rhoxalani units and 2 Lombards - the Lombards then giving me a complete DBA army! 

The mould this lot are on have so far produced a bit under 100 figures with about another 50 or so wanted for future units. Add to that the figures I needed to get the infantry master cast. So how does this fit in with my 'costing' structure?

Moulds, metal, energy costs and (? - hobby!) time. To get a mould and figures made tends to be expensive - can't afford to have a mould made to produce 20 figures! So how do I cost it?

I'll use this as a starting point. When I was trying to get Minifigs to either start production of the S Range Ancients or let me buy the range they said they had to have guaranteed sales of about 800 per figure. That's... not my starting point!. For me, I look at a price of £1.25 per infantry figure or rider. Metal costs about 25-30p, no idea what electricity costs per figure, and then a mould costs about £100 each. So very roughly if every 'spare' penny went into buying a mould then about 100 figures makes a mould cost effective for me. Selling figures, not inclined to give my time up for free so I split it - 50p to the mould, rest to me. Actually as metal costs a bit more than 25p a figure and as I have to pay tax on 'profits' it probably knocks it down to 35-40p or less per figure for me.  Shouldn't forget any discounts such rounding down the bill or giving free postage for larger orders, likewise the cut PayPal takes... Anyway, bottom line is that for a commercial Garrison mould rather than a personal Garrison mould I probably need at least 200 figures per mould for it to be worthwhile. 

Some moulds will never pay back the 'investment', others way over achieve. Overall though Garrison more than pays for itself, and, happily, I'm able to have quite a few new moulds made to replace old moulds or just to make it quicker to cast figures by making the content of each mould a lot more logical than the haphazard moulds I originally bought!

Fantasy Muslim Regular cavalry

 

Lance and shield armed cavalry, basically regular or paid retainer armed and equipped by a town, city or sultan.

I painted these with a mail shirt rather than have them unarmoured - historical I would have had them without armour, fantasy always armoured! Also left all of these figures with plumes intact!

I've used the sword and shield armed figures for the officer and standard bearer - there is also a figure like this with a bowcase for double armed light cavalry.

Standard is from the 25mm Sassanid range. The mould I'm getting made has this standard as one of the spaces taken up.

Fantasy Muslim elite cavalry

 

Have to be elite, no way this lot would ever settle for being some lowly militia outfit!

I've painted some Sarmatians with bronze horse armour; thought brass would be better for these but didn't like the result. Went for scale armour using alternate metalic colours instead - works well.

These figures are unusual - generally scaling figures up like this is a disaster. Thi lot, even though the paintwork isn't exactly neat or precise, still look good in my view! Really pleased with this unit. May not be an accurate depiction of Medieval Muslim cavalry, but like the look for a Fantasy unit.

Meanwhile, as these were close to finished, the next lot are on the table. These would make a town guard or militia...

Getting Arab infantry moulds ready

Still a little bit of work to do, but figures for the Arab and 'Turkish' infantry should be going off soon to have moulds made.

There's a lot on these moulds! Robed figures include, spearmen, swordsmen, riflemen and archers. I wasn't sure about standards but have decided to use a Sassanid standard - the spearmen or swordsmen are easy conversions and with two points of attachment the joints should be strong. Saves having four separate figures! I'm looking on these figures to be basically wild desert tribesmen. Didn't do  a robed cavalry figure but I think one of the unmodified Achaemenid Persians will do that job.

The tunic/trousers mould includes some J/Bw/Sh light cavalry to give a bit of variety. Figures themselves - apart from the cavalry and javelinmen perhaps a bit more 'regular'? Spearmen backed by archers or rifles as a kind of palace guard, town militia or government troops? Unmodified Rose Zulu war figures make good Ottomans as they are - good for 20mm, though bit small for 25mm.

I must admit I've been surprised at how this lot of figures has grown in scope - I was originally just going to do one mould for all the infantry! Figures are a bit variable, but with uses in both 'normal' wargames and Pulp scenarios I'm quite pleased with them.