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| After all the basing, sorting and generally getting into commission the Gauls I got from Harry there were still a few left lying around... |
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| Seemed a shame to waste them so they've been based and put together - not sure it's a unit as such, but at least it gives the Gauls another 10 elements! |
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| I seem to have taken a long time to paint this lot. Still, there are six of them, usually do chariots in batches of three. |
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| They have been done as line chariots/lower class nobility. Plainer horse furniture, side panels of chariots painted to represent whitewash. The charioteer is the Gallic archer minus his bow. |
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| This means I now have a total of nine chariots - three higher class, six slightly lower class warriors. Might do another six in the near future - that would give a goodly force of fifteen, should be enough for most purposes... |
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| First question has to be: If it's about Salute, why a random photo of a market stall taken from where we stayed. The answer is that we stay in an apartment on Petticoat Lane and they have a market every Sunday... |
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| Lots of expensive souvenirs in London. This one sells for £15 in the various tourist type stores in the city. Sells for £6 in the market... |
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| There are different sets you can get. This set goes for £15 in town. Guess what the market price is? |
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| The individual taxi is bigger than the one in the set. No idea what the town price is, here it was £3. So basically I got the lot for the shop price of the bus! |
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| But there's more! The middle post box and telephone box were actually on key rings - hence the rings on top! These were a pound each, so my total outlay was £19! Figures for comparison a Crooked Dice Dr Who UNIT soldier, the ladies are Bad Squiddo vigilante school girls. |
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| The larger bus seems to fit nicely with 28-32mm figures. |
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| Likewise the larger taxi. |
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| Smaller taxi 25mm and smaller bus 1/87th? Haven't sized them out really. |
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| At Salute itself I just got a few figures with a sort of Christmas horror theme - haven't unpackaged them yet. They are 3D printed figures by Modular Worlds - but can't find the figures in their shop! Pity, because they didn't have any of the Santa figure left... |
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| And finally a visit to Warbases to rebuild my very depleted stocks of cavalry and LI/LMI bases... |
Incidentally, the date for Salute 54 has already been posted - 17th April.
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| Came across a load more Gauls from Harry I hadn't rebased yet. Just realised that the chariot is the same one I used when I did my Gallic chariots - hadn't noticed it before! |
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| Firstly, a load of cavalry. Hadn't realized they were there - knew there was a load more infantry still to do, thought all the cavalry I got were Minifigs. This unit just about brings the historical Gauls/Galatians up to their full complement! Need a load more Ancient Brit light cavalry though. |
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| I've also based a unit of Gallic archers. This is the second unit and completes the Gallic archery force. |
I've still got enough figures around to make up another unit or so of regular LMI and still have a lot more needed on top of that!
Might leave the Dacians/Sarmatians for a bit and cast up some chariots. Or a couple more units of Dacian archers...
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| 20 to 60 archers are needed for the Dacian army, so naturally I looked at my universal archer and painted up a dozen that were lying around in a Dacian type paint scheme. |
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| Figures aren't brilliant but they'll certainly do the job. To get to 60 figures means 5 more units; probably restrict it to one or two extras. |
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| Lots of Dacians would have short cloaks. Anyway, a couple the archers lying around were ones without a quiver on their back so I gave them short cloaks to see if they were necessary. Actually, they don't seem to add much to the figure so probably won't bother. However, might give future figures a sword glued to the belt. |
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| So, back to 'normal' posts... Not sure what to call them; falx warriors? Dacians with falx? |
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| My inclination would be to use these in 6 element/18 figure units, but as the army list says 20 to 30 I thought an 8 element/24 figure unit would be appropriate. May not do any more as this lot are slap bang in the middle of the 'allowable' numbers. |
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| Tried taking photos of the queue but they didn't come out very well...Anyway, we got in Steven spotted Pvt Harris from the Sharpe TV series being interviewed for someyhing. |
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| This looks like an interesting kick starter. |
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| Nice clean looking terrain |
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| Steven seemed to like the idea of it too. |
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| This was a nice quirky stand - people doing quirky kit-bashing! |
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| The dinosaurs on tanks looked good, but sadly it seems that StuG can't be made as a SteG because they don't fit right together! |
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| Think my favourite was the green blobby thing. |
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| This lot were interesting - bunch of creatures you might find on medieval manuscripts. |
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| Finally, Steven and I did play a game - Tomb of the Cybermen by Kevin Dallimore and friends. |
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| Sadly, we lost... |
Oh yeah, did buy some bases and a few figures.
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| Started using the new paint pens. They're ones with a 'brush' tip one end, 'fine' tip the other end - much easier to use than my last lot, better range of colours and comes with a colour chart. Like them. |
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| One problem is that I'm tending to go overboard with checks and things all over the place. Plain seems to have gone out of the window as far as Dacians and Gauls are concerned! |
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| Any way, it's another unit of Dacian warriors finished. |
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| REC5, African auxiliary cavalryman with javelin and shield, unarmoured |
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| To make him closer to a Numidian I just sanded most of the shield detail away so I could paint the shield as hide. It would probably be more accurate if I also sanded down the javelin case, but I didn't bother. To distinguish the figure from a Moor I painted the Moor in the Roman army with chocolate skin, the Numidian with medium flesh. Purely arbitrary of course but... |
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| Like the Moors I also gave the 'officer' figure a cloak. |
The Carthaginian army list I'm using as a 'base' lists these as 10-50 figures in the army (WRG 1981 lists) so I'll probably do another unit.
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| Continuing with the Dacian/Sarmatian infantry... |
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| For the numbers I'll be doing I've stopped worrying about actual 'units' and just building up elements to be used as and where wanted. |
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| I'm going a bit overboard on the use of paint pens though - lots of checks, tartans and shield patterns! |
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| Currently on the painting desk are another load of Dacian'Sarmatian infantry plus a unit of Numidian cavalry. |
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| Meanwhile I'n still working on other conversions. The front one is the early Rhoxolani Sarmatian figure painted up. At the time I thought I would need to cut away the kontos and replace it - thought the lance would be too thick.Tried it anyway and actually looks OK - cut the kontos down, hammered the head into a spear point, and works. Shield is from one of the Sarmatian infantry as per the WRG book. Last figure is from the cataphract with the bowcase removed and large shield added... probably needs a smaller shield, but as a first attempt at a Goth heavy cavalry doesn't look too bad. |
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| Need to do something with the leather armour on the Rhoxolani - not sure if it does as hide armour. Time to work on that. Might just use the same method as for the horn armour on the horse armour. |
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| One thing I don't spend as much time on as I should is putting together 'catalogues' for my use that include pictures of individual figures plus mould lists. The Sarmatian/Dacian Classical Range is an easy one to do though as it is pretty small! |
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| Just 8 figures plus one conversion I'm working on! |
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| SAC1 Cavalryman, leather armour firing forward. As far as I know never issued except by me. I found the original in the masters box as a separate rider and put it on a horse as an easier-to-cast one piece figure. |
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| SAC2 Cavalryman, leather armour firing forward, armoured horse. In this case I've simply painted it as wearing metallic armour - another 'conversion' from the SAC1 figure. |
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| SAC3 Cavalry standard bearer - conversion from SAC4. |
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| SAC4, 'Cataphract with lance (Kontos) full mail armoured horse'. The only Sarmatian cavalry figure that I know was originally sold. Painted here with horn armour. |
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| Unlisted conversion to potentially produce as an early Rhoxolani cavalry figure - still not sure where to go with this one - could just use all SAC1 and possibly glue a shield on instead! Still, it wold give me a useful variation. |
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| SA1 Infantryman with spear and shield, unarmoured. As far as I am aware this was the only infantry figure originally issued. I assume Sarmatian though I'm using it as Dacian! |
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| SA2 Officer. Actually Dacian and probably coded DA1 - found an unlisted mould and a couple of masters of this figure... doubt it was ever issued other than by me (as DA1) either as SA2 or DA1! |
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| SA3 Standard bearer. A standard bearer was listed in the 1972 catalogue but I don't have any masters or moulds with it on - this figure is simply a converted SA2. |
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| SA4 Infantryman with falx and shield. Again, mould plus master figure but no other documentation - may have originally been intended as DA2? - I produced it in small numbers as DA2. |
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| A list of issued and projected Garrison figures appeared as an insert in the 1972 Greenwood and Ball Journal. Wish all this had come out then... :( - anyway, I'm trying to fill the gaps... though 'my' SAC1 and 2 are a bit different to the 1972 catalogue version! Note the figures NOT listed here that I found masters of and have been able to produce! Apart from figures listed above, SAC3 with the bowcase carved off and replaced with a mace makes a good generic SHC cataphract, plus the generic horse archer I made works as a Parthian horse archer... so I could do a Parthian army... must try fitting SAC3 on a camel sometime... |
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| My paint pens have been getting quite ragged recently so I bought some more (had the originals for nearly 2 years... couldn't believe it!). New pens are much better and this is shown by the increased complexity of the patterns I'm putting on cloaks and tunics... |
