Cretan Archers and Prodromoi Are Go.

I have been rather fired up this past week or so with my Macedonian army. What with a possible game on the horizon and the painting competition I really wanted to get going. The rules of the contest were quite clear, to count the figures could not be painted before the 20th but could be cleaned and undercoated. Well I cleaned and sprayed 8 Prodromoi (LC with Lance) and 16 Cretans but I also cleaned up 32 Pike as well. I had already planned to paint the LC next but the ease and speed of the Cretans made me choose them as the second unit. I did feel that would be in with a good chance of leading the way with such a bunch, well dream on Ian as I was quickly enlightened by some truly good and fast painting. I think I am in 7th place and the leaders are so far ahead I don't think they need worry for a few weeks even if they stop painting!

Oh well, good job it still serves as a great vehicle to drive me on, like I really needed it.

I was expecting the Prodromoi to paint really quickly as they only have a helmet and tunics and cloaks are not the slowest items to paint. Well tunics with four colours on the chest and another colour on the sleeves are not the fastest either! I am not sure the final result was worth the effort though as it neither stands out nor really looks that great when you look for it.

What I did like though was the leopard skin on the horse, it was fun and fairly quick to do and for the most part looks effective. The pink helmets and lighter pink cloak and tunic are correct and I await Matt taking revenge on my calling his Companion Phalanx, 'Smurfs' all those years ago. Especially as they are on the painting table right now waiting for Farther Abraham to turn up.

The whole unit ready for action. The unit is a mix of two poses that are almost the same and work well together. I was intrigued by this unit as the idea of mixing LC and Lances was very interesting. It seems to only be used in one of all the Macedonian lists I have so will only get action when playing the Alexandrian Macedonian army. My daughter loves them as they are pink and keeps asking me if I like pink, oh the shame.

I struggled with what colour to paint the tunic's, white seems the new Vogue but I remember Matt's red ones with a very keen memory. I knew the red would stand out so went with the original plan. I painted them scarlet and when I added the wash this really came to light. You get 8 figures per pack and I really only needed 12 figures but painted up the whole lot as other lists may use them all and besides I needed the points.As a unit they look rather pleasing to my eye and I am 100% happy with the colour choice.

I used two different colours for the leather belts but they ended up looking fairly close to each other. If you look close you can tell but rather disappointing. More than making up for that though is the leather hats, these I mixed up the colour and they turned out exactly as I saw in my head, how often can you say that?

Now I have stated work on my second Phalanx which at 32 figures is much smaller than the 48 figure block but I already have the colours fixed in my head and I hope to get it finished in the next two weeks. Within that time frame I want to get the casualty markers I am also working on finished and based as well as the sniper markers for ASL. After that it will be more Sniper Markers, some Macedonian Command bases and more Lance armed Cavalry, this time a little heavier.