Greek Mercenary Thureophoroi Option One.

Field Of Glory often give you the options for some troop types to be Medium or Heavy foot. I have yet really to decide the best option most of the time. The added speed of mediums over the heavier punching power of heavy infantry. I am leaning towards medium infantry, well at least when you can add a little bit of terrain to spoil heavies fun that is. Here though I offer the heavy choice.

These are four figures to the base. Some of you may recognise the figures from an earlier post (6-12 months ago). Well at that time I just had 4 bases of them. I have now doubled them up to 8 bases.

 

As I could not get the shields the same exact match I have rebased all of them and mixed in the shields gaining a rather nice mix of shield colour. None of these figures have yet seen the table top as I needed the extra figures. The original two packs had been bought from Chariot Miniatures (now  Magister Militum) over twenty years ago!

 

The newer figures were bought about three months ago and have been prepped and waiting a turn on the desk. When I finally got round to them I dashed them off in a couple of sessions.

 

Other than the shield fronts I was able to match up all the other colours and so are ready for that first game. That won't be until I have a few more options sorted. The Alexandrian Macedonian army is getting close to being close enough to being finished as I need. I want another 8 base pike block painted up and then it's good to go. I have other options that will also get painted up but for the most part it's ready. It's already legal but for more points I need a few bits more. Not only is this army close to finish it also means I am a good way into my Seleucid army, though that has a few more options that need doing to allow enough different options to make it more fun to play.

 

Whilst I plan a fair amount of 6mm I will be inserting 15mm units every couple of weeks to keep everything interesting. I also will get cleaned up the last of my 20mm Numidian figures and get this army ready to fight.

Twin Daylight Tube Lamp Review

Back at the Baccus open day we were discussing the use of a head held magnifying glass and the relevant benefits against drawbacks. The following day I re-learnt all about the help of extra light, as in LOTS of extra light! This was at Dr. Mikes painting display. He was using twin tubes daylight lamps which knocked the socks off my single bulb daylight lamp. The detail on the figures literally leaped out and made painting so much easier and helped in speeding up the painting. In short in had all of the advantages (and more) of the head magnifiers without any of the set backs. Though in reality it comes with it's own disadvantage, that of cost. One of these babies will set you back between £80 - £110 in the UK. That's a lot of lead. But for anyone painting 6mm figures with any regularity you either need to paint in good daylight or very good artificial light so I started to look for a bargain.

 

I found this baby on e-bay, it's not the brand that Dr. Mike was using but it clearly is a copy of it. So close a copy that clearly an original was sent out to China and all but the badge is a direct rip of the original. My only negative point about this lamp is that the flex is rather short. No issue for me as it is right next to the extension lead and plug socket but if it's not, you will need that extension cable. Well at £55 plus £8 post it's a significant saving.

 

On receiving the lamp though I found an Invoice to the person I bought the lamp off on e-bay. It seems the guy I bought it off does not stock these lamps, he just sells the item and orders it direct from the supplier! Rather a smart move I thought. So I now have the details of his supplier and after doing a little following up I know how you can get one of these lamps for just £37.68 INCLUDING POSTAGE! Yes for about a third of the badged version you could have a great lamp. I honestly would not be without this lamp now. I paint faster and better than before and whilst I got it mostly for my 6mm I have found the same results in larger scales. More detail (and flash etc) and easier and faster to paint and all to a better standard. The lamp comes with a clamp for the desk which needs padding to protect from damage to the table and is fully assembled. You just need to fix on the clamp and angle to your best position. Th hood only gets touch warm and I have it a few inches from my forehead without any discomfort or strain, it has to be used to believe it.

 

Here is the link to the supplier CPC, which goes straight to the lamp itself, but in case of difficulty it's code is la0400387 and it's called Pro-Elec HT8011 - Task Lamp and cost is £25.45 with a handling charge of £5.95 for post and VAT on the top making it the £37.68 mentioned. If you visit them on facebook they say they will give a further discount! They are based in Preston for anyone who may want to try and collect. The lamp was well packaged in the white foam like inner inside a sturdy box and wrapped with the large bubble wrap and delivered by UPS the day after payment!

 

Honestly I can not recommend this enough, I was happy paying £65 but this is is a fantastic price. You do need to set up an account with them but it's quick and easy and you can pay by card or cheque so it's as simple as you could wish.

ECW Buildings

I painted up the three buildings I bought from Baccus last Sunday. These were as easy to paint up as the Total Battle Miniatures I had bought way back in March. The problem is that the only other building available is a church, so I will have to buy repeats of the cottages and made do with a few from other periods as the ECW does not seem to have the support of other periods in 6mm. This obviously is no surprise, after all it's one of the minority periods of 6mm.

 

The watermill is a tall brick building (or stone if you wish) and has an obvious disadvantage. Being a water mill it should only come into play when your fighting a battle with water involved. Not the best situation when you are already limited in period buildings but I am sure it can still get used ignoring it's real use. Overall it's a nice building, I really like the slate roof and timber lean too. I dry brushed the roof tile and used a wash on the every thing else.

 

As I said OVERALL it's a nice piece but some of the detail is spoiled with pitting and air bubbles typical of Timecast (who make these for themselves and Baccus). The waterwheel in particular is somewhat spoilt by this effect. Total Battle Miniatures seem to not suffer nearly as badly as Timecast for this. I was pleased with the water effect, painting bright green as a base coat and two watery blues washed over and white lines and squiggles for rough water.

 

The basic cottage is the same building for both models but one has stale and the other thatched roof. What makes them look even more different is that the building is turned around on the base and they have different dressing to the bases which helps a great deal.

 

Opposite view of the same building. Note the stone base of the building which goes round the whole building. The wash really added to the plaster type effect for the walls.

 

I used a lighter wood effect on the doors of this building for more distinction. I assume that wood at this time would have been treated rather than painted. I also went for a grubby thatch on this building, though it does not look so shinny in real life (being mat varnished).

 

 

The second cottage is also slanted a bit on the base which I like.

 

Overall I like them a fair amount, they were quick to paint up, will look different enough on the table with a few painting changes such as darker wood on the odd one and darker or lighter thatch on others. The cost for a pack of two was very reasonable as well. Expect a small village sprouting up over winter.

Rosemary & Co Brush Review

I have been using the Rosemary and Co. brushes for about a month now.  started off with the series 401 Sable Blend hoping for the best of both worlds. The extra quality and wear of Sable with the lower price points of, well anything else. Price point wise these are on the surface a great brush. They hold paint well and keep a point and when they do seem to splay just a quick dip in the water pot and a suck and twist of the brush and the hairs are back in place. Sounds a match made in heaven.

Kolinsky Sable top three. Bottom three are Sable Blend.

Well possibly, but as you will see from the photos the brush has a very annoying habit of curling at the tip. A closer view is below. The brush itself is lighter than the series 33 Kolinsky Sable as I suspect they use a different wood in the handle. It really is a shame the brush can't stop from curling, yes for me it's too light but that aside it would be a good brush except for this one fault. I am sure for other than miniature figure painting it does the job well. However I bought three of the Kolinsky Sable (originally one)  to see how much better the posh brush was. Well I have painted with the Ser. 33 brushes far more than the Blended Ser. 401 and have been far more impressed. Not only does the brush hold the paint well allowing less trips to the paint but it needs less tweaks to keep the point well dressed but no sign of curling of the point. The 10/0 has a habit of the whole bristle head being pushed to an angle from use but returns to a central position with a quick suck and twist (I say Vicar).  See below for a close up.

The sizes from top to bottom 10/0, 3/0, 2/0, 3/0, 2/0 and 1. As you can see I have zoomed in really close and no sign of curl on the Ser. 33 but a fairly pronounced curl on the less used and cheaper Ser. 401. I guess you simply get what you pay for in this case. Of course these need a lot more use than they have had to this point to prove that they are indeed the best brush for the money spent. I obviously have not compared them to Winsor & Newton top brushes but would only be too happy to do so if they want to send me a few to try ;-)

 

It's a shame about the Ser. 33 as that would have been a fantastic result but really I am happy with the results that seem to be coming from Ser. 33. Give me another month or two of hard working of the brushes and if they are still standing up to the work then  will be a very happy bunny. The Creative Models triangular brush always kept it's point for me but the bristles wore down at a fairly quick pace so I tended to carry on using them way past becoming the 10/0 size of brush!

 

Price wise Series 33 starts at £3.40 for size10/0 and goes up to £325 for the size 22! Relax though the largest most of us would want is the size 1 at £3.70 Due to my findings I will be offering the Series 33 brushes in the give away and not the 401's originally stated.

370 Days page has been updated.

Well the title says it all. Essex on the march, so I had best get cracking on painting some Royalists then.

Well my table has a nice mix of projects at the moment. The eight sniper reminders need finishing off which will be done this week, though the bases will probably run into the following week as well. I have two 15mm units almost finished, just the final basing stages to do. The last five 10mm ADC's have fallen by the way side so I will get these gone before much longer along with the 6mm ones I have started. I bought three ECW buildings from Baccus two of which are close to being finished and the third just started. These will be finished during this week and I have a regiment of foote, horses and dragoons all primed ready for a start which should soon see some paint.

 

After that I have all my plastics washed and ready to be cleaned up and primed. These will have to wait though. I have been talking to Tim about his prize and it could be 20mm Naps or 6mm ECW. These will be put before any more of my own projects if they get here before I am finished with what I have whilst I also have done a trade with a friend for a Spanish Hill Village for me painting some 6mm which again is slotted ahead of any of my stuff, though I will be doing bits between I am sure.

100 Followers Giveaway......The Results!

I used a Random Number  Generator for this draw rather than dice and the kids (well it's not 6am yet and I have a feeling I would get in trouble for getting the kids out of bed!). First up, thanks to everyone who took part. The best attended giveaway so far and here is the stats for the prizes.

 

The brushes were the most popular item netting 33 requests out of the total of 36 entrants. Not surprisingly the mould was least popular gaining only 15 requests. Close on it's heals was the 54mm figure with 19 requests. At least my offer to paint figures met with a reasonable response of 21, imagine the embarrassment if that came last ;-) Second was the brush holder at 22 so as you can see a very good turn out. Now for the results.

 

Painted figure prize goes to Tim who has a great looking blog called Fidus et Audak and greater looking figures, go check him out.

 

The Baccus half mould goes to Lee Sharpe who does not have a blog for me to plug.

 

The 54mm figure goes to Johnathon who's Blog I pimped not so long ago called The Inevitable Spark. Really looking forward to seeing this painted as Johnathon is a top painter.

 

The Brushes were won by Chris who mixes it up on his blog between painting and AAR's. He should also possibly win a prize for the name of his blog Sippin' On Paint Water.

 

Last up the brush holder was won by Dux Homunculorum with a blog of the same name and funny enough has just won Tamsin's giveaway as well!! Beware though he is having a bit of a rant about heft, don't say I did not warn you.

 

So please can all you winners contact me with your e-mail address as ian_willey@hotmail.com and I will send out the prizes next week or in the case of the painted figures we can then discuss what you want painting and how many etc.

 

Again Thanks for the interest and sorry if you did not win.  

 

Battle Report, Macedonian V Persian using FoG

Wednesday night saw me playing at Matt's for the first time in well over 20+ years though stepping into the room it was as if it was only a few weeks. Matt is one of those lucky enough to have their own games room and over the years I have had many a good game. I was showing Matt the rules which I hoped he would like enough to rebase his old 6th edition armies to. Matt had the same view of DBM as I but where I had drifted away from wargaming Matt had just drifted away from Ancients. The good news was not only was Matt still interested in Ancients but he also had the rules and Immortal Fire. After a quick run through the rules and a few important tactical bits that you don't want to hear about half way through a game we were off.

 

Matt was using my Alexandrian Macedonian including one pike and one LI unit that had yet to see the table. We had just used the second half of the terrain placement rules, we choose the pieces, placed and only then rolled to see if they get adjusted. Most did, off board! Matt had all the cavalry in the centre, the centre left had the pike and a long way off the Cretans and Javelin armed skirmishes.

I was using the very old and tested Later Persians putting the better part of my Cavalry on my far left with two regiments in front of my Kardrakes (MI Light Spear) and beside them a lone unit of hoplites. The flank was protected by LC with bow and Persian slingers. Both armies were just over 730 points so well balanced on points.

Neither of us were happy with our set ups though again both of us saw a few nice opportunities. In my case the two light infantry units were 4 points of routers just begging to be mine then the two horse were to sweep round and take the phalanx in the flank or at least hold them in position whilst the LC took out the baggage camp that had been left unprotected. Well I failed to get into the lights as they kept retreating whilst I struggled to get close enough to count. Meanwhile Matt saw the other flank as being an obvious win as his Lance armed lights supported by his javelin armed light horse had very much the upper hand on my bow armed LC. Well it all started well for Matt as he dropped my Bow LC two levels to fragmented. So much so that the Javelin LC paid no more attention and went after my slingers. This turned out to be a mistake as I first dropped the Lancers a cohesion level, then a second and scored the first rout of the game with nothing between me and his baggage. This was short lived as first the Kardrakes and then my Kappadokian Cav broke leaving the centre in a mess. The benefits of drilled over undrilled was brought home when the last Persian Cav unit in the centre failed two tests to turn to face the attacks and was about to take a flank charge that would carry it and my leader to a nasty place.

 

Having just got the hoplites to face three pike phallanx, three good order lance armed cavalry whilst on my far left the Paphlagonian LC were being broken in quick fashion by Matt's Agrianian Javelin men (those of the first outing). I was not in trouble, I was in deep dodo.

We both passed the Cohesion Tests on seeing friends break but given just one more turn would have seen my centre comprising of a lonely Hoplite block, somewhat similar to many a game from the past. As I said it was JUST like I played Matt a few weeks before. Oh dear.

Great fun, so much I forgot to take pictures of the game. Another game where I got to look at the front of my new army but this time it was standing up to the Persians. Most important I guess is that Matt wants to play another game of this some time soon. As I already have a game with Barry booked (same two armies) for this coming week and other commitments we won't get back together till the following week. So four games in four weeks, none to shabby at all!