A view from the front, note the chap on the left, the git would NOT stand up, hence the bits stuck on his shield.Saturday, 21 November 2009
First minis get DIPPED.
A view from the front, note the chap on the left, the git would NOT stand up, hence the bits stuck on his shield.Wednesday, 18 November 2009
This is SPARTA!!
The models dont come with spears. You have to buy them seperately, for £6.00 for 50. So my initial 17.50 is now 23.50.
Next they charge a "handling fee" something ive never come across before. So add another £2.50. Then add the P+P, it came to a grand total of £27.21. A bit steep.
On the positive side, they arrived fairly quickly, (about 12 days). The miniatures themselves are the best 15mm miniatures i have seen. the detail would rival most 25mm miniatures.
There is very minimal flash and mould lines so preping them for painting is nice and easy. The only bit thats a pain is drilling out the hands for the spears (which are SHARP, as my wife found out ).Overall i would recommend these figs to anyone, but just be aware of the extra costs. Personally i would be happy to pay a few more £££ and get spears and bases included in the army box.
My first batch of Spartan Hopilites, cleaned up and hands drilled out.
The wire spears come in a bag of 50, they are long enough to be used as pikes and require cutting to size. The spear tips are bloody sharp so be careful.
The first spear i cut down flew across the room, and it took about 10 minuites to find the thing! So i grabbed a piece of old cork, stuck the spears in and cut them to size that way. They stay where you can see em and you dont stab yourself!
The Hopilites with their cut down spears attached.
Next ill be getting them painted. Im planning on painting them differently to my normal method. I usually use a black undercoat and do the "normal" basecoat/shade/highlight. However im going to use a white undercoat for these, then paint the base colours and stick them in "army painter" strong tone Dip. Im hoping they will turn out ok....well see.
Cheers
Steve.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
DBA gaming table- some scenery.
The full board with opposing Romans and Britons!
A closer view of the large hill, with British tribe defending it, i initially tried to use a hairdryer to heat form the readygrass mat to the cork underneath but it didnt work and a large gluey mess was made, out came the stanley knife ! I think it turned out ok in the end.
Some woods, these are woodland scenics trees, you buy the tree armatures seperately then bend them to the desired shape then glue on clump foilage. A bit fiddly and messy but i like em.
A corner hill, this one was the test piece to see if it looked ok.
New measuring sticks, i wrongly said in my last post that 40mm was the movement unit, it is, for 25mm, doh, anyway i made some for 15mm and smaller scales, each increnent is 1 inch. I cunningly painted them a different colour so i dont get confused.....
The two armies square up. Cheers
Saturday, 14 November 2009
New DBA/Hott board!
All the bits
The board
Oh i managed to aquire some blue felt as well for the bottom of the board to protect the dining room table, or serve as the high seas should we decide on playing a naval game.
Blue felt base
I made some measuring sticks as well for DBA, each increment is 40mm, so it will work well for 15mm groundscale armies.
Measuring sticks.
HOTT, chaos dwarves and High elves.
I have got a large sheet of cork which will be turned into some hills this weekend and plenty of offcuts of felt to use as rivers and roads so i should be getting a game in with the young uns very soon.
Cheers
steve.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Vietnam
It may be old news for some but ive just noticed it. Looks very interesting. Click on the title, or if the link doesnt work then go to the FOW homepage and have a butchers!
Cheers
Steve.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
HOTT ....progress....
Just to keep it as simple as i can, i didnt include any artillery, and the Hero general has gone too.- Spear - 4 (8 AP)
Shooters - 4 (8 AP)
Knights - 4 (1 base includes the general). (8 AP).
Total of 24 AP
I have sorted out a base of artillery for later, after we have a game or two.The Chaos Dwarfs.

Crossbows (shooters)
BladesThe army looks like this:
- Blades - 6 (1 base includes the general) 12 AP
- Shooters - 6 - 12 AP
- Total 24 AP
I have sorted out a few options for them as well.
A base of artillery, and one of sneakers.......mutants..........
Hopefully we will have a game this week.
Cheers
Steve
Saturday, 31 October 2009
High Elves - HOTT
I had a read through the Hordes of the things (Hott) rules the other day. They are very simple, although the wording used makes it seem complicated. Maybe someone should translate the book into plain English.......
Anyway, i decided to base up a couple of my old Warhammer figures for the game. My boys seem very enthusiastic about it, and to be honest if it gets them off the xbox for an hour then it cant be bad.
High Elf warhost
I based them up differently than what it says in the rules, mainly because the GW figures, especially the Cavalry are very large. So, instead of the recommended 60mm frontage i have gone for 80mm. Depth isnt that important but i went for 70mm for the cav and artillery, and 50mm for the foot troops.
Both the armies will be based the same, so no dramas. The miniatures arnt permanently fixed to these bases, just a blob of pva, so they van be easilly removed.
For those who have never encountered DBA or Hott, the game is pretty straight forward, each bound (turn) the active player rolls a d6, thats how many pips (commands) he can use during his turn. You expend pips to move your troops etc. So your not guarenteed to move all your stuff all the time. Sounds good to me.
Combat and long range shooting is simple too, every element(base of figures) has a strength value that is added to a combat dice roll, add some tactical modifiers (ie- uphill, defending a riverbank etc) then look up results on a table, find the results and action them, either destroyed, flee or recoil (push back).
Armies are made up of elements, (bases of figures), they each have an army point value, AP. You are allowed to select an army upto a maximum of 24AP, so the armies are typically around 12 bases strong, depending on what sort of bases they are. My High Elves pictured above are organised like so:
- Hero General - 4AP
- Knights - 2AP (x2) - 4AP
- Spears - 2AP (x2) - 4AP
- Shooters - 2AP (x3) - 6AP
- Artillery - 3AP (x2) - 6AP
- Total 24AP.
I havent played it yet, but as soon as the evil enemies of the Elves are sorted then we will have a game. Ill let you know how it goes.
Cheers
Steve.
Friday, 30 October 2009
Sir Reginald Grey of Wilton, The Towton Project.
Ive finally finished the next contingent for the Towton Project, Sir Reginald Grey of Wilton.
So, thats the whole lot done and in the post this morning. Hopefully next time ill be able to get them done alot quicker.
Cheers for now.
Steve.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Rules and stuff.



Spartan Army for DBA, not bad for 17 quid......
Im Very tempted to order them........ I need to get the rulebook too, but its only 6 quid.........
To change the subject ive had some sucess on the gaming front in Munster! Well sort of, ive had a chat with a fellow Brit and hopefully ill be having a game of FOG in the near future, regimental duties etc permitting.
Theres even a Games shop in town, literally on my doorstep that i didnt know about.....things are looking up. Theres actually quite a few gamers in and around Munster so hopefully i can get involved.
Thats about it for now, cheers for reading
Steve.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Pax Reinforcements

A few reinforcements for the Pax arcadian army. The commanders have been painted for a while now as have the buggies.
The supreme commander, the flags are 100 years war flags.
Commander
The other commander
Recon Buggies
I have a few old Epic models knocking about, and thought i could use this old shadowsword as a Castillian for the Pax. This model is one of three that are 20 years old. I bought them many moons ago for the origional Space marine game way back in 89 or 90. They are the only ones i kept after all the others were sold/given away or lost.
I think the new paintjob is a big improvement over my origional efforts as a 16 year old.
The "Castillian" in desert Pax colours.
The Beast next to a Tiger light tank.
I hope to get the next monster tank painted shortly. Work continues on the Towton project, and they are nearing completion too, more to follow.
Cheers
Steve.








