First minis get DIPPED.

Now then,

As the title suggests, i have dipped the first of the Spartan army.  I was expecting the process of painting on base colours to dipping to be pretty quick but surprisingly it wasnt.  It seemed to take ages to get the base colours on,  maybe its because the minis are so nice i wanted to do them justice.

Anyway im happy with the final result.  On the left you can see the first 4 with base colours applied.

The stuff im using, Army painter strong tone dip.  This stuff is pretty good, not only does it shade your minis but it also varnishes them too.  At the moment the models are very shiny, but once the dip is dry im hoping the glossyness will disappear.  If not i have some matt varnish.

The first Spartan gets dunked in the Tin.  Its actually thicker than i expected it to be, and i may brush it on in future,  and do the base as well.

A view from the front, note the chap on the left, the git would NOT stand up, hence the bits stuck on his shield.

And a view from the rear.  This shot better shows the shading effect of the dip.

Well i think i may be onto a winner, especially painting WW2 minis i think the dip would work wonders and drastically reduce painting time.  I like the effect and will do the whole Spartan army this way, then probably the Persians....Thebans....Athenians   etc etc

http://www.thearmypainter.com/

Cheers

Steve

This is SPARTA!!

Now then,

Right then,  new project.....even though i still have a few not finished.......

With my new fad being DBA i have bought a DBA Spartan army from Xyston miniatures.  For £17.50 you get a full option Spartan army.  However, i have a few issues with scottia micro models. (who sell them).

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 ).

The Shields are also cast seperately, and are also pretty much flash free.  The whole army deal comes in a VHS video box, with a nice looking cover.

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.

DBA gaming table- some scenery.

Now then,

This weekend i have been busy making some scenery and stuff for my DBA/Hott gaming board.

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.

All i need now are some camps for the two forces and im all set.

Cheers

Steve

New DBA/Hott board!

Now then,

The other day in camp i liberated an old notice board that was destined for the skip. It just happened to be about the right size to make a gaming board out of for DBA.

The playing size recommended in DBA is 24" by 24", but many seem to use 30" by 30", my board is 25" by 34", so it will work pretty well i reckon.

All the bits

I ordered a woodland scenics spring grass mat from - macsorders@ecscenics.co.uk, and it arrived in Germany 2 days later, thats pretty quick in my book.

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.

Vietnam

Flames of war 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.

HOTT ....progress....

Now then,

Ive been quite busy these last few evenings, as my son is pestering me for a game of HOTT, so ive managed to get two armies based up, note that i changed my mind on the large bases for the elves and re-based them all too.....lots of unnessary messing about...oh well. i changed the composition of the army as well.

Just to keep it as simple as i can, i didnt include any artillery, and the Hero general has gone too.

The army looks like this:

• 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.

Now these figures are some of the oldest in my collection. Many are late 80,s vintage. My wife painted most of these when we were just teenagers. Many moons ago........

i think they have stood the test of time and are still pretty cool looking minis.

Crossbows (shooters)

Blades

The 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

High Elves - HOTT

Now then,

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.

Sir Reginald Grey of Wilton, The Towton Project.

Now then,

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.

Rules and stuff.

Now then,

Well, what have i been up too?

Ive nearly finished the WOTR minis for Ruriah for his Towton project, i would/should have finished them a while ago but well, i keep getting distracted. Work, family- real life stuff.

So, in between chipping away at the WOTR stuff ive been looking at various sets of rules on the internet. I have ordered a fantasy set, Age of might and steel:

http://www.15mm.co.uk/Age_of_Might_and_Steel.htm

It was an impulse buy to be quite honest, im looking for something i can play with my two boys, its advertised as being very simple so i thought id have a look, at only £6 it wont break the bank. Oh and i got a free 15mm Orc command pack so jobs a good un. Ill let you know what its like when i get it.

I am also looking at DBA. The well known Ancients set. I have seen it advertised many times over the years but it never grabbed my attention before. With Impetus being a disapointment i am looking for a decent set of ancient rules, i am very seriously looking at FOG (field of Glory) but to play some games with my two boys i think DBA might be what im after. Have a look at this Blog: http://mrfarrow2udba.blogspot.com/

Miniatures wise im looking into buying from Xyston: http://www.xyston.com/ Some excellent miniatures, although they are 15mm, not my normal scale i think they will appeal more to the kids. Especially these guys:

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.

Pax Reinforcements

Now then,

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.