Wednesday 26 June 2013

How Time Flies When You Are Not Having Fun.

Gosh, it's almost the end of June!

The projects continue, albeit slowly.

I have finished off a few more Assyrians, but after painting nearly 200 I have got a tad bored with them and wanted to start something new.

So I moved onto organising my Thebans. There are going to be four large Phalanxes, three with 32 figures and one with 24. There will be a unit of 12 Heavy cavalry and another of 12 Light cavalry, and perhaps three small units of skirmishers, armed with javelins, bows and slings. It's been a very cheap army, with a total outlay of around £30 for almost 200 infantry and 24 cavalry. Bargain hunting on eBay kept the price down. The figures are by HaT and are amongst some of their nicest ones.

I also have started collecting the Ancient Indian army but as yet that is in its infancy, with just a couple of boxes so far tossed into the big plastic bin under the work table.

Other expenditure has been on paints. I mostly use Coat D'Arms, which I like for their smoothness and the fact that they come in large bottles and are much cheaper than GW or Valejo. I do buy the odd GW, but it's rare.

Sadly I missed this years Phalanx show in St Helens (again!)  I had forgotten the date, and it was one of those rare weekends when I had actually decided to have a social life and go meet some friends for a shopping trip in North Wales. But on the way there I suddenly realised that it must surely be the show that Saturday. I stopped in a lay-by and checked my Note, and found I was right.

Damn!

Torn between going to the show or carrying on to Llandudno on an undies-shopping spree, I finally chose the latter. And so the M&S lingerie department got my money that weekend, instead of the show retailers. Sorry boys. Better luck next time!

Monday 3 June 2013

The Plastic Bug & Other Stories

I really do seem to have caught the 20mm plastic bug big time now.

I can think of so many Ancient armies that I want to do. I have one (the Assyrians) almost completed, a large Theban force in priming stage, a New Kingdom Egyptian army washed and sorted ready for priming, and am starting a line of purchases to make up an Ancient Indian army, complete with elephants and chariots. I bought the excellent Lucky Toys King Porus set, which has clearly been mastered and moulded for them by Caesar Miniatures. The rest of the force will be HaT figures. Granted the Lucky Toys figures don't really match the HaT ones, but as the King Porus set mostly just concentrates on the command figures, most of the poses in it will be useful. The Commander's elephant, the chariot, plus a few of the infantry figures, will all make great unit leaders, standard bearers and musicians.

The future might well see a Caesar Hittite force, plus a good sized HaT Parthian cavalry army (if I can get over my dislike of painting horses). Part of me feels seized by the desire to do a Strelets Anglo-Saxon force and a matching Norman one. It's perverse, but there it is..

I've also been looking through the Bolt Action rules. I think they will give a fun game with a few tweaks (and by ignoring the GW-inspired silliness of Commissars and Medics and other "characters"), and as I intend to stick to 20mm figures and models the cost will be kept very low, as the force sizes are quite small. I will use HaT AFVs and guns, and the 1/72 Valiant figures, as I have found a cheap source for the latter.

I'd still like to do a Steam-Punk force (or rather forces). But that will have to wait a year or so. I have enough to be going on with for now...