Museum Hoplites Part II

The hoplites are now ready for battle! 

Yes, with a smidge more painting and a decision on basing driven largely by the UK government's decision to close all DIY shops and impose a total lockdown on all non-essential travel (thus denying me the opportunity to buy some wood filler) the Museum Z-crew are now ready to take the table. 

Or, more likely, they are now ready to stay in a drawer until playing soldiers again is no longer something that would contribute in any way to the potential collapse of the NHS. 

The figures - and especially their shields - as pretty big, probably at the 16-17mm end of the scale without quite reaching "giant Xyston ranges" levels. That allows a 40x30 base to be pretty well filled with 7 figures (4+3), so I eked out 5 bases-worth from 4 packs, adding in this ex-Warmodelling brand mounted officer picked up at the PAW show in January to one of the bases to represent a unit with an embedded general.

With sand and woodstain basing and a bit of static grass they are now basing-compatible with my Biblical armies, which gives them a handful of opportunities in some of the more obscure later ADLG lists to appear alongside Egyptians and (occasionally) Asssyrian-style chariots.

There is a mix of armoured, linen cuirass, skirt and nude figures, but I just mixed them all up together for variety.

This view more clearly shows the different armour (or not!) styles

The transfers are great, but still do leave a big lip around the edge of the shield which for some of the designs (with detail right up to the edge of the transfer) is rather tricky to blend in with matching paint out to the shield rim. 

The base on the right shows this - the guy at the front ended up with a contrasting shield rim, whereas the guy behind I just about managed to blend in the rim with a similar red to the transfer itself.

The "white" shields are a bit easier, and I went with a simple bronze rim for most of them anyway

As well as packs of mixed poses, there are separate packs of just the standing guys - my view is that you probably need a number of these standing pose packs to make up the bulk of the rear ranks in your army or units, otherwise if you just go fo rmixed packs you could end up with a few too many kneeling and, erm, lurching men in the front rank

I kept the crests all black - there's probably more than enough colour in the shields and their rims already and I didn't fancy drifting itno rainbow territory onn the crests too

Ta-dah! 

New Museum Miniatures Hoplites

With most of the world in lockdown, everyone's minds turn away from gaming and towards... painting and mail order!

For these chaps the mail order bit had been done during January in the Museum sale, making these figures pretty much the cheapest metal (or plastic - yes, I did the maths!) on the market right now, which is remarkable given they are the new digitally sculpted Museum Hoplites from their new "Z" range. 

The paint job is definitively incomplete, but rather than wait until they are finished I thought some WiP shots might be good to get out into the internet-verse right now, partly as everyone is sat staring at a computer trying not to OD on (usually depressing) news, and partly to try and inspire you to support some of the gaming hobby retailers who will be missing out on trade show impules purchases for the next few months or so.

The Museum figures can be bought with LBMS shield transfers - which you can only buy from Museum themselves.

There are only 3 basic poses, but you can get (I think) 4 different states of undress for the men as well, which means there is more variety apparent from the back than the front.

Museum also do a range of helmet crests - all of the helmets are the same across the figures (at the moment..) but you do hardly notice that - at least with my painting !

I have given some of the shields a coloured edge to add a little bit more variety to the figures - once they are finished I might do a few more with bands of alternating light and dark for more interest too.

LBMS do a special range of 11mm diameter transfers for these guys because the Museum Z-range shields have been designed to be bigger, and flatter than most other manufacturers hoplite shields, specifically to take LBMS transfers more easily. I have a suspicion this might even have been something I actually suggested to Dave at Museum when he posted some WiP shots of the sculpts on Facebook... but that may just be me making stuff up to make myself feel more important!

The hoplites feet have really well-cast sandals - these have no more complex paint job that flesh paint with a diluted coat of army painter wash to create the detail in the sandals.

Likewise this guy is just wash over matt flash

Here they are next to some Chariot Miniatures and Essex hoplites. Apart from making my 20 year old attempts at painting shields look suddenly pathetic you can clearly see the difference in shield sizes, and in figure height  - I suspect this is enough to make these Museum guys a little difficult to mix with other manufacturers for most wargamers.

The Museum guys "might" be on slightly taller basing, but probably only 1mm, as they are on 2mm MDF with no magnabase, whereas the other older chaps are on hardback envelope card + magnabase

This is a shot of the Museum guys with some Xyston - I think these are Theban - Hoplites. A better fit, but the shields are still noticably bigger

Here they go toe to toe

And with Xyston Paphlagonians - a relatively new figure for Xyston I think?  These seem a better match.

And a set of two bases.

The shields are big enough that I have managed to base these in 7's, using afront rank of 4 and then 3 behind for an ADLG Heavy Infantry base - fitting two ranks of 4 might well have been a bit of a crush.

There's still plenty of tidying up of these to do, and I also need to decide if I base them with sandy-coloured wood filler or use the sand + woodstain + drybrush technique that my newer Biblical armies now are mounted with.

Once they are done they'll appear here again!   

A Weekend in Provence! The Assyrians Go To France

No ADLG events since the 1/72nd scale whupping for my Vikings at The BIG Abona Festival back in June... by November I was starting to go stir-crazy (and not in a painting sort of way!).

Browsing the UK calendar had failed to cough up any events which coincided with a free weekend, but on the French part of the ADLG forum I spotted one event on a very specific weekend in November, and a last-minute plan suddenly fell into place... Avignon!

Air Miles subsidized the international logistics, Avis loyalty points chipped in with a gallic roller-skate-sized hire car and a list I'd already used saw a very small but relatively freshly painted Assyrian army packed into the world's smallest tin for a hand-luggage-only travel plan involving the smallest rucksack in my collection.

5 games later and there French meta has been well and truly tested to wine, beer, cheese and obscure local spirits type destruction in 5 games of mixed success for the Lions of Assyria.

Read all about the highs, the lows, the food and the drink in these 5 stunning match reports from sur le pont d'Avignon as Madaxeman.com goes all del Boy Trotter in trying to mangle the French language on the way to victory (and defeat).

The Assyrians take on Galatians, Carthaginians, Ugarits, Kushans and finally Alexander The Great in these 5 reports which come complete with an accompanying Podcast available in both Podbean Audio and Youtube Video formats.  

And, most importantly, see if I get away with deploying my French language skills as well !

Assyria Uber Alles (scales..)

Over the last few days I've managed to get a few more of the Newline Designs Assyrians (that I only bought in July...) painted up for a Biblical Era L'Art de la Guerre army I plan to try and use next year, all of whom match the 15mm Museum Miniatures army I already have.

They are all infantry, which is down to me prioritizing them over the rather more important cavalry and chariots in this army - and here they are, along with some of their smaller brothers in arms!

ADLG Worlds - Al Shearer rides into Rome !

The World Championships somehow managed to shift across Europe, moving from a shed in Birmingham into a 5-star hotel in glorious Rome this year.

That of course means another overseas extravaganza for Team CLWC, and for yours truly another chance to try and craft something out of yet another of the Arab-flavoured armies I have been working through this year.

The Khurasanians - basically a poor man's Ghaznavid/Abbasid hybrid - were the lucky chaps to make it out into the hot, hot Italian sunlight this time, where they took on 6 different enemies drawn from the US, Mexico, France, Spain and somewhere else using Mongols, Han Chinese, Carolingians, Alexandrians, French Ordonnance and the Seleukids.

To track the games (and the food, and the swimming) there are many thousands of words spread across six fully illustrated, (unusually) map-annotated, kawasaki-riding battle reports in which Geordie General Al'Shearer lands yet again in the commentary position.

Guarantee yourself a Big Night Oot and read away (the lads)..

Some day my Ninja will come...

June 2019 - The NEC, UK Games Expo and one of the bigger UK events I will manage to get to this year. So, why not take an almost legendarily unusable army into a theme where it is certain to meet opponents it struggles to deal with?

Well, if that army is a Samurai force that hasn't seen light of day since it's almost-win in Burton last year, the answer is of course a resounding YES!!!

The end result is five full match reports, packed to the sushi-tasting gills with pictures of Samurai figures far better painted than I could ever hope to manage myself, as well as all of the usual videos, jokes, witty banter (some of it from headless ex-warriors serving as markers), and half-baked tactical theories.

In fact, there's even a herd of cows. What more could anyone want in the height of BBQ season eh?

Read on to find out how the Samurai fared against the Song Chinese, Sicilians, French, Ottomans and a properly colourful Samurai Civil War as well (just one) in these 5 fully ninja-tastic reports.

It's A Lightbox!

Having take thousands of photos for this site over the years against various very basic backdrops, usually with an angle poise lamp for lighting I finally bit the bullet recently and bought a mini lightbox (affiliate link) on eBay for just over a fiver - and frankly I'm already wondering why on earth I didn't do so ages ago!

It is roughly a 10" cube with one open side, with the lighting powered by a usb cable from my PC (which drives a line of LED's at the top of the box facing back into it). The one I got comes with a couple of backdrops (white and black - but it will be easy to make more), and folds away quickly for flat-pack storage.

If you want to have a look on your local eBay, this affiliate link will take you straight there (I get a teeny kickback from eBay if you buy one as well using this link).

Here's a load of (un-retouched) photos taken with my usual cheap camera, firstly of some of the Khurasanians I'll be taking to The ADLG Worlds this coming weekend, and then some of the Samurai who were in action at the BHGS Challenge a week or so ago so you can see how the pictures pan out.