28mm Thracians

 I've already got a few Thracian infantry, enough to make an allied contingent for many ADLG armies, but I did want to add some light horse, cavalry and light foot to the roster - and so here they are.

These are Victrix plastics done very quickly with Contrast paints. The funky Thracian shield pattern is actually half of a 15mm shield transfer onto which I've painted the whites and, erm, "reds" of a pair of eyes. 

I didn't quite have enough "Thracian" shields going spare so some of these chaps have picked up Successor cavalry shields (and matching LBMS transfers) to make this a semi-mercenary unit, depending on which way round you look at it from. 

I also seem to have gotten some form of gunk on the back of this guys tunic (in the grey - which is Warlord Holy White on a white undercoat), which is a bit of a PITA as I must have missed it earlier in the process.

Very chuffed with the arm muscle definition on this one with the sword. Flesh "normal" paint on a Contrast base layer of Darkoath Flesh on white undercoat.

The figures have great faces using the Thracian / Dacian heads from another sprue 

These are the cavalry - again using Dacian heads, and this time a mix of Gallic and Successor shields. The chap in the middle may be a Greek Cavalry body but I seem to have an odd number of them and the Gallic armoured horsemen so perhaps I swapped sprues with someone at some point?  

The horses work really well I think with these contrast paints on a white base. 

 

As do the cloaks

 

Great animation on the faces from Victrix that the contrasts (+ drybrushing) really pick out well 

 

I also added a couple of bases of light foot javelinmen to give the contingent some dedicated (very) rough terrain troops.

 

Again 15mm Gallic VVV shield transfers provide a template for an "eyes" effect shield design 

The painted-on musculature rounds them off quite nicely. 

Brand New Battle Reports!

Yes, after a near-18-month hiatus I have actually played in a real live competition and almost-immediately written up 5 all-new battle reports from the recent 3T's competition held in York ! 

This means that the commentary alongside the photos might actually bear at least a passing resemblance to what actually went on on the tabletop during the games - and I may even remember some of the results as well. 

The reports also feature many references to roadside retail establishments on the Great North Road, as well as the usual animations, captions and speech bubble nonsense. 

The matches in question feature a lockdown-painted Thracian Army taking on all comers, in the form of Carthage, Palmyra, Sassanid Persia, Triumverate Rome and finally the Seleucids.   

The road to the competition also saw us visit the Newark Air Museum, and there's a separate gallery of photos from that trip now online too.  

Finally - of course - there are TWO Podcasts, one featuring the Madaxeman Podcast team trying to predict the winners from the event (before it happened) in a Euro 2020/21 style, and then a second , subsequent Podcast in which the Thracian list and four others are all discussed and evaluated. The List Pod is available on both Podbean and YouTube. 

Read the reports now!

28mm Kitbashed Thracians - WiP

 One of the back-burner projects I have is a 28mm Hellenistic army - I've been slowly buying the figures over the last year but not really starting it until I have them all in hand (and have finished many other projects first too!).

However... 

...I've been wondering if I can kitbash some Thracians out of the Victrix Peltasts and their Dacian Warriors kit, with the Dacians providing heads, arms - and romphias - and cloaks from some of the excess spares that Adam has collected in building his own proper Dacian army.

I've done a single test base so far, which is yet to have static grass and tufts added, and is also yet to be matt varnished, but is now at a sufficient WiP stage to be worth sharing:

 LBMS "peltast" transfers of course, picking out the more "Thracian" (yeah, right...) ones. If you look carefully you can see that some of the hands are "reversed" where I decided it was perhaps too hard to trim off the wrists and repose left hands to right hands - but you do need to look quite closely indeed!

I'll try and get them finished off and varnished in the next week or so.