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. 

It's a Camel!

Here's a 28mm baggage camel that I've had kicking around in the "to be painted" pile for a while now. 

I believe it comes from Disain Studios, and I may have picked it up at the PAW show last year - but I can't seem to find this design on their website so perhaps it's a show-only thing? 

I also had a spare Gripping Beast Arab swordsman lying around who didn't fit on any of the bases I did of Arabs a few years ago, so he has now become a baggage guard. 

He has a rather large and fragile sword, so I positioned him so it is touching the camel. A bit of  superglue later to glue the sword blade to the side of the camel and it's now a lot more robust than it was ! 

The camel had no base, just feet, so I had to drill a pin into one of the feet to give it stability on the base. Printed resin is easy to drill, which is handy in  this case. 

The camel itself is done in Aggaros Dunes GWContrast paint on a black base with heavy white drybrush highlights - or "slap chop" if you are down with the kids apparently!

A few more 28mm Hellenistics

 Slowly making their way to the "done" pile of my 28mm Successor and Hellenistic project are some more pikemen, and a rather random find of what I suspect may be very old Wargames Factory Hoplites 

These are the second base of Mercenary pikemen - another great set of LBMS shields

This time I elected to do a few more of the edges in colour, rather than aimong to put metallic rims on them all 

They still have a lot of random heads though, as befits a random collection of Mediterranian mercenaries 

A LOT of different headear going on here 

And with the full set of, erm, one other base. 

The Elite Argyaspids also got a second base of pikemen

The new base doesn't have the commander and standard bearer figures on it 

These are the slightly smaller and slighter hoplites - I ended up with 24 of them pre-made but unpainted 

Shields are LBMS and some upscaled homw brew waterslide transfers using images found online 

At this stage I'd just used Darkoath Flesh as the flesh - no highlights on these - but I did add some flesh paint highlights lafter this was taken

They are all about the shields really - but honestly the Victrix figures of today are much nicer

Even a few left over to do an officer base (as I could only fit 7 on each 60mm base really)

Zenobia

Forged in Battle make a nice little pack of 15mm Legendary "Dark Age" Commanders, and one of the most legendary is Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra.

The set she is in is the WE-SG01 Dark Ages Assorted Speciality Figures Generals Pack

She has been painted in Contrasts, with the camel being done with the fabulous Aggaros Dunes one. 

Successor Hit Markers in 28mm

I'm gradually assembling specialist casualty markers for many of my armies, and the latest set are for my 28mm Successors

Luckily Victrix include a lot of extra shields in their packs, especially for cavalry figures, and of course over the years I have accrued many metal and plastic ones from other sets so I have a lot available to make these three types of marker

In a rocket-science level bit of planning I use 3 shields for 3 hits, 2 for 2 hits and a single shield for one hit.

I've even splashed out and used up some un-needed LBMS transfers on some of them - possibly the most expensive casualty markers in the world!

 I always give them a few thick coats of liquid poly varnish before finishing in matt varnish, as they will inevitably get chucked in a bag somewhere - so a few coats of poly tends to make them pretty scuff-proof 

The Anglo-Saxons invade .. Southend!

The first ever Southern League ADLG event to take place in Southend on Sea took plce recently, and was appositely themed around the year of the Battle of Benfleet, in which the Anglo Saxons kicked the Vikings out of Essex - at least temporarily - and so I decided this was an omen worth embracing by taking an Anglo-Saxon army myself! 

The army was made up of a load of 15mm Anglo Saxons/Vikings/generic Dark Age geezers that I'd rebased during lockdown, and a 3-game event where they would be thematically appropriate was ideal, especially as they were not likely to be all that good.

The event being at Southend also gave me an opportunity to inflict multiple references to both Billy Bragg and Danny Dyer on an unsuspecting wargames population and viewership - a gift that keeps on giving throughout the 3 videos in this competition report. 

Having decided that a night out in Southend on Sea was unmissable, there is also some local tourism involved in the reports

Many thanks again to the Southend Wargames Club for hosting us in their fabulous games bunker too!

 (You'll also no doubt be pleased to know that the Essex branch of the McHugh Carpet Empire also get a welcome plug). 

Enjoy the videos! 

Pisan Baggage

I finally got around to buying some 3mm buildings from Brigade Models recently, and paired them up with a tourist tat Pisa tower that I originally bought way back in 2004 (!) after the Pisa team DBM tournament.

Turns out they fit really well together scale-wise, and now I have an ADLG camp element on a 40x80 base.

Better get looking at that Pisan Italian City State army list I guess !!

Here's the "before" picture. 

ADLG Renaissance: The Basics

 I've finally gotten round to recording a few ADLG-R videos with Simon LeRay-Meyer, in which we look to work through the basics of the system with a particular focus on explaining the differences to ADLG Ancients.

They are now all posted on YouTube and also here on my website 

The main areas covered are to do with how double-width bases for infantry formations in the Renaissance version actually work. 

This is all pretty simple once you get your head around how they work but can trip up someone who is familiar with ADLG Ancients if you are not mindful of what and why they are deemed necessary in Renaissance ADLG

The videos are a bit of an experiment using my webcam and recorded very simply on Zoom, so the quality isn't exactly top notch - but hopefully we manage to be chatty and engaging enough to carry you through that, and in so doing manage to get across the key ways in which these double units actually work and operate on the battlefield.

Here's hoping you make it at least half way through ! 

Camelphracts

Is it even a real word?  

Who knows in all honestly, but surely every Ancient wargamer will have considered adding a few Parthian Cataphract Camels to their collection at some point in their life? 

Well, at Warfare last year I had a voucher to spend and not all that much I actually wanted, so Forged in Battle ended up being the lucky recipients of my virtual cash and I became the owner of a pack of Camelphracts - which have finally been painted and added to the Bisely cabinet of shame.

They come in a pack of 8 models, which is readonable compared to the normal FiB sets of 12 cavalry as they are much bigger beasts than regular horses.

I then managed to obtain a couple more figures from Dave, as he had some spares allowing me to paint up the 3 bases that you'd need to field a max-sized Camephract force in a 300 point Parthian army for ADLG.

Of course the idea I would ever use a 300 point Parthian army in ADLG is pretty far fetched, but hey, having 9 Camelphracts is much better than having 6 and 2 spares eh?

The odd man out got based up a command stand

All done with contrasts plus drybrushed standard metals.