Numidian Archers

Glenn's army will have lots of Numidians, five units of javelinmen, four of light horse, and this one of archers.

I like my Numidians to look very simple, just undecorated tunic in a natural color, plain leather, and very simple shield designs.

All figures are Renegade. More Numidians will follow soon.

These may not be the flashiest looking figures, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is what most ancient armies looked like.

More Gallic Foot

They have been a couple weeks coming, but here are the rest of the Gauls for Glenn's army. Most of these figures are from A&A Miniatures, but there is a good leavening of Relic.

Spears are from North Star. Shield transfers are from Little Big Men. I had to get creative with the shield transfers to get them all to fit these shields.

That makes for 70 Gallic foot and 16 Gallic horse, and now I am done with Gauls. Thank Dyaus Pitar. Tomorrow I start on the Numidian contingent.

2011 Retrospective

This was a rough year for my hobby. I had a lot of other things going on.

In November 2010 my wife and I bought a 90 year old house and began an extensive remodel, stripping the entire interior to the framing, re-plumbing, rewiring, changing some of the layout, adding a bathroom, laying down new flooring, and replacing most of the roof. We hired a contractor, but I made daily inspections of the site until work was done in May, and of course I spent a lot of time visiting suppliers, picking out materials and finishes.

Then we took two weeks to move across town and get settled in our new place. I gave up a lot of square footage in the move, but we do live in a beautiful part of town. I spent June getting our old place ready for sale, and we were lucky enough to sell in September.

Along the way, I broke my ankle badly in February (still healing, still very painful). We also welcomed a new daughter in July.

So the point is this: I did not have nearly enough time to paint everything I wanted.

My gaming time suffered too. We lost one of our group's core when Austin moved to Arizona. Besides being a companionable guy, Austin was also centrally located, and we usually ended up meeting at his house.

The result of all this was a pretty disappointing year for my hobby. We played maybe three or four miniatures games this year, which is much lower than usual, and my painting production . . . well, it took a nose dive. Here is what I finished this year.

28mm AWI, 104 foot, 4 guns

28mm Republican Romans, 19 foot, 16 mounted

28mm ACW, 102 foot, 5 guns

15mm ACW, 111 foot

15mm Napoleonics, 122 foot

28mm Napoleonics, 92 foot

28mm Huns (for Austin), 16 mounted

28mm Carthaginians (for Glenn), 160 foot, 32 mounted

That was a total of 847 figures this year, way down from 2010 (1881 figures), 2009 (1864 figures), and 2008 (1910 figures). So I finished less than half my usual output.

For 2012 I hope to get my painting mojo back. I have a commission that should take me through to late Spring or early Summer, and another project for Austin that should take me another month or so. Once those are done, the rest of the time is all mine. My 2012 goals look like this:

1. Finish Glenn's 2nd Punic War Commission

I am just over a quarter of the way through, and I started with the toughest troops, all the irregularly clothed Carthaginian allies. Once I get into the professional core of the armies, things should pick up. Glenn will be driving to Coeur d'Alene to pick up the finished armies and play a few games with his version of the Commands and Colors rules.

2. Finish Austin's 4th century German army

I agreed to put a basic wargames paint job on Austin's Field of Glory Germans. I'll be block painting, with the only shading provided by the black primer, so this should be a quick project.

3. Finish AWI British for Bunker Hill

I got about halfway through this project in 2011, and I should be able to push through to completion by the Fall. Once the Bunker Hill army is done, I plan on adding more units using Fife and Drum figures.

4. Continue 15mm Peninsular War

I did finish some 15mm Napoleonics last year. I will continue to add British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish troops to my armies.

5. Work toward playing some 1797-1800 scenarios in 28mm

I love Eureka's Wars of the French Revolution range, and I will continue to add troops to my armies. I doubt I finish enough figures to play any scenarios during 2012, but I should make some good progress.

6. Add more figures to 15mm ACW armies

Regimental Fire and Fury may be the perfect rules set for my gaming group, and I will continue to paint Blue Moon figures to fill out my armies.

I hope you all had a good 2011, and I wish you happy gaming for 2012!

Gallic Foot

Nothing takes more work than Gauls. I would say they take me two to three times as long as any other figure. I end up using almost all of my paints, and all the color changes are rough on my smallest brushes.

But man, nothing else looks quite as spectacular once finished.

These are three of the seven Gallic foot units for Glenn's big commission. Each unit has ten figures.

Edit: I should have written this to begin with, but all these figures are Renegade (except the skinny spearman in the light blue shirt--he's Relic), the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios, the spears are from North Star, and the bases are Litko.

Blue Moon 18mm Napoleonic Austrian Line Infantry

After three weeks painting Gallic cavalry, I took three days off to paint some of the new Blue Moon Napoleonics. These Austrians are from packs 15NAT-100 and 15NAT-101.

The figures painted up very well and very quickly. I have a pretty good method down for painting Austrians, so that helps, and after painting Gauls with all their individualized checked tartans and checkerboard shirts, it was nice to paint some uniforms!

The Blue Moon figures are very solid sculpts. All the detail is clearly defined, and the figures look great as a unit. I don't think these quite rise to the level of AB Miniatures, but they are definitely give the best bang for the buck.

L-R Minifigs, Blue Moon, Battle Honours, Blue Moon, Old Glory, Blue Moon, Old Glory, Blue Moon, AB

Once the figures are painted and based, any difference in size is not really noticeable. You can open the above image in a new tab or window to get a blown up view, and you'll see that while the Blue Moon figures are taller than any but AB, they should mix well on the table.

Tomorrow I'll be back to painting Gauls, but it was fun to take a brief Napoleonic break.

Gallic Cavalry

These figures took a long time to finish, but at last the latest piece of Glenn's commission is done. These are four units of Gallic cavalry.

Half of the figures are Renegade, and the other half are from a variety of sources, mounted on Front Rank horses. I sculpted saddle blankets for the Front Rank horses, and I think the mounts are much improved.