Gladiators [9]

I finished painting the gladiators this evening, most of the effort going into tidying up the details and attaching the painted shields. I coated them in GW satin 'ardcoat followed by a matt coat of Army Painter varnish but the latter dulled the metallics, so I oversprayed again in the satin varnish to pull up the colours.

They won't win any prizes but they're good enough for a bit of rough and tumble in the arena. I could tart up the shields a bit more but I think it's more important to sort out the texturing on the bases, so that I can crack ahead with the next batch of figures including the now based and undercoated bear, lion and puma.

WSS Normandy Firefight Interview

There's an interview with the author of Normandy Firefight in the current issue of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, which is well worth reading for the inside track on the rules mechanisms and design philosophy. I've also been enjoying the free issue of Battlegames that I got when I picked up the latest copy of Miniature Wargames in WHSmiths yesterday. There's a really interesting transcript of an interview with the Toofatlardies and a neat set of skirmish rules for Smugglers in the 1700's. Good stuff!

You spilled my pint

The postie left a small but perfectly formed parcel on the doorstep today, which included a rather large and rather scary DeeZee Miniatures prehistoric bear, a superb Northstar Menagerie puma and a rather inadequate but nonetheless well sculpted provocator by Crusader Miniatures.  They're all very welcome and will be added to the painting production line this weekend, although I suspect that time will be a little tight given the usual diversions?

Tribes of Legend

I've been reading about this set of roleplay / skirmish rules on other blogs recently and have had a brief chat about them at the club as well, so I thought I'd find out a bit more by getting a copy, despite the rather cheesy title. 

This was partly due to my nine year old having completed a school history topic on Greek myths and legends over the holidays, for which he got some house points from his teacher and two packs of ebay Foundry  figures, one of harpies and one of gorgons, from me as a reward.

Anyway, I looked on Amazon and found that they were offering the rules for a little over £14, which seemed a fair deal. The rules are actually three in one, with a 'platoon' level unit based system backed up by a set of roleplay style 'squad' level rules for small bands of five figures, finished off by a solo campaign system for individual hero characters.

I have a leaning toward the middle set, which is aptly titled Ancient Heroes, as it would only need a handful of figures to be feasible. I have other things on the go at the moment but might see if I can squeeze in a small band of hoplites, harpies or skeleton warriors, assuming I can find some cheapo figures to convert and paint up on ebay.

Normandy Firefight Tommies

These arrived from Hong Kong today and I've been oogling the sprues to work out what I can do with them and how many three figure variants I can make out of the two boxes that I ordered. The good news is that I can kit up at least four figures if I combine this kit with the other ones that I already have.

I was also pleased to find that the sprue features six helmets with scrim netting, giving me a full twelve to use for the half section that I'm hoping to assemble. The figures are great and I'm thinking of making them the basis for my first unit for Normandy Firefight.

Gladiators [8]

A bit of tidying up and some fiddly detailing this evening, although it doesn't look like much has been done. I've painted in the eyes and hair on some of the figures and have sorted out the mess I made yesterday. I've also undercoated the light gladiatior figures that I cleaned up over the weekend, adding an Andabate from the ones that I prepared over the holidays.

Gladiators [7]

It's been very much a case of one step forwards and two steps back this evening, as far as the painting is concerned. I tried out a few approaches without thinking things through beforehand, with the inevitable results. I have painted in the spears, swords and other details but wasted a lot of time over-painting other bits that went pear shaped. Oh well, I can always tidy up the mess tomorrow...

Cry Havoc

It was chucking down this morning as you'd expect for a bank holiday Monday in May, so the kids we're a bit restless. To keep the middle one happy, I dragged out my tattered copy of Cry Havoc and set up the first scenario for a re-match, having played it a couple of times with him before. This involves a street fight between two rival gangs of peasants in the village on the map below:

The game ended up as a draw, although there were a few moments when it was definately going my way, as he doesn't like to lose and hasn't yet grasped the concept of defeat. He's only six, so I let him turn some of his dead into wounded and some wounded results into stuns or retreats. At the end of the game, he had three men left standing and I had four but two of mine we're wounded, so an even result.

Anyway, it was good fun and we both enjoyed the game. I reckon it would make an excellent participation game with 1/32nd  plastic figures and hex based terrain, perhaps using the Kallistra system. The supplementary scenario booklet has some modifications to turn the counter based rules into figure based rules, so it would be easy to work something out.

If you want to have a go at the game yourself, all the maps, rules and counters can be downloaded for free at the following site:

http://cryhavocfan.org/eng/suite/cryhavoc/chgame.htm

There's also a computerised version of the game that you can download of you don't want to print everything out and cut out all the counters.

Gladiators Recruited

I had a busy day today so didn't get round to any painting but I did clean up and base the light gladiator figures that I picked out of the box earlier on. These consist of three velites, four pugilists and three noxii armed with swords and shields. I'm quite pleased with this lot and hope to get them painted up by this time next week.

Gladiator Recruits

I've enjoyed painting up the gladiator figures so, even though I haven't finished them yet, I thought I'd clean up and base some more. I've chosen some lightly armed figures, half being equipped for a pugilatus boxing match and the other half as skirmisher types including a velite and three sword armed noxii or tyro figures. I'll try to get on to them later today.