Empire of the Old World: Ostland troops - part I

Do you remember the Fantasy Empire army that I have painted during Orctober 2020 ? It was inspired by the Old World in the Warhammer universe. The yellow and red color scheme was meant to represent the army of Talabecland, one of the provinces of the Empire. After a few battles against the Orcs, it is time to add some reinforcements, an occasion to paint some troops from another province, and use another color scheme.

Among several possibilities, I chose to represent soldiers from Ostland. Their uniforms are black and white, a good association with the former color scheme, Moreover, the symbol on their provincial flags is a bull, and I happen to have a very nice figure to carry one of those banners.

So let's have a look at the first soldiers from Ostland.

Most figures come from the Late Renaissance range by Redbox. The halberdiers come from sets 72062 (Swiss halberdiers) and 72059 (Landsknecht halberdiers). The heavy pikemen come from set 72068 (Landsknechts heavy pikemen). The banner comes from an earlier period, since it is a late medieval Swiss soldier by Ultima Ratio (UR007 Swiss infantry - Uri). As a historical figure, he is not very accurate since he is meant to represent a horn blower AND the man holding the banner of the canton simultaneously. But since I am using him in a Fantasy universe, everything's ok.

The halberdiers alone:

Then the pikemen - they look like foot knights with pikes, I must admit that I had never seen such soldiers, but they look fine, all the more in a Fantasy world.

 

 The Ostland banner.

Of course I wanted to take pictures of these guys together with the Talabeclanders - what would be sweeter to a wargamer's eye than a large army (the largest so far :)).

You might have noticed that the old banner of this blog has been replaced by a new one, a part of the last picture above. Let the Orcs come!!

The Green Horde - A beginning

 Hi dear readers!

Today, I wish to write a post about the building of a large army of Orcs for Kings of War with 25/28mm figures. I like Fantasy universes, but when I was at school discovering D&D, there were no such things as 1/72 Fantasy figures, so we had to buy Citadel or Ral Partha figures for our role-playing games. I soon realized that Monsters of all sorts were much more attractive than heroes, paladins or white knights, and among those creatures, I had a growing sympathy for Orcs. With time, I bought several dozens of Orcs and Goblins from various manufacturers, and sometimes tried to paint them, but I really was a poor painter at that time. Then I gave this scale up and turned my painting efforts to 172...

These days, I've come back to 25/28mm because I needed a 2000 points army in a Kings of War game against my son who is using (and improving) his own Undead army, mainly composed of GW and Mantic figures. I gathered my Orcish motley crew, and was able to see that, with a few recruits, I had enough figures to accept the challenge.

Here you are the first unit (troop) of Orc warriors, and you know what ? They are based !!!

For the historians or figure encyclopedists (I know there are several among you), you can spot Citadel, Grenadier and Alternative Armies figures - I don't remember every maker. The guy on the left, first rank, is a brand new plastic figure from Warlord Games.

The rest of the army has got some painting too, but nothing is finished, as you can see below (the different colors from the previous pictures are due to the fact that I took the latter pictures late in the afternoon, with little natural light).

Some more warriors, from various manufacturers.

Some wolf riders, including a few wargs from GW: heavy cav on the left, and light on the right.

Some heavy elite warriors - figures by Rackham. I love these figures, I want to use them as much as possible.

Archers - only three are finished, but not even  their bases.

Trolls from the 1/72 Fantasy range by Dark Alliance. They're so big that you can use them in a 28mm armies without any problem.

Goblin reinforcements - A catapult and a Goblin king on his war chariot.

And last so far, an Orc chieftain named Vorak and a sorcerer - Rackham figures, once again.

 

 

I will write more posts later this year as the works progress.

EIR: first element based as a test shot

 Hi!

A small update today to show the first Early Imperial Roman element based as a test shot before basing the rest of the army.

 

 The next auxiliaries are eager to get a proper base

I first wanted to give them a Mediterrean or Middle East environment, since it is what I did for my first Ancient armies: Republican Romans, Carthaginians, Gauls, Achaemenid Persians... are all fighting all around the Sea. And I first wanted all my armies to have similar bases.

But, as one of the Lead Adventure Forum contributors recalled me, the Imperial armies are best known for the Dacian and Germanic campaigns, in more Central European landscapes than the previous armies, so I began to wonder if my wish of uniformity was the best idea to follow... and I eventually chose to use a darker color for the earth, and here you are.

In case you are interested, this is the recipe:

- paint a layer of AK Dark Earth terrain on the MDF base

- drybrush with light brown colors (GW Steel Legion Drab and Ushabti Bone)

- some grass from various manufacturers

Very simple, a bit different from the previous armies, but not too much.

I am interested to know if the test shot base looks credible to your eyes, any suggestion welcome.

 See you soon for the whole army based :)

Early Imperial Roman Army: Work in Progress

 First of all, I wish you a happy new year!

For the first day of 2023, let me show you my Early Imperial Roman (or EIR) army, based for DBA, then L'Art de la Guerre in the near future (my son just offered the V4 of the rules for Christmas, I must ready to play soon).

As the old readers of this blog know, I'm not fond of basing figures. I used to cut my own bases in cardboard boxes, which revealed two problems:

- the cut was irregular, the result was not always very nice with almost trapezoidal bases :D

- the bases used to twist with time, I had to rebase some old units

 So I was looking for a better way, and after a brief search on the web, I discovered that several companies were proposing some MDF bases (and movement trays as well). Sarissa Precision has a very wide range of bases, I could find what I needed for 1/72 or 20mm figures: 60x20mm for heavy infantry, 60x30mm for medium and light infantry, 60x40mm for cavalry, etc...

I bought a lot of them (for I have several armies to base), and as soon as I received the package, I used the newly painted Imperial Romans as a test, and here you are the result:

Some of you may recognize some of the figures that have been already displayed in older posts (the auxiliary archers, the ESCI legionaries, one or two legionaries and auxilia from the 2020 advent calendar), but most figures have been painted these last months.

You might also object that I didn't follow the DBA list to the letter. That is true, but all elements exist in the DBM list, so  let's say that it is a regional interpretation ;-)

All shields are hand painted (they're not as good as transfers, but I like my method).

Hope you like them :)

Better pictures to come when the bases are complete - the Reflex gives a better result, but you know that already.

 

Cyclops

 Good evening, dear fellow painters.

Today's post is a step into Greek Mythology, as I wanted to show you my first painted Cyclops from the eponymous set by Dark Alliance (#72054).

The most famous Cyclops from the mythology is of course Polyphemos, whose name literally means "who speaks a lot", and who is known for capturing Ulysses and his companions, eating some of them but was eventually blinded by them.

So these guys were much larger than ordinary humans, and the minis by Dark Alliance are accurately sculpted in my taste.

(Yes, I tried to paint an owl free hand, and no, the result is not very good :D)

I used the same Mediterranean skin colour as for the Greek warriors - hope you find it convincing.

See you :)

Anubite

 Hi everyone!

I have not been very active in the hobby since the beginning of the year - I only painted a couple of figures in January, and that was all until September. I could paint more than 30 figures this month, I hope to keep on painting that much till the end of the year, but who knows.

I have no particular project - which means that my 30+ projects are all on the workbench at the same time, and I only paint figures that I don't find boring... and among these figures, I paint them when I am convinced by a good color scheme, particularly regarding Fantasy figures.

And here we are. I bought the Anubites set by Dark Alliance as soon as it appeared on the net, because I find the figures beautiful, and also because they are a must-have in any Egyptian Fantasy army. oh, and also because I am a big fan of The Mummy 1999 movie :) But the figs remained unpainted for some time, because I couldn't choose between different color schemes.

Now I've made a decision, and this is the result:

Nothing very original, as you can see, but good enough in my eye. I wanted to paint a black (supernatural) skin, mixed with some mud color for the highlights.

As a size comparison, you can see the Anubite warrior in duel against an Egyptian trooper - very courageous to charge such an evil creature. He might need some reinforcement :)

Unfortunately for the Egyptians, the Anubite summoned his Mummy allies, including an ancient Mummy King that had a duel experience at Benno's (special thanks to Peter, again :)).

Pictures taken with my phone. The result is correct, but far from the Reflex quality - I definitely need to reinstall a spot in the basement to take better pictures.

See you (soon or not) !

1/32 Alla corte del Faraone (At the Pharaoh's court)

 Hi everyone! 

Today's post is an unusual one, because:

- the title is in Italian (but only the title, sorry for my Italian neighbours)

- the figures are 1/32, and not the usual 1/72... except for one

- the figures are displayed UNPAINTED !!!

But keep cool, there's an explanation to each of these statements...

You all know, or can easily imagine that I am a big fan of Atlantic (an Italian manufacturer) Ancient figures - they are regularly mentioned or shown on this blog - for instance here, or there. Well, after checking the links, I can say that they were mentioned at least in 2017... but look at my avatar :)

Believe it or not, as a kid, I only knew of their 1/72 range. It's only been a few years since I discovered that there were also a 1/32 range, thanks to an incredible collection that Mabo displayed at Benno's, and I began to desire those wonderful Atlanticses, my precious, and looked for some for a looong time... until last week, when I eventually found an offer on a website dedicated to second hand items: a complete original Atlantic 1/32 box, At the Pharaoh's court.

And there you are, in my own hand:

The box was complete, including the mummies and their sarcophagus.

And of course my favorite figure, the scribe. On the picture above, you can see the 1/32 version next to the 1/72 one - this latter looks soooo small.

Mini-me, next to Maxi-me :-D

I was so happy to receive them today that I couldn't help taking pictures and show them on this blog, even before they were painted.

Hope you like them :) Do these figures bring some childhood memories back ?