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.