Technical adjustments on this blog

Hi everyone!

Since I've started this blog, I've found it a bit boring that less than half of my laptop's screen (definition is 1920x1080) was used to display pictures and text.
After a few tests, I modified the width of the blog to 1000px so that it fits on the devices I could test with.

But this modification might not work properly on your device, so I would like to ask you if these new parameters have an undesired effect or not. If your display is 1000px or higher, you should not experience any trouble.

The main difference is the size of the boxes to show the pictures. Let's have a look:

Size before change

Size after change

Is it worth modifying ? Have you got any trouble ?
Please let me know.

Oh, and a few words about the minis involved. You will have recognized a druid from Hät set 8138 Gallic command, together with the carnyx player already shown here, and a slinger from Hät set 8089 Gallic warband. On the background is my DBA Gallic army.

Regarding his clothes, I searched for info on the web, but we must admit that very little is known on that subject. It is possible that the druid wore white dresses as sacerdotal clothes, but it might only be a tradition coming from the 19th century. All I could read on the subject (Dumézil, Le Roux/Guyonvarc'h, Persigout) is rather old and not very scientific, in my opinion.

So I chose white, off white, as usual :)

A few more pictures.

PS: I also resized the pictures of the previous post but not the others, I'm waiting for your feedback before doing it.

EDIT: Thank you all for your answers ! I understand I can keep this format for the blog, so I can now change the other posts. All right, there's some job to do :)

Early Imperial Romans: Auxiliary Archers

My brother and I have painted an Early Imperial Roman army some years ago, in a time when washing only had to do with the dishes in camping - only flat colours, without any lightening. But we were very proud of that army, in which we mixed Esci legionaries with Airfix Romans as auxiliaries.
One of its weaknesses was the lack of archers, since we only had one pose of archer in the Airfix set.

Years later, Hät released a set of Auxiliaries troops for Imperial Romans, and I bought it  because I was first interested in getting more poses for my Germanic warband. I was a bit disappointed with the archers that were too different from the Airfix - I thought it would be in contradiction with the uniformity I imagined for the most powerful army of antiquity.

Some more years passed, a few books about the Roman Empire had been read, I began to realize that uniformity, as we can imagine it today, was not a practice in antiquity - soldiers of the same corps were similar but only to a certain extent. And last week, as I was painting Germans, I suddenly remembered that I never used the Hät archers, and that they would probably look great together with the Airfix ones. I only had to find a good (and if possible, original and accurate) color scheme to paint them. Don't ask why, an off white tunic immediately seemed to be a good idea.

This is my unit of auxiliary archers for DBA, two 4xBw elements.

I guess you easily recognize the Airfix minis in the following pictures (the second from the left). They look good together with the Hät, don't you think ?

And last, this is a picture comparing two newly Airfix painted archers with the equivalent in the old standard. I would say it was worth repainting them.

Hope you're not fed up with the off white tunics :)

Musician of the month: Gallic Carnyx player

I'm back in Ancients these days. After the Germanic warband, I found inspiration to paint a Gallic warrior that was on my desk for... years.
It's the problem with Celts: you cannot just paint them, you have to cover their clothes with tartan patterns, and since they were sort of individualist, you cannot paint the same pattern twice !!

So, what does our mini look like ?

Nothing extremely original here, but the combination of green and red (complementary colours) is always nice to see. And NO, I didn't even try to add another tartan pattern on the trousers :)

Maybe you ask yourself: what sort of thing the carnyx might be ?

The carnyx is a celtic wind instrument from the iron age. It was a sort of trumpet made of bronze, and was used on the battlefield to frighten the enemies before the clash (according to Polybius).
According to the Gundestrup cauldron (a richly decorated silver vessel dating from the Celtic era, and found at Gundestrup in Denmark), it looked like that:

And according to modern reenactors (from the french blog Les Lemovices en fête):

I never heard someone playing the carnyx, did you ? Must be a little monotonous, don't you think ?

Hope you like this little musician :)

Germanic warband: reviewing the troops

In the previous post, I displayed my ancient Germanic warband, and asked if you, dear readers, could identify the origin of the various minis, in spite of the blurry pictures (it would have been too easy, otherwise).

I received several answers in the comments and was really impressed by the knowledge, and the quality of the glasses of the contributors. All together, you've almost identified everything, except for a few guys in the background.

Here you are the answer. I am going to give the detail of the sets used, and the manufacturers of course. As you will see, I summoned almost every tribe of the ancient world :)

Let's begin with the easy part, those who you all recognized.


1. The sets you all recognized

   1.1. Caesar set H040 - Ancient Germans

   1.2. Hät sets 8068 - Ancient Germans and 8074 - Imperial Roman Auxiliaries (third guy from the right, with the off white oval shield, a spear replacing the club)

   1.3. Hät set 8069 - Dacians

   1.4. Hät minisets 6005 - Picts, and 6008 - Visigoths (the lonely man on the left)

   1.5. Hät miniset 6007 - Franks

   1.6. Strelets set M035 - Ancient Germans

   1.7. Strelets set M004 - Vikings (I have painted other vikings, but they were too well equipped to look like ancient Germans)

   1.8. Esci set 225 - Barbarian Warriors (yes, it is possible to use descent poses from this improbable set - I remember a time when it was the only available set representing ancient Germans, I then used every pose. The kneeling archer is a conversion from this set)

So far, all these manufacturers had been identified by most of you. The following have been named by Paul (from Paul's Bods) only.


2. The sets identified by Paul

   2.1. Miniart set 72013 - Germanic Warriors

   2.2. Orion set 72028 - Slavic Warriors (ok, this one is not in the right warband, let's say he is a neighbour visiting his friends)

   2.3. Coates & Shine set 8133 - Gothic Army (ok, it is almost a Hät reference)
 

The last ones had not been identified - they were completely lost in the background !


3. The figures lost in the background

   3.1.  Revell sets 02553 Celts (Gauls) and 02551 - Anglo-Saxons (The "Gaul" is on the left - nothing to do with a Celt, but it can be a descent Frank)

3.2. Emhar set 7206 Saxon Warriors

And last, a family picture - the mix is the best way to represent that sort of warband.

This picture is not blurry, will you find them all ? :)

My Germanic warband is growing - faster, but not that fast

I'm proud of myself today. For the first time in my life, I have been able to paint 8 figures at the same time, and they were painted in two days - I even painted another one, but I keep it for the next post :)

All right, all right, I can hear most of you, army painters, laughing... and you're right to do so :D but the above is true, since I usually paint one or two guys simultaneously. So yes, I am a very slow painter, but I try to improve.

Enough with myself, what do we get this time ? Well, as most of you guys, I love to see big painted armies on the battlefield, and I realized that I already had a few Germanic warriors (maybe you remember my Germanic Hornblower, or more likely this berseker - even if I suspect that guy is probably not accurate), so I decided to paint some more, 8 guys, so that I can have 2 more DBA Wb elements, and take pictures.

I really tried to paint faster than usual, but I realized that I couldn't: the same skill, and the same result, more or less. So how could I paint more minis than usual, where was the difference ? I simply used the same color palette on several minis, so I spent less time looking for a color scheme, even I still want every figure to be unique. This time, I mainly used red, green, 3 different browns, flesh, metal and gold, off-white, sand... I think the result is in my tabletop standard, but the method is efficient.

What do you think of them ?

Oh, and one last thing: I cheated a little for the pictures, because the last ranks are filled with minis that we can consider as proxies: Picts, Franks, Saxons... I deliberately mix figures from as many sets and manufacturers as possible, so that I get a motley warband. I will conclude this post (and week) with this little game: can you find the number of manufacturers involved in this scene ?

Thanks for reading, have a good sunday evening :)

Galadhrim

A few months ago, I had the chance to get some Fantasy minis by Caesar, a reference rarely seen on the web and apparently only sold by the manufacturer himself. These minis looked very promising, as they represented elvish and human warriors inspired by the Lord of the Ring trilogy. They were Elves and men from Gondor in the second Age, and Galadhrim from the third age. These Galadhrim composed the troops sent by Galadriel to help the men of Rohan during the siege of Helm's Deep - please note that they only appear in the movie but not in Tolkien's book.

I was very excited at the idea of painting one of the archers, since their battledress is rather impressive - and the version made by Games Workshop used an interesting color scheme.

This is what I could achieve - I just finished him half an hour ago :)

This mini perfectly fits its opponents - in this case, Uruk-Hai by Dark Alliance. The Galadhrim is defending the garden of Lothlorien against the orcs of the White Hand.

Tell me if you find this color scheme convincing - I have a few others to paint !

Gaelic mercenaries in medieval Ireland

Last year, I wrote a post about galloglass and kerns, the gaelic warriors of medieval Ireland. This post contained pictures of one warrior of each sort.

Today, my warband has grown a little. Here they are:

This warband is led by a chieftain, even a lord, considering the quality of his armour.

His retinue is composed of galloglass, Scots from the Highlands and the Isles, at first, but also local Irishmen, whose main weapon is the double handed axe.

These fierce mercenaries are seconded by kerns, light native infantrymen, whose main weapons are javelins and knives, and sometimes bows.

They are ready for raiding!