I had a bit of Milliput spare…

And if you are wondering….toffee cow???

First time I ever heard them called a toffee cow was at RAF Machrihanish. A flight sergeant was doing a slide show on mountain rescue and said “no matter where he went there was always a toffee cow”. The name has stuck ever since.

Well I decided to lift the pole up a bit.

This is the start of the process…

The matchstick is there to keep the milliput pole at the height I wanted.

I will extend the milliput back to meet the turntable then trim down the mdf at bit from where it joins.

Nos morituri te salutamus …. not sure if they ever said it en masses but hey.

The arena and gladiators are all done. I have worked on everything solidly for the last couple of hours to get it finished.

I am now tired. I can go to bed happy in the knowledge that everything is done. I just hope people turn up tomorrow to play it. I managed to purchase chocolate coins to present to the winners of each combat. Sadly the coins are not Roman, but strangely enough I couldn’t find any chocolate sestertius or aureus. Maybe next year….

Nearly finished these. Have to knock the brightness of the bronze down a bit with the Army Painter strong tone.

Started on the rest of the gladiators and lions tonight. I have get them finished by tomorrow night.

I also managed to get the base coat painting done on the arena.

Once dry, it will be dry brushed and then individual rocks picked out. The wood will be a greyish colour.

Well this took about 3 hours to get sorted. I decided to do 4 sets of cards to let me allow 4 players at once.

Really pleased with the results. I was going to laminate them, but that will take time away from sorting out the arena.

My life would have been easier if I could have printed on both sides rather than having to do a side fold type which was then glued together.

 I will probably sit them under a couple of heavy books to flatten them a bit more. I decided to decorate them with original mosaics. Each player gets a different set.

Well this half dozen are almost finished, still 3 lions and 3 medium types to get finished too.

So from left to right we have:

Laquearius

Retiarius with a spear and rete rather than a trident.

Standard Retiarius 

Sagittarius 

Velite ( or possibly a venator/bestiaries or even a noxii (cannon fodder)

And the last one…. errrrr he is a parmularius as he is carrying a small shield, but after that is anyone’s guess. He isn’t a thraex as he doesn’t carry a sica, or for that matter wear a helmet. If he had a curved blade in his shield hand it could be argued that he is a scissor. As it stands he is a medium gladiator.

Managed to get a bit more sorted out tonight.

I have built the palisade on the inside of the wall as well as a pair of gates. I also knocked up some stone steps to reach the dais.

I have to wait until tomorrow to carry on as I want the palisade to be completely dry before going onto the outer wall. To be honest I will probably use either double sided tape or a hot glue gun.