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Treasures (?) From a Box

I was mooching around in a box the other day and came across these things…

These originated in  the mid 70’s. I think I got mine in about 1980. My mate and I couldn’t afford the miniatures so got these instead.  I was just talking to Joe about these last week and as if by magic they appear. I actually managed to buy the rules this evening too. As was the fashion in the 70’s there are lots of tables and book keeping required, but for £4.00 I thought why not especially as the two army lists in the rules are Roman and Carthaginian.

I got mores slicing done this evening, this time I printed off a pile of light and heavy cavalry.

I painted some of the 2mm stuff too as well as added some sand to the hil, fort and 80×40 base. The base is a test run for the new rules that are coming out later this year.

As I type this the kittens are definitely having a mad half hour. They are chasing each other all over the place.

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An Evening with a Slicer

Most of this evening was spent shrinking and slicing various buildings for a pal of mine.

One of my build plates in progress.

I spent a good old while shrinking and hollowing, then I found some interesting freebies on My Min Factory…

The doors on these are 8mm tall so not bad for 6mm, they will need a bit of a size increase To go with his 10mm forces.

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2mm, 6mm and Ponderings

This evening I got some more done in the light cavalry and slingers and pretty much got them finished…

I also worked a bit more on the 6mm ruins, got some green mould lines on them and also worked out a bit of an idea re a base for them…

The above is some of the pieces, there will be a second smaller one too. Now to be honest, I am contemplating using some modelling compound to build things up a bit. Embed the ruins in rather than have them sitting in the top of a ‘billiard table’ base.

My musings today were around the 6mm Italian wars. Now if you remember I had a bit of s wobble about price versus Aesthetics a while ago… the one that sent me down the hunt for some rear rankers to reduce the cost… you can see my ramblings Here . So after much deliberating I came to this conclusion…

Irregular Miniatures in the front rank and shrunk and printed ones in the rear ranks.

So today, when we released the kittens I needed something to do whilst they were tearing around the lounge…

The kittens are in the crate in he background… as they were feral they were scared so we gave them time in safety to get more used tomus and the dog. I reckon if we just had the one in the foreground (Gizmo) then she would have been out a while ago, but Pixel, in the background was extremely nervy, so we gave them the time they needed.

So, for something to do I decided to tidy up my painting station and I came across some smaller bases and, as you do, I started fiddling…

It got me thinking, do I need to have the miniatures covering the whole base as in the case of the right hand unit, or could I go for something smaller to base them on. This reduces the ranks to three. Now the one thing I couldn’t find straight off were the irregular miniatures to try them on the front rank. I will have a ponder at this problem tomorrow with them in situ in the front.

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Hill Fort MkII

Chief Vitalstatistix was somewhat nonplussed to hear that his rival Mykingdomforanorse had got a bigger fort than his, so he popped over to Brittania to see for himself….

My original plan was to use milliput to build the ramparts, but as I had about a litre and a half of my original modelling compound then I thiugh I would try an experiment, building them with that instead.

I increased the height of the original hill in the centre and the started using small amounts to do the ramparts.. you can see the size difference with the original one.

This one will need a bit of work once it is dry as some of the bits justlook stuck on to the base…

My plan is to add some more defences where the opening is… got to confound those Romans somehow.

It looks a bit weird in it’s raw state. Once I have got some paint on it, it may look better. If it doesn’t then it cost pence to make and about 25 minutes in terms of time.

I have decided that this thing is protected by cliffs on the sides nearest the camera. These will be painted accordingly.

I will try and get some miniatures painted tomorrow evening. I might even go for 2mm, 6mm and 28mm…I do also have a 15mm Dervish warrior undercoated too!

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Working on Terrain

Tonight was a bit of a non starter painting wise. I managed to throw some contrast paint on the ruins…

I then took them off the thing they are sitting on and took it into the kitchen and threw some Geek Gaming modelling compound onto it to make a start on my giant 2mm hill fort…

Hopefully this will dry quickly, so that I can get the Milliput onto it tomorrow evening. My idea for this one is something like Maiden Castle with multiple ditches and ramparts.

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Hill Fort Progress.

Tonight idid a bit more on the Hill Fort, Chief Vitalstatistix is pleased with the progress. I need to cure the resin on the other houses, a job for tomorrow night methinks.

As you can see frommthe above photo, I did a bit more work in my Romans. I pretty much got six ‘units’ of heavies and three Velites finished. I will work on the cavalry tomorrow.

I was originally going to be going to the wargames club tomorrow evening, but unfortunately the old new car failed it’s MOT.. the downside is that it decided to fail on something big like the rear drive shaft… the part alone is £1100… on the upside we bought it just under a year ago and it has two weeks still to go on its warranty. Phew! It is going to be a faff getting to the club, it is do-able but not sure it is worth the hassle.

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More Sand, Different Desert

This evening we moved from the deserts of the Sudan to ones in Libya. We also jumped forwards about 50 years to a conflict between Germany and Britain. This time we had tanks. Or rather a tank each! We went for What a Tanker this evening.

My Matilda in the foreground faces off against a MKIII in the background. Although the Matilda was slow, in the early parts of the game she was off like a whippet across the sands.

I managed to get a ranging shot in my but failed to do any damage…please note the house the extreme left, it played an important part in the ensuing battle.

The only thing missing was the Benny Hill theme Tune as we chased each other around the building. We manged to fire lots of times, but kept saving the hits… once again my dice were on form…

Reload, Shoot, reload, shoot reload… this happened so many times… eventually my lucky dice rolls began to tell.

In the end Joe was down to a single command dice so we called it an allied victory.

It’s a really fun game with much hilarity throughout. Although I really enjoy the game, I reckon it is not a one I could play week after week.

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Working on the Hill Fort

This evening I worked on my hill fort interior… Aka making some houses. I spent ages trying to texture my own roof for a simple one I had designed. I really needed something other than Meshmixer. This is able to make the basic shape, but I really couldn’t get it to do any texture on the roof.

So I went back to plan B. I cut out a house from the original village in Meshmixer and repaired it. I the copied a few and supported them. To be fair I should have dropped my support density from 74% but I forgot.

As you can see, I also got some texture onto the thing too… the house is the small grey thing next to the chariot. Chief Vitalstatistix is pleased with the progress. I reckon I will get four or five of the houses in to the space I have.

I will probably do a bigger one than this. I was looking at pictures of hill forts, I never realised that there were so many in England… 1224 to be precise… or more rather 1224 that we have found yet. We have more Brochs on Shetland than there are hill forts in Dorset

I will get the sand covered with watered down PVA tomorrow. Hopefully I will get up early enough to get it done in the morning so that is dry by time I get back

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2mm Shenanigans

So I am back with the 2mm again. I have done a lot of slicing today. More Celts, Romans and now Hoplites.

In the past I have sliced various things together like celtic chariots and Roman cavalry. This time I have gone for factions… I did eighteen blocks of hoplites, a mix of celtic infantry and cavalry and then a whole host of Roman troops. This should make things easier to organise when I need more of a certain faction.

I also made a start on my small hill fort…

The chieftain Vitalstatistix surveys his home to be. If this works as a proof of concept then I will make a much bigger one.

And finally I got on with some painting…

Now I know the early Romans weren’t in a uniform, it makes painting them a lot easier. Once dry I will pick out other colours for the tunics. Each legion will have different coloured shields.

Well I am back to work tomorrow, I have managed to get a whole load of things done here. Today I put a new socket in, earlier in the week I got the dishwasher plumbed in. So I am heading back to work for a rest.

Hopefully we are gaming here tomorrow evening. So there might not be much painting happening.

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6mm Italian Village

So,in the end, I got nothing done today at all, apart from glueing the elephants to their painting sticks. I still have more sitting in the shed that need curing. I didmanage to photograph the Italian houses I started a while ago…

I will hopefully get something done tomorrow evening.