This evening I decided to try out the 2mm legions. The central one has its Velites as well as a line of Triarii…
The bases are 80x120mm. Normally the bases are 60x120mm for the army sized ones. Skirmishes have same frontage but are 10mm deep.
Tonight I managed to get the 2mm farms just about finished.
This time the buildings are stuck down so there is no going back now. The only problem is, is that there aren’t enough buildings to make the town now…
I tried them out for size on the town base. The town base now has the church/temple on it as the rest are glued elsewhere. Luckily I have another set of thirteen printed and cured. The above still needs trees etc to make it a bit more interesting.
The other thing I managed to get done this evening was to slap some paint on some 28mm Pikemen…
Still a way to go, but they are getting there. Yo be honest a lot of each miniature still to do is armour.
I got a couple of aliens printed successfully last night. I will drop a photo of them tomorrow.
So tonight I eventually got my backside into gear and got some paint onto the 2mm Italian buildings. I don’t think they are going to look too bad to be honest. I was worried that they were going to look too modern, but now that I have seen them painted then I think they will be fine.
The big building will be a temple, the other two buildings will be a mancio or a government building. I have printed off a second set so that I can have lots of buildings… some will be made into a town and others into small farms with attached fields, vineyards and olive groves.
The cavalry ‘patrolling’ the streets give the idea of the size of them. These will need the doors painting, but otherwise they are done and ready to go on bases. I would have got some more done on things but my friend and I were trying to send each other the most annoying songs… I think I beat her.
Yes the veterans have made a fashionably late appearance… probably due to trying to travel whilst kneeling
So after painting them and cutting them off their bases I tried them on the two base ideas from yesterday…
I am really finding that the velites are tricky to get off their supports. I have had to glue some of the above back together and to be honest some ended up lost on the floor.
Tomorrow I will do another six units red, then start on different scutum colours for different legions.
Tonight I really got down to considering what the bases for the 2mm forces would look like. Now the ‘Age of Hannibal’ has various troop types so it would make sense to base them something like this…
Velites in the front, legionaries next and the soon to be painted Triarii at the back… the problem this makes is how many of these make a legion… to me this would be a cohort, so ten of these, which is quite a few… or I go three of these to make a legion.
It is easier with barbarians as they don’t have set formations or definitive unit sizes… so the Numidian light cavalry above is sitting at 500 men.
I also tried the Romans on the 80×40 base …
Some more Velites in the foreground and the line of Triarii at the back and Voila…a legion. Talking of a legion…
The rest of the evening revolved around getting the extra supports off this lot so that I can start painting them.
I am having a bit of trouble with the Velites falling apart when I take of the supports…this is something I will have to sort out.
Tonight I thoughti would crack on with the elephants. I managed to get them finished and I think they are rather cute…
This is them on an 80×40 base…here’s a different view of them…
If I base them on this size thenI am going to have light infantry in amongst them too. This wil stop the pesky Velites from scaring my pachyderms. These aren’t glued down yet, they are merely placed for effect. I have another eight without the howdah that aren’t in the photo.
Today my new painting light came, my new old one was always a bit too far away frommthe desk top so after watching Luke over at Geek Gaming talking about a one he got then I thought I would give it a punt.
As you can tell by this awesome photo a black,light against a dark background wasn’t exactly a great idea. You can however see the effect of the lighton the work surface. The light comes with three light settings that are dimmable. These are warm, daylight and white. As it is an LED light it runs from a USB plug. This is the one I went for…New light . Interestingly enough it has gone up by £6 since I bought mine less than a week ago.
I used it this evening to get various bits and pieces of 2mm painted up…
Bottom left are the elephants, with chariots to the right. In the back are a mix of Roman infantry and various types of cavalry.
I also got a pile more celts and Romans printed and cured. I also sprayed yesterday’s Romans white ready for painting. The 10mm houses are drying off, but they did come out really well…
To save on resin, I printed these hollow and remembered to put a big drain hole in the bottom. I have another few to do. Thee are 130% larger than the original stl.
I eventually got my Irregular Miniatures order in… it was a right sod as the PayPal bit kept falling over. So hopefully very soon there will be a heavy thud on the doormat.
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!
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
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.
Bogenwald 