QRF cataphracts done

It's been quite a while between drinks, but I've finally managed to finish off the final 16 Quick Reaction Force cataphracts I bought about seven years ago (note the quaintly optimistic 'I hope to get a unit finished in time for my game on Friday.' If the Friday in question were two years later, I might've had a shot!).

The first lot was finally finished in 2014, but it wasn't a great experience to prep and paint them and I now see it's taken me four years to do the rest.

They have a lot of flash to remove in tricky places, and require spears. Unfortunately, the hands don't lend themselves to drilling, so you just sort of have to glue and hope. On top of that, I didn't really enjoy painting the armour, had other figures I could use in the meantime, and just sort of put them off, then put them off again.

But they're done now, so that's the '15mm mounted' duck broken for 2018.

And to finish, here they are with their cousins painted in 2014. I thought I'd done a better job on the new batch, but they don't really look all that much different! These will have to wait for their coat of matte varnish. Summer here is not kind to sprays, and nor is winter, which is what the season was when I finished the last batch. I'll have to give both lots a nice going over with matte when spray conditions improve...

Add caption

Thanks for viewing, sorry for the whinging, and may all readers' cataphract models be completed in a far more reasonable time frame!

Roman Civil War armies review

I decided tonight for kicks to set up my Roman Civil War armies and see how they look on the new(ish) terrain tiles I've been working on now and again.

Worth a game, I reckon!

A host of Romans

...and the painting is finally done. 16 units of 18 - with a few other bits and pieces as well - just waiting to have bases flocked. There aren't many better feelings in wargaming then getting an army off the painting trays!

Right, time to sit down with a beer and listen to a spot of cricket...

Varnish in the Boxing Day sun...

Nothing like the smell of varnish on a crisp morning!  Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and all the best to you for the new year.

W.I.P: Cataphracts

After a discussion on the SoA forum that touched on the battle of Magnesia, I was tempted to set up the table last night for another go of the Lost Battles scenario. In looking at the OOB I remembered that I still needed to paint up a couple of units of QRF cataphracts that I had bought for this very battle a few years ago.

Fortunately, half of them were already primed, so I thought I might quickly paint them up and do the battle over the New Year break.

I'm trying a different technique for the armour: metallic paints followed by a wash of Tamiya smoke mixed with a little black.  I'm now in the process of painting in the details, but I think it works better than the gray undercoat and wash which I use for lorica hamata and similar.

Pompeians done.

Well, it can be done - even after all motivation seems to have been lost and all inspiration gone, something can for some mysterious reason click!  The quick pace was mainly due to the fact that all but 76 of these were already painted, and so most just needed touching up and bringing into line.

The basing is to allow 16 'average' units of 18 men for  Lost Battles. They will be matched for Civil War battles by Caesarians having 16 units of 'veteran' units of 12, with a few extras to top some up to 'average' size as needed for larger battles against a common foe.

Nice to have another army done.

The cavalry will be drawn from my Gauls, Republican Romans, Numidians and, once they are painted, my Greek/Eastern types.

I'm going to be away for a month after this and don't expect to be able to blog much in that time, so will probably see you all in November at some stage.

Until then, cheers, and many thanks for all the encouragement you chaps have provided as I try to get back into the swing of things again.

Pompeians continue apace.

Am now a quarter of the way through the Pompeians (or, as required, the blue army). Still need to be flocked, obviously.

This is what's left to complete the blues. I hope to take advantage of my recent good run and get through them before I take off for NZ next week, but that may be a little optimistic. We'll have to see how the stocks of gin and soda water hold out!

And the Caesarians (or, as the case may be, the Red army) still to do. Pshaw! Almost finished ;-)

Breaking the duck

Well, it's been a very long while, but I've actually got a bit of painting done. Nothing to get especially excited about, but it's a start.

These are from the first batch of my late Republican Romans made up of Old Glory figures bought some time ago already painted from a TMPer, touched up, with command figures from the Quick Reaction Force range added in, and (eventually) to be brought up to strength with a few more OG figures I'll paint myself.

As you can see, the effect is intended to be one of mass rather than of superbly skilled painting. I'd like to say that is by choice, but I must face facts: I'm more workman than artist!


They've been sitting in a box for a long time. This is what they looked like before:

There is actually quite a bit of work needed to get them ready for basing. They were roughly done originally, with most having some obvious flaw (eg, flesh not painted on the arms, bottom of the tunic not painted, cheek guards of the helmet flesh and so on), but with flaws different on each figure. Also the small details were not done (belts, boots, scabbards, sword handles etc) so to standardize them takes quite a lot of time spent checking, sorting and touching them up individually to make sure that they all end up looking similar enough to go in the same unit.

The good thing is that I don't have to worry about cleaning them up or undercoating them, so on the whole it was worth it getting them like this rather than starting completely from scratch.

And this is how many are left from the original batch.

It feels good to have made a (small) start on them!

Work in Progress - Seleucid Cataphracts

I've finally started work on these Seleucid cataphracts I got from QRS in 2011.  I have 32 of them to do but am starting off with 16 as I hope to get a unit finished in time for my game on Friday.  They are lovely figures, but need quite a lot of flash removed to make them so, which is one reason it's taken me so long to get around to prepping them.  I have sussed out a system for the flash now though, so each one takes only three or four minutes of chopping and slicing instead of ten!

Anyway, enough grumbling.  Here they are:

You can see that they have some nice detail and I think they will be very nice to paint (even if they aren't much fun to prep!).