More 1/72 Macedonians

I'm back to painting some 1/72 Macedonians for a DBA army. I finished three bases of pike and the artillery piece last night.

These pike at Zvezda. Pretty figures with lots of depths but a fair but of assembly and the pikes are too long to game with. I chopped about half off these pikes to make them workable.

That said, the figures are nice enough looking. I have three more bases to do--one more with pikes down and two with pikes up to facilitate ranking them.

I also finished a HaT Greek artillery piece I bought a long time ago. This was a nice sculpt.

Up next: I have the rest of this army, including an elephant (thanks Mark), three bases of cavalry and the remaining pike built, primed and underway so I'm hopeful to post the finished results during the weekend. These fellows will be contribution to the EWG/Warrior of Time auction. I'm not sure what is after that--perhaps the remainder of a WW1 British army? Then back to the renaissance.

EWG night FUBAR and Saga

We had 10 guys out last night at the club with two games running.

Bruce hosted Chen, Jonathan, Craig and me in a game of 15mm sci-fi FUBAR. He will be putting on a version of this game at Fallcon in a few weeks and we playtested the scenario.

After a slow, slow start, the attackers managed to get down the table only to have their large tank roasted by these spindly walkers. But vengeance was swift and eventually the defenders were the victims of some hot rolling. I'm always surprised by how quickly FUBAR plays and how easy the mechanics are to internalize. The unit cards Bruce uses make sit easy to keep track of who does what.

Dave, Kevin, Scott, Mark and Terry played a four-player game of Saga.

I believe Dave won a narrow victory and everyone seemed to have a good time (except Scott, seen above cursing the Gods).

Up next: I have some 1/72 Macedonians that I am basing on and will be doing the cavalry and elephant next. I hope to have this wrapped up over the weekend. We'll also be running an EWG auction to help out with repairs at the Warriors of Time venue in (perhaps) late November. I believe my Macedonians will be part of that auction.

HoTT Mech Army 1 For Sale

This is the first of two HoTT (Hordes of the Things) Mech armies I have for sale. It is roughly 6mm in scale and is based on 40mm frontages. There are, I think, 22 units in the army and the AP value depends on how you classify each base.

First up are two large mechs. You could play them both as behemoths, but I think the guy on the right might well be more of an artillery piece or a hero.

These three walkers I would play as blades.

There as multiples of the units in the picture below. On the left we have a flyer (x2). The middle (x3) and right (x3) bases I would play as riders.

I would use these tanks as knights.

There are also seven infantry bases. Quantities (working left to right are one, three, two and one.

I'm asking $100 OBO for this army plus $15 shipping in Canada or the US. I would, however, prefer to sell these as a matched set so, if you buy both, I'll cover the shipping and I'll throw in a 2x2' GW gaming mat (the new fabric kind) that matches the flocking on the bases. Offers to bob.barnetson@shaw.ca.

HoTT Mech Army 2 For Sale

This is the second of two HoTT (Hordes of the Things) armies I have for sale. It is roughly 6mm in scale and is based upon 40mm frontages. It comprises 21 units (I think) and the AP value varies depending on how you classify each unit.

Up first are four walkers. I would classify these as blades. The detail on these are pretty remarkable, with clear windows in the cockpits.

There is also a larger walker I would play as a behemoth. Most of the walkers have posable arms and some of the bodies twist so you can reposition things somewhat.

There are 3 tanks (I would play as Knights) and one mobile field unit I would play as a cleric.

There are two hover tanks (flyers?) and two wheeled gun buggies (riders)?

There are also eight bases of infantry. There are seven of the base on the left and one of the base on the right. I'd play these as warband.

I'm asking $100 OBO for this army plus $15 shipping in Canada or the US. I would, however, prefer to sell these as a matched set so, if you buy both, I'll cover the shipping and I'll throw in a 2x2' GW gaming mat (the new fabric kind) that matches the flocking on the bases. Offers to bob.barnetson@shaw.ca.

Star Wars Hott

Many of you scoffed when I said I was making Star Wars HoTT armies "for my daughter" last year but, indeed, they are for her. And this weekend Obi-Jess Kenobi gave them a try.

We started with some very simple and small armies. She played the rebels as was her preference and put a nasty beating on me two games in a row. We played a very straight up HoTT game with Stormtroopers as blades, dewbacks as knights, speederbikes as riders and the rest as warbands or heroes.

Her initial success meant she wanted to try out more cool stuff so we added in a laser cannon, an AT-AT and some snow speeders (artillery, behemoth and flyers respectively). Those damned wookies were a real pain in the butt as warband!

She then lost as more stands meant relatively scarcer pips to move them. Jess then decided she'd rather play imperials so we switched sides. Here she is refusing the centre... I managed to eek out a win but her behemoth general proved hard to kill.

Not so Darth Vader who got surrounded. Apparently "I am the master now" is less funny when you say it while taking a poor eight-year-old-girl's hero off of the table. A fun game and how many wargames games can you teach an eight-year-old in an hour?

Up next: it is club night at the EWG tomorrow and I am also working on two sci-fi HoTT armies. Then back to more 1/72 Macedonians.

1/72 Macedonian DBA units

I received a package last week from Tim in Saskatoon which contained the pieces for several 1/72 DBA armies as part of a trade so I thought I'd dive in. First up are the the lighter foot elements of a Macedonian army.

This is a 4Sp unit based on some HaT figures. Two sprues arrived primed white (ack!) and partly painted so I finished the job and decided to do the rest of the army with a white primer (I usually prime black).

I think the figures turned out alright but I might well have used different tunic colours. Anyhow, done is done and I think the wash helped add some depth to the figures.

I also put together four bases of 4Ax. These allow the army to morph between Alexandrian Macedonians, Imperial Macedonians and the various Successor lists. Why make a one trick pony is my approach with 1/72 as they are so cheap.

Again I was pretty happy with the wash although I'm not sold on the white primer. And I did two bases of 2Ps.

Up next: I'm currently locked in mortal combat with a box of Zvezda Macedonian pike (what the hell was the sculptor thinking!?!) and have troops for three bases painted and washed. I also have a Greek catapult built, painted and washed. Next up are the cavalry and three more bases of pike. And then maybe an elephant and I think that completes the army!

I will be putting this project momentarily on hold to base two sci-fi armies for HoTT that I picked up at the Red Claw swap meet. But that should only take a day or two then back to the Macedonians!

28mm Renaissance Crossbow and Shot

As promised, I finished off eighteen 28mm crossbow and shot figures figures this weekend. These are Perry plastics and are part of an early renaissance army I'm working on.

The first up are 9 crossbow. There is a fair bit of duplication of poses as I decided I didn't want to use the arm options that had the poor fellows reloading as I charged them to their deaths--I'd rather have more aggressive poses.

As per the feedback earlier this week, I tried to make the outfits slightly more colourful but not so much I could not slip them into a late medieval army. I see the glue on the shields is not quite dry yet.

I also did 9 shot figures. I'm partial to the figures third and fourth from the left.

I've painted a few shot before (some Old Glory I got in a trade, I think). I like these plastics have more depth to their poses.

Up next: I've finished most of the light troops for a 1/72 Macedonian DBA army and the bases are drying. I got these in trade from Tim in Saskatoon. I have assembled some of the pike as well as an artillery piece and they are currently under way. I hope to have this army finished by next weekend. I'm painting over a white primer (something I normally don't do but a few of the figures had been started this way) and the effect is nicely different.