1/26b Trojans

This is the Trojan side of my Trojan War set (their Mycenaean opponents can be seen here).  I did these in reds, pinks, and yellows to distinguish them from the Mycenaeans, who use identical figures, but painted in blues and greens.  The color scheme comes from the Trojan Archer statue that they have recently recolored after finding traces with ultraviolet light.

1 x LCh/Bd (general), 3xLCh, 5xSp, 1x (Aux or Bd), 2xPs

The flocking for these--and the Mycenaeans--is lighter colored than my usual flocking, and includes more rocks.  This was the result of negotiations between my daughter (for whom I painted this), who wanted more green, and I, who wanted more sand and dirt.  In the end, I added tan sand and extra rocks to my usual green flocking to get this paler color.

Aeneas and his Dardanian Spearmen

 Personally, Aeneas is my favorite character, so I wanted to paint him.  I couldn't much in the way of description, except for his gleaming helment.  You can't see it in this picture, but I used a golden color instead of bronze for his helmet.  I also made a stand of spearmen with similar equipment and colors to represent his followers from Dardania, in what is now Southwestern Turkey.

The loser Paris

My daughter wasn't sure about clothing Paris in pink, but I was. How lame can you get, laying around smooching with Helen while your brother is out there fighting Achilles on your behalf?  I also painted Hector, with his distinctive plume of black horsehair atop his helmet, and Sarpendon in his gleaming armor.  Apparently the tin content (or something) is high in the part of Turkey where he came from, so the bronze from that area appears to gleam like gold--so I painted it that way. 

Next are the Trojan Spear.

A mix of Museum Miniatures and Old Glory 15mm

Finally the Amazons that fought on the Trojan side.  Apparently, they were historically armed with spear and shield like the men, but I happened to have some Black Raven 15mm Amazons with bows on hand.  Since this is a stand of Aux, I decided that it would do fine.

No naked amazons for my daughter's army, though.

Almost the same as the Mycenaeans, except for replacing 1xSp with either 1xBd for more ground-pounder strength or with 1x Aux for bad terrain strength.

1st Cacadores

These figures are for a guy who is doing Wellington's army by brigade, representing the 1st Cacadores during the early years of the war (in later years they changed hat styles and facing colors).

Old Glory 15mm Figures.

These were fun to paint.  Maybe because the top and bottom were both the same color, but they seemed like much less work than British redcoats.

I/26a Later Mycenaean

I painted this army for my daughter after she read the Iliad.  Between waiting for figures lost in the mail during the great blizzards of 2010-2011, and not wanting to deal with the chariots, it's taken almost a year and a half to finish--far longer than it should have.  At the same time, I also painted their Trojan opponents, which I will hopefully post soon.

After much searching, I found very little actual evidence of what color the Greeks or Trojans might have been wearing.  Since the army make-ups are almost identical, I decided to distinguish the two with color:  Greeks are in shades of green and blue, Trojans in shades of red/pink and yellow (in part I based the Trojans on the famous statue of a Trojan archer on which archeologists recently discovered the original colored paint.  In any case, here is the full army in battle array.

1xLCh/Bd (general), 3xLCh, 4xSP, 2x(Sp or Pk), 2xPs

For the four stands of Light Chariot, I wanted to use my daughter's favorite Homeric heroes.  Tracking down descriptions in the Iliad took a long time, but eventually I found something for each.  The first two are Ajax (her favorite) and Meneleus (not such a favorite, but easy to find an identifying characteristic).  Chariots and riders by Old Glory 15mm.

Red-Haired Meneleus and Ajax with his towering shield of bronze

Here is Diomedes, arguably the second best fighter in the Greek host (after Achilles, of course).

The bull on his shield is distinctive, but sort of googly-eyed.

Finally, here is Achilles (or Patroklos) holding his famous shield.  I painted this in abstract fashion: a blue stripe marked with white for the "river of ocean" around the outside, green with brown for the grazing cows layer, green with yellow for the layer of growing grains, gray for the layer of cities, and black with stars and a planet for the interior.

The bulk of the army are these stands of spears--warriors in the heroes' retinues.   These figures are split between Museum Museum (the similar looking ones with figure-eight shields) and Old Glory 15mm (the other ones).

Posing these guys was a challenge.

The army also includes two units of skirmishers, for which I used Museum Miniatures slingers.

Technically, the army only contains 2 stands of them instead of 4, but a mail mix-up left me with extra.

Here are the optional units.  The first one is of the dismounted option for the general's stand, converting it to a stand of blades.  The unique figure is Old Glory, the other three are Museum Miniatures.  Those two brands sure are a good fit, size-wise.

I took this from the back to show the well-sculpted musculature on the Museum Miniatures figures.

Finally, there are two stands which can be played as either Spear or Pike.  The Museum Miniatures figures in Dendra armor had extra-long spears, so I decided to use them and let the player decide which type they are in-game.

The colors are entirely fanciful, but that's the fun of doing such ancient armies.

Some of the local boys have read Homer, so maybe they'd be interested in using these for Game Night next month.

10mm Ancients: Early Swiss (IV/41)

A few weeks ago, I posted about my new 10mm Renaissance project, to begin with a few packs of Pendraken 10mm Swiss that I picked up on Bartertown in January.  Unfortunately, they are early Swiss, before they switched from halbreds to pikes, so these aren't properly Renaissance troops.  Still, I enjoyed painting them--and looking at them afterwards--that I've given the green light to buying more 10mm.  This is how they came out. 

Early Swiss DBA army (1V/41) done with Pendraken 10mm figures

The bulk of the army, of course, are units of halbrediers.  I did most of these in Swyz colors of red and white, with a minority in the blue and white of Lucerne.  Both cantons were part of the original confederation when they were fighting the Hapsburgs.  You can't see it in this shot, but on the solid red tunics I also painted a white cross on the back. 

The general's stand in the middle still needs his triangular Swiss Cross battleflag.   The standard bearer figure is actually an artillery crew member, but I thought it looked appropriate here.

The army can include up to two stands of skirmishers.  Historically, these were crossbowmen.  With 15mm figures these would only be two figures per stand, but doubling it seems to work well.

As you can see, I still haven't added magnetic strips to the bottom of these matte-board bases.

The final element of the army is a unit of Light Horse.  On first reading that may seem strange--Light Horse conjures images of Cossacks on the Steppe, not Swiss hiking through the Alps--but it actually was mounted crossbowmen.  Since they didn't stick around for melee combat, DBA models them as Light Horse elements.

The dude on the left is wearing an awful lot of armor for someone who doesn't intend to enter melee, don't you think?

I've also discovered an online retailer called Great Hall Games who carries all three 10mm lines I'd like to purchase: Pendraken, Old Glory (no, the other Old Glory), and Magister Militum, so I can avoid multiple shipping charges.  Currently I'm thinking of getting Italian Condotta and Hapsburg armies to fight my Swiss before I charge into the Renaissance.

By the way, observant viewers might have noted the base sizes are all identical. I used 40x20mm bases for all units so I could port them to a game of Warmaster.  With the Italian and Hapsburg armies I should just have enough to make a 1000 pt. Empire army.  Maybe some of the GW fanboys around would be interested in Warmaster, too.  Maybe.

SOLD: FIW or AWI Frontier Militia

These are 12 Old Glory 15mm Frontier Militia figures, mostly wearing floppy hats and hunting coats, but with a couple in jackets and alternate headgear.  As with the Indians I posted earlier, these are intended for skirmish gaming, individually mounted and each figure is unique in some way, either the pose or the color mix.  This is looking at the lot from eye level.

I really like the facial sculpting on these figures.   Mrs. Higglebottom is standing at the back, making sure the boys don't cause trouble. 

Here is a shot that shows figure backs a little more clearly.  While they aren't all identical, this gives you an idea of what they look like from all angles.

Not the best picture, I agree, but it shows what it needs to show.

In any case, I'm going to inquire with the person who bought my matching set of Indians, and if that doesn't work, put them on eBay.

UPDATE: Sure enough, he wanted them, so out the door they went. :)

British Guard Infantry

This is the first installment of British Peninsular War figures done on contract.  As royal units, guard regiments had blue facings and their drummers wore red coats instead of reversed colors.  The buyer will be basing them, so these pictures show the figures still on the paint strips.

Here is a closer shot of an officer, with his brass buttons.  :)  

In general, I like the paint job.  The only thing I might have done differently is use a different shade of red.   My old standby--Ceramcoat's Bright Red--ran out, and this shade has much better coverage than some others I tried.   It's good and red, but I figure that in practice, campaign uniforms would be duller.

UPDATE: On further reflection, I like the color for wargaming figures.  Normally when you look at 15mm figures from tabletop distance the colors sort of fade together, especially when they're packed close on a stand.  When I look at these guys from that distance, the red stays vivid, making good contrasts with the black and white of other parts of their uniforms.