BTD Greek Command Stands

I made an order with Black Tree Design some time ago and after nearly 2 months of it not arriving, I decided to cancel. I also made an order for some of their Greek elders to go on my command stands on the day of asking for a refund. They made a mistake with the refund and offered me a free pack of figures for the trouble caused! So I chose one of the Athenian Command packs as they looked a lot like my other Spartans/Greeks and all credit to them, they did a very good job in sending out my second order incredibly quickly and were very apologetic over the previous delay/mess up. Below is a couple of pictures of the figures as i've arranged together with a brief description of each one.

The two figures at the back are BTD Greek elders and the figure at the front is from their Athenian Command pack. I intend to use him as a general and the two elders will act as his advisors. It should be an attractive game piece! Also, I need to cut off the shield nodule on his hand as I don't want him to have a shield as it would obscure his dramatic stance.

This will act as a more ornamental piece on the table top rather than a functional piece representing the oracle used in Warhammer Ancient Battles Alexander supplement. The two figures on the right are Wargames Foundry Spartan figures and the one of the left comes from BTD. I have a good idea for this piece, he looks a little like he's disgusted by the sacrifice of a goat and like he's wrenching! I have a great idea for his facial expression and might blood spatter the boy!

Feel free to leave a comment and i'll get back to you. All pictures are clickable.

Peltasts Update

I've just finished my first base of mercenary Peltasts and I'm quite pleased with them! They're now glued on and just need sanding, dry brushing and flocking/tufting. They've taken much longer than expected to complete. Because of their different colours, I had to keep switching between different pots of paint which was very time consuming. I'm painting four at a time at the minute to ensure each base looks as "together" as possible.

You can see my new technique with the Army Painter Quickshade where i've dipped the figure and then removed the excess with a brush (before I just dipped and left it) which stops it pooling and leaving 'dirty-looking' patches. I was influenced by Saxon Dog's blog which you can find here. He paints his on direct from the tin which is something I will do after this unit (for continuity reasons) and his methods also saves wasting any AP!

The pictures below are clickable. Feel free to leave a comment with any thoughts or suggestions and i'll get back to you.

I got the inspiration for these brightly coloured Macedonian Peltasts from the illustrations in Nick Secunda's book "The Army of Alexander the Great" which is published by Osprey (see picture below).

Peltasts!

Not quite the finished article yet but they're on their way. I spent an hour or so gluing spears and shields in place this morning and I tried to split them into those I would give coloured tunics and those I would give white (7 coloured, 9 white). I've also roughly arranged them on their bases (don't worry! I haven't glued them on) to see which figures go well together and how the spread of colours would look. I was a little worried whether it would look a bit stupid with the colours being different and standing out (I have to admit, I prefer uniformity!) but I think it'll turn out fine, and once the coloured tunics are shaded down, it will look a little more blended and together as a unit.

By this time, Peltasts tended to form up into units, acting more like infantry than skirmishers which I why i've decided to base them this way. I plan to base my Psiloi on four separate bases (each base forms a square the size of two of the smaller bases shown in the photo) to represent their loose skirmish formation.

I hope to finish this unit by Sunday evening and will post a photo or two when they are!

Spartans!

This is the first of my Spartan allies/mercenaries and to the right of him is the leader of the mercenary peltasts (he's blu tak'd to a base as I plan to base him and his unit on rectangular bases, four to a base). I painted these figures individually to get a feel for the figures before painting the rest of their units. I've used the Army Painter again and as you can see, it's given a great effect on the Spartan's cloak and tunic.

Both figures are from Wargames Foundry and the spear is Gripping Beast.

On the painting table

I've just returned to University after a weekend at home and I've brought up some more figures to paint since the unit of Romans I've been working on is virtually finished! These are Wargames Foundry figures. I took advantage of their Christmas Discount offer and bought a couple of regiment deals. I bought one of their skirmisher packs (Athenian Army Deal) and two Spartan Hoplite packs (Spartan Army Deal) for use as mercenaries or allies. I also bought a pack of Peltast characters and a Spartan Command blister. This should take me up to about 2000 points in the way of a Macedonian army for WAB.

I'm hoping to get these painting fairly quickly and to a high standard. The three characters in the bottom left of the photo (clickable) will be based on a 50mm circle base for use as a General command stand. The figure above them will be the leader of one of my units of Hoplites but I'm painting him first as an experiment for colours etc.

Cavalry Command

I've just returned from the Partizan wargames show at Kelham Hall, Newark and I managed to pick up these two command figures fairly cheaply. I have some Companion cavalry which already have a command unit but I've recently received a unit of Greek and Theban cavalry which are currently leaderless so I thought these characters would make an attractive addition to the unit.

Horse Archers (2)

Here, I have applied the basic colours to the Horse. It's a little too ornate for the period i'm playing but it will certainly add some character and much needed colour to the battlefield!

This is a shot after the Army Painter dip has dried, some 24 hours later. As you can see it's given the cloth over the Horse a really nice shaded effect although it has given the whole model a shine but this can easily be remedied by using a matt varnish spray.

The rider now needs painting and then gluing to the Horse which will then be properly based.

Horse Archers

I'm going to be doing a couple of posts to demonstrate the painting of one of my Assyrian horse archers. I chose Assyrian horse archers because I preferred their look to other horse archers currently on the market. I can use these initially against my Macedonians and later on incorporate them much like Alexander did after being harassed by them throughout his journey across Asia. They also form part of an Assyrian army I got from Wargames Foundry at a discount (I know it's historically inaccurate to fight the two being several hundred years apart but they come from the same part of Asia geographically as many of Alexander's enemies and share very similar tactics and troop types).

This archer's legs and torso were separated by a thick piece of metal so you can position the body to your liking. I had to get my Dad to do it because it was so thick and he cut a big chunk of the torse out! So I had to use 'green stuff' for the first time which was a little tricky at first but I managed to successfully fill the gap.

I then sprayed both the horse and archer their basic colours as I will be using the 'Army Painter' available through Warlord Games. This method is often overlooked and laughed at by more experienced painters but novice painters such as myself can get a really satisfying effect and make it look almost as good as seasoned professional's work!

I received the Alexander WAB rules supplement through the post today. It makes for a very interesting read and gives some great ideas for future units and colour schemes.

Macedonian 28mm Phalanx

The Macedonian army I ordered from Wargames Foundry arrived the other day and to my horror none of them came with weapons! I am aware that buying individual packs require weapons but I assumed that buying from an army deal would automatically include weapons as it's supposed to be a complete army. So I now have lots of angry, ill-equipped Greeks with no weapons. Nowhere on the page does it say separate weapons are required so I might send them a polite email asking what I can do.

I however have some pikes that I got free with my ancients painting set which will arm some of the troops (See the pictures included in this post). They are very attractive figures and i'll really enjoy painting them (although it will have to wait a little while whilst I finish of some of my Roman units).

Welcome

Greetings and welcome to my new blog! I have just purchased a Macedonian army from Wargames Foundry and have created this blog to document its development from purchase through to its painting and finally, it's completion.

I will regularly update this blog with pictures to show each stage of the army's creation.

This blog may be useful if you're considering building an army or are in the process of building one so we can overcome the problems faced together. It'd be great if you could 'follow' my blog so you can keep up to date with what's happening (I promise to only update this when I actually have something to show!)