Republican Romans.

After a longer than expected hiatus from what was supposed to be this years main project I have taken up again where I left off & finally finished a fourth maniple of hastati/princeps.

In addition I have managed to complete another ten velites, which is somewhat of a record given my usual slow painting speed.

One thing about painting all these light troops, you do realise what a large proportion of each legion they represented. Just the thing for tenderising a nice juicy phalanx before the heavies piled in.

Paint it Black. More Romans.

While I admit to having been diverted by other new & shiny fripperies work has been progressing on my main project for 2015:

Finally got bored with using the 'out of box' signifier, so I've cobbled together a more dynamic version using various spare parts. Also thinking about revising a couple of the shields, the gunmetal/black versions aren't as photogenic as the bronze/black versions.

Scottish/ Welsh Wars Miscellany.

Following a day of hedge planting in Cheshire at the end of last week I took a short detour on the way home to take a look at one of Edward I's more unusual & less well known castles at Holt on Dee.

Unusual in that the inner ward is constructed entirely on top of a sandstone outcrop, so that its ground floor would have been level with the first floor of the outer curtain wall. This fact & the surrounding marshy ground would have made it quite a tough nut to crack in a siege, though I suspect its main purpose, given its position on a crossing point of the River Dee between England & Wales, would have been imposition of tax on livestock drovers & merchants.

There isn't a lot left to see, though considerably more than last time I drove past when the entire structure was overgrown with ivy & bramble. The structure was slighted after the 1st Civil War & further denuded when masonry was shipped off for use in the construction of Eaton Hall further along the Dee. As you can see, the builders are currently in stabilising the site & putting handrails in place so one would assume the site is going to be open to access before much longer.

Some more progress has been made with the Lion Rampant retinue, here are a couple of the Highland Archers currently WIP:

Still managing to keep up a steady output of figures from the Workbench of Doom, despite being busy in the day job, one of our current projects is an American Barn for stabling horses, but if you would like a 36'x24' war-games shed building we would be happy to oblige.

Lion Rampant Retinue Begins To Take Shape.

Another wet one today in the disputed lands twixt England & Wales so an excellent opportunity to catch up on some admin'. Work on the Highland/ Island force for Lion Rampant is making steady progress with the first two units ( of men at arms) complete bar the heraldry, which is a job for later on today provided the weather doesn't clear. If it does I'll be out on the bicycle to blow the cobwebs away and have a sneaky pint down the local!

The archers for my retinue are already underway but have yet to decide where to source miniatures to represent the two units of 'Fierce Foot'. According to Claymore Casting's Facebook page they have figures for Irish Kern in the pipeline which together with the already available Ribalds would probably look about right, but a dredge through some other manufacturers catalogues wouldn't go amiss.

The republican roman project is also continuing to progress well, although nothing worthy of a photograph as yet. I have a feeling based on previous years that all this progress may be about to grind to a halt, generally speaking when we get into BST the work load & available daylight hours go up leading to a corresponding downturn in miniature painting. It does pay the bills though, so have to be philosophical about it.

More Pesky Islemen.

Despite my good intentions of carrying on with the roman project before embarking on anything new I have been sidetracked into painting more of my recent purchases from Claymore Castings.

Nice miniatures & really straightforward to paint, this opinion may change when I have to tackle heraldry. For some reason folk from the Western Isles had a penchant for quartering their arms which translates into being a bugger to paint at 28mm size, maybe time to investigate decals!

Lord of the Isles.

Following our yearly excursion to WMMS our most local war-games show, I have fallen prey to the cult of the new & taken to painting a few of my purchases from said show:

The first of my Lion Rampant retinue courtesy of Claymore Castings. I bought 6 packs of their Highlander/ Islemen packs from their Medieval range & very nice they are too, similar in size to Perry miniatures but almost flash free & very cleanly cast.
I also purchased the Lion Rampant rulebook because this system seems to offer a fairly quick game with reasonable (60 ish figures) forces, something I need to strive toward with my busy work schedule.
Also purchased was a facsimile copy of an Italian fencing manual circa 1640. European martial arts are another of my interests which I sadly get very little time to practise.

fig a.

Never got to do anything quite this violent at sixth form fencing club, though a friend & I did used to fight outside of said environs with sharp steel weapons & improvised armour. Could so easily have ended in tears ( see fig. a above).

More Romans.

Again I have taken the opportunity presented by torrential rain here in the Marches & put in some time at the workbench.

Really starting to hit my stride with these now, another couple of days & I will have this unit & its accompanying velites completed. Next job after that is to make a start on a unit with the pectoral armour, the intention being to use the mail armoured figures as princeps & triari and the pectoral armoured figures as hastati; though this may be subject to change for aesthetic reasons.
One thing I do need to do is source some suitable cavalry, thinking either Crusader or Gripping Beast at the moment but more research is needed before spending any hard earned cash.