Distracted by Celts

Got a bit distracted this afternoon, instead of pushing on with either of the two Thracian units currently under the brush I started updating the bases on my unit of Celts/ Gauls/ Galatians.

 Really shouldn't get side tracked like this but they really did need sorting out.

The Wild Bunch.

Work continues apace on my newly acquired Thracians, however due to a lack of equestrian bases in the commisary department I've moved on to painting Thracian Infantry:

I bought twenty of these Crusader Miniatures to supplement an small unit that i painted a couple of years back for my Antigonid Army. This will boost the unit up to thirty two strong making it much more viable on the tabletop, at twelve figures it wasn't really a lot of use.

Renegade Celts. Due a re-base.

This got me thinking about doing the same thing with my unit of twenty Galatians, they look great but are really too small a unit to be of much use. The only problem is Renegade Miniatures seem to have ceased doing business so I will need to look elsewhere for reinforcements. Any suggestions?

Thracian Cavalry WIP.

A couple of progress shots from the Workbench of Doom:

Polemarch Neo Tarentines + Thureos = later Seleucid Thracian Cavalry.

With some of their forbears, Crusader Thracians in Antigonid service.

Yeah I know gone a bit Thracian mad recently, though both manufacturers versions are fairly generic. The Crusader miniatures would make perfectly good Achaean league heavy cavalry or even Seleucid Politikoi.
The pink stripe added to the shield is pure invention/extrapolation on my part, I took the idea of the 'national' cloak colours mentioned in the last post & inspired by blue stripes shown on Galatian shields in an Angus McBride painting extended the logic to a similar distinction on Thracian shields. Probably errant nonsense but it will make them stand out on the tabletop.

Thracian Mercenary Cavalry.

This is the first painted example of my purchases from WMMS. He started life as a Polemarch (Gripping Beast) Neo Tarentine from their Successor range, but I didn't like the strange cut down thureos shield that comes as standard. So after browsing for inspiration through Nick Sekunda's 'The Seleucid Army' I replaced the smaller original shield with a full sized Thureos thus turning a Neo Tarentine into a Thracian Mercenary in Seleucid service.

According to Dr. Sekunda's aforementioned volume the Thracian cavalry in Seleucid employ were marked by having pink cloaks, at least in the later Hellenistic era. These figures could be used for pretty much any of the general purpose cavalry of the period though, a blue cloak with hood for Galatians for instance.

Back of Beyond. Part the Second.

Continuing the 1920s Asian theme, some more Copplestone Miniatures.

The sadistic & revolting Roman von Ungern Sternberg.

Bolshevik Heroines.

Bolshevik Naval Infantry.

Bolshevik Commisar in trademark black leather.

Back of Beyond.

Absolutely no progress on the painting front this week because of this:

A case of what is locally & rather quaintly referred to as Dick finger ( a reference I believe to the swollen & purple end of an injured digit). The up-shoot of in-advisedly getting said digit caught between two pieces of heavy duty steel section in a moment of in-attention. Suffice to say it served to wake me up a bit.
As a consequence no painting done this week, so I've been sorting out some of the miniatures in storage, including the titular Back of Beyond items from Copplestone Castings. So in the absence of any new stuff, I offer instead this retrospective.

Warlord Chinese "75"

Warlord Chinese MG.

Chinese Mortar, apparently mortars were very popular in 1920's Chinese Armies.

As were executions to encourage the troops.

Bolshevik Maxim gun, elite crew.

Bolshevik Maxim, regular crew.

Bolshevik Lewis gunner.

Soviet Naval Maxim.

Austin Armoured Car.

Bolshevik "75".

Some seriously nice stuff from Mark Copplestone, I can only wonder as to why he undertook to produce miniatures for such an obscure time & place as 1920's Central Asia, but I'm glad he did. This is the reason I was introduced to the books of Peter Hopkirk & such fascinating & diverse characters as Roman Ungern Sternberg, Col. F. M. Bailey & Sven Hedin.

WMMS2014.

On what was hopefully the first of a long succession of sunny March days Mr. Ireland & I made the 40 mile trip to Wolverhampton for our local wargaming show.

Nice to get out & have a look round at the trade stands & demo/participation games though not much to really catch the eye in either department. The highlight of the demo games by some way was a large Yom Kippur war set up in 20mm with some excellent terrain & miniatures. This was run a close second by Hougoumont in 28mm, this seems to have done the rounds of UK shows in the last year but does look good in the flesh; particularly well executed fur fabric turf it must be said.
The continuing dearth of ancients games does continue to puzzle me though, there are some very good ranges of miniatures available after all & plenty of evidence here on the web that there is still an active contingent of gamers who enjoy the period, perhaps its time to actually put the ancients collection under the glare of public scrutiny & bring ancients gaming back to the Midlands.

Not too many highlights in the purchasing department either, a unit each of Crusader Thracians & Polemarch Tarentines purchased from Col. Bills at very reasonable prices ( 20 infantry & 10 cavalry for £40 odd quid) were the only buys this year, nothing else really grabbed me though I did have a serious look at Commands & Colours Ancients by GMT games, didn't bite though, waited until this morning & ordered it from my local boardgame supplier for 20% less than rrp. I'm far too much of a scrooge to do impulse buying these days & at least I can put money in a friends pocket this way.
Interesting to note the growth in laser cut accessories, the number of vendors selling them has been increasing over the last couple of years & some of them are very good indeed, for my money they make very convincing timber structures but don't capture the look of stone or brick or slate very well. This market I think is hitting saturation point.

All in all an O.K. morning out, nothing to get really excited about but with the world at your finger tips its rare that the next new thing slips past the aegis eye; the show seemed well attended as always but we both felt it was a little flat compared with previous years & its hard to escape the fact that the age demographic is decidedly the wrong side of 40, though mercifully incidences of 'soap dodging' have almost disappeared these days.
Enough philosophising for now must go & undercoat figures.

Imperial Alejandro with Flag.

Finally knuckled down to providing a flag for Imperial Alejandro this morning. It was raining again & I couldn't face being wet on the Sabbath so seemed as good a time as any.

The flag was downloaded some time ago from the Capitan Games website & re-touched with acrylics to sharpen up the colours & modify the style of the cross. The escutcheons at the ends of the cross of Burgundy are actually those of the Concepcion Regiment, but the eagles depicted are close enough to those of Imperial Alejandro to be left alone. They should I believe be double headed, but its hard to tell from more than a foot away.

Here is the Regiment as of today, one more base of Fusileros to complete & then its onto the Gran Colombians.