Republican Roman Italian Allies. Progress at last.

Firstly, Merry Christmas one & all. I'm not a great fan of the festive season myself, but after a very tough year at work I was actually ready for a few days of enforced inactivity this time round. Christmas eve was spent drinking ill advised cocktails; yesterday was much the same but with the addition of a vast beef dinner & today has been spent drinking Welsh gin & tonic whilst painting miniatures. All in all a fine few days that I have really enjoyed. Its back to work tomorrow to catch up on paperwork, though I can see this going by the by & spending the day instead driving round dropping invoices off & drinking tea with customers instead. The joys of running your own company!

Anyway, I digress. Pictured below is the current state of progress with the Roman project:

These are the hastati/ princeps from the Victrix boxed set, the velites are already under way with the Triarii to follow soon, at this rate I will have a viable army by Christmas 2016 & maybe even get to game with it within the next decade.

Second Roman Cohort. Scant Progress.

Don't ask me where the last month has gone because I don't know. Wherever it has gone, it has left me with very little time to pursue anything vaguely war-game based. I did think I might get a bit done when I had a week working down in Devon, but after 12-14 hour days working alone the local pub 200 yards down the road proved a greater draw than sitting in a cold farmhouse trying to paint miniatures in inadequate light.

A lovely spot, not as lovely as The Ashill Inn round the corner though.

I did get some painting done, but it was mostly windowsills & doors. The rest of my week consisted of carpentry work & cutting back what my temporary neighbour described as, Le Jardin Sauvage! He wasn't kidding either, it was quite frankly, a jungle. I spent one entire afternoon balls deep in the pond cutting out bullrush with a billhook. Still took my mind off the fact it was pissing with rain!
The rest of November has been similarly busy despite the shortening hours of daylight, just means I have less excuse to ignore the burgeoning stack of paperwork on my desk.

Anyhoo, here are a couple of shots of the latest recruits:

As I say, scant progress; a situation unlikely to change this side of new year. Back down to Devon at the end of next week & then helping out re-furbishing a kitchen over the festive period, at least I have plenty of variety in my work.

Whitey!

Finished off the test figure for the second maniple of Italian Allies yesterday evening. Decided to go for a lighter palette this time round:

Lots of Vallejo Panzer Colour being used on these figures. The base for the tunic & shield are Canvas, with white added for the highlights; the red feathers are a base coat of Tail light with Carmine Red highlights.
Its early days, but I think I may have finally conquered my ( irrational) dislike of Republican Romans with these figures!

Reports of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Hi all, its been a while. The reasons for my lack of posting since September have been variously & in no particular order, work, work, more work, surfing holiday in Portugal, more work, lung infection & doing paddle duties for a mate who was up shit creek; think that about covers it.
Therefore progress on the Italian Allies has been patchy to say the least, but here are things as they stand:

Three views of the first maniple of hastati/ princeps.

 Very pleased with them so far, only slight reservation is the slightly " Osprey" stance of the Signifer.

and A couple of work in progress shots of cornificer & velite.

Hoping to get a bit more done over the weekend but I fear paddling duties & painting the bathroom at HGA Towers may take precedence.

More Italian Allies.

Plodding quietly through these chaps; four down, 56 to go.

Need to come up with some suitable designs for the shields, plain red is a bit flat.

First Ever Eye'talian.

It's happened again I'm afraid. I've been distracted from finishing a current, well relatively speaking project by something new & shiny. Though in mitigation I have finished a small Theban command vignette:

On reflection it looks more like idle chit-chat than command, but that's what happens when blokes congregate. At least it does with my 'blokes' & I suspect human nature hasn't changed greatly over the millennia.
The current new & shiny is this, courtesy of Victrix Miniatures:

Of course I could have bought either of the two Roman sets also released,  but true to form the most obscure boxed set of the three was my purchase of choice. Below is the first ever Ancient Italian miniature I have ever painted:

Have to say, seriously impressed with the quality of this set. Slightly smaller ( about 2mm to eyeline) than the hoplite figures but the facial features and general anatomy are much more refined. Fit of parts very good & mould lines acceptable; but will need a very fresh scalpel blade to remove satisfactorily, otherwise plastic seems to pick up under the edge - though a dab of liquid poly' will cure this.
Take into account as well that for £ 30 you get 60 figures.
Only minor criticisms: feathers on helmets quite fragile, though this could equally apply to white metal figures & removing hilt from scabbarded gladius takes a fine touch so as not to destroy armour detail ( see above miniature).
Overall impression 9 out of 10.

Back to the paint bench & a short discourse on archery.

After a fairly lengthy lay-off from doing anything related to miniature gaming the shortening days have forced me indoors of an evening & back to the painting desk. Firstly managed to complete the desert dwelling featured last time:

Thanks to Dean M for suggesting a white dry brush, really helped what was previously a very uniform finish.
Currently on the painting desk are the remaining Victrix hoplites from the box of Thebans, well actually hoplites with boetian helmets:

Not actually seen any evidence that hoplites even wore boetian helmets, but I'm sure someone could point out a source for me. Personally I would think this particular style of helmet to be fairly comfortable & practical, certainly less restrictive than the corinthian & chalcidian styles more commonly seen. Once these guys are done it will be onto Victrix Romans & Italian allies.

On a slightly different subject I finally got round to test firing my home made bow this week.

Home made bow on home made tiller.

I made this a couple of years back from a piece of unusually knot free yew that I found in the middle of a very over grown hedge. I think the conditions restricted the amount of side growth that makes the timber very knotty & hard to work with, so this seemed too good an opportunity to miss. The bow is a shade under 6ft long with a draw weight of approximately 45lbs and will throw a heavy bodkin point around 125 yards.
Its been a interesting project & it was good to actually test the bow out in the field, but compared to firing my laminated Scythian bow a somewhat disappointing experience, the same arrow fired from this bow with a very similar draw weight travels a good 40 yds further. This is likely a testimony to my poor bow making skills, but it did make me wonder if yew as a bow making material is inherently inefficient, is this why the classic medieval longbows required the massive ( 100lb plus) draw weights to achieve their purported killing power. Time to do some research before lunch I think.