I have however, been busy enough to merit a reasonable length blog post this time around. Concering various gaming systems as always, and a little bit of scenery.
So let's start things off with another dose of my amateur history - the military of the ancient Romans. I have once again returned to the realms of Hail Caesar, and the release of their latest Late Republican Romans has got me heading for a new and hopefully, will-be-finished-this-time force for the period of the Roman Civil Wars started by Julius Caesar and ended by his nephew Octavian.
My knowledge on the subject is quite extensive (he says) in the majority of elements as my collection of books on the subject is quite varied and large. However, I cannot say nor claim to be an expert in any sense.
I have a box of 24 Late Republican Legionaries, which is already partly under construction, although I am basing each legionary individually, but have a movement tray for gaming purposes. The Centurion is the first to be assembled, and is a very slight conversion, in that I have used a helmet from the later Early Imperial stock from Warlord Games, which has been shaved down to represent a Coolus pattern helmet from the era I aiming for, this is due to the fact I am not a big fan of the provided Centurion's helmet - designed to be a type based off Greek heritage, it includes a face element, but was not ever designed to be worn down on the face, and to me looks odd and so is not likely to be included in my force.
I have also taken to modifying some of the Montefortino helmets included in the force. In that in order to fit in with the style I am aiming for in my force I have removed the crests from the helmets, which makes the force look more rough and ready, and it helps make the Centurion stand out even more. However, I may not do this to every helmet, which makes the century look less uniform. Which I feel suits an ancient army, the romans were not 100% the same in terms of a uniform for every man, sword and dagger hilts were decorated depending upon the wealth of the soldier, the Lorica Hamata, or mail armour was a reasonably uniformed element, but tunics would probably have been various colours, which I will not enter debate on.
Here's the finished Centurion and a few work-in-progress pictures:
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| The newest romans from Caesar's legion |
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| The sprues as they come from the box |
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| View of the Centurion from behind, showing the chain mail and scabbard details |
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| The front of my finished Late Republican/Civil War era Roman Centurion |
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| Standard bearer/Vexillarius of the century being represented |
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| Basic legionary, with the helmet cressed removed |
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| A legionary mid-way through painting, this isn't the same one as above, in case my progress seems even slower than believed! |
And to lead this new army are of course, Legates and associated ranks, which i found relatively cheaply from Foundry miniatures on ebay, brand new. They provide a bit more variety and a less "imperial" look to their gear, and so I feel more comfortable using them than another set of Roman officers from Warlord Games.I will post pictures of these in my next blog post after I have based them.
In other news I have started playing Malifaux, a game of Victorian and Gothic Horror mixed together. I have started with the Guild faction, the closest thing to the law in the game's background. I have a force, it is based around Lucius, a Henchmen, a low level commander in game terms, but perfect for my favourite aspect, the creepy soldiers of the guild, shrouded and kitted in long coats and deep shadow causing hats, along with large rifles. So far I have finished a Guild Captain, who came in the boxed set for Lucius, whilst this came with five models, and a further three riflemen came in a seperate box. Below is my progress for this force so far:
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| My Guild force under Lucius as it currently stands |
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| The Guild Captain, fully painted |
I have played my first game for this on Friday (5th April), and despite starting off with what I thought was a tactical advantage, I was resoundly beaten. I did come to realise that Guild Riflemen, a type of Guardsman and some of my favourite looking models from the range are very good units in terms of rules. They are capable of supporting each other, add defence to my current crew commander and can combine their activation to enable one riflemen to shoot three times, all the while ignoring cover bonus defences.
I have also gained an addition to my Kingdom of Brittania force for Dystopian Legions, one of my squads is equipped with a flamethrower, this was the squad from the starter set, and so is better off than the squad that I got second. This has been partially rectified by the newest addition, a HMG section consisting of a large HMG with gunner and a seperately based loader.
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| The new HMG section for my second squad |
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| The Dystopian Legions force without the new HMG or the second Basset Tankette |
In other game news, my UCM force for Dropzone Commander has grown and become stronger; with the addition of two Scimitar tank destroyers, large tanks with prototype laser turrets, a command Kodiak APC, which is based upon the Bear APCs used as standard transports, the final addition to this force is a Seraphim heavy fighter, used for ground attacks in game terms, it is a big aerial unit compared to the ground vehicles.
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| All of my UCM for Dropzone Commander so far |
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| Top-down view of the Seraphim heavy fighter for the UCM |
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| Seraphim before it's started being painted |
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| Kodiak Command APC |
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| A Scimatar Heavy Battle Tank |
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| The three Condor dropships of the UCM force so far |
My final current project not yet quite finished, but very soon is a Detached house for 28mm games, based on 18th-current era european architecture from 4Ground. It is pre-painted, but comes flat-packed and must be assembled, following the instructions as carefully possible. A door or two on the inside and the chimney are the only real things that still need to be done to polish this thing off.
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| The building as it comes in packaging |
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| The sprues and assembly instructions |
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| The ground and 1st floor mid-construction (yes, I did make a labelling error, but it made sense to me at the time), the building is now virtually assembled. |
