Roman Iron

Hitting the ground with some 3rd Century Romans for Infamy! Infamy' from TFL rules. Time just seems to fly and for various reasons it took me longer to get these off the desk then I anticipated. These are heavy armored Imperial legionaries that make up the backbone of the Roman force and the core focal point of my army. I already began the Germans towards the end of last year and now onto some Romans. I may mix them both in the challenge, but at the moment the Romans take priority.

I picked 3rd Century Romans as they are probably my favorite looking of all the Romans because they have imho the most diverse look of all the periods they are involved in giving you more freedom to interpret their presentation. I just really like the mix bronze, iron and steel in various coats of banded armor, chainmail and scalemail toped off with an assortment of headgear makes for a vary interesting looking Roman force! 

I often like to take liberties and here is no exception when I added Palestinian clubmen to my western Roman force operating in Germania which I suspect is highly unlikely, but they look so cool I had to add them!
In the front rank I have the clubman and those Romans who have drawn their gladius after having thrown their pilums. The second rank is preparing to throw their pilums  in support of the front rank.

The figures are from A&A miniatures which have been around for quite a few years now, but like Foundry are standing up very well to the test of time. What is rather surprising is they are one of the few companies offering Romans from this period considering the range of armor, weapons and opponents one can find from this period.

The bases are from Charlie Foxtrot Models and Colin is a great chap to work with and will modify your bases to your specs. The paints I used were a mix of Foundry and Vallejo paints and some Mig pigments for weathering. The shields are decals from the most excellent LBM although I did add extra battle damage and weathering so they won't look exactly like that if you want some of your own.

More Infamy troops on the way!

Miniature Company- A&A miniatures

Thanks for viewing!

Ambush!

One of the great things about Infamy! Infamy' rules is the inclusion of  ambush markers which allows Barbarians to deploy onto the table by springing ambushes on the Romans in addition to normal deployment zones. These can be represented however you wish from a simple penny marker to a dioramic type base marker. I feel it's a perfect opportunity to let your imagination run a bit and come up with scenic bases to enhance the look of the table.

I really had quite some fun doing these markers as it gave me a chance to explore the different looks you may encounter a various Germans that might get a little lost within units but are easy to see a single base.

One thing I like to use in my basing is real material so all the rocks and fallen logs are straight from the woods/backyard and then further enhanced with paints and basing material if needed to age them for example. The banner I wanted to look a bit crude but not overly so and on some of the more feral Germans I played on that by adding black charcoal stripes.

I was inspired by one of the markers in the rulebook with the priestess praying to a sacrificial white horsehead, but I felt it needed a something to offer the sacrifice to so I decided a large rock with a earth mother type symbol painted on it would do the trick so I rummaged around the rocks a bit until I found one I felt would fit the bill nicely. Needless to say it's quite heavy!

Another interesting marker for the Germans is the wailing women which is a marker the German player can place behind his units as a rally point. Historically it seems some Germanic women would often go behind the fighting lines to stiffen the men's resolve by reminding them what would happen to the women if they were taken prisoner and what the men could lose and would even remove clothing to further drive the point home so to speak.

More on the way and probably some Romans this time! First post of 2021 and hopefully a more productive year then last.....well hopefully a better year for all of us and a Happy New Year to you all!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company- Wargames Foundry Miniatures

Ancient Germans burst forth!

 

Well it turned out to be much longer then I expected since my last post! Generally speaking I had just lost my mojo for anything hobby related with moments of getting it back then losing it quickly again resulting in no posts and sporadic comments on other blogs at best so apologies to those I've missed. I think things are better now.  Let us hope 2021 is much better!

With the arrival of TFL's Infamy, Infamy earlier this year I knew there was one army I had to collect and that was Ancient Germans! Ever since seeing the Gladiator film with the Germans emerging from the misty woods giving their savage battle cries I was hooked and knew someday I would collect an army for it. Soon after that(or around that?) Wargames Foundry produced what I consider to be the best Ancient Germans ever so I of course began to collect them, but without any real purpose so they sat on a shelf for years until Infamy!Infamy was released giving them a new life. I had to repaint them as they were a bit dated and here are my first results. 

First set of warriors are the warlords Oathsworn Warriors which would typically be made up of nobles or elevated warriors of the tribe making up the fighting elite. They would usually be the best armed and armored warriors outside of those that may have served with the Romans as Foederati. This is easily seen as they carry rare and highly prized and valuable swords with the occasional piece of armor.

 

Next are regular warriors who will make up the bulk the army armed mostly with spears and shields with an occasional pelt for extra protection and perhaps a club for some head breaking!

 Second batch of warriors armed like there brothers with spears and shields.

The overall look of the army I went with subdued colors for both clothes and shields to better play up the more savage tribal look then you may find in Celts for example so lots of browns with some toned downs greys and reds here and there.

The figures themselves are a bit cartoonish which I like so I played on that making the colors strong even while still using subdued shades which I tend to do most of the time anyhow so was pretty fun.

The colors I used were mostly Foundry with some Vallejo. More Germans on the way and some Romans as well over the next few months as I expect my painting to pick up now that the annual Analogue Hobbies Challenge has started here! 

Merry Christmas and may your stockings be full of lead!

Miniature Company-Wargames Foundry

The rest of my Pennsylvania Provincials for F&IW

I just can't seem to get on track with posting and commenting lately as too many distractions, but I have been painting here and there so I do have plenty to post whenever I get around to doing it. My focus has switched from WWII back to F&IW at the moment as I want to have a collection designed for Sharp Practice and I'm about half way where I want to be.

This is my 3rd group of Pennsylvania Provincials giving my a complete set. So far I'm keeping the troop types more in tune with the border fighting so Provincials, Militia, settlers and rangers will make up most of the English forces and Compagnies Franches de la Marines, Indians and Militia making up the French. That's not set in stone as I may add Regulars at some point, but that's the initial plan to give me a focus to both painting and perhaps a small campaign. 

Part of the reason I picked Pennsylvania Provincials is I quite like the color green in historical armies and this was included in their uniform which I decided I wanted it to be a dark shade, but not to dark that the tones disappear. What's also quite fun to do is changing up colors in the leggings that's a great aspect of F&IW in allowing more creativity.

The figures themselves are from Galloping Major and very enjoyable to paint in part due to their large size and character the figures have. I mix Redoubt and Galloping Major as I feel they mix very well together. The paint colors used were mostly Foundry with some Vallejo and MIG pigments for some dusting on the stones.

All forces need leaders so I added 2 officers a drummer a sergeant. The sergeants I placed with their groups in my group pics, but included this one with the officers as well. I must say the sculpts for the 2 officers are just excellent!

It been great fun working on the project looking forward to getting a game in with them at some point!

It wouldn't be complete without a full group shot of them all on their sabot bases ready for action! The sabot bases are from Warbases if your curious.

I expect more French and Indian to follow. Also I will be building forces for that enticing looking new rule set from TFL "Infamy! Infamy!" Happy 4th of July weekend to all us Americans out there!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Galloping Major

AWI British casualty markers

Still here just falling way behind on photographing the things I've completed....well actually falling behind on anything blog related in general.

These markers for the British will cover me for a little while, but I still need to do some more, but until then I have some Hessian ones to do first.

The figures are from the Perry AWI range and the bases are from warbases if I remember correctly.The paints I used are mostly Foundry with some Vallejo.

This was just a quick post to say hi and I hope everyone is holding up well.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature company- Perry Miniatures

Sherman M4A3 with additional sandbag armored rack

I'm getting seriously behind on posting old projects as I have quite a back log building anyhow on to the subject at hand. I painted this M4A3 Sherman with a sandbag rack last year as I found it quite interesting looking with the sandbags.

It's my first attempt using an airbrush and I'm quite pleased with the result although the sandbags had to be done by hand or at least I did them by hand. For paints I used the MIG armor packs which I find are just fantastic especially for newbie airbrushers like myself! They come in packs to include shade, base, highlight removing the need for fiddly mixing which is great. I'm a super fan of MIG as I love the paints and pigments ensuring this product will become my go to armor product and no I don't work for them just really like the products!

Since my friend Nick has a lot of experience painting armor (fantastic blog here with excellent tutorials being just some of the superb things there) I played around with oil paints(Winsor and Newton) as he did for the filters and it indeed does give a very pleasing effect albeit a bit awkward when your not exactly sure of yourself or the process. This I then followed up with my much more familiar MIG pigments to add dust and grime which for me is the most fun!:-)

The photography still needs some work as there is a bit more reddish tinge in places on the model, but it's close enough. I would say after cleaning up miniatures/ tools taking pictures is my least favorite part of the process, but I like to share so not really any away around it although sometimes it's fun to set up scenes and take pics when the mood strikes.

The model itself is a Warlord resin kit and was pretty quick and easy to put together and I like the additional heft of the resin. I have some plastics kits to do but admit I have some trepidation as I don't like the assembly process of plastics or the ultra light weight, but there are some nice looking kits with extra detail that were hard to pass up so see how it goes.

Currently I have some German armor on my desk to give that a try and see how it goes along with two other projects. I usually work on one project at a time but right now I'm painting three different things as I cannot decide from each day which one I should do. I've been pretty busy and distracted so if I've missed commenting on your blogs my apologies, but I do at least try and look if I don't have time to make a reply. Lots of good things out there keep it up!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Warlord