Xyston 15mm Late Spartan Greek army WIP06 - Spartan cavalry

The final batch of cavalry for the army, and my mounted commanders/generals.

As before, here are some close ups, but they're not really painted for such close scrutiny...

You may have noticed that the commanders are on sabots. These were made for me by the helpful chaps at Warbases.

28mm Spartan Greek army WIP04 - finished mercenary hoplites

New unit finished, mercenary hoplites

 

Some of the shields are freehand, most are decals from the immortal miniatures box.

So that's three units completed so far, and here they are...

And a general's eye-view whilst I'm at it.

There's another unit of hoplites to do, then probably some slingers and some Spartans.

Xyston 15mm later Spartan Greek army WIP03 - Basing

For basing, I have pre-cut MDF sized for Impetus from Warbases.co.uk. I use GOLDEN texture gels for easy, ready-mixed goodness. For this project, I'll be using their 'clear granules' which has worked well on my 15mm Laserburn miniatures.

This shot shows the just-applied gel. Very white at the moment.

These are custom made sabots that I'll be using for my command group. The size is standard for a cavalry unit, but has six slots for oval sabots. As I'm only filling three of the slots at the moment, I've made three blank sabots too.

Also from Warbases, a nice 15mm bridge. I've applied some gel to cover the joins from the construction process.

Here you can see how the gel dries - mainly clear, but some of the denser areas remain white. No worries though, it will all get covered up with the paint and suchlike.

Finally for this instalment, I've given them an all-over wash of Vallejo Smokey Ink (also called 'Smoke' in other incarnations. This is a lovely pigment-rich chocolate brown. I've also added some slate chips for rocky outcrops, salvaged from a planter in town >:)

In the next update, I'll show the drybrush layers and their cumulative effects. Those riders might get on their horses too...

Xyston 15mm later Spartan Greek army WIP02

Some more on this project.

Today I drilled all the hands on the cavalry, and made a start on their weapons. I also started on the basing.

Cretan Mercenary Archers, two units

Horses from one of the cavalry units

The spears are Xyston's 50mm leaf-tipped ones. Looking at the length of the Dory, they would seem to be way too long, as they're supposed to be 7-9'. For 15mm (though more like 18mm with scale creep), that makes them pikes. I'm going to cut them all in half, which on reflection I should have done before I painted a load of them.

Painting spears.

For painting, I found some expanded polystyrene, and stuck the points in for painting, which made the job a lot easier.

Xyston 15mm later Spartan Greek army WIP01

Oh dear. I appear to have started yet another project.

I've just been on holiday, and there's nothing more relaxing than painting by the pool. 

These are Xyston 15mm Peloppenesian war era miniatures. I was given the box set as a gift waaay back, and they all fit, along with paints, glue, knife and brushes into a modest 25cm x 25cm x 15cm box. At Sheffield triples I supplemented them with some support units, so they went in too. The other 28mm Greeks are the aforementioned (in 28mm WIP02) Jason and the Argonauts miniatures from Foundry.

Production line.

 The four standing hoplites and the over-the-shoulder lad were done on my 6mm Greek project when I was last on holiday in 2011. The advancing miniature is from chariot, I think.

The four riders at the front are heavy cavalry in boiotian helmets and cuirass. I've painted them as mercenaries as I don't think the Spartans relied too much on cavalry at the time I've aimed for (418BC).

Just started on the 28mm figures I brought along for 'thematic light relief', much the same reason as I took the 15mm stuff I worked on when doing the 6mm project for. Painting multiples can be very tedious at times and I find a scale break can revitalise things.

I am back from my Internet-free holiday now, and I can report that although I completed a fair bit, I still have much to do. These may well progress alongside counterpart 28mm units in the other project. 

I have completed, bar varnishing;

8 Cretan archers

3 Spartan light cavalry

4 Spartan cavalry

4 Spartan mounted commanders

4 Mercenary heavy cavalry

A lot of cavalry there for an infantry-heavy army, but I wanted to cover options.

Undercoated, we have;

40 hoplites

4 psilioi

2 slingers

And in various stages of production;

4 hoplites

4 commanders and musicians

8 mercenary hoplites.

Still a lot to do, but it's going well.

28mm Spartan Greek Army WIP02

Last weekend was the Sheffield Triples wargames show, so it was a chance to pick up some of the bits I needed for this army.

I needed some tufts for my bases, which look quite nice when applied

Minifigs 25mm Thracian and generic peltasts

I chose MiniNatur moss (early fall) and short tufts (late fall) to simulate the sparse Greek countryside.

Here are some more shots of peltasts with these applied;

I mentioned my later Spartans from foundry, here's WIP on those;

Foundry Spartan command

Servant

WIP on another hoplite

Need to do his shield and touch up some areas

later hoplite. I think his spear may be too long for that period.

Musician

I picked up some other foundry Greeks at the show, though these are character figures really. 

Although, if I base them up on 2p coins, I can add them to sabots like this;

Sabot base from Warbases for miniatures based on 2p coins

My main purchase was some Victrix peltasts, javelin men and slingers:

Here's a look at the sprues;

There are 6 of these

And four of these smaller sprues.

56 figures in total, and I picked them up at nearly a fiver off list price, which was nice.

Other than that, I have 'finished' one of the unarmoured Vendel hoplites. Still really not very happy with it though. I'll get the spears and shields on them all, and they will have to do. 

More soon

28mm Spartan Greek Army WIP01

As with most gamers, I always seem to have multiple projects on the go. Well I'm glad to say that this isn't one that I have just started, it's been an ongoing project for many, many years.

Back in days of yore (We are talking 70s here), I made my first army, which was a minifigs 25mm Spartan Greek force. 

Over the years, most of the hoplites disappeared, I think into my 'friends' collections, leaving me with a few bits and bobs. In the heady days of citadel RuneQuest miniatures, I secured myself several units of the hoplites and swordsmen from that range, which remain until this day, unpainted.

Come 2005, and the miniatures from Vendel had piqued my interest:

In this VHS box, 40 miniatures that made up all the ranks necessary for a block of troops, spears bristling.

Over further shows, I picked up some Foundry Spartan command, although looking through my reference material, those miniatures are more for the Peloppenesian war period - the aim of the 25/28mm force is that it is 480bc - the Persian wars. 

So my heavies are pretty much all sorted, but I am sorely lacking in light infantry. One of the groups that did survive were minifigs Thracian peltasts, so a couple of years ago I touched them up. A couple of generic peltasts from minifigs made a workable unit. 

They're not the world's best miniatures, but they'll do until I get something better. I've based them for impetus - units are determined by bases size, so one can put as many or as few as required on the base. 

Other miniatures that survived from the minifigs days were some cavalry, with cuirass and boiotian helmets. As they're skirmishers, three to the base suffices. I need to drill the broken javelins out of the painted one's hand, and paint the other two riders, but I fixed up the old horses and got a base made:

Back to the Vendel troops, I made a start on two ranks when I decided to use Impetus. I got a fair way through, but they are very uninspiring to paint. Anyway, they're back on the table with a need to just get them finished and based so I can get on to better things, and maybe some more from that box.

These guys are mainly mercenary troops, so they have many varied shields.

So where from here? Well, A box of immortal plastic hoplites (now released by Warlord) is sitting on the shelf here, if I add a box of their classical hoplites, that should b more than enough to make my Spartan main force. I see Victrix now do light infantry, so that will probably be my next purchase. 

In the future, better miniatures will replace and expand the cavalry and peltasts, but who knows what will happen. 

Firestorm Armada: Tarakian flotilla addendum and Syndicate Battleship

Some new additions from Salute for this 'was finished' project - Spartan have released frigates for the Tarakians, so I'll be sorting these out at some point.

The Tarl class frigates sit next to a painted cruiser from my flotilla

Also purchased, something I've been after for some time - A Syndicate Phantom class Battleship.

No doubt they will get painted sometime this century. :/

Firestorm Armada: Rense System Navy WIP 1

I thought I had collected all of the RSN ships until this week's announcement of new ships by Spartan.

No matter, their time will come - on with the task in hand.

Nothing too exciting on this post, assembly and undercoating.

Side view of the Phoenix class destroyer

Bulwark class frigate

The Banshee class dreadnought. I put the conning tower on the wrong way round at first too.

Banshee Front/top

Here you can see how I start my models. Grey undercoat (from Halfords), then a white drybrush, which I've half done in this shot to show you the difference it makes.

Siren class escorts plus a destroyer, with white drybrush

Some more of the destroyers

I've started experimenting with two different purples on these frigates - one metallic, one interference paint.

My painting table, with drybrushed fleet

And here's the dreadnought again - I managed to reattach the conning tower correctly.