Ral Partha 25mm ES62 Armoured Trolls / 01-062 Trill

A Greek-ish looking chap that works in RuneQuest. He was part of the GW Sheffield display cabinet for a while.

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.

Xyston 15mm Late Spartan Greek army WIP05 - Mercenary cavalry

Some more progress on this army, as they've been 'nearly finished' for a few months now.

The base is done with GOLDEN texture gel and crackle paste, plus small slate chips from a council rockery and tufts. Lots of tufts. I need more.

I'm a little loathe to put up these next shots as they show some fairly flaky speed painting techniques which are for effect when seen at distance. I could have done eyes on them too, but how long can you take when an army (and all the other stuff) needs doing? Here they are anyway.

Xyston 15mm later Spartan Greek army WIP04 - Finished Cretan Archers

The first finished unit of my army, Cretan Archers

More soon

28mm Spartan Greek army WIP05 - more mercenaries

Another unit of Vendel Greeks painted and based for this army.

I think I'll be doing some archers or peltasts next, though I really should get on with the Spartans themselves.

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.

28mm Spartan Greek army WIP03 - Cavalry finished, other news

With so many projects on the go, things get done in bits here and there. I've been experimenting with NMM on a commission miniature for a friend, and I thought I'd give it a go on some older miniatures to see if it helped. Well, I think it has, I have finished some mercenary medium cavalry - you can see it on the commander's breastplate

These are ancient minifigs miniatures, I think the middle one is supposed to be Alexander, but he'll do as a leader figure for now.

I've also been playing with some different basing gels

The crackle paste gives a nice dry and cracked ground effect, I think I'll have to mix it up a bit for the best effect though. Here's a tester on the front of some hoplites;

More on those soon

Also on the table, some WIP Vendel hoplites

...and the Jason and the Argonauts figures are making slow progress

A couple of old citadel Runequest hoplites have joined them too.

More soon.

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.