Some 15mm Copplestone Fantasy Figures and some music to paint by

Well, I have now finished seven of Mark Copplestone's new 15mm fantasy figures and very nice they are to paint too.  They are, however, very small and I think they actually take longer to paint than 28mm figures given that I keep making mistakes and then have to try to correct them.  How people paint armies of 15mm figures is beyond me! Maybe five colour shading isn't really necessary on figures this size!

Copplestone Castings have come out with three more sets since I bought the original  three sets but I am going to be be disciplined and not buy them until I have painted the remaining 23 figures -sometime around next June I suspect!

Basically, there are two forces out so far barbarians (and a few barbarianettes) and Northlanders (with beards).  There is also a trio of snow trolls who are about 25mm tall.  I'm not usually a fan of monsters in fantasy wargames but these do look rather good.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the next figures would include some archers.  Then the idea is to do some fantasy Romans as opponents.  Hopefully these will sell well and he might add to this range.  I notice that he has sold his Glory of the Sun range which means that this fantasy range is the only one he is producing new figures for at present.

I've been reading the new Gripping Beast Saga rules this week and think they might work well for these figures with not very much tweaking.

Anyway I have based and undercoated another eight figures so will work on them in the very little time I have to paint at present.

Finally, I always need the right music to paint figures to and recently picked up the new recording of the complete score for Conan the Barbarian by the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra.  I usually don't like re-recordings and prefer the original soundtrack but this new recording is a marvel and shows the limitations of the original soundtrack, as Basil Poledouris himself acknowledged. 

It is one of the best orchestral film scores ever written, with Poledouris bunging everything from mock Orff, Prokofiev and Vaughan-Williams to medieaval plainchant and Renaissance music into it but making it all sound completely coherent.  It was also very influential in that you can hear parts and effects which have been re-used by other soundtrack composers ever since. Whilst typing this I just noticed one cue that reappears, virtually unaltered,  in Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack for The Mummy.

In addition, I manged to find the hard to get score for Red Sonja by Ennio Morricone on eBay which is not nearly as complex but has some strong themes in it. I had, therefore, to paint one of my figures as Sonja.  Schwarzenegger pronounces it "Sew-nya" in the film whereas in Britain, at least, we would call her "Sonn-nya".  Anyway, for me the name always reminds me of one of my sister's friends who I got very drunk with at my sister's fortieth birthday party some years ago and we both behaved very inappropriately (according to my sister, anyway, it all seemed most appropriate to us).  She had short blonde hair, not red, but she had a formidable, gym-toned body (and a much bigger bust than Brigitte Nielsen) and would have been well able to wield a broadsword I think.  

If I managed to get through both Conan (which also contains a long suite of music from Conan the Destroyer) and Red Sonja there was also James Horner's excellent early score for Krull to move on to. So, all in all I had more than enough appropriate music to play during my painting sessions.

Lord of the Rings Attack Troll

I don't paint a lot of fantasy figures but I do like the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings ones.  Given that they actually do see service in the occasional game I usually have a few at various stages of completion.

I bought this down on the Isle of Wight last summer and based it and undercoated it immediately but it then sat on my workbench for over a year.   It's the first big plastic LotR figure I have done (my other troll was a metal one) and apart from the typical lack of undercutting it was fine to paint.  I have another big figure undercoated, a fell beast, which I may have a go at next as it is gathering dust on my shelf.

Made good progress on the Copplestone 18mm fantasy figures today so may try and get some more done this week. 

Norman Milites on foot

I always shock myself when I actually finish a wargames unit, as I very rarely paint a unit at a time, preferring to have a lot of groups of half a dozen very different figures on the go at the same time.  However, here is my first unit of Norman milites on foot.  These Crusader figures are pretty quick to paint because of all the chainmail although I have to say that I didn't give them a lot of attention; just bunged on paint as fast as I could to get them done.  More about my Normans and. indeed my other thoughts on my many ongoing Dark Ages armies will be found on my Dark Ages blog in a few days or so (which probably means a week!).

Had quite a good weekend painting, despite the usual taxi service for the children, with some more done on my Copplestone 15mm figures and a lot of progress on the Lord of the Rings troll, which might even get finished by the end of the week.

Aliona!

I assembled my first sprue of Perry plastic Mahdists whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing last night (that Aliona Vilani was looking particularly sumptuous we thought) with the family (well not with Guy, he was watching Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines on my computer instead). My first impression is that she looks much better without that ridiculous scarlet hair.  No, no!  What I meant to say was that my first impressions of the plastic Mahdists are very positive indeed.  I have a couple of minor reservations but they will have to wait until I have painted some up.

Can't write much more tonight as I have to prepare for a panel discussion I'm on tomorrow with a government minister, so I better try and sound intelligent!

Army Creep

I picked up this month's Wargames Illustrated which, featuring as it does a lot on Vikings and Saxons, is very much up my street.  Other than yet another look at the battle of Maldon using Hail Caesar there was an interesting piece on Gripping Beast's new Saga Dark Ages skirmish rules.  Both these pieces exemplify a slightly worrying trend for me, as a hopeless dabbler in multiple periods, which I can best describe as army creep. 

Saga is described as a skirmish set and yet they were talking about forces of around four to five dozen figures a side.  Now they say that it can be played with less (two dozen figures a side) but the larger figure seemed to be the sort of numbers of miniatures they were contemplating.   Now, to me, a skirmish wargame should be about 10-20 figures a side, not sixty.  The Lord of the Rings Battle Companies games I play with my son gives  good game with less than ten figures a side.  So what is this sixty figures a side nonsense?

It wasn't clear how many figures were deployed on the Hail Caesar Maldon scenario, but looking at the photos it looks like at least 400 figures a side. Also in that issue is a Black Powder Second Afghan War clash which has armies of over 500 for the Afghans and over 175 for the British.  Now of course, Games Workshop no longer supports Battle Companies, no doubt on the basis that forces of ten figures a side aren't going to help shift figures.  When you have manufacturers developing rules then, naturally they are going to want to sell as many figures as possible, but for me moving from 150 figures a side to 400 figures a side just makes building armies impossible. Interestingly, there was also a Greek and Persian game using the new Clash of Empires rules and these had what I would consider much more normal numbers of figures a side (175 ish).

So are we in a period of army creep?  Are these rules only designed for club play where you need multiple players to help field each side?  Oddly, it seems to me, big armies with lots of figures would tend to militate against a game played in an evening at a club.  My experience of the bigger games I have played at Guildford (mainly Colonial, Dark Ages, ECW and Ancients) is that we rarely get to finish a game in the usual three hours we have.  I have always derided the DBA players and their silly little armies of forty figures but are we now heading too far the other way?  Is bigger necessarily better?

Anyway, the more I read the Clash of Empires book, which I picked up recently, the more I like the look of the rules.  I think Guy and I will try them out over half term with some Romans and Celts to see how they go.

As for the Saga rules, they certainly sound interesting but may be too boardgame-like for me.  There is a lot of husbanding and utilising resources, tactics and "tricks" which is not really my thing.  There are a core of boardgamers at Guildford and I suspect they will like these rules but I think they sound like too much hard work for my increasingly age-demented brain.   I do not like studying rules to see where I can gain an advantage.  I don't like boardgames (even Cluedo and such like) or card games or anything that involves having to think too much!   So Saga, I suspect, will not be for me.  I'll probably buy them anyway, though! 

Now of course I am always tempted by interesting new figures and one advert that caught my attention in Wargames Illustrated was for an Italian company Fireforge Games (whose website was launched today) who are planning to release a box of plastic Teutonic knights.  I have always wanted some of these, partly due to the amount of time I used to spend in the Baltic States, and these look excellent.  I looked at the Gripping Beast ones long ago but they suffered from the dreaded Gripping Beast horses (frankly I find the new ones just as horrible).  Excellent artwork (cf Wargames Factory, for example) helps a lot but the images of the planned figures look brilliant with lots of optional heads and what have you to customise the figures.  These will be a definite buy!

I'm not getting much painting done although I am slowly and surely progressing with another small batch of Norman infantry, have nearly finished another couple of Darkest Africa characters and am enjoying painting my 18mm Copplestone Castings fantasy figures.  More of these were released this week but I am going to have to think about what to do with them!

Right, time for a bit of static grass on my Darkest Africa figures!

18mm Conan

I've been struggling with getting any painting done of late but I did manage to finish my first of the new Copplestone Castings 18mm fantasy figures.  I have to say it took as long to paint as a 28mm figure but now I have one done I will aim at doing a few of his Northlanders next.  I'm not sure about a whole force of barbarian types as I tend to think of all the figures in the pack (apart from the two girlies) as Conan but with different clothes on. Maybe if I paint some with different hair colour they could be Cimmerians, I suppose.

I've not done very well at finding any 15mm Hyborian type scenics, much to my surprise.  Oh well.  I'll have a look at Warfare, I suppose.

Colours 2011

Isandlwana at Colours

I had quite a quick trip to Colours today as I had to get Guy to and from rowing this morning.  His coach is one of the British Olympic coaches and said that he has the potential to go a long way in the sport.  Unfortunately, this means he now has to move up to a group that starts at 8.30 rather than 10.30 on Saturday mornings.  Grrr!

Two of the traders I wanted to get things from, Gripping Beast and Grand Manner, weren't there but I picked up a few things on my list.  Some more Mutineer Miniatures, including the Naval Brigade gun crew who are actually destined for my Darkest Africa Zambezi campaign, plus the new generals packs for both sides which aren't on the new website yet.  I also bought a couple of packs to see if I can do some head swaps on them which may be possible with a bit of work.

I picked up a few odd packs of things I fancy painting at present: some more Artizan Carolingians and Andalusians (I'm seriously thinking about El Cid again), a pack of Crusader Norman crossbowmen (which will be fast-tracked) and the Perry plastic Mahdists.  I also got the new Black Powder supplement to see how they handle the Great Northern War.

I also bought a nice Baueda 15mm Viking tent, for my new Copplestone fantasy figures, from Mike Lewis at his Black Hat Miniatures stand.  He asked when I would next be at the club: good question!  I have a sort of outstanding invitation to do a World War 1 game but haven't been for ages. 

Otherwise, I was disappointed at the lack of 15mm fantasy scenery.  I am looking for some Conan the Barbarian type not quite Celtic or Dark Ages stuff; like the old Celtos 28mm scenics which had mammoth bones and such like in them.  I quite fancy a walled village with a tavern in it for some reason.  Hyboria has a weird mix of co-existing periods so a medieval Bree type village alongside Celtic round houses isn't out of the question.  I enjoyed the scenes in the first Simon Scarrow Romans book where a Roman vexilia attacks a German village and this would be perfect for the Copplestone figures. Maybe a more 13th century Scandinavian look might be better.   I was talking to someone who suggested the Mirliton 15mm figures to supply some other armies.  They do Burgundians (Aquilonians) and Crusades period Muslims (Turanians).  Maybe I just need to paint the ones I've got before I get too carried away!

Best thing about the show was the amazing Isandlwana diorama (I hesitate to call it a wargame as it wasn't actually being played).  I will put some more pictures on my Zulu Wars website in a few days.

Tomorrow I have to buy some more football boots for Guy (I wish he'd stop growing) and take Charlotte to and from her play rehearsals so I suspect I won't get much painting done!

Little tiny people have arrived!

Well you can't fault Mr Copplestone on his service.  My new 18mm fantasy figures arrived just two and a half days after I ordered them.

The first thing I noticed was that they are really, really tiny.  I was sort of expecting them to be small Airfix size but they are, as my daughter said, "reallly widgey!"  This makes the level of detail, particularly on the faces, even more amazing.  If more 15mm figures were like this I might buy them!  Best thing about them is the anatomy: in proportion heads -amazing!

The Northlander warriors are basically his Foundry Ancient Germans and nothing wrong with that. The male barbarians are all basically Conan and the female ones actually have pretty faces!

I have based them on 12mm card squares (two thirds of the height of the figures) as I am going to use the Song of Blades and Heroes rules which I just downloaded.  Apparently you can play a game with 4 -20 figures: ideal. This is because I want to do small skirmishes (I always thought that people who do skirmish wargaming in 15mm are a bit silly!) rather than Hordes of the Things type big battles.  Anyway, I have played the firearms equivalent of the rules, Flying Lead, and liked them a lot.

The suggested battle area is a two foot by two foot square so I can use my Citadel battle boards.  It's Colours this weekend so I am thinking about looking for some Conan type scenic features. I'm now having to go on Saturday, which I have never done before, as my daughter has a school play rehearsal on Sunday.

Painting them is going to  be a major challenge (which is really why I bought them) and I will probably need a new brush before I do any detailed work.  I will start with this group of a half dozen and see how it goes!

It's madness really!