Jason and the Argonauts!

 Atalanta, Zetes, Jason, Cepheus, Herakles and Argus

Well, this year's skirmish project will be Jason and the Argonauts using the Steve Saleh sculpted Foundry figures.  I have finished six now and have another five on the way.  I had already painted Herakles and Atalanta but the other four have been done in the last week. 

Cepheus

The story of the quest for the Golden Fleece is set, of course, in the Bronze Age.  I intend to have my Argonauts in classical Greek armour with iron swords, as they have been gifted by the Gods.  Their opponents may well be more Bronze Age in appearance.  Or not, depending on how I feel!  Most of the new Foundry Greek mythological figures seem to owe more to the classical period than the Bronze Age. 

Zetes

This is my first fantasy force outside of the Lord of the Rings.  The latter, however, is almost like an historical period, given the painting guides, rules and attributes of the figures provided by Games Workshop.  With the Argonauts I will need to create more stuff myself.

Argus

Inevitably there will be a seperate blog for this project and indeed it is here, although there is very little on it as yet.

Jason

I have ordered The Foundry Tribes of Legend rules from Amazon but there seems to be some delay on them.  I am enjoying painting these a lot so far.

Playing Favourites - my 300th post

Several estimable people, led by the author of the Too Much Lead blog and followed by others, including Steve the Wargamer, Trouble at t'mill and Grimsby Wargaming, have set down their favourites in a number of wargaming related categories.  Now, as ever, I have arrived at this much later than everyone else (I always post on The Miniatures Page two weeks after everyone has finished a thread) but it is an excellent way to produce a post without having to have painted any figures (although I did finish two today!)  So I will follow the same structure as the others.

I have just noticed that this is my 300th post on this blog.  Imagine how many more figures I could have painted if I hadn't written all those posts!

Period

Some of my Steve Saleh sculpted Foundry Romans -painted for Fishbourne.  If only this range had been completed!

Oh dear.  This is where it all falls down.  Given I paint more than I wargame my ongoing "armies" cover everything from prehistoric cavemen to World War 2.  I have no idea how many periods or armies I have figures for but I think I did calculate once that I was building over thirty seperate WAB armies at once.  Needless to say, I don't have a single completed (if there is such a thing) army.  When I first started playing with my unpainted Airfix figures it was Napoleonics but this is an impossible period for a dabbler. What my favourite is now varies from week to week but if I had to get rid of all my other figures and just keep one army to work on it would be... Early Imperial Romans.  From my first Airfix figures through to my Warlord plastics it's the Romans that inspire me most.  The biggest frustration for me is that I don't think there is a really good range of figures for this period out there.  There are loads of EIR Romans but I can't say that I am really happy with any of them, for various reasons.   Other than Romans it would be the Colonial period or Dark Ages.  Or English Civil War.  Or Hoplite Greeks.  Or Lord of the Rings (the only fantasy gaming I do).  Or...

Scale

One of my Gripping Beast Early Saxons

28mm only now.  Fifteen years ago I was painting a lot of 20mm plastic Napoleonics but I was never very happy with them.  It was my first visit to Salute and the Gripping Beast stand that gave me my first sight "in the lead" of modern 28mm figures.  I literally put all my 20mm figures into a box in the loft the next day.   Lots of people use 15mm at Guildford but the anatomy of these is mainly awful and they are too small for me to paint, although I do acknowledge that en masse they can look very good.  The problem is I will never have an army en masse so prefer to paint individuals to the best of my (limited) ability.

Rules

Not being a regular player, the easier to understand they are the better for me. I don't play often enough to learn any of the tricks or wrinkles in a set of rules. I remember playing a Zulu wargame at the club using a set of rules that were so complex I totally gave up trying to understand them at all.  So I like WAB (although I realise its many limitations) and I don't like DBX or its derivatives.  I'm not interested in replicating command and control.  I just want to push pretty models about (that reminds me of a story involving a famous supermodel but that is off the point). Probably my favourite rules are The Sword and the Flame.  Simple but elegant (rather like the supermodel).

Boardgame

I can't abide board games of any sort these days.  When I was small we used to play (but only at Christmas) Monopoly which I only liked as we could stay up late, eat twiglets and drink cider as the game went on for hours.  I never played the likes of Risk or, my wife's favourite, Cluedo (too much thinking involved).  For a period, when I was about 15, I had a few of the Simulations Publications Inc games (I still have them somewhere) such as Musket and Pike.  I didn't have anyone to play against so I had to play the games solo.  I remember them being not too bad but one I had (I can't remember which) was very much more complicated than Musket and Pike so I gave up on them.  I do remember that as soon as you seperated the little counters they started to fall out of the box every time you touched it.  Basically, I am not a gamer!

Figures

I  painted a whole box of Uruk Hai!

Although I think Perry Miniatures are the best figure manufacturer when it comes to a combination of range coverage, anatomy and accuracy I don't enjoy painting them that much as they are too fiddly.   I will pretty much buy anything Mark Copplestone does and I also really like Crusader Miniatures and Musketeer Miniatures for paintability.  I don't have a strong view on plastics one way or the other. Some are disappointing (Gripping Beast Vikings) some are excellent (Perry Ansar).  They key thing for me is that I have never painted more than a few plastics from each of the many boxes I have bought.  The exception being Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings plastics.

Club

I'm in every picture but, more importantly, so are my figures!

I joined Guildford Wargames club some years ago having found it through The Miniatures Page.  Technically I'm not a member any more and haven't been for over a year.  I used to go more often but I lost the habit when I was travelling a lot and couldn't commit to a date.  I also used to get quite stressed by everyone else knowing the rules really well and so I felt like a beginner every week.  There are some very clever people who are members of the club and I started to find it a bit scary! The real reason I didn't go, however, was that I really only like playing with my own figures and as I don't have any completed armies...  Still I have been able to join in some bigger games with my Wars of the Roses, Dark Ages and ECW figures.  One enjoyable club project I did participate in was a two day exhibition game at Fishbourne Roman Palace in 2005.  We interacted with a generally fascinated public and the event even managed to convince my father-in-law that wargaming  was a worthwhile activity.  We got a positive write up in the local paper too, although I think I annoyed the many long-standing members of the club by being the only one who got name-checked in the article (the result of flirting outrageously with the very pretty reporterette).

Opponents

A very much younger Guy three years ago as we set up a Lord of the Rings game

I always had enjoyable games with Dave, Keith and John at Guildford.  The person who recruited me into the club was Mike Lewis of Black Hat Miniatures and he was unfailingly patient with me and gave me my first game there (Darkest Africa - I lost, as usual).  My son Guy enjoys the occasional Lord of the Rings game and last time we played Darkest Africa. We are talking about having a go at Saga next.

Inspiration

Film

Well, when I was younger there were three main cinematic inspirations.  The first were the endless films about the war in the Pacific that seemed to be on  on Saturday afternoons; The Halls of Montezuma springs to mind immediately.  These got me recreating these battles outside on our rockery for many happy weeks over the summer holidays.  The film The 300 Spartans got me into ancients, even though there were no plastic Greeks in those days! Then I saw Waterloo which got me playing long refights of said battle with my hundreds of unpainted Airfix Napoleonics (all in Charles Grant suggested battalions of 48 figures).  Nowadays nearly any military themed film can get me thinking about getting a new range!

Book

Although Terence Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming (as so nostalgically illustrated on Too Much Lead's entry - mine lost its cover decades ago!) got me playing my first games with proper rules the book that turned me into a painter was The War Game, which was stuffed full of wonderful photographs by former Penthouse director of photography Philip O Stearns of Peter Gilder's Hinchliffe figures on magnificent terrain.  The reason I still hanker after doing Agincourt (which is palpably insane) is because of that book.  It's also the reason that I have a thing about Thermopylae.  

Art

Although I too love Angus McBride's work (and I own one of his original paintings) the first military picture I responded to was Philippoteaux's Charge of the French Cuiassiers at Waterloo which I got as a postcard during a visit to Les Invalides back in the early seventies.  I used to get Look & Learn magazine every week too and I loved Ronald Embleton's work for that, especially his Rogers Rangers series.  I did bid on one of his paintings of a page from the Wicked Wanda strip (literally) he did for Penthouse last year but gave up when it reached £700.  I have seen it advertised at £3,000 since!

Music

I don't think others have put this section in but music is very important to me when I paint. Currently I am painting some Foundry Argonauts and am listening, naturally to Bernard Hermann's soundtrack from Jason and the Argonauts but also Laurence Rosenthal's Clash of the Titans as well.  I always try to find appropriate music for the figures I am painting. Oddly, the first music I associate with wargaming is Dvorak's New World symphony which I always used to play when setting up my big Airfix ACW games.  It still reminds me of lots of blue and grey figures and the distinctive smell of evergreen twigs which I used to cut off trees in the garden, before sticking them in plasticene, to use as trees on my wargames board.

Internet

I discovered The Miniatures Page quite late on but it must have cost me thousands of pounds in stuff I have bought which I would never have known about otherwise.  It is my home page but I don't post very often.  It can be annoying, sometimes, but then I find nearly everything can be annoying these days!  I can't remember whose site got me blogging (Giles Allison's, probably) but my entry into that was originally designed to focus me on one period.  This, of course, has failed totally.  I now have around twenty wargames blogs and four more under another identity which focus on my other great interest: naked women.  Somehow I don't think I will ever get the 200 followers and 2.5 million visits I have had on one of the latter on any of my wargames sites!

So, thanks to Too Much Lead for an excellent idea.  Now I really must try and base a few more Argonauts!

2012 Plans and 2011 Review

My Darkest Africa British force: completed last year

As is traditional (and as I haven't managed a post for some time) I will post a quick review of the year and my plans for 2012.

I only managed 144 figures this year, which is four less than last year but most of these (98 figures) were Darkest Africa ones done at the beginning of the year.  None of the other contingents reached double figures with Zulus and Normans the most numerous. Frustratingly, I have around 30 figures nearing completion and I might have a chance to do some this weekend.  Sunday is my main painting day but latterly they have all be taken up with the childrens' various rowing, shooting, dancing, fencing and Duke of Edinburgh activities.  My wife also has a new part time job which has landed me with more domestic stuff on top too.

 

Darkest Africa was supposed to be my main activity for 2011 and the other area I wanted to progress was the Indian Mutuny.  I have painted a lot on a 20 man unit but haven't finished them yet. Given that my painting time is so restricted I think I might do more character pieces for skirmish games this year and at present Argonauts are looking likely, given Foundry's new figures and their forthcoming rules, Tribes of Legend.

The mighty Heracles and his doner kebab

I finished a Foundry Heracles yesterday, the first figure I have completed for some months, and started some more Foundry Argonauts today.  Although their armour is wrong for the pre-Trojan War quest for the Golden Fleece I have decided that the Gods have given them armour from the future or, perhaps, designed armour that will later influence Classical Greek styles.

I have bought quite a lot of figures this year, although most have been for armies I am already collecting. I did buy some of the Warlord Thirty Years War Plastics but haven't painted any yet.  The Perry plastic Ansar are very nice indeed and actually nicer, I think, than the metals, in some ways.

On the rules front I bought Hail Caesar, Clash of Empires and Saga, all of which look interesting.  I am interested in getting the new Warhammer gladiatorial combat set too.  I watched the two Spartacus TV series which were, on the whole, very silly but painting gladiators is pretty quick so I will dig a few more of these out.

Figures I like the look of but haven't bought (yet) inlcude the John Jenkins Portuguese conquistadores, the Crusader late Crusaders and the new plastic Teutonic Knights from Italy's Fireforge.

Not too many new periods were started but I did enjoy painting the Copplestone 15mm fantasy figures.  With The Hobbit now on the horizon I am tempted to start some new Lord of the Rings characters. I don't have the full Fellowship painted so a Gimli is probably next.

I have now realised that I have far too many unpainted figures and I am starting to offload them on eBay as I am desperate for the space.  First to go are all my Warhammer figures, of which I had far more than I realised!  Next to go will be Foundry Ancient Egyptians.

My international travel was much more limited this year, I am glad to say, with trips to Ankara, Istanbul (twice), Singapore, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur and Paris (three times). I am getting really frightened of getting on planes now so prefer to travel by train if at all possible.

I did very well at losing weight in the second half of the year (well over a stone) but I have put some back on as I am having difficulty exercising due to a leg injury.  Never mind, got back on the bike a few days ago and am looking forward to the Olympic road cycle races coming past the end of my road.  As for the Olympics I am also going to the fencing, the rowing and the mens 1500m final in the stadium.  Sadly, I didn't manage to get tickets for the womens beach volleyball.

 

Hats, Presidents, Oxford, Greeks and the Orient Express

Panama's new Ambassador (seriously!) to the Court of St James. Fancy a Ferrero-Rocher, love?

I've not been getting very much painting done of late, partly because of the bad light but mainly because of work (I seem to be spending a lot of time with Latin American presidents).  London is awash with visiting heads of state at present and I seem to get regularly dragged in to see them to talk about infrastructure.  One benefit of this was that I met the new Panamanian Ambassaador to London over Champagne before a dinner with their president.  What a very fine advertisement for Panama she is! 

Pirate girl

I thought I might have some time for painting this week time today but I had to contribute to a paper for the World Economic Forum.  I'm also editing my father in law's new book on the NHS as well as doing the company's year end filing.  I did have a couple of hours yesterday so decided to finish this Black Scorpion lady pirate as well as start on my next batch of 15mm Copplestone Fantasy.  Added to this is the fact that the children's taxi requirements now seem to have extended from just Saturday to Sunday as well, recently, and the two hours I managed yesterday was the longest session I have had for some time.

All aboard the Orient Express for Adventure and Romance!

 

I am spending some time reading Victorian steampunk novels (my new thing) and watching old Agatha Christie films; largely due to my recent trip to Istanbul where I stayed in the Pera palace hotel,which was originally built for Orient Express travellers.  Indeed, Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in the hotel.

A long time ago!

In fact, on a recent trip to Paris I picked up the latter novel, thinking that it would be a good book to read on a train.  I've not read a Christie before and whilst I suspect that the rather formulaic model might pall after several books I am enjoying this one, rather to my surprise!  A very long time ago a much younger Legatus travelled to Venice on the Venice Simplon Orient Express so imagining the setting is quite easy!  I look very thin here but then I was still running forty miles a week!  Latterly my leg has been painful and I have had to stop my exercise regime on the instructions of my (really rather gorgeous) physio.  Instead I have to spend a lot of time standing on one leg, which is helping the ankle but not my fitness or weight.

Therefore I am having to watch one of my other relaxations at the moment which is drinking wine and listening to music (currently Lars Erik Larssen's tremendous Dagens Stunder) whilst working on one of my girlie blogs (if combining girlies and model soldiers was good enough for Philip O Stearns it is good enough for me) under my other online identity. Too much wine and not enough exercise is not a good idea.

My last bottle was Francis Ford Coppola's wonderful Rubicon which is one of the very best red wines I have had for a long time.  This was the 2004 vintage; when the grapes ripened and were harvested very early in the Napa.  Certainly there are bucket loads of fruit in this but it also has huge length.  The woodiness you would expect from being aged in French barriques is not as evident as you might think as the concentrated ripeness offsets it.  It's a Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend with some Petit Verdot in there too.  Prices vary wildly: its going for about $140 a bottle in the US at present.  Tesco (amazingly) have the 2003 for around £63 a bottle if you buy a half case but I picked mine up in the new local wine shop for a comparatively bargain £47.  Wish I'd bought more now!

We're also spending a lot of time looking at potential universities for my daughter, Charlotte, which is also eating into painting time.  The other week I returned to Oxford for the first time in some years to show her around and try to overcome this horrific desire of hers to go to Cambridge.  The fact that the stairs up to Christ Church hall were used in the first Harry Potter film seemed to have a positive effect on her opinion of the place anyway!  By an odd coincidence the hall at my son's school also got down to the last three to appear as the hall in Hogwarts in the first film.

On a more military front I was recently shown around the Royal Geographical Society in London, where a young lady was enticing me to join, (successfully!) and they had put out some items from their archive to look at in their reading room. I always find that personal items that belonged to historical figures are most evocative and a few of these, I found, particularly resonated with me.

Livingstone's hat!

First and foremost were two items I recognised immediately, sat on the large grey boxes they are stored in. Stanley’s pith helmet which  he was wearing when he met Dr Livingstone at Ujiji with its distinctive pugaree. In addition they also had on display Livingstone’s hat which he was wearing when Stanley met him! To be able to get a few inches away from such iconic items without glass intervening was really quite special!

Who could have guessed that these two hats would still be together in 140 years time!

There were two other items with a military connection, amongst the other fascinating artifacts relating to exploration.  Firstly, they had Lord Kitchener’s right glove; the one on his pointing hand in the famous “Your Country Needs You” poster.

Secondly, they had a hand-drawn map of the Hejaz railway by T.E. Lawrence. I was reminded of one of the opening scenes of Lawrence of Arabia when he is working on his maps in Cairo. I saw one of the remaining operational parts of the Hejaz railway, not far from Aqaba (which of course has its own Lawrence associations), when I visited Jordan a few years ago.  I still have a desire to do some Arab revolt skirmishes.  I even have a few of Artizan's figures.

The Hejaz Railway in Jordan

My desire to paint Dark Ages figures seems to have abated somewhat, after I finished the last batch of Normans, so I will put those on the workbench away again.  I still have a lot of figures which are well on the way (especially Zulu War and Indian Mutiny so maybe I can get some done by Christmas).  I'm trying not to go to Argentina in the next few weeks; leaving it to January would be much better.

I picked up the Gripping Beast Saga rules in Orc's Nest in London and have been reading them whilst the others watch X-Factor on Saturday.  They look interesting but there is a lot of tactical play involving the dice and battleboard system that may not interest Guy (or me).  Maybe I should aim to get sufficient figures done to play a game as soon as possible.  I am sure I have enough Vikings but may need to paint some more Saxons. 

There are a few other things I am contemplating buying (but not before Christmas).  Firstly, Crusader miniatures late (c.1250) Crusaders are definitely calling out to me.  Secondly, Foundry have started releasing new Greek myths and legends figures.  I really liked Steve Saleh's Argonaut figures for Foundry and bought all of them but then the promised Greek legends range never materialised.  Now they are not only bringing out new characters but monsters as well.  Now, of course, the Saleh figures were anachronistic in that they had Classical Greek armour and Jason was contemporary with the Bronze Age Trojan War but I don't see why I can't launch a second lot of Argonauts.  I even have a Grand Manner Greek bireme to carry them in.  Even better they are also bringing out a rule set.  Harryhausen type adventures may only just be around the corner!  They have some skeleton warrioirs in the first release but I think that the Wargames Factory plastics might be better; although I hear that they are very delicate. Actually, Foundry have also brought out some Trojan War characters that are obviously inspired by the film Troy. These are also quite tempting although I suspect they will be a lot larger (and they are cruder) than the Perry sculpted Foundry Bronze Age ones!  I was also thinking that the Saga rules might work well for Greek raids on Trojan settlements too.

 I have based a Foundry Hercules figure to be going on with.  I also hope to finish my next batch of Zulu War British soon but more about that on the Zulu War blog in due course, as there is a lot happening in that area at present.

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!