Angus McBride

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of the superlative military artist Angus McBride. Like many people I would sometimes buy an Osprey book purely on the basis of his wonderful illustrations. I am lucky enough to own one of his paintings, of Boadicea, done for Look & Learn magazine in 1973. Although in monochrome it has the animation, character and wonderful composition of all of his work.

Angus, you will be missed!

Cynoscephalae: Society of Ancients Battle Day

I went to the Society of Ancients Battle Day in Bletchley for our Cynoscephalae Game. I hadn’t attended one of these before but it was great fun and interesting to see so many different interpretations of the same battle. I think there were three other 25/28mm games with most of the rest being 15mm. There were some other Guildford people doing a 6mm game which wins my award for "most looks like a real battle" given the over 2000 figures on the (rather diddy) table.

Although there was a lot of specially constructed terrain on show I have to say that Dave’s green cloth over planks and file boxes looked really good and considerably more realistic than some of the contour map efforts there. In addition, his was the only green terrain; everyone else had gone for sandy brown.

Cynoscephalae today

Now Cynoscephalae was fought in the spring and given that the area looks like this today then green was more accurate. During an interesting talk by Phil Sabin of London University in the morning, it was also mentioned that the gradients on the battlefield (whichever one of the 3 possible sites you go for) were quite gradual. Which again, made Dave’s effort more believable than some of the vertiginous cliffs I saw on some of the other layouts.

Unfortunately, Ben was unwell and couldn’t attend so his place was taken by a chap called Peter who had written a set of rules but was unable to play as his group didn’t turn up.

The Battlefield early in the game. The Roman skirmishers advance up the left hand hill.

Dave and Peter commanded the Macedonians and Kevin and I had the Romans. I took the Roman left, which was all skirmishers and cavalry, and advanced up the hill towards Peter who faced me with opposing skirmishers and cavalry. Peter sensibly refused to be drawn down the hill very far and so my troops were whittled away by the terrifying firepower that you get in the Tony Bath rules.

Macedonian Cavalry painted by me support skirmishers painted by Dave. Roman cavalry painted by Dave support Greek skirmishers painted by me!

This picture shows the effect of one turn of missile fire on my skirmishers. Peter proved to be annoyingly good at throwing fives and sixes on saving throws in exactly the same way that I proved to be good at throwing ones and twos.

The Roman Right. The Macedonians descend ominously.

On the Roman right Kevin had to start the long trudge up to the top of the ridge where Dave proved much better at activating his phalanxes than the last time we played the “dice for the unit to arrive” special rule. This fight proved to be a long grind with reverses on both sides. This time the elephants failed to reproduce their impression of a combine harvester and were stampeded by Dave’s skirmishers early on.

Philip prepares to send his guard pikemen on a commando raid across the ravine.

As most of my skirmishers were destroyed I had to feed in two legions from the centre, particularly as Philip V sent in his elite silver shield guard pikemen (newly painted by Dave).

The silver shields charge the Roman cavalry!

They tripped down and then up the ravine as if they were manoeuvring on Horseguards parade and attacked what was left of my cavalry (yes, heavy cavalry charged in the flank by pikemen). They totally failed to behave like newly painted troops and changed formation faster than the Red Arrows to deal with anything I threw at them from whatever direction.

By this time I had 3 skirmishers left from the Roman/Greek force on the left and my Velites from the centre had gone too. What was left of my two Legions were surrounded by Macedonians.

We finished on turn 12 having played for around five hours. We could have played another move or two and technically the Romans could have come back (with a lot of luck) but only technically.  There were only about 120 figures left on the board out of around 500.

The sorry state of what were 24 figure units on the Roman right!

The Tony Bath Rules are great fun and, for Roman games at least I prefer them to Warhammer Ancient Battles because you can have more linear units.

The next idea is to do the game using WAB and see how that pans out. I’d better put the army lists together!

Painted figures for April

SIXTY!!

12 Cretan archers
6 Thracians infantry
16 Greek/Macedonian heavy cavalry
6 Greek light cavalry
6 Italian javelinmen
12 Greek light infantry
2 Macedonian generals

It has got to be a record! All for Cynoscephalae of course.

This brings me up to 105 for the year and I was aiming at 24 per month so I am now 9 figures ahead schedule!

I did take a couple of days off at Easter so had 8 days at home but then we were also doing a lot of decorating, dump runs, carpet removing etc.

Now can I get 18 more light infantry painted in 12 days befor the game on May 10th?

One Year on

I've just noticed that it's a year since I started this blog. I have gone through all sorts of crazes as to what to paint and it's really only the activities at the club which bring any discipline to what I do. The club is planning a big one day Wars of the Roses battle soon and so I will get those out again and maybe try to paint the eight cavalry I need to finally finish the army.

In the meantime here are the two Macedonian Generals we need for Cynoscephalae which I finished today.

Next, however, (at least until the Artizan Spartans come out!) I am going to concentrate on the Sudan which I will record on my Sudan blog.

http://sudan1883.blogspot.com/

World War 2 or not..

All the stink about the SS re-enactors at Salute has got me thinking about the pros and cons of World War 2 gaming. Now, like many little boys, I got into wargaming through the Airfix plastic figures and tanks, encouraged by my father who fought in North Africa and then served in Palestine. Currently my little boy is playing with very many of the same tanks and figures in the living room and also with a rather violent Playstation game. When I first started wargaming properly at school with my friends Cess, Bean-kid and Brookbank it was largely World War two that we did.

Now however, I feel rather dubious about gaming it. I still have this sneaking suspicion that WW2 gamers are a bit odd and that while I used to game I grew out of it. Maybe it's still too close. My father was 37 when I was born and so most of my contempories fathers did not fight in WW2. It has always seemed that bit more immediate to me than for some of my friends.


Last year I bought some Airborne division figures from Arizan and very nice they are too. I painted just one but haven't done any more. My uncle was in the Airborne Division in gliders and fought at Arnhem so it was the natural choice for me. He was in hospital with shell shock for two years afterwards and never talked about it until about two months before he died when he came up with all sorts of funny stories about his experiences of being human ballast for trainee glider pilots. I think it took him nearly 60 years to come to terms with it.

Now I am tempted by the Artizan North Africa figures and the Chieftan armour models that go with them. Still, I'm not sure. Maybe its still too close. I sold all my Vietnam figures for the same reason. But my little boy is pestering me. Need to think about it.

Cynoscephalae Count Down

Only 17 days to go until the SOA Cynoscephalae battle day.

In theory that means I could paint 17 figures.

I have in process:

6 Greek light cavalry to finish off a unit for the Roman side.

2 Macedonian generals

12 more Greek javelinmen

Given that this weekend we have to move a whole load of stuff as we are having a new carpet laid on Monday I suspect I won't get much done. So, if I am really focussed I may just get this lot done.

A little more time would have been nice as I would have liked to have done another unit of Greek lights and at least 6 more Thracians but I suspect that that will not happen.

Then I think it's on to some Perry Sudan for a change.

Salute

I went to Salute with my little boy on Saturday. It was defintely more crowded this year but it was laid out much better. I still managed to miss some traders I wanted to see, though: notably Copplestone.

There seemed to be a lot more women and children there too this year; there was a painting area and 4 out of the 10 people painting were girls when I went by.

I went mainly to look at some figures I had been thinking about buying where I wanted to check their size compatibility with ones I alreaady had.

Very unhappy about the SS re-enactors presence and I commented to that effect on The Miniatures Page in a thread that has over 290 posts now. Had an overwhelming amount of support and a couple of nice personal messages from Allen Curtis, author of the Warhammer Ancient Battles Hannibal supplement.

My favourite Game was this Teutonic Knights siege set in Lithuania.

The guys there were very friendly and they told me that they had taken a year to scratchbuild the scenery, castle and houses. The amazing thing is they actually look the way buildings in Lithuania still do. I suspect the techniques haven't changed that much in 800 years. They said they had visited the country to get a feel for it and it showed.

I also loved the cog on this wonderful river. All the set up needed to give it total authenticity was a couple of models of leggy blondes tucked away somewhere.

As regards purchases I wasn't too bad:

Persians

The Vendel Persians are quite large but will still look OK with my Foundry Greeks and Macedonians. Now I know that Artizan have commissioned Steve Saleh to do a Persian line I will hold off buying any more. I don't know much about the Persians so don't know if Persian Wars Persians and ones from Alexander's time were the same or not. There is an Osprey and another new Osprey on the Persians has just come out so I will have to pick them up once the Artizan figures come out. There are going to be a pig to paint, however.

Vikings

I had a look at Mark Sims' new Vikings for Crusader. I loved his Foundry ones although some were a little too Warhammer for me so most of my rank and file is Gripping Beast and, latterly, Artizan. I am still not conviced by the dollies he is using for some of his Dark Ages figures. They do seem a little short and squat. Some of the armoured figures looked better. I suppose I will just have to get a few and see, as I decided not to buy any there and then.

Early Saxons

I did buy some of Musketeer miniatures early Saxons. These look great and, oddly, seem to work size wise with both Gripping Beast Arthurian and Artizan Vikings. I can see myself getting a lot of these for my Arthurian Saxon army. I was also impressed by their Great Northern War and Armies of the Caliphates ranges. A firm worth watching.

Foundry

The Foundry stall was rather disappointing. Rather small and very little stock but much of it was new which was something. The greens for their Anglo Saxons looked good and I bought a nice Minotaur and Theseus for my little boy who is doing the Ancient Greeks at school. I had been tempted by the Foundry books before but had never seen one. I bought the book on Troops in Colonial Africa and it is going to be very useful for the Sudan and East Africa in World War One. Beautifully produced too.

Binders
Bought a couple of binders each for Wargames Illustrated and Miniature Wargames. Just don't have room on my shelves at the moment for them. I also bought some back issues of MW as it seems to be getting more and more difficult to get it in WH Smiths.

Magnetic Basing

I bought some more steel paper so I can add magnetic bases to more of my figures. The green paper will be for movement trays and the white to put inside one box so I can take stuff to the club without it all falling over.

Touching History Scenery Guides

I bought the new one which contains the Sudan stuff and they threw in the Peninsula War one for free. They are becoming more eye-candy and less step by step guide (probably as the techniques are the same) but they are still useful and inspirational and as the author is based in Addlestone I am supporting a local Surrey business!

Spears and Pikes

I bought some nice steel spears and pikes with proper leaf ends. The pikes wil be for my imminent Macedonian phalangites.

Companion Punic Wars
got some of their Velites for my Italian Allies. They are nice figures and will be compatible with my Crusader and A&A ones. They are also the only firm I have seen who sell wolfskin and normal troops in separate packs. I also bought a box of ancient Spanish. This was a bit disappointing as there were only 21 figures instead of 24 and only 4 poses. Nevertheless, the figures are nice and will work with the Crusader and A&A ones.

I'm not sure I will go next year as the South London Warlords are obviously run by bunch of idiots and I don't know if I want to give them any more of my money. There are lots of other good shows worth supporting like Warfare, Colours and SELWG.