SBH Romano-British Warband

(click pictures for a larger version)

I finally finished my Song of Blades and Heroes / Song of Arthur and Merlin Romano-British warband. It's made up of all 1/72 models by Hat. They're mounted on plastic slotta bases. The above warriors are from Hat's Late Roman Medium Infantry, plus one armored model from the Heavy Infantry box.

Three guys from the Late Roman Missile Troops box.

The above British noble is a slightly modified Hat Gothic Cavalryman. I added putty to the cloak edges for fur trim, and covered his knees to turn his odd shorts into full trousers. Hat has some armored Late Roman cavalrymen in the works, but it will be a while before they are available.

My Romano-British warband:

Noble, 72 pts

Armored warrior, 36 pts

Warrior, 17 pts x 7 = 119

Skirmisher, 24 pts x 3 = 72

Total = 299

That's only 12 models! Now, that's an army I can actually finish painting! I may make the mounted figure a Romano-British king to get the Leader status, in which case I'll just drop one of the warriors.

Next up, the Saxons. That warband will be only 8 models!

Strider and Gollum

Have you seen the online short film, The Hunt of Gollum? It's brilliant. It was a fan-made piece, but obviously they have alot of funding and skill. I had trouble with the volume, but I solved that by listening with headphones.

After watching I was inspired to paint a couple models I have had for a while. On the left is one of the adventurers from Vendel Miniatures. On the right is a Gollum model from Black Tree Design's Legends of the Realm range. The model originally carried a hare, but I remodeled it to be a fish (click on the left image for a larger version). What do you think? You can see a bit of my fingerprint in the putty rock, but apart from that I like how it all turned out.

P.S. Black Tree is currently having a 50% sale on their LOTR range.

Orc Villagers

I'm back from a camping trip into the Rocky Mountains. Fun stuff! Of course, it would have been more fun if I didn't have a cold the whole time (or was it really bad allergies?) Anyway, upon my return I was happy to find my mail box contained a small package from Mega Miniatures. Mostly I got a bunch of animals and skeletons, but I also ordered one of their new Orc Villagers.

I thought it would be good to take a comparison shot with the only other orc villagers I know of—an old set by Citadel. So, here you go! As you can see, the barrel-carrying orc towers above the old Citadel villagers. However, I should point out this is the largest model of the Mega Miniatures set. The rest of the bunch are a bit smaller. All of MM's orc villagers, would blend nicely with GW's current line of Orc models.

Late Roman and AWI Artillery

I gave my Muster the Minis coeval project another try, and doubled the participants (previously, it was just me)! This time around my friend, Jasper, joined in. The theme was artillery. I painted the above models from Hat's 1/72 Late Roman Missile troops. This scorpion is almost the same model as appeared in their older Roman Catapults box. The new set offers a choice of pieces for the forward torsion frame. I glued on the open metal frame. The other option is the wooden box-like frame from the original Hat catapult. I based these guys on plastic slotta bases to give them greater presence on the table (compared to the thinner sheet styrene I've been using).

Jasper over at Ferret's Attention Span painted a nice set of the Perry Miniatures War of Independence Continental Army cannon and crew. Click over to his blog to see all the pictures. Japser's paint technique is to prime in white, then paint with a wash. This style has caught my interest as of late. I like how the paint pools in the recesses, naturally creating a shading effect. I'll have to give it a go sometime.

Roman Forts at Haltern Map

Page 24 of Ancient Warfare magazine's recent special issue on the Varian Disaster was meant to include my illustrated map. Unfortunately, a temporary sketch was accidentally printed in Duncan Campbell's "Secrets from the Soil" article. With the rush to get this issue out, I can understand how this rare error occurred. I would still like to share my work, so I have posted it here. What do you think? Duncan had the nice idea for the dagger compass.

If you haven't seen this issue, I do recommend you pick up a copy!

Hat Late Roman Height Adjustment

As I mentioned in a previous post, Hat's 1/72 Late Roman Heavy Infantry set is a bit smaller than their Medium Infantry. Their shield sizes also differ. I am including a heavy inf. swordsman in my Song of Arthur and Merlin Romano-British warband (in-progress). The rest of the figs are Hat's medium infantry models. To compensate for the size difference I trimmed the edge of the large shield, moved the boss to the left, stacked a piece of styrene under the little guy, and added a little green stuff to his wimpy hand. I'll post a picture of the full warband when it is complete (in a few days).

Painted 1/72 scratch-built wagon

Well, this wagon isn't exactly built from scratch, but rather it is a converted Airfix ancient British chariot. I mentioned this in an earlier post. I think that now that I have the newer Hat chariots these Airfix chariot models would be better served as baggage carts.

The 519th Port Batallion on D-Day

(above photo: the 304th Port Co., 519th Port Bn., 1st Engineer Special Brigade
heading in to Utah Beach)

Today is the 65th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. This current interest in D-Day has brought two people into contact with me: a man from the 304th Port Co., and the niece to another man of the same company. If you or a loved one was in the 519th Port Batallion, please let me know. I am writing a book, and would love to exchange information and photos! I am also interested in the 90th infantry Division. My grandpa went in with a bunch of guys from either the 1st or 3rd Battalion in the 359th Infantry Regiment.

My grandfather, Cortland Hopkins, was interviewed for a D-Day story in the Albany Times Union newspaper. You can see the article online.

Hat 1/72 Late Roman Heavy Infantry vs Medium

This week I started working on a 1/72 Late Roman army. I'm using Hat's 8087 Late Roman Heavy Infantry and 8100 Late Roman Medium Infantry. The Plastic Soldier Review marks these two sets as the same size, but really they don't match up that well. The heavy armored figures are in Hat's older sculpting style: detailed hard plastic, but small. The medium infantry are in their newer rubbery plastic, and are a full head taller. Hat's missile troops are also in the newer style. 

The heavy infantry's shields are a good deal larger than those carried by the medium infantry, which further highlights the contrast in model size. In my view the medium infantry's shields could stand to be a bit larger, and the heavy's shields should defintitely be smaller.

The scale difference won't stop me from using them together. There are a few tricks to making the heavies look taller, and I might try trimming their shields. Still, it's a shame that all of Hat's Late Roman offerings weren't sculpted with the same proportions.

DBA II/11 Gallic army

I've been thinking about putting together some new 1/72 scale DBA armies, so I thought I'd bring out an old one from my closet. This is my II/11 Gallic army. It's the sole opponent to my Marian Roman army. I'm rather inexperienced playing DBA, but it seems like this match-up is too even. The few time I played these two armies it took forever to get a result—the Warband vs. Blades elements repeatedly pushed each other back, rather than making a decisive kill. I probably just need to learn some better tactics!

I have two possible general elements. The Gen Bd above features Italeri/Zvezda Gauls. The horn player model originally had funny furry pants and boots, so I glued his torso onto the legs of another model. The other general element is Cavalry (seen in the rear of the top photo)

Hat Celtic cavalry with one round shield converted to a hexagonal body shield. It's not my best paint work. The models are coated in Elmer's Glue (white PVA glue) to prevent chipping. It works great, but it's a bit shiny (I now use Windosr & Newton's acrylic Matte Varnish). The army was painted in 2001 or thereabouts. I almost want to do the whole thing over again! There have been a number of new 1/72 Hat Celtic releases since then, so it would be nice to include these. And I would like to have an army painted to my current standards. Maybe I'll do the Ancient British (same models, but a different army) and imperial Romans.