Romano British Elites

I decided to try to paint the Romano British Elite unit first up, as it has a uniformity that is easier to paint than the more rag-tag Levy units.
Here are my efforts:

It still needs a coat of clear lacquer to seal everything in but other than that, the unit is done.
You can click on the image for a larger version, but that's only going to show up my poor painting skills.
I'm reasonably happy with the grey undercoat approach, and I also experimented with "dipping" these figures as well, which turned out pretty well also.  I plan to put up a quick guide (more as an aide memoir for myself) on how I did these.  At table distance, I think they look very convincing.

As I SLOWLY get the rest of the units ready for MicroDux; I'll be putting them up here.

In the interim, I still have a vast number of detail shots, that I need to post, of predominantly Heroics & Ros and Irregular Miniatures figures and vehicles that I have sampled over the last 12 months looking for items for this project and other future projects.  So expect a rather eclectic mix of these as well...

More Dark Age Buildings

I had my order come in from The BaggageTrain late last week.
I picked up three different items; their "Saxon port with riverbank" (more on that in another post) as well as some of their "Sub Roman houses" and "Sub Roman Great Hall".

Here is a pic comparing the round Celtic Hut from Timecast, a hut from the Irregular Miniatures Maori Pa scenic pack, and the Sub Roman House from Baggage Train.  I have put the Irregular and Baggage train models on a stack of card to bring the level up to roughly the same as the thick base on the Timecast hut, and included my Romano British Leader for scale reference. Click the image for a closer look.

The Irregular item is smaller, but not unusably so in my book (or perhaps the other two are too big?...)
Here is the Baggage Train Great Hall vs. the same Leader.  It is a monster that will be the centrepiece of a large Village or Hill Fort.

We now return you to more WW2 miniatures...

Timecast Celtic Village

We briefly interrupt this WW2 interlude with further Dark Age shenanigans.
A couple of days ago I received a shipment from Timecast that included two of their Celtic Villages from Range 25.
The Village consists of 4 size huts and a small granary.
Below you can see my Romano British Elites, lead by their lord, sallying forth to meet the Saxon hordes.

I'm planning on mounting one village on a CD as per the above picture, and the other village will be mixed with some other buildings from Irregular and Baggage Train to form a larger village.

Timecast have some lovely painted pics (that I will be attempting to copy with my models) available here.

We now return you to your scheduled programming...

MicroDux

Full set of starter armies for Dux Britanniarum, Romano-British on the left and Saxon on the right, in a VHS case (with room to spare!)

Pretty excited to get to this stage.  Most of my wargaming projects don't even get this far!
Now I just need to get them painted....

I'm keeping the spare "Mass" bases in the bottom of the case at the moment, but I think once I base up the livestock and carts for the cattle rustling and convoy ambush scenarios, I'll place them in the middle and put the spare bases on the lid of the box.

Now that I'm at this stage I can start pushing the bases around on the table.  There will probably be a bit of an hiatus on MicroDux posts for a while whilst I get the painting done and familiarise myself with the rules..

While this is happening I'll be continuing to put up photos of a range of recent purchases from H&R, Irregular, Dark Realm, Ground Zero Games and the ex-Adler Dark Star range.

Stay tuned!

Dark Ages waiting to be painted

Below is a quick snap I took this morning of the figures waiting to be undercoated.

Straight after taking this I went down stairs to the yard to undercoat them.
As I was reaching around to grab the spray can, a gust of wind caught the box and dumped the figures onto the lawn!

I found most of them, but two Saxon Elite (both of the "Vikings playing golf" poses that I had used) and one British Levy were lost in this fatal accident; they're somewhere in my lawn...

So now I have to base up some replacements.
Bother.

UPDATE:
I was just downstairs (a few hours later) hanging some laundry when I noticed a tiny glint in the lawn.  All 3 figures recovered.  Hurrah!  Lucky I hadn't started making up those new bases yet...

Basing update

Okay, so it's 2am, but I have everything except the British Missile troops based on my small magnetic bases (including champions) and my Big Men on larger round bases..

I have also put together enough steel paper "Shieldwall" bases for my British troops, but I still need to make a further 8 of the "Mass" bases (the blobby ones just behind the sand trays to the right), so that all units can be in a Mass formation on the table at the same time.

I'll also have to work out how I'm going to base the slingers (Brit missile troops)...

Must sleep now...

Tiny basing progress

I have knocked up three bases, one each for Elite, Warrior and Levy for my Romano British Dux Britanniarum forces, so that I can start to trial some paint schemes on them.
I've never tried to paint anything earlier than about 1939, so this will be interesting....
As you can see from the pics below I'm trialing the use of a grey primer this time around, as I'm worried that my usual black may drown the colour.

One major flaw with the basing as it stands at the moment is the fact that because the bottom sheet is also magnetic. I am having some pole-alignment issues where in certain spots the bottom sheet will repel certain figures rather than attract them.  I need to try to track down some unmagnetised sheet (steel paper or ferro sheet), but this is proving more difficult than I first thought...

tiny little sabot bases

While I've been sampling various ranges for the MicroDux project, I've had this idea for a small magnetic sabot base in my head.  I had ordered some 0.5mm magnetic vinyl on eBay to make them with, and that turned up recently, so last night I ignored the pile of work from my job and sat down to give it a go.
Pictures below are not to my usual standard, as they were some quick phone camera snaps last night to get the general sense.  You can click on them for larger, but equally blurry views.

Basically it's two small rectangles of the magnetic vinyl sheet.  The top one has a bit of card stuck to it using the self-adhesive properties of the vinyl sheet, and has a hole cut out for the figures.  The material cut out from the centre of this piece is used to base the figures.

 Here is it with one figure sitting in the base....

 ....and with a whole group of 6 figures.  I am going to be using this closely packed base to designate units in a shieldwall in my MicroDux games.  A different base with the figures more widely spaced will be used for groups not in a shieldwall.

 I had been worried about how well the figures would stick and whether they would be constantly falling out as the bases got moved.  But as you can see below, they even stay in the base when turned upside down!

Irregular Miniatures for MicroDux - Civilians Range

Final pics from my currently sampling of Irregular's ranges for my MicroDux project.
This time it's a range of their civilian figures that I'm planning on using for various bits and bobs.

CV4 - Druids

CV5 - Classical Civilians
For high class post-roman folks.  I think this is a miscast as the two figures on the right appear to be headless!  I'm going to order a couple more so we'll see how they come out.

CV6 - Barbarian Civilians
For more run-of-the-mill civilians in the Dux world.

CV7 - Dark Age Civilians
I think these may be a little to late in the period to be suitable for this project.

CV8 - Medieval/Renaissance Civilians
Too modern to be suitable here, but nice all the same.

And how do they match up against the H&R?
Comparison of Irregular CV6 (Barbarian Civilians) vs. Heroics&Ros MD4 (Saxon Fyrd)

Irregular Miniatures for MicroDux - Romans Range Part III

Final pieces from the the Irregular Romans ranges - Cavalry Options!
I have been looking for good light cavalry models to suit what I have in mind for this period - spear/javelin with a shield and maybe a helmet with minimal body armour.  I think the Dacians below might be a good fit.

E24 - Celtic Light Cavalry

E25 - German, Gothic or Frankish Cavalry

E38 - Dacian Cavalry

 E14 - Palmyran Cavalry

Irregular Miniatures for MicroDux - Romans Range

Well I drafted up a few posts over a fortnight ago, and this is the first time I've had a chance to get to them to finish any of and click publish!

Below are more strips of figures from the Irregular Miniatures 6mm "Imperial Rome and Enemies" range.
Many of them, such as the legionaries are close based, and so not going to be suitable for what I want to do with this project, although the Picts, Scots/Irish, and possibly the auxillaries, may be useful, particularly for the upcoming Raiders expansion to the game...
As always, click on the image for a larger version.

E8 - Late Roman Legionaries

E9 - Unarmoured Roman Auxillaries

E31 - Saxon / Frankish Infantry

 E38 - Scots/Irish Infantry

 E20 - Pictish Infantry

Irregular Miniatures for MicroDux - Romans Range Part II

Time for more Irregular figures that could be useful for MicroDux.  As always, click on the image for a larger version.

E5 - Roman Generals and Aides

You get the two bases per code.  These will be getting a spot as my Romano British Command figures.

Next up a range of skirmishing troops.  I will be using these for my missile troops for MicroDux.  The pics below are pretty self-explanatory.  One strip per code.
E17 - Barbarian Infantry Archers

E16 - Barbarian Infantry Javelinmen

E18 - Barbarian Infantry Slingers

The Irregular Romans ranges appear to match quite well against the Heroics and Ros figures again (once you take into account the thicker base on the Irregular).  Below is a comparison picture of Irregular E16 (Javelinmen) vs Heroics and Ros MD4 (Saxon Fyrd)

Next, more from the Irregular Roman range.....

Irregular Miniatures for MicroDux - Dark Ages range

I recently placed an order with Ian at Irregular for a range of figures for a number of projects I have planned. I have always liked Irregular's range, but their fixed basing can sometimes prove problematic. Below are a few picks from their Dark Ages range.

DA35 - Barbarian Foot Generals
Two stands per code. I think these will be quite useful.

DA27 -Varangian/Saxon/Russian heavy axemen 
Not bad figures, but the "close" basing makes them unsuitable for re-basing.

DA27 - Saxon Spearmen
Again, quite nice figures, but the close basing makes them unsuitable for my Dux Brit project.

The size of some of the Irregular ranges can vary range to range. It looks like the Irregular Dark Ages stuff is a good match against the Heroics and Rose figures. Here's a quick comparison between the Irregular Barbarian Generals and one of the H&R MD4 Saxon Fyrd strips:

Even more figures for MicroDux

I recently just got anther order of figures from Heroics and Ros.  For the most part, these are for other projects, but there were two codes I ordered specifically for MicroDux.

MAR10 - Late Roman Legionaries
I picked up this code, because I really wanted spear-equipped troops for my elite companion infantry, rather than the sword-equipped figures shown previously.  This code has delivered as you can see below.
Front and Back of the main infantry strip.

 Standard bearer strip.

One standard bearer strip and 10 infantry strips per code.

MAC10 - Celtic Cavalry
I picked up this code, because I've been trying to find a suitable code for light spear-equipped cavalry. I don't believe I've found that here.
One standard bearer and 7 cavalry strips per code.

Detail of the standard bearer strip

Detail of the cavalry strip

Coming up .... Irregular Miniatures figures for MicroDux

Figures for MicroDux - part 3

So here is the current final installment from my last order of figures from H&R.  I have some more H&R stuff  coming in the mail, and also plan to pick up some Irregular figures later this month to see how well they fit together, as I like both ranges.
In this installment there are a number of ranges like the Huscarls that with their kite shields are not suitable for the "Dux period".  These will go into storage for some future later Dark Age project.

On with the show!
Click the images for a larger version.

MD3 - Saxon Huscarls
First up those Huscarls that just don't fit the period I'm chasing at the moment.
Nice Command stand figures:

Infantry strip:

The code consists of the command strip plus ten of the infantry strips.

MA12 - Visigoth Infantry
Another code that really doesn't fit will with the current project.  I picked it up taking a punt on barbarian-type codes.
Single command strip consisting of two standard bearers, plus ten five-man infantry strips.

 Detail on the standard bearers:

 They obviously need a little flash removed.
And the infantry strip:

I'm not particularly familiar with the Visigoths, but this almost looks earlier roman in style?

MA14 - Gothic Cavalry
One standard bearer, plus seven three-horse strips.

 Detail on the standard bearer:

 Detail on the cavalry:

This code may find a place in my Dux forces yet.

MD54 - Heimskringla Longship Command pack.
These are interesting figures.  As you can see from the detailed figures below, they don't have bases as they are designed to be mounted in the Heimskringla range of ships.  They are nice figures but are larger than standard Heroics and Ros (more on that later).
The bag of MD54 that I received had two each of the poses below:

MD53 - Saga Warrior Crew Pack
The other figure set from the Heimskringla range.
I received 21 figures from 4 unique sculpts as per below.

Detail of the 4 sculpts.

Comparison of Heimskringla to Heroics & Ros
As you may have noted, the Heimskringla figures are much larger than the H&R ones.
Below is a comparison shot between some figures from the the H&R Viking pack and the Heimskringla figures.

As you can see, the Heimskringla are a lot bigger by comparison. I assume they probably come close to some of the larger 6mm ranges however.  Due to the size difference, I won't have a lot of use for these figures, but I may use one of two as champion figures for my Saxon forces.