However, there has been much else going on in the last weeks: Imperial Guard for Warhammer 40k, Greeks and Persians for Warmaster Ancient, a group of Mongoose Publishing ducks for Runequest (a commercial link, sorry, I didn't find them from Mongoose's website), some Gauls and Romans for playing with GW's Lord of the Rings ruleset... Finally, an army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle... a special, odd one... green, for the most part. With robots. And giant constructs... Niak niak niak...
But let's start with Greeks and Persians for Warmaster Ancient Battles, the "operational" system of Warhammer Historical for 6-15 mm. I used to play Warmaster Fantasy version with Dwarves, and appreciated it a lot. The rules' most important notion is command: each leader has a command value, and you test for the capacity of these leaders to have their orders followed by their troops. Without orders the troops can act instinctively, fleeing, assaulting, etc. The game system is one of the best Games Workshop produced, and certainly one of the most elegant. It has problems, for example with recoils (troops under fire do not die easily, but they tend to get distressed and recoil. This is often very messy when you have lots of units together in a tight spot) and like Warhammer it tends to end up with a big bash in the middle of the field. It is a good game though, very well presented and easy to grasp. It is also a one-book game system: no need to buy codices or army books: lists, rules, everything fits in one book.
The Ancient and Fantasy versions share lots in common, but have a few differences. Especially, the historical version limits the number of orders you can give to the same unit or groups of units, hence limiting the number of time this unit will be able to move in the same turn. The historical version also gives a bigger role to skirmishers. Of course it still is a GW-product, so the "historicity" of the lists for example is more often than not debatable. But in the same way as in Warhammer Ancient Battles, the designers are very clear on that: the point is to play Warmaster with an historical feel, not to "re-enact" historical battles or aim at more than general accuracy. If you are ready to keep the little historian in you repressed for a few games, this is a very rewarding way to play with historical toy soldiers. It pays its respect to historical accuracy without letting it get in the way of a good game.
For me, it was mostly an excuse for taking a few plastic toy soldiers out of the cupboards. I have a long history with plastic 1/72 soldiers. These are the first "miniatures" i owned, and I still have extremely fond memories of a set of Vietnam era US Marines I bought back as a teen. Excellent stuff. Since then two companies especially have been putting out superb sets: Zvezda from Russia and Hat, an English company. I had Greek hoplites from both, so of we went for the Greek-persian wars.
Painting is very straightforward (references Vallego or Citadel). Black undercoat, then main colors Dark Fleshtone, Brazen Brass, Bleached Bone, Dark Green, etc. Dark basic colors. Then on that a first highlight color, then a second on the edges and tops. For white for example: Bleached bone, then pure white. For fleshtones: dark fleshtone, then dark fleshtone + bronzed flesh, then bronzed flesh.
I am preparing two 1000 points armies for the battle of Marathon period, one Persian and the other Greek. The models take the paint very well. Zvezda's miniatures have no flash to be mentioned, Hat a bit more. Zvezdas are a bit more ... chunky, big than the Hats, which are thinner. But they mix very well. The Hats do not have the spears included, but I did some with bristles from an old sweeper: works very well. The Hat figures have their shields in odd positions, but this is minor. For about 7 euros I get a box with, either 36 Zvezda hoplites, or 48 Hat mercenary hoplites. These are superb miniatures, with no flash, well sculpted, and easy to assemble. Enough said.
They are based on 60 mm * 20 mm strips of plasticard. Basing is also very simple: some joint filler paste, glue then sand in patches. Then the paint: basecoat GW Snakebite leather, then heavy drybrush with bleached bone and drybrush with pure white. Finally some static grass in patches. This makes a suitable dry looking landscape. Remember if possibe to paint light-colored bases, it makes the miniatures themselves appear bigger. A dark base will "suck" the color of the mini.
Following the instructions of the Warmaster Ancient rulebook, I enlarged the bases a bit to accomodate these bigger 20 mm. This means I will have difficulties to play these armies against other Warmaster-based armies on 40 mm * 20 mm bases. But this is not a problem as I don't intend to play these armies much outside friendly Persian-Greek fights.
Enough for today. Lots more where they come from, though... The only problem I met with Zvezda and Hat is with Greek Cavalry. I heavily modified the Zvezda Alexandrian cavalry set using Hat and Zvezda greek light infantry in order to reproduce the very light cavalry that was used by the Greeks in front of the Persian army. I will show those later.
For the information, I used three Osprey books (Ancient Greeks, Persian Army, and the Greek-Persian wars). The Ancient Greeks book is particularly useful, and beautiful too. Angus Mac Bride was definitely the best military illustrator of his generation. There is a vibrance in his drawings, real life, something lacking from the more academic illustrations of the two other books.
In the list of links, you will find the Plastic Soldier Review website and both Zvezda and Hat sites. PSR is an excellent website, full of information and updated at a staggering pace.
Yep, more on that and other projects later. Just a little hint as to the green mystery army...
LEFT! NO! RIGHT! YOU STOOPID!
Cheers.
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