Men In Boxes

Here's another set from Hat Industrie (Set 8054 Punic Wars Italian Ally Cavalry) that I'll be adding to my growing Carthaginian Army as well as the opposing Roman Republican Army. The horses also benefited from my less than scholarly research on painting ancient warhorses. The horses are sculpted with armor for their faces (a chamfron ), decorative breastplates ( poitrail or peytral ) and no saddles nor cloths since they were known to have ridden bareback. Plastic Soldier Review identifies some of the spear-armed & shieldless riders as Samnites (the figure with a cuirass decorated with three discs) while the others are representative of generic Oscan speaking tribes. The Samnites were composed of at least four tribes: the Pentri, the Caraceni, the Caudini and the Hirpini and later may have been joined by the Frentani. The other figures represent the other allied Oscans such as Apulians, Lucani and Brutii. Warriors such as these served both Carthage and Rome. They could al...

I've been studying horses and the Numidians were my first practice models where horse color was given more focus. Painted with a variety of acrylics & drawing inks. Hopefully, I can finish them off and texture their bases by the weekend.

Here are the core units of my work-in-progress army, the People of the Woods. These were formerly prepainted minis from Mageknight that have been repainted and rebased. Depending on whether I decide to try HOTT, these figures will remain individually based. They're mounted on painted but unflocked poker chips. When I get around to finishing the additional metal figures, the bases would be textured with wall putty, painted and flocked. The additional figures include: 1 Firbolg War Leader (MK troll chieftain) 3 Huorns (MK wood golems) 3 Firbolg Warriors (MK troll brawlers) 1 Tree Magician (MK Living Elemental) Here's the next batch in their blisters .

Here are a few repainted and rebased Mageknight figures. They will be the core units for a monster army. I'm still deciding if they'll be based for Ad&D Battlesystem or Hordes of the Things. I'm comfortable with Ad&D Battlesystem but after reading a lot about HOTT, I'm intrigued by the sheer flexibility of the army building mechanism. An ebay search turned out a few sellers of the 2nd edition and I just might take the plunge soon. The figures are currently mounted singly on round plastic chips but I bluetacked them to some strips of cards, playing around with the visual mix.

I was surfing ebay this morning, looking for models to fill up my Troll army and I found this Ral Partha Troll Drummer. He looked so familiar that I thumbed thru my previous mini photos and found this by Wizkids. Hmmm, So I guess they share the same dad...

I've been nursing a bum foot since Sunday and worked on these during the afternoons. While casually surfing for horse references, I discovered a new, exciting and tremendously complex thing -- Equine Color!  Ever since I was given a book written by Sheperd Paine with a chapter on horses, I was intrigued. Only when I attempted to do research on the Numidian horsemen & their mounts did I realize how complex horse color is. Presented here are a few work-in-progress pictures. I still have a lot of touchups to do as well as texturing the bases and flocking until I can call this done. But for idly playing with them while making moronic hoofbeat sounds, they pretty much suffice. I'm pretty happy about the way the greys and the bays turned out but I'm still at a loss how to do really red chestnuts. Among the pictures, you'll find a sample of a really badly-done attempt at a chestnut with a really red coat & mane.  I may post an article here soon about the information I...

I've been moping around the house for two days already because of an injury and decided to tidy up some shelves at the home office. Lo & behold -- a not quite forgotten pack of metals I purchased at the local hobbyshop's discount bin! I've been meaning to get these figs assembled and painted up for my People of the Woods army. The troll chieftain and three troll bralwers will be repurposed as Firbolgs and the three wood golems as huorns. I managed to score only one living elemental so I guess it'll be a hero or magician.   

I've recently turned my attention to the cavalry elements for my Warmaster Carthaginian army, namely models from Hat's Numidian Cavalry, Italian Ally Cavalry, Spanish Cavalry and Italeri's Celtic Cavalry. Each box has 12 riders and horses so I went ahead and opened a box of each except for the Italeri plastic. Italeri's set had 15 riders, 15 horses and 2 foot figures. Not to keen on a big lot of unpainted plastic on my workbench, I only selected 6 figure/rider combinations good for two warmaster units and set aside the rest back to storage. All in all, I'm facing  4 units each of Numidians, Italian Allies & Spanish Cavalry with 12 figures/riders per cavalry and 2 units worth of Celts. After washing in water & dishwashing liquid, I start by cutting off the figures from the sprues and trying out different rider/horse  combinations. Riders are cleaned of flash then glued to the horses (also cleaned of flash) using undiluted PVA glue. I usually don't bother ...

First, a disclaimer is in order. I am in no way connected with Reverisco, tin-soldier.com nor Starguard. I stumbled on the site while looking for free paper models and would often browse the catalogue and read the fluff. Here's Reverisco's intro blurb for the Starguard product line : "Starguard is the granddaddy of all science fiction miniatures games. It was first published in 1974, before the roleplaying game explosion and at a time when SF and fantasy games were incredibly rare. The publisher, McEwan Miniatures, also produced a series of 25mm lead figures based on the various human and alien forces described in the game.  The Starguard rules and the accompanying miniatures line are not only still in production, but are continuously upgraded and expanded." Here's a small gallery of the paper models available for sale . And here's some background fluff . And a little point of interest. Notice how the guys up there -- a 25mm set which seems to have been design...

I downloaded this paper model from Reverisco's free model download ages ago. They used to rotate the free model each month but lately I've been only seeing the starship corrider downloads. The model was designed by Jim Neal and redrawn and colored by John McEwan. It's a nifty little model scaled at around the old 25mm scale -- that is to say it seems compatible with Reverisco's Starguard line (the setting it was designed for) as well as 1/72 models. The hull is similar to most modern gunships like the Cobra and Apache. But instead of rotors, the Gnat has two rotating thrusters on either side. A weapons pod is located at the belly and I've been thinking of the other stuff I could scratchbuild for different payloads. The game setting & rules published by John McEwan is around 40 years old --making it the oldest commercially available miniature Science Fiction wargame! What began as a simple skirmish game inspired by Robert Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers h...

I saw this book during a quick stop at the local bookstore. The models look suitable for 1/72 plastic figures and I'm thinking of buying it soon. The whole set with the models on the printed landscape base measures 24 x 18 inches along the base. If I do buy it, I'll be posting pictures.

I still have a few boxes of Mageknight Minions waiting to be opened and sorted out but it seems that I have a handful of demonic looking figures like the one shown above. It's named a "shadow". Maybe I can cobble up a fantasy demon army to go up against my People of the Woods army. Here are a few models I repainted.

More Mageknight figures lose their clickie bases, get repainted and rebased with poker chips. These figs will join the Firbolg tribe (plastic and metal MK Troll Brawlers, Shamans and Chieftains) and Dryads (formerly MK Thorn Maidens) in my People of the Woods fantasy army. Flock will be added as soon as I complete the army lineup. Showcased here are the Huorns (MK wood golems and tanglewood spirits).