Men In Boxes

* click the pictures for a bigger copy Apparently, the peeps from Wells Expedition believe so. The company is the new baby of the same people who created classic games like HeroClix, MechWarrior: Dark Age and Pirates of the Spanish Main. Their new game is entitled Arcane Legions and is billed as a ( hold your groans please...) "collectible mass action miniatures game." "The greatest armies of antiquity battle for control of a magically altered world. The year is 37 BCE. The Roman Empire, Egyptian Imperium, and Han Dynasty converge in epic battles across the Middle East. Their legions are full of men and monsters, warriors and sorceresses, undead and gods—this is epic war like none seen before." Personally, I wasn't fond of the clickies like Mageknight and Heroclix. I usually bought these just for the figures -- which of course I repaint and rebase. But Arcane Legions may have something going for them. Arcane Legions is an epic-scale strategic combat simulation i...

* Click pictures for a bigger version Remember this Gormiti? Well, it's a proper ent now after some modeling putty and some creative sprue stretching. Three copies of the figure above were lathered with model putty, stuck with flame-melted sprue parts and subjected to black and brown spray paint to produce these bad boys. The original Gormiti had very minimal textures on its skin, so I applied a generous helping of Tamiya model putty on the surface. I also tried to break up some of the toy's original shape. An asymmetrical look seemed more appropriate. Then armed with a raggedy old chisel brush and a toothpick, I went over the putty and roughened the surface, trying to make it look like rough bark. Some leftover sprue was heated and burned atop a lit candle. With the plastic bubbling, I stretched, twisted, joined and slopped around the molten material until I came up with branch-like structures. These were trimmed and superglued on the toy's body. Some more putty covered ir...

After much consideration, I've decided to use Miniart's Late Roman Infantry as the core models for my Mirkwood Elves. the figures are sculpted wearing a tunic over trousers, with some in scale or mail armor. A simple conversion with putty cloaks and hoods over the heads should do the trick in making them look more "woodsy." (Figure scan above is from PSR) I like the fact that the armor has a very "dark age" feel and that not all the figures wore any, perfect for depicting the lightly armed & mixed warriors of Mirkwood. Some of the figures are armed with the Dark Age Roman Spatha, a longer sword popular in this period, as well as a variety of spears and javelins. Each set has 8 archers (short bowmen -- perfect for Mirkwood since it was the Lorien elves who used longbows) in two poses which would again just require a putty cloak with a hood over the head. The set has a mixture of shields, both of medium size and of large, oblong ones. During the war agai...

* You can click the images for a bigger picture Europa Barbarorum describes these men -- the Dorkim Afrikanim Aloophim -- as "a force of extremely well trained and motivated soldiers whose purpose is to fight as a tough and seasoned heavy infantry." This was proven by their use in the momentous battle of Cannae. Here, they surrounded and slaughtered the Romans in what is today recognized as the classic double envelopment. The figures are from Hat Industrie's Set 8020 " Hannibal's Carthaginians-African Infantry" and are composed of four heavy infantry poses. However, only two poses were used for the units photographed here with the remaining poses used to represent other elite African pikemen such as the Aanatim Afrikanim Aloophim . Each box also has two lighter unarmored infantry poses and two Numidian javelinmen poses. These will be featured soon. As usual, these are based for Warmaster Ancients.

* Some pictures can be clicked for bigger versions The army of Carthage is slowly nearing completion with the Libyan Light Infantry as the newest troops to join in. There are only three poses in these units, two from Hat Industrie and one from Zvezda. The two figures from Hat are from Set 8058 Carthaginian Allies. The two models carry javelins & shields. From the description in PSR, Libyan tribesmen seemingly wore quite severe haircuts to distinguish themselves, and these two have ridges of hair down the center of their shaven heads. The Zvezda figure is the lone libyan in Zvezda's Set 8010 Carthaginian Infantry. It's a pity because I prefer the pose and sculpting of Zvezda over Hat's overly basic figures. The Zvezda Libyan even has an earring in his right earlobe and his shield and short sword are well sculpted. In addition, the Zvezda figure has virtually no flash while the Hat Industrie figures have some mold problems with one figure marred by a very misaligned fac...

* Click pictures for a bigger version Remember this Gormiti? Well, it's a proper ent now after some modeling putty and some creative sprue stretching. Three copies of the figure above were lathered with model putty, stuck with flame-melted sprue parts and subjected to black and brown spray paint to produce these bad boys. The original Gormiti had very minimal textures on its skin, so I applied a generous helping of Tamiya model putty on the surface. I also tried to break up some of the toy's original shape. An asymmetrical look seemed more appropriate. Then armed with a raggedy old chisel brush and a toothpick, I went over the putty and roughened the surface, trying to make it look like rough bark. Some leftover sprue was heated and burned atop a lit candle. With the plastic bubbling, I stretched, twisted, joined and slopped around the molten material until I came up with branch-like structures. These were trimmed and superglued on the toy's body. Some more putty covered ir...

Now that I have the figures to start building the army, I've made some lists to help in organizing the forces. Warmaster is my current favorite ruleset and I've been basing my 1/72 historicals using two infantry figures per one 40mm x 20mm base stand, with cavalry being mounted one each. Three infantry bases normally make a unit, with an additional stand if the unit is elite or veteran. A cavalry unit is composed of three figures with the models facing the 20mm side. As I've written earlier, I've read that Isengard actually had two armies -- one that went East and another that went West. So, I sat down and drew three variants of the Isengard army. The lists and points were taken from the Middle Earth Warmaster group at Yahoo Groups. I'm aiming for a base army of around 1500 points each. The first list is a generic army list for Isengard. The images can be clicked for a bigger version. The Army of East Isen is Uruk heavy, with a lot of wolfriders and Dunlending horse...

I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings in the early 80's as a student at an exclusive Catholic school run by Jesuits. It was prompted by a stage play that adapted "The Hobbit" as well as the trilogy into a musical. Here, Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry join Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Thorin and company plus a solo Legolas as they seek the treasure of Smaug for different reasons. As the quest progresses they are hunted by 9 Ring Wraiths, a lost Frodo wins a riddle game against Gollum as well as a magical ring, and get rescued by Gwaihir. A shaky start I know, but it did lead to my parents giving me the books as a christmas present. I hungrily dove into it. Suffice it to say, I discovered high fantasy and a world that continues to enthrall me all these years. Which brings me to my latest project in miniature -- the armies of Middle-Earth in 1/72 scale. I was prompted to explore the idea when Caesar Miniatures released a fantasy line in 1/72. Previously, I had b...