Wargames Factory Painting Contest

I noticed Wargames Factory was running a painting contest to gather painted examples of their figures. I've painted up some of their Romans and Ancient Germans, and though they aren't the best examples of painting skill, I thought it was worth a shot to enter them.

Wargames Factory Romans. The shield decals really make these figures.

Wargames Factory 28mm Romans

Wargames Factory Roman Cohort

Wargames Factory Ancient Germans

My Tips for Warlord Games Celtic Warriors

Warlord Games Celtic Warrior build

The holidays did a whammy on my posting, but I managed to make some progress on a few of my game projects. I finally got a chance to build the plastic Warlord Games' Celtic Warriors.  I thought I'd pass on a few things I figured out while building them.

COMPONENTS
The box comes with three sprues: two warrior sprues with bodies, legs and heads, and a command sprue with the same components but swapping the heads for a standard and carnyx. There are also a few severed heads, 15 shields, assorted spears, swords and knives and a sheet of 15 shield stickers.  It's a good set of components, the sculpting is dynamic and sharp but there are very few "extras". With only 15 shields, but 30 figures, I opted to order an extra set of Celtic Shields from WG and some Little Big Man Studios decals as well. The colorful shields of the Celts is one of their biggest draws, so skimping on the shields is a little disappointing but overall this is a quality set.

Tip 1) Order extra shields.  

More tips after the jump.

Hail Caesar Skirmish!

Hail Caesar Romans ready for battle

My buddy Mark was in town for the holidays, and with a handful of complete (or nearly complete) figures ready to go, we decided to take a shot at Hail Caesar to run through the rules, roll some dice and throw some barbarians and Romans together and see the sparks fly. Check it out after the jump...

My First Ancients, Finished and Based!

Finally got my first Ancients completed. Still have many, many figures to paint up, but this is an exciting milestone for me. More photos after the break.

Romans, Germans, Numidians - Progress Mid-December

"You're gonna need a bigger box."

I wanted to document my progress on my various ancient armies as I've made some headway since this Summer. Just a quick snap from my iPhone for now with better photos to follow when they are complete. I need to finish off the bases of the infantry with static grass and tufts, and decide on a basing scheme for the cavalry, and then I can get down to rolling some dice! I'm still sorely lacking in actual elements and missing generals for each army, but at least there will be some figures I can push around on the table.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program...

Wow, that was quite a break since my last post! A dead computer, work stress, and a quick diversion into rereading the Lord of the Rings put Ancients on the back burner for a bit. I've returned to painting now and hoping to get in some games over the winter holidays.

 To get back into the swing, I was catching up on some Meeples and Miniatures podcasts. Episode 77 was a review of two rules sets, Hail Caesar and Clash of Empires. Neil, the host loses some energy during his lengthy review, and I've always felt his enunciation seemed a little fuzzy, but he does give a pretty good overview of the rules. I've always found it difficult to explain new games to the folks I play with, so I thought the podcast might be a good alternative without requiring them to pick up the book themselves. The Hail Caesar overview starts at about 15:30.