Trying out "To the Strongest"

After finishing up my latest batch of Romans I was eager to get them on the table. Rather than pull out my trusty Hail Caesar rules though, I decided to christen them with "To the Strongest", Simon Miller's new diceless, grid based wargame. Check out our first stab at the rules after the jump.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #9: Won By the Razor's Edge

With my Carthaginians, Spanish and new leaders painted up it was time to get them on the table and see how they'd do. With Historicon fast approaching and another friend of mine joining us at the convention this year, I wanted to give him an intro to the rules in case we were able to get into a game together. A long time 40K and fantasy player, this would be one of his first exposures to historical wargaming. All the bloody details on a very close game after the jump.

Warlord Games Celt Leaders

Getting back into the swing of things, I polished off a few barbarian leaders that had been stuck in my lead pile for far too long. The Celtic Chieftains from Warlord Games comes with three fearsome warriors. I used one for a more "germanic" command stand that I painted up last year, but chose to keep these remaining two as definitely Gallic.

The horned chieftain was quick to paint up. His broad cloak took a plaid pattern easily.

I wanted to include a second figure for the bald leader, but needed to create a height difference between the chieftain and his companion for their positioning to look correct.

I used some wood chips to represent bare, exposed stone, and filled in the gaps with bits and pieces of pink insulation foam.

A thick coating of white glue and flock filled in any other gaps, and the addition of a naked buddy and baldy is ready to go.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #8: Our Favorite Game Yet

It's been a crazy busy week for me, but I did manage to get in another small skirmish of Hail Caesar the other day. We don't yet have enough figures painted up to match the army sizes suggested in the rules, but this was our first game where we had enough figures for it to really feel like an ancient set piece battle. After action report and thoughts after the jump.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #7: Back to Basics

Before children, my wife and our friends Rob and Laura would meet regularly to play games. Catan, Ticket To Ride, Roborally, and more hit the table at least once a month. Since we all started infecting our houses with time-eating rug rats, our game nights have become infrequent at best.  The stars aligned the other night though, and we managed to get a game night with all four of us. Surprisingly  the game I was informed we'd be playing was Hail Caesar . Find out how teaching two wargaming newbs the art of ancient warfare went after the jump.

Black Tree Designs Celt Slingers

I've decided to impose a moratorium on figure painting in October for myself in order to make progress on a  number of other projects that have been on the back burner.  Racing to hit my deadline, I managed to get some Black Tree Designs "Celt Slingers" painted up before the end of the month though.

Black Tree Designs "Celt Slingers". I've removed their shield studs and shields for the most part.

I didn't think it was possible to wield a shield while using a sling, but a little research on TMP changed my mind. The large oval scutums were probably too unwieldy for skirmishers to carry, and my packs of slingers only came with two small round buckler shields. I shaved off the mounting knobs from most of the slingers, saving the bucklers for the two poses who I thought would look too odd without a shield in their off hand.

Five coats of generic craft flat spray weren't enough to knock off the Army Painter shine

I also gave my Army Painter dip another try, thinning it with mineral spirits and using the very thinnest of coatings to accent the shading I had done and give a final protective coat (since these figures will likely be picked up by the figure rather than the base). The dip still came out thicker than I had hoped, though it wasn't quite the disaster that befell my Cretans. I think I may have just received a bad batch of dip if such a thing is possible, since it isn't behaving the way my previous tin did.

The slingers are decent sculpts, not quite as nice as the BTD Ancient Germans, but serviceable.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #5: Driving out the Barbarian

It's been a busy summer and far too long since we got any minis on the table, but my wife and I found a  single free evening to play a short game of Hail Caesar. Each time I play Hail Caesar I try to get a better handle on the rules and try something a bit new. For this game we came up with a scenario rather than fight out a simple bash.

Julius Caesar is throwing around his muscle, using the migration of celtic tribes as a pretense to launch attacks on their "aggressive advances". In this hypothetical scenario a detachment of Roman legionnaires, having defeated one celtic tribe in battle, advance on celtic village intent on burning the inhabitants out. Will the defending celts summon a defense in time to drive the Romans off? AAR after the jump.

Celtic Village Terrain

Just a few pics of some terrain I painted up.  I bought some low stone walls and three 15mm Celt huts from Falcon Figures while at Historicon. While researching colors for the Celtic hut I found a pic that seemed to be the model these moulds were emulating, and used it as the basis for my color scheme.

I intend to create a sunken, circular Celt village to place these buildings in, but for now these generic stone walls will give them slight protection.  The crude walls should be useful in every period, from ancients to modern. At a buck a piece they were well worth the time savings it would take me to build something similar from pebbles, pink foam and ballast.

Warlord Games Celtic Cavalry

I finished up a box of Warlord Games Celtic Cavalry and posted a few pics and thoughts after the jump.

Warlord Games Celtic Cavalry Tips

The Warlord Games Cavalry box comes with 10 horses and riders. I wanted to use 12 figures in the unit, and rather than buying an entire extra box of cavalry I searched for a pair of cavalry I could add.  After looking at a number of possibilities I thought Crusader's German Cavalry (with a head swap) would fit.  I liked the horse sculpts in the Crusader figures and really like Crusader's figures. Sadly I discovered Warlord Games Celtic Cavalry and Crusader do NOT mix.  The Crusader horse is ginourmous compared to WG. Yikes!

Warlord Games and Crusader cavalry don't mix!

Reevaluating I decided to simply move forward with 10 figures. I like Hail Caesar and don't plan on playing and rules that require figure removal so the actual number of figures per unit isn't a matter of life and death.  Two of the 50mm x 50mm bases wound up with one (rather than two) mounted figures.  To  create more visual weight to the understaffed bases I added a bit of mulch bark painted up as a rock outcropping.

I also decided to avoid placing the horses nose to tail, offsetting them, tilting them and generally adding a sense of disorder to the figures. I know in reality it's likely all of the horses would fall in line (being herd animals), but I wanted to add a sense of chaos and fury to these Celt horsemen to match the wild and wooly foot troops they'd be fighting alongside.

Warlord Games Celt Cavalry WIP

Just a quick update on some celt cavalry I've been working on.  I have very little experience painting horses so this project has been a lot of experimentation in figuring out the best approach.  I used a base coat of Vallejo Desert Yellow, coated the horses coat with an oil based burnt umber and then wiped it away from all raised surfaces leaving the burnt umber only in depressions.  The final effect was a little darker than I had hoped, and the oil paint took ages to dry, but I still think it provides a better effect than a wash would.

The Warlord Games cavalry have the rider's legs sculpted as part of the horse.  When I've painted cavalry in the past I always finished the horse and rider separately and then assembled them.  I tried finishing the horse first, then assembling the rider and attempting to paint the rider, which lead to some difficulty in painting the fronts of any tunics, especially with those celtic plaid patterns. For the remaining celt cavalry I'll be finishing off the rider's torsos before final assembly.

A Few More Tips For Warlord Games Celtic Warriors

I finally managed to get my box of Celts finished off a few days ago. I posted a few tips for building Warlord Games Celtic Warriors back in December, and I have a few final thoughts for anyone attempting to tackle the same project. Check them out after the jump.

Complete Celts

Finally managed to finish off my Warlord Games Celt Warriors.  Just a quick pic for now with a final set of tips and thoughts later this week.

Warlord Games Celt Warriors, finished and based thank God.

Slow Progress

Work has taken a lot out of me this week, and I've had little energy to throw into miniatures each evening. I've found that putting in even 5 minutes a day helps keep projects moving along, so this week has seen me clipping Wargames Factory Romans from their sprue and finishing the decals and painting on some Warlord Games Celt shields.

Warlord Games Celt shields, attached to tape and card for assembly line detail painting.

I'm hoping to make some significant progress this weekend. I have 30 Celts just dying to get their shields attached and based.

A Calamity of Celts

I made some progress on my Warlord Games Celt Warriors over the last week or so. I've got the whole group painted up to table quality and ready for a final dip in Army Painter Soft Tone to pull them all together and give 'em a little more shading.

I was a little impatient with getting this lot done.  For the Ancient Germans I had a pretty strict color palette of muted earth tones. I wanted the Celts to stand out with much more vivid colors. I also know the Army Painter will soften the colors quite a bit, and any patterns that aren't high contrast will become dull and difficult to make out.  The colors and patterns are what give a Celt warband its personality, so I overcompensated using a lot of off-white, GW Foundation Red, navy blue, and bright green with striking high contrast patterns.

As I continued to work the group up though, the overall effect was a little to clown-like. I tried repainting, switching to muted colors, trying a lot of different patterns, etc.  In the end, there's a lot going on with the entire warband, and without a really unified color palette I think the effect might be a little TOO chaotic, even for such a wild band of barbarians. I've sunk enough time into these though and I'm eager to get them on the table. I'll just chalk this up to a learning experience for my next band of Celts.

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.