Ancients progress and butterfly distractions...

Some short sessions after work and weekends have seen me clear the decks of 15mm ancients in progress.

Both were supposed to be "quick wins" as the figures were bought painted and "just" needed rebasing...

So much for plans! It turned out the rebasing was a major project and for the Romans, the re-touching turned into virtual repainting! The previous owner had not undercoated and bits of bare metal showed up. Irritatingly, the shields had been edged with brass which took several coats to rectify. Anyway, they are done now.

By way of a "before and after" I give you the Germans:

Before - as bought:

There was also a base with a lone figure - Herman the German - some mates were dug out:

I contemplated rebasing but rejected the idea - Herman was moved slightly to make room. The figures were nicely painted and close to my style - until I'd rebased I didn't notice how many blonds there were....a bit of a "Children of the Damned" look.....

After rebasing:

Herman's mates included a slinger converted to a standard bearer with club and the Minifigs chief from the generic command pack - more Sarmatian than German and as I painted him with an uncanny resemblance to Noggin the Nog.....

https://www.nogginthenog.co.uk/

Perhaps I should have painted him thus...

There were some stray Pompeians - painted a long while ago - I think of them as Evocati - recalled veterans.

And the Romans to form the new raw Legions for the campaign.

Before with some touch ups:

And fully finished varnished and rebased:

More Germans and Celts await paint.

Now butterfly distractions.....

A lot of the blame for this can be put down to Alan Gruber of the excellent Tradgardland Blog (https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/search/label/Hot%20club%20de%20Carpathia) who really inspired or re-inspired me with his post:

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-army-of-transilvania.html

Using the Strelets Rumanians as the first of his imaginary interwar nations. 

Like Alan, I like the chunky Strelets style - not all their figures are in this style and I understand one of their sculptors was killed in the ongoing war in Ukraine (http://www.deartonyblair.co.uk/2025/02/anton-derbilov-reality-of-war-strelets.html). 

In any case, in addition the the Romanians, they also do Hungarians and Italians as well as various WW1 and partizan figures in eastern European garb.

Alan cannot take all the blame. Indeed, he blames Bob Cordery for his series of posts on his Belle Époque armies ( https://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-army-of-kingdom-of-ashona-is.html).

I have had a long running desire to "do" something along imaginary Interwar lines - I thought about taking Soldier King forwards, bit that seemed a mammoth undertaking; similarly, I toyed with using my Latin American country of Costaguano and its neighbours San Angeles and El Bravado for some ABC wars:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_countries

None took off or the plans spiralled into huge projects. Following Alan's post the seed planted long ago began to germinate. More cross-pollination had been dormant from the excellent Greg Horne's Duchy of Alzheim:

https://mavisming.blogspot.com/2015/12/long-live-borduria.html

Tin-Tin inspired (yet another influence). Searching the internet for 1920s and 1930s Imagi-Nations revealed comments from me about moving to a more generic "Graustark v Ruritania" background....

For the uninitiated, these are imaginary countries from romantic / adventure fiction popular in the C19th and early C20th set in vaguely eastern European principalities, indeed Bob is a fan:

https://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2013/05/an-to-z-of-ruritania.html

I had encountered Graustark elsewhere; Frank Chadwick in one of the versions of Command Decision gave a fictional ToE  for a battalion from Graustark. More tellingly, he also postulated both countries as real Balkan states in Space 1889, providing details of flags and armies in that era:

He also includes Transbalkania as another minor state - from yet another series of books (https://avramdavidson.com/the-adventures-of-doctor-eszterhazy-avram-davidson/). 

Frank Chadwick locates them squarely in the Balkans between Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria and on the borders of Austro-Hungary. Very much "Grand Budapest Hotel"!

With such synchronicity, who  can resist the temptations of 1920s and 1930s tanks and tankettes and obscure interwar aircraft?

Tramp, tramp, tramp! .......the inexorable progress of the Romans

Minimal progress here at chez moi, mostly due to miserable weather which puts a dampner (literally!) on any painting and certainly undercoating.

I did manage to work out what is required for the campaign and what is still to do (as well as what's available). That done, I turned my attention to some Romans bought with a minimal paint job on very small bases. Pilum were straightened and aligned. I managed to miss that many had bits of shield missing!

Once removed from the bases, they were mounted on temporary card bases and received a Dark Tone AP ink wash. They appear to be Donnington miniatures and had received a minimal paint job so the touch ups have been extensive. Poor light eventually persuaded me to call time; a little sun should see them finished. They will form the two raw legions raised as reinforcements.

While hunting out figures, I discovered some FK 15 legionaries I had painted as Pompeians. These were varnished and based.

This will allow the existing figures to form three Legions with similar colours to add to the other five Legions in red. I had thought I would have to incorporate a different colour stand to make up numbers.

While I was basing, I took the opportunity to rebase the lonely German from my painted purchase and clean up and undercoat some companions. Rather than re-base, I shall simply give the existing bases some TLC.

For the Romans there are cavalry to add, as well as baggage and camps. The barbarians have lots of potential reinforcements, mostly infantry. If I keep plodding on, I should have enough for the campaign to start around Easter..

Future plans.

Having assembled lots of Romans, the obvious next step after the Gallic wars is for the Civil War. This will mean lots more Romans, as well as more exotic allies. Fortunately, Romans are relatively quick to paint!

For a break from Romans, I may tackle some of the GHQ 1:285 stuff for the desert.

I have also been thinking of other projects and the size limitations. Sadly the flats will be on hold as the footprint is too large for the limited table. 

However, I have dug out the 15mm Italian Wars stuff as a possible replacement. Other than that, the other possible project is to revisit the 15mm SCW. At present, there are Romans and barbarians to be painted and cleaned up, undercoated and ready for painting there are SK Estavian reinforcements and a host of Seleucids and Ptolemaics and even some 25mm /30mm French & Indian War British and French.

Lets hope the weather improves and at least gets a bit brighter!

Hammerhead and finished Romans

Yesterday I attended the Hammerhead show in Newark which has recently had the organisation taken over by Dave Ryan of Caliver Books. The change in running may have had an effect - I will comment later.

It was very busy although a lot of people had left by around lunchtime. While queuing to get in, people could be seen leaving - whether to simply put stuff in their car or having finished the shopping trip going home barely after opening! From the numbers I assume the former, although some looked like they were finished for the day, weighed down with boxes....

As it bills itself as a Participation show, there were few of the eye-catching displays seen at Partizan and lots of games on small tables. Bigger games had gone for mats and free-standing terrain with a few exceptions, one of the smaller games at least had gone for sculpted terrain as seen in the typical display game. There were quite a few naval games which was a surprise but I guess easy to run as a participation.

I grabbed some photos going around the hall; some games I simply couldn't get close enough due to people playing, others it was a case of leaning in a snapping a quick shot - so some photos are not the best.

There were a couple of early horse and musket games in evidence.

The previously mentioned naval games

This last one using what I suspect is a cheap but effective plastic sea effect tablecloth

Midgard in evidence

The Boondock Sayntes using Indian walls and other historical scenery as Minas Tirith

Lego Alamo

Paper Boys WW2 Jungle

Pony Wars?

Star Wars

North Star Warriors of Athena lovely terrain not many figures!

Italian Wars - Hornsea Contemptable. I think this is the chap that has adapted Fire & Fury ACW... nice figures shame about the rather shabby TSS tiles...

My old Compadres of the Tyneside Wargames Club put on Operation Barbarossa again using 10mm figures and tanks designed and cast by the talented Pete Foggin

https://tynesidewargames.co.uk/

https://www.foggofwarminiatures.com/

I spent a bit of time catching up - not as much as I'd have liked but with a 3 hour window time was finite.

I also had a nice chat with Martin Rapier - disturbed him while eating his lunch! His blog is always worth a visit.

https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/

I didn't have time to play in any games (although no-one tried to engage) and aside from the socialising and a bit of shopping, was ready to go when my friend and lift asked. 

Looking at the programme today I had thought that I'd missed some traders, despite a tour of the hall, but found out that I had covered almost all of them. Likewise I had wanted to see an Arab-Israeli game, but never noticed it, but to be fair, a lot of small games or those using 6mm or smaller simply don't catch the eye and few seemed worth the effort of fighting past people's backs to get a picture!

I think this highlights some issues for me with the show. The venue. While no doubt convenient, I simply don't like shows in large sheds; they are noise and hard on the feet. Aside from the busy cafe, there was nowhere to sit. The catering and toilets are about adequate, but not brilliant.

The venue also suffers when attendance is high. It is noisy and people were chatting while blocking passages and trade stands, the passageways being very crowded at peak times. I saw one chap on sticks and wondered how he was faring. My view is that is down to the venue as well as how it is utilised.

The tablesales / bring and buy, was in the dead centre and was like a rugby scrum; it also acted as a blockage right opposite the main entrance. I think they will have to consider what Partizan have done and had marquees at the entrance for table sales and a bit more room - although frankly at opening this must cause access problems? These things take up lots of room and attract wargamers like vultures around a corpse!

The layout itself with traders around the edge and games in the middle doesn't work IMHO. Getting to the trade stands means threading a path through games. Why not divide the hall into games and traders? At lease that way you could see where most footfall occurs and plan space accordingly.

I'm aware of how much effort planning these events takes. I got the impression a lot was done at the last minute on this occasion. The website was not updated until two weeks before the event. I understand from a trader that I didn't know was going until I looked at the floorplan, told me he had been on the waiting list for 8 years (!) and only received an invite 2 weeks before the show! Given that some traders who normally attend were absent (listed in the "traders for 2025" up to 2 weeks before the show) I assume the invites or confirmations went out too late to plan properly. Given more and more are retiring and some have stopped attending shows, this could have a big impact....

It suggests to me that to continue, Hammerhead will have to up its game - it's not the venue that attracts people, it's the traders and games. If these are sub-par, attendance will suffer. Poor publicity and a change of date (all last minute) killed Sheffield Triples.

Anyway, aside from a few purchases none of which are particularly photogenic, the show was OK but not outstanding.

In other news, the Romans who had been painted, varnished and based had their bases finished.

Dulce bellum inexpertis - Romans

Plodding along with progress on the Caesar's War project. The last two weekends have seen attention turn to the Romans.

While legionaries are plentiful, the light axillaries were looking a bit thin on the ground, as were extra command stands. The existing stocks were raided and extra command figures purchased. Sadly, the Freikorps 15 range which most of the existing Romans came from have been redesigned in many cases and the current website lacks pictures of the whole range. Rather than buy something blind, I had to hunt around to find who does suitable command figures.

There was not a lot of choice for Marian Romans. I ended up buying some of the Xyston figures as these had the correct standards if lacking in Centurions. While they are a bit larger than most, it was a case of make do.

I did find the last of the FK 15 Legionaries.

From the same range came slings and javelins (early unarmoured auxilia figures):

Some stray Minifigs Cretans were also enlisted:

Then the Legion command stands; each "Legion" will consist of a command stand, 4x stands of Legionaries, 1-2 x LI and possibly cavalry. So looking at available FK15 legion figures and existing command stands, another 5 command stands will give 8 Legions. With one eye on the Civil War, 2 were painted as "Pompeian" or "Optimates" and 3 as "Caesarian" or "Popoulares" using the schemes I had decided on long ago when raising 2x DBA armies; one in light purple and dark red/crimson the other in red, no doubt influenced by the maps in Terry Wise's  Battles for Wargamers.

So the Optimate faction:

And the Populares:

When time allows they will receive some ground work and basing.  There remains still some more bits to finish. Two more Legions need assembling from painted figures, there are more Germans and Celts to add as well as baggage / camps, villages, more trees to base, possibly ships and fortifications. Hopefully, leave in April will allow time to make a start on the actual campaign and battles.

Next weekend is Hammerhead. No doubt I shall bump into a few bloggers.