Romans, Thracians... It's all Greek to me: 15mm Ancients

First of all, even though I didn't do much during the challenge, a huge thanks to Curt for organizing this. I had misjudged the amount of work I had to do with my new job, and sadly never found enough time to paint.

Anyway,  I present you a lot of 15mm Ancients for Art de la Guerre. First, 26 Romans from Essex and Old Glory. The Roman mounted officer had been painted before and therefore won't count. Amongst those 26, 22 are legionaries with their shields handpainted. They can be used as allies, or rebellious Romans.

Voici quelques productions pour mes armees ADG, le tout en 15mm. Avec tout d'abord 26 legionnaires romains, Old GLory et Essex. Le but est de pouvoir en faire des rebelles ou allies. L'officier monte a ete peint auparavant.

Next, we have 6 Sarmatian horsemen, from Forged in battle. Always a treat to paint.

Puis, 6 archers montes venus de Forged in Battle.

Next, 16 hoplites, fron FIB, with LBMS shield decals.

Ajoutons egalement 16 hoplites,

And next, a lot of Thracians, from Forged in battle: 14 skirmishers, 10 of them having shields, with LBMS decals.

et avec ceci terminons avec le plat de resistance, des Thraces, avec 14 tirailleurs

And 12 footmen armed with the dreaded romphaia

et 12 mechants avec leur romphaia.

They have been bloodied already last week, and they won! No one messes with the Thracians!

Greek generals

I noticed I had completely forgotten to upload the pics of my Greek generals. Silly me. So, this will be a short post, but lots of nice pics, hopefully. The horsemen are from Essex. Otherwise, everything is from Xyston.

Je me suis rendu compte que j'avais oublie de publier les photos de mes generaux. Quel becasson. Voici donc l'erreur reparee.

My favourite one, very grim

for the black cloak, I used black, dark grey, a dark brown drybush and a black wash . I like the result. It feels very heavy, leathery

Greeks on parade: my 15mm Syracusan army

Before writing the batreps from my first tournament in years, it's time to show the minis I painted for the occasion. As  I had told you before, I had a week to paint half of my army. And I had finished it the night before the first game. To make this possible, I played a Syracusan army, for many reasons: I had the minis painted or not, it's not a very popular army, though with a lot of potential, and I wanted to test the artillery in the game.

Avant d'ecrire les comptes-rendus, voici les figs que j'ai peintes en un temps record pour le tournoi de Montivilliers. Il s'agissait pour moi de jouer une armee Syracuse, et ce pour plusieurs raisons: j'avais les figs, peintes ou non, ce n'est pas une armee tres populaire, meme si elle a du potentiel, et je voulais tester l'artillerie.
J'ai utilise essentiellement des encres et lavis pour aller le plus vite possible, et parfois cela se voit. Tout d'abord les tirailleurs, dont la peau a ete traitee au smoke de Vallejo. Je ne suis pas convaincu: quand ca marche, le rendu est tres bon, sinon, c'est tres moyen, j'ai fini par passer au Devland Mud ou son equivalent chez Army painter.

I used a lot of inks and washes to paint as fast as possible, and sometimes, it shows. First, the skirmishers:

I tried Vallejo's smoke as a wash for the skin. Not bad, but very fidly to apply, and the result doesn't satisfy me. So I switched to Devland mud ( or the Army painter equivalent), and it worked better.

Puis les jeveliniers, la phalange de citoyens, l'artillerie et de la cavalerie. Les transferts sont de chez LBMS. Plus jamais je ne les utiliserai! 

Next, the javelinmen, the citizen phalanx and one base of cavalry.

Shields decals from LBMS. Never again!

And to finish the army review, the heavy artilley:

More WIPs, in biblical proportions

Hello everyone.
Those of you who don't work today, just enjoy it, and probably the following week-end too. For the rest of the world, well, good luck.
Anyway. Tomorrow, I'll take the train at 6.30AM to Lyon, to attend the tournament the following morning. It will be a double with a biblical theme. I convinced Clive from my London club to attend with me, so we will be the first British team ( though not the first British players) to play in an Art de la Guerre tournament. Thankfully, the umpire has most of the minis we need to play our army, so I only had a few to paint, and they're almost done. Just the touch-ups and basing, and we'll be ready to go.

4 chariots, and 2 units of heavy infantry. All the minis are from Essex. I had bought them at Warfare, and I wanted to present the chariots for Curt's challenge, but couldn't find a painting scheme I liked, so left them as is. Now they'll be painted in red, and i know they'll go faster ;)

Cheerio.

1 day to go, how far can I go?

All right. I've been busy and tried to paint as fast as possible. A lot has been started, and this lot is now finished: two bases of javelinmen, and one of cavalry. The horsemen are from Essex, I had them in my pile for a few years now. Honestly, they're easy to paint, but the faces were a bit flat. Bah, at least they're done. Oh, Forgot to mention: I have more horses on the way, but not as much as I wanted to, since I appear to have lost/ forgotten some riders. So I now have a few riderless horses. Erm....

The javelinmen are from Xyston. And so are the dead...

The three Essex riders of the Apocalypse

Back to the brushes!

My not-gone-to-Salute paint table Saturday

Hi everyone. If you don't know today's is one of the most important for us gamers, where do you live? Indeed, many wargamers have gone to the Excel center in East London,to attend to Salute 2014. Lucky you. I won't go this year, partly because I'd like some family time, and partly because, even if I'm dying to meet my friends and bloggers pals, and play some games, I don't feel happy to go, don't know why. Must be the weather.

Anyway. I'll spare some cash and some free time to paint a bit, hopefully. And since we're Saturday, let's see what I have on my painting table:

Some Essex and Xyston Greeks, for an army I intend to play at a tournament in 2 weeks. Though it looks like it will be another period. Ah well. My ACW stuff is almost finished (only the flqgs and tufts to apply).

Cheerio

A new but small project: biblical Egyptians

Hi everyone. Between two ACW units, I intend to paint some stuff for a small Art de la Guerre project. Indeed, since I will enter a tournament in France, and the guy organizing it is ready to lend me an army, I just need to paint some units to have a complete and playable, according to my army list.

Salut a tous. Entre deux unites yankee, j'ai l'intention de peindre quelques bricoles pour une armee Art de la Guerre. En effet, je vais participer a un tournoi, et meme si le GO va me preter une armee, je vais avoir besoin de complements pourl a rendre jouable selon mes termes.

Oh my

Because the PVA is not dry yet, I can't show you my new Chinese unit, yet... So, while we're all eagerly waiting for them, let me show what I found in my digital camera, buried somewhere alongside old holidays pictures. I had completely forgotten them.Beware! This pictures are quite old, about 10 years... Yes, 10 years ago, this was my painting level:

This tercio was part of a project for the French Religion wars for Renaissance POW, long since aborted. The minis are now safe at my parents' house...

la colle seche sur ma nouvelle unite chinoise, donc vous devrez attendre un peu avant de la voir. En attendant, j'ai retrouve de vieilles photos d'il y a 10 ans sur un projet des guerres de religion pour Renaissance POW, que j'ai depuis longtemps abandonne. Tellement abandonne que j'avais oublie ces photos... C'est fou comme mon niveau de peinture s'est ameliore.

Leading the army

No real proper army can go to war without good generals. So today I'll show them, though they're not finished: I still need to glue the banners. All of them except the cariot are from Essex. The chariot is from Museum.

Pas de veritable armee sans bons generaux. Les voici donc rien que pour vos yeux, meme s'ils ne sont pas tout a fait termines, il reste les bannieres a coller. Enjoy.

The Glorious Phoenixes

At last, they're done. I feel a bit proud of them. But before I show you the results, first the last WIP pictures:

- first the banners: I used the calligraphied version of the Phoenix Character (male version). I painted them on a paper, over which I had first put a lyer of Dheneb Stone.The characters are painted in black. Then, the banner were cut and fitted to poles. Easy, isn't it?

And here are now the Phoenixes, arrayed for battle. What a sight!

Voila, mes chariots lourds sont termines. Comme vous pouvez le voir, les bannieres sont attachees aux hampes.

Pour faire les bannieres, pas complique, j'ai fait le tout en free-hand. J'ai peint sur fond de Dheneb Stone le caractere chinois du phenix male ( car il existe une version femelle) utilise en calligraphie. Puis decoupage, collage, et eclaircissement final en blanc, et voilou.