Army Review: 15mm Sarmatians

Today's review is of my first "proper" (ie historical) army - 15mm Sarmatians. You know, the big scary block of big scary men on big scary horses with long scary pointy things (or BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT; or the BSB for short!). I haven't added to the army for a couple of years and there are still a load of figures to be completed at some point - the horses are done, but I still haven't finished prepping the riders, let alone painting them!

I've also got some Scythian heavy cavalry and command group sitting in a drawer part-painted. I really should finish those at some point.

Anyway, pics.

Bulgar medium cavalry

Rhoxolani "other cavalry"

Alan and Scythian light horse

Light foot

Medium foot

Generals

Baggage camp

BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT

It's certainly interesting to see how my painting and basing has developed over the years since I painted these. All the figures here are Donnington Ancient & Moderns. For the cavalry with lances and spears the worst part was having to drill out the hands. I think I only sunk the drill bit into my own hand a few times...

Some WIPs

What lovely warm and sunny weather we're having right now in the UK. Well, I say "lovely" but as a redhead going out in the sun is always a gamble - I could be OK for several hours or I could turn "thermidore" in 30 seconds flat. So far I've been lucky. The temperature also makes painting difficult - a combination of lethargy and paint drying too quickly.

Still, I did manage to get a bit done last night. The Bulgar who mislaid his spear has had his replacement axe painted:

And I've started on the last of the 6mm ACW Union infantry.

There's another batch identical to this and a similar batch of Zouaves. I'll paint them up then do the basing together. Painting will be gradual over the next week or two.



And I may have adopted another pair of homeless Hotwheels cars:

Saturday Workbench

Yes, yes, yes - I've been rather quiet this week, but I have got some bits done today.

First up is some more work on the magnetic notice board arena for 1X Car Wars. This got a thin wash of black today. I went heavier in some patches than others. Tomorrow I'll be doing some ground markings and then some dry-brushing. For the ground markings I might have to make up some stencils. Or I might forget them and just do the dry-brushing.

And the other bits on the workbench. This pick-up truck will be the last car for a little while as I really must finish off some of my historical figures. And the Crusties spaceships. I'll get this mostly painted tomorrow, but I probably won't finish it until Monday night.

Also in the pic is the base of Bulgar cavalry where one of them lost his spear at Campaign. I've now glued an axe in the hand and primed it. Painting that axe shouldn't take too long, but is made a little awkward by the cramped space!

15mm Bulgars

I've finally finished the Bulgars! On Wednesday they had the basing texture added; last night that got drybrushed; I took them into work today and sprayed them with matt varnish at lunchtime; and this evening I flocked the bases.

So, my first completed figures since the Challenge:

I haven't decided what to get onto the paint table next. I guess I should finish CyberScooby and make a start on the figure I owe the Dux for him beating me to 1500 points.

Nearly Finished Painting The Bulgars

Oh dear! Once again I've lapsed and not posted for a week, so I need to do a bit of catching up. The cold had gone by the end of last weekend and I was mightily relieved. Until Wednesday morning that is, when I woke with a fever that lasted several hours and a throat that was so rough that talking was painful.

Whereas the cold before was nasty in that it didn't stop me going to work (curses!), this new one did keep me off. It also had me too achey to do any painting. Luckily, it seems to have gone now and I was able to catch up on painting the Bulgars last night and today. I've just given them a Klear/ink coat and will let it dry before supergluing them onto 40x30 bases. If I manage to get that done in the next hour or so, I'll be able to take them with me to Campaign in Milton Keynes and give them a run-out tomorrow. So, here are some pics of them before the Klear/ink coat:

Hopefully I'll be able to give you a brief round-up of my Campaign games tomorrow night when I get back.

I'm Just About Recovered

Well, that's a relief! My cold seems to have eased off just in time for the bank holiday weekend. I haven't had the energy to do much in the evenings this week apart from prepping the Bulgar cavalry I picked up at Salute.

However, with all the random sneezing and coughing, I didn't want to take the risk of trying to stick all the bits together until today. And there was a lot of sticking together to do:

all 24 riders needed to be glued to their horses
8 riders were separate torso and legs (to allow some variety of position)
4 of the riders had open hands for spears, swords, axes or maces
20 had separate bow cases to be glued on
all 24 had shields to be glued on

Lots of fiddly work with superglue and bits pinging off all over the place and needing to be found. But I got there in the end after much swearing and cursing. it left me wishing I'd gone with the "Originals" rather than the "New Era" figures.

After letting the superglue set for a few hours, I set up the spray booth and airbrush, then primed them.

I'll crack on with painting these tomorrow. I doubt that they'll be finished in time for Monday's pre-Campaign practice game, but they should be done in time for the weekend.



"The Right Of Way Goes To The Biggest Guns"

You remember when I said "no new armies"? Thank goodness I didn't say "no new projects"!! A few weeks before Salute, I saw a post on a blog or TMP or somewhere about Car Wars. I have fond memories of that game from my teenage years and the germ festered. I had found out that it had been re-released and decided to look for it at Salute, but came up empty. However, I knew that Orcs Nest had it, so I took a quick trip down there on Monday after work and bought a copy. The rules are expanded a bit from the original version with more chassis types, more weapons and with motorbikes included.

Of course, one could stick to playing using the counters and maps provided, but that wouldn't be as much fun as playing with minis.

This morning I went to the shops and had a look for some diecast cars to use. In Wilko I found these:

The single is a Mercedes Benz and cost 90p, the packs of 5 cost £4 as did the truck with police car and chopper (also available as paramedic and fire brigade). A bonus is that these are held together with screws not rivets, so no drilling to do (unless I add turrets or weapons).

In Poundworld I found these:

Ten cars for £1 - cheap as chips, but the wheels look horrible. These might end up as wrecks.


I'm currently soaking one of the Poundworld cars in nail polish remover to strip the paint off (having removed the plastic bits first). This will be a test model.

The vehicles all seem to be roughly 1:64 scale. That is 3 times the size of the counters, meaning I'll have to scale up ranges and bits appropriately and make myself an up-scaled turning device. I'll probably want to get some appropriately scaled figures and weapon bits. I'll also need to make up some "counters" for mines, caltrops, oil slicks, paint, smoke and debris.

Fun times ahead!