Immortal Miniatures Ancient Greek Hoplites

I've decided to collect a city states army for the new greek mythology game 'tribes of legend' by wargames foundy.  To form the core of this new force I've gone and purchased a box of ancient hoplites from Immortal miniatures.  And I have to say that I'm rather glad that I did, this has turned out to be a quality product at a great price.  The box contains 36 (although it says 34 on the box, I'm not sure if getting two command sprues was a mistake) multipart hard plastic 28mm Greek hoplites.  It also contains a sprue of renedra bases, a sheet of sheild transfers and a little booklet describing all the different options and how you should use them to represent phalanxes from different eras.  The box is even of the right type to hold assembled and painted miniatures.  All of which I paid £16 for from an ebay seller (I'm unsure what the RRP is, but if it's around the £20 mark this is still a good deal).  Compared to the sci-fi/fantasy stuff I usually buy I'm very happy with the quailty:cost ratio here, and just the fact they seem to have thought about the whole package.

In Tribes of Legend hoplite units come as a group of 16 models, that means this box will provide me with two complete units and still leave me with a couple of spare guys.  I plan to convert one of the spares into a standard bearer so these guys can make do as a stand in pikeman unit in my warhammer dogs of war army as well as fulfilling their primary purpose.

I've painted my first unit of 16, plus a musician and one of the spare guys.  I've decided to go for a uniform look without any sheild designs, which isn't really accurate, but it's my army and I like it!  I've also painted the skin slighty darker than I usually do to try give the army a mediteranian feel.

The National Maritime Museum

I paid a trip to the National Maritime Museum in london yesterday, it's not somewhere I've been before and I've been looking forward to it for a while.  The museum is about Britian's seafaring past and features galleries on exploration, trade (including slavery and empire) and warfare.  It's housed in grand buildings in Greenwich Park, London and there is no charge for entry.

There are lots of interesting artifacts, lots of weapons, old maps (I love old maps), navigation instruments and ship models amongst others.  There's a few larger items as well including an anchor from HMS Ark Royal, the Royal barge of Frederick, Prince of Wales and the back of the Napoleonic era ship of the line HMS Implacable.  There is also a small dsiplay focusing on Nelson and includes the uniform he was wearing at Trafalagar.

My favorite gallery was hidden away up on the second floor and was full of historic model ships of the kind presented to the admilralty when they were considering buying new ships.

It appears to have been refurbished recently and there is a lot of open plan areas, bright lights and oddly designed galleries, maybe it does help some poeple engage with the subject, but I prefer my museums old style, and although it's a large building a lot of it seemed quite empty.  Still even with my moaning it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

On the same site there is also the Queens House which shows some of the museums art collection, but the poeple I was with didn't fancy that, so it'll have to remain on the 'to do' list.

Behind the museaum up the hill is the Greenwich Royal Observatory, we didnt have the time to look round the observatory, but did climb the hill which has a great view from the top.

Tribes of Legend - A Book Review

I love greek mythology, I always have, I love reading the epics and I love many of the movies based on it (and am still firmly of the opinion that clash of the titans didn't need a remake) so as soon as I heard Jake Thornton (ex white dwraf editor and author of the dwarf kings hold series, which I like rather a lot) was writing a book allowing you to wargame the 'period' I knew it was inevitable that I was going to get it.

The book is published by wargames foundry and is just over a 100 pages long, has a nice hardcover and is in full colour throughout.  It's fully illustrated with lots of photographs of the new tribes of legend range from foundry, and there are several pieces of full page full colour artwork which I think are rather good.  It's a good high quailty production product.

The book contains 3 games, a mass battle game called 'tribes of legend', a skirmish game called 'ancient heroes' and a solo game, 'trials of a demi god'.  The book also has a lot of hobby material including painting guides for most of the range of models, a guide to making rivers and a guide to the greek gods.

The first game is the game of mass battles called 'tribes of legend' from which the book takes it name.  As a mass battle fantasy game I think it falls somewhere between warhammer and kings of war, I say this due to the way units work, you remove figures until half of them are dead and then remove the rest, no two men units left wondering around.  All measurement is taken from the unit's leader which makes things nice and simple, in fact I think the movement rules are really quite elegant.  One major difference between this and the other games I've mentioned is that tribes of legend works on an alternative unit activation rather than moving all your forces at once, this is something I really approve of, and it actually makes the game feel different from warhammer/kings of war.  The game comes with army lists for city states, amazons, hillmen, satyrs and centaurs.  This is the weakness of this game, whilst 5 lists sounds quite good they only contain 3 entries each which really limits the possibilites, also the game features none of the heores or monsters from the model range.  The core rules seem solid, but the lack of army options lets it down a bit, the amazons seem espeically odd as the chariot and cavalry feature in the book but there are no rules for their use.  Still it's fun enough and I have a city state army being painted up at the moment.

Ancient Heroes is a skirmish game where you take a group of 5 heroes and try to take control of a temple against other poeples bands of heroes.  It's a small sacle skirmish game that uses a deck of cards to resolve combat.  It's really innovative and different and works really well, although it does take a while which means that this game isn't scalable, you're not going to want more than 20-30 models on the table, this isn't a bad thing though and allows you to pick up a couple of packs of figures from foundry and get gaming striaght away.  Again the weakness is the variety in choice of heroes, you can only pick man, harpy, stayr, centaur and minotaur.  None of the bigger monsters or even cyclopes (which get a detailed painting guide in the book) or gorgons can be used which I feel is a big shame.  Even with that I like this game a lot and feel it's the best part of the book.

The final game is called trials of a demi god, which is a 'solo' game that you play on your own, trying to complete the labours of herakles, its the first time I've had a go at anything like this and to be honest it didn't grab me.  Without an opponent to beat it just didn't inspire me, it also takes up quite a large page count which I feel would have been better used on expanding on the previous two games.

All the hobby sections are ratehr good and i like the fact they've bothered to suggest paint schemes for the entire range and there are a couple of more in depth painting guides that are quite good as well.  The making rivers section seems a bit random, but is making me thing about actually giving it a go, my scenary collection could really use a river.  I didn't really need or learn anything from the guide to the gods, but it does help set the scene.

So in conclusion we have a great guide to the foundry greek mythology range, which contains the core of a couple of good games and allows you to get fighting with ancient greeks straight away, it's just a shame the range hasn't been utilised in full.

Flames of War British Sherman Firefly & Company Command

The latest couple of additions to my small late war British Flames of war army today.  First is the impressive looking Sherman Firefly to join my Sherman platoon.

and also a company command and second in command bases, I've gone for the scottish command bases as I'm planning on using the scottish battalion list from the flames of war website as a base for my force.

I need get one more infantry platoon and will then have a 1000pt force, unfortunately the person I was going to start playing against has had to move away so now I need to try and find an opponent as well, still I like the little tanks so even if they end up just siting on the shelf it won't be a total loss.

I bought these from wayland games and got a free mini 3rd edition rulebook for my troubles as well, which was really rather cool! not sure if this offer is still on, but it did make my day.

White Dwarf 387 & Wargames Illustrated 293

My monthly look at the two wargaming magazines I subscribe too, lets see what march has to offer.....

As always we'll start with white dwarf, this months mag is dominated by 40k, focusing on the new tyranid and space wolf releases.  Yet again no real design notes which is a shame and we get the rules for the tervigon and tyrannofex taken straight from the codex (something I'm not a fan of, if I play 'nids I'll have the book and if I don't it's not much use to me, also it just seems lazy to reprint something rather than bother to recreate new material).  There is a tervigon painting guide that's pretty good though.  The single warhammer article is the conclusion of the civil war expansion, which is useful, but I'd have liked a bit more for the system.  Lord of the Rings inevitably also continues its comeback, with a mini battle report (and another scenario reprinted form one of the new sourcebooks) amd the start of a new 'tale of four gamers' series, a series I've liked from the beginning (which was a loooong time ago now) and I'm glad to see it return.  The mag is topped up by a rather poor standard bearer, a new induction into the hall of fame and a fantasic showcase of last years slayer sowrd winners from around the world.  So in the end a few good bits, but quite a lot of what feels like filler too.

This months theme in wargames illustrated is 'giant wargames', which is three articles showcasing well giant wargames of dettingen, a roman wargame in germania and chancellorsvillie.  The articles are ok, but its very loose as a theme.  Other articles include german armoured tarins for flames of war, the french foreign legion in sub saharan africa, haiti's war of independence, a great warriors feature on the hussites and a small article on playing napoleonic skirmish games.  A average issuse all round, it's not bad as such, just doesn't grab you.

I'm hoping next month brings a bit more excitement.

Dwarf Kings Hold Adventurers - Orcs & Elves

With the recent release of Dwarf Kings Hold: Ancient Grudge and all the new troop types that can be feilded I dug out my Mantic Crazy Christmas bag and assembled a few pieces to represent some of the new troops.  I've done the same with the dwarves as well, but they're not painted yet, and I already have a load of zombies, ghouls and wraiths for the undead, so this post features my new additions for my orc and elf warbands.

Three bases of suprisingly useful little 'orclings', I just love these guys

An orc boss flanked by another two greatax

A couple of Orc Morax made from the standard orc sprue, by just swaping the sheilds for the spare axe provided.

My interpretation of scout captain Shulan and an extra couple of spearmen

And finally some elven scouts 

Warhammer Vampire Counts Plastic Wight King

Another addition to my Vampire Counts army today, this time the new plastic wight king from games workshop.  It's a rather fantastic model actually and the plastic medium allows GW to create a good 'layered' effect that just isn't possible in metal or resin-plastic.  Like all the new plastic warhammer characters coming out of GW this is single pose only and comes with its' own moulded base.  This model will have a dual use, also standing in as the Reveannant King for use in Dwarf Kings Hold. 

Eldar Dark Reaper Squad

The latest addition my my eldar army for warhammer 40,000 today, a squad of Dark Reaper Aspect Warriors.  They're the current versions, although in metal and not in finecast.  I like the styling of the models although I found it difficult to pull off the predominatly black colour scheme, and I'm not entirely convinced that I've succeded.

1:3000 Scale Nearly Modern Royal Navy Taskforce

I've painted the other half of my modern British starter set from navwar now.  These are the ships that have been decommissioned, although some of them only recently.

 Firstly the Invincible class carrier HMS Ark Royal, former fleet flagship, decomissioned early last year as part of the defense cuts.

Four type 22 frigates, on the left are the later and larger batch 3 frigates HMS Cumberland and HMS Cornwall, and on the right are the batch 2 frigates HMS Boxer and HMS Beaver.

Three type 42 destroyers HMS Glasgow, HMS Newcastle and HMS Cardiff 

Mantic Zombies - Part 5 - More Zombies & A Standard Bearer

The next batch of 12 of Mantic Games Zombies has rolled off the production line.  This lot includes a standard bearer as well, the standard actually came from the orc command sprue I got in my mantic crazy christmas bag, which fitted easily to a zombie.

Airfix 1:600 HMS Hood

My latest WW2 airfix ship was finished yesterday, this time of the battlecruiser HMS Hood as usual in 1:600 scale.  The Hood of course was famously sunk by the German battleship Bismarck at the battle of the Denmark Strait.  It's a good kit with only a bit of flash and went together well.  I even managed to get the little boats hanging off the side to work this time as well.  Another feature I liked was that the hull was marked where the black line should be, which made painting much easier and produced a better result.

Below is a size comparission pic showing the difference between the Hood and the Queen Elizabeth class Battleship HMS Warspite.  I knew the Hood was bigger than the Queen Elizabeth class ships, but wasn't expecting the kit to be quite as big as it was.

And finally a few shots of the ship in construction.