Foundry Legendary Greek Heroes of The Trojan War

The next bunch of my foundry ancient greek figures are finished, this time the Greek leaders from the Trojan War.  There is more than a little bit of resemblance between these figures and the characters as depicted in the movie 'Troy', not that I think thats a bad thing, 'Troy' will get a lot more watches than the Illiad gets reads and makes them all more instantly reconisable.

The Heroes

Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, Leader of the Greek Army

Menelaus, King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen

Achillies, Demi-God, Leader of the Myrmidons

Ajax the Greater, King of Salamis

Wily Odysseus, King of Ithaca

A Few More Mantic Ghouls

Another 10 ghouls from mantic games, these came from dwarf kings hold: ancient grudge and the crazy christmas bag.  I've painted them the same as my otehr ghouls, but have sprinkled a few mantic zombie heads around as well to add a bit of variety.

Airfix 1:72 Scale Spitfire

Another impulse buy today, my local 'the works' shop had a big pile of airfix kits, and I couldn't resist buying one.  I went for the Spitfire.  I've built an airfix spitfire before, but it was nearly two decades ago and no longer exists.  This isn't actually the kit I remember, the moulding is much crisper and there are a couple of differences in the build.  I've painted it as per the box mainly using the paints that came with it and attached it to a spare games workshop flying base.

Looking a bit dull without transfers

A big improvement

Next to a WWI Sopwith Camel in the same scale, the difference in power 20 years made is obvious.

White Dwarf 388 & Wargames Illustrated 294

Well march has turned out to be a month of contrast, as far as quailty of wargaming magazines goes.....

White Dwarf this month is really bad, with very little real content.  The first 33 pages (around 25% of the magazine) is just the new releases segment with a lot of pics of the new empire models and the new paint range, all of which is basically repeated throughout the rest of the mag.  The next major chunk of the mag introduces the new paint range and provides a lot of useful tips, although its in an odd landscape format that looks as if it's been ripped straight from the new 'how to paint book', still I might be wrong and as I'm not planning on getting the book the painting tips are still useful.  Then we get a very vague bit of empire background and the rules for Karl Franz (from the new army book), this is very disappointing, no design notes again, so I have no idea what changes have been made to the empire army, only what new models I can buy, I can't stress enough how much I miss getting real design notes.  Then the final part of the warhammer civil war supplement.  For 40k we get 3 battle missions for use on death worlds, this is good and useful and probaly the best bit this month.  Then a tiny little space wolves vs tyranids battle report and finally a bit of painting tips for space wolves, also in the new landscape format.  Then finally the next installment of the tale of four gamer for LOTR, but even this has been screwed up, only a couple of pages long.  Also no standard bearer and no hall of fame.  Such a lame issuse, I can't be bothered to go find out when there was last a worst issuse, but I recon it was a while ago.

You also get this free poster, which is rather dull and I'm not going to put up, still its free I suppose.

Thankfully I really like this months issuse of wargames illustrated.  This months theme is the new 'blood, guts & glory' book for flames of war, but it only gets a couple of articles (a guide to some gamers tank armies and a battle report) and doesn't much feel like a theme at all.  For napoleonic era fans there's a guide to skirmishing in1790's egypt and an article on the war of 1812. An interesting 'great warriors' article on the teutonic knights, to coincide with the release of fireforge games new plastic knights (this is how to promote new products and write a good article at the same time, please pay attention WD).  The other stand out articles for me were a guide to French Zouaves 1830-1860 and the first in a 3 part series on the rise of Imperial Japan and the fall of the Samurai.  There is also a fascinating 'hobby talk' article on using the space hulk ruleset to represent WWI trench raiding, something I can't wait to try out, just need to get me a trench system to go with my WWI figures.  The final thing of note was the start of a painting and modelling series by matt parkes which shows a lot of potential.  A lot of good quailty stuff here that coincides with my periods of interest.  Certainly a win in my book.

Medusa, The Gorgons and Some Centaurs

I've painted the first two of my Greek mythology packs that I recently bought from wargames foundry.  They paint up nicely and I'm particulary pleased with how the Gorgons came out.  I need to find a Persesus model from somewhere now, I'm looking at possibly getting the version from reaper minis.  Although from foundry's Tribes of Legend ranges the Gorgons currently don't feature in either of the two games in the tribes of legend book.  The centaurs conversely are favoured and are featured in both games, although with only 3, at the moment I'll only be using them in ancient heroes.

The Gorgons Stheno, Euryale and of course Medusa.

Two unfortunate victims

Medusa's deadly petrifying stare!

My three armoured Centaurs

Ancient Greek Peltasts

A few more ancient Greeks today for my tribes of legend city state army.  These are Peltasts from black tree design.  They're light skirmish and missile troops, the very opposite to the Hoplites that form the core of the force.  These are the first models that I've ever bought from black tree design and I'm happy enough with them, the service was pretty good too.  They didn't come with bases, but I've mounted them on Renedra bases to match my hoplites.

Smart Ass - The Ultimate Trivia Boardgame

I picked this up in a sale a few weeks ago (cost £8) .  I like trivia board games and this claims to be 'the ulitimate trivia boardgame' so even though this is clearly a bold claim at that price it was hard to resist.

The game contents are simple enough, a large folding board, 4 packs of question cards (quite flimsy unfortunately), 8 playing pieces which are card donkeys pushed into little plastic holders and 2 dice, one with numbers for moving and one with colours on to slect category.  Like the cards the dice are lightweight and don't have that quality feel to them.  Nonetheless it all does its job.

The gameplay is very simple, players take it in turn to be the reader and select a card from a randomly determined category.  Each card contains 10 progressivly easier clues to a what? where? or who? and the other players can shout out an answer at any time and if they have it right get to roll a dice and move that many squares forward.  If nobody gets it the reader gets to move forward.  The clever bit is that each player only gets one chance to guess per card.  This means that the smart asses often guess to early and can trip up, leaving less knowlegdable players a chance to win the round.  It can be a art in picking exactly when to guess and knowing your opponents helps!   The first person to make it round the board and get into the donkeys arse wins!  Games take around 30mins, which is a good length and does make this game an alternative to the more serious and lengthy trivia games out there.

The game is described as a 2-8 player game, but this isn't really true, you need at least 3 players and preferably 4 or more.  This is because the game really works when you have poeple competing as you read down the clues.  In a 2 player game one person will always be reading and the other person effectivly gets all the clues before they have to say an answer, which makes it very easy.  In a 3 player game this is better as you normally have two poeple competing with the clues, but missing a round is quite common and you still often revert to someone getting all the clues before having to comit to an answer.

So in conclusion this is good fun, although I doubt it has that much longevity.  The 'ultimate trivia boardgame' it isn't (it will take something special to convince me away from genus edition trivial pursuit), but still worth a look if you like that kind of thing.

WW2 Revell 1:72 German Nashorn Tank Destroyer

As part of my recent conversion to Revell when it comes to tracked scale models I've just finished painting and assembling the Nashorn tank destroyer you can see below.  For its size its a complicated kit due to the open topped gun compartment, but it all went to together easily enough.  I really enjoyed making and am struggling to resist the urge to go and order a bunch more Revell tanks.

Firepower! The Royal Artillery Museum

On my recent day out in London after visiting the national maritime museum we then popped over to woolwich and went to Firepower! The Royal Artillery Museum.  The museum is on the site of the old Woolwich Arsenal on the south bank of the thames.  Most of the old munitions factory has been demolished, but the gate and a few origanal buildings survive, they seem to be building flats on the rest of it.  The site is also covered with cannon of various types and even this self propelled gun:

there wasn't any info on what this is, but it looks cool, I'd be grateful if anyone does know if they drop a comment below.

The museum tells the story of the use of artillery in the British army all the way from the days of Henry VII to the present day.  It contains 5 galleries, the main hall 20th century artillery, the 'history' gallery on the upper floor (medieval to colonial), a large exhibits display/theatre and the smaller medals and modern warefare galleries.
The largest gallery is the 20th century gallery featuring guns from WW1 and WW2, plus cold war missle launchers, also a small section of the history of the royal artillery in WW2.  This is a good gallery, but for me the highlight gallery is the history gallery on the upper floor.  This contains a history of artillery and the Royal Artillery Regiment from the medieval chinese, through the campaigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, the civil war, the Napoleonic wars, the Crimea and into the late Victorian colonial conflicts.  There is a lot of different cannons, including some really interesting types I'd not seen before including a cannon whose job it was to target indiviual people and a colonial screw gun, plus many more.  The information boards are well done as well and I found them interesting and not to basic.

The main hall

The modern warefare gallery described some of the ways the Royal artillery regiment has fought in recent conflicts.  The medals gallery unsurprisingly has a collection of medals from former members of the Royal Artillery Regiment, it's well done with information about each person next to their medals.  The final gallery is a theatre that shows a film about artillery (which alas we didn't have time to watch) and round the edge has some seriously large artillery peices.

Colonial Screw Gun

Civil war sniper cannon

WW2 self propelled gun

Entry cost for an adult was £5.30, which was more than fair, I really enjoyed my visit here and highly recommend it. 

Warhammer 40K Eldar Wave Serpent

The latest addition to my eldar army today a Wave Serpent transporter, and I'm pretty pleased with it to be honest, but as usual have a look for yourselves;

My First Package From Foundry

My first ever miniatures from wargames foundry arrived this morning, and consisted of 4 packs from their Greek Mythology range that I'm planning on using with Tribes of Legend.  The order arrived well packaged and very quickly, no issuse with the service.  I ordered the greek heroes, trojan heroes, gorgons and a pack of centaurs.

My new packs of figures

They come in old style blister packs complete with a little bit of foam and contain bases, although I got a bit confused here.  The infantry comes with different bases, my greek hero and gorgon packs came with circular bases, but the trojan hero pack came with square bases, a very odd policy that I can't fathom.  The other thing is that none of the models come with spears, which is rather odd, foundry sell spears seperately, which again seems like a crazy policy, my plan is to use spare spears from my plastic hoplites on the 5 models I have that need them.

Whats in the packs

Another thing to be aware of is that I saved my self over £4 simply by ordering from http://www.foundryfantasy.com/ rather than from http://wargamesfoundry.com/ as the main foundry sites charges a flat £8! postage on any order under £80.  Still for all my whinging I like what I've bought, am looking forward to painting them and would be suprised if these are the last figures I buy from foundry.

Achillies & Ajax assembled, although I've gone with square bases.

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.