10mm Roman Command stand

Here's my first entry into the Analogue Painting Challenge; a 10mm Republican Rome command stand.  Figures are from the Pendraken cavalry pack, nice enough sculpts, but the rest of the pack are all one pose figures - one of my pet hates!

I want to avoid the whole sea-of-red look for my Romans, so tried using green as the main colour and will probably keep it as the main colour for the legionnaires.  These guys have sat glued to the base since the last year, so it was somewhat apt that I started this year's challenge with them.  4 points done!  Chuffed with that.

Sadly after day two, I'm already a bit behind schedule!  My scheduled day off on Monday went a bit pear-shaped and I ended up working a long shift.  Work and the club on Tuesday meant no activity at all. I managed to get some brushwork in this morning, but am going to have to push Thursday and Friday nights to get the theme weekend entry completed on time. Still, there's plenty of time left, isn't there?

G3 Games Day

Last weekend, a friend and I had a trip down to Glasgow to attend a Glasgow Games Group gaming event; the Spencer Warner Memorial Gaming Day.  The G3 event commemorates a founder member of the group and lets those who knew him (and those, like me, who didn't) get together for some gaming, for some laughs and to raise some cash for charity.

There was a fair turnout with around ten tables on the go, as well as a huge bring and buy section (I later learned that this was mostly Spencer's collection they are selling off for charity - Man he had a lot of stuff!)  I took some pictures, apologies to all the participants, I didn't get names:

The view from the door.

A well balanced looking Flames of War table.

One of two Apocalypse Warhammer 40K games.  These tables were packed with figures.

A huge Battletech game using Hawk Wargames' terrain set.  I think this was the quick play version of the rules (Alpha Strike?) as it seemed to be playing very quickly for BT.

  

Our first game, Blood Bowl Team Manager.  A much better game with three people rather than two.  Four players would be better still.

The second 40K game.  Someone came over to us from this table for a blether - Apparently his army had been reduced to just three figures!

In addition to these, there were games of Saga, Chain of Command, Dystopian Wars and a couple miscellaneous games I couldn't see properly.  My loot from the day was pretty satisfying:

Cold War Commander - because I don't have enough projects and scales going on.

Imperium supplement for Crusader - for completness, the only one I don't have.

Gear Krieg - a complete impulse buy.

Khador paint set from PP - great price

Thragosh the Messiah for Horders - again, a bargain.

We'd also stopped earlier at Static Games in the city centre where I picked up the latest booster for Android Netrunner and an adventure pack for the Lord of the Rings card game.

Cricket, WAB and eBay

A couple of non-gaming posts coming up, mainly because gaming and painting time is getting pretty squeezed by all the packing for moving home.

One of the year's big time thiefs arrived a few days ago, namely the Indian Premier League.  Now I know that I've instantly turned off a load of people reading by mentioning cricket, but the IPL is one of the highlights on my sport (watching) calender.

In my humble opinion, the IPL is almost the perfect TV sport.  Lots of action (and its not all batting, despite what many people say) and tension, exactly what you want.  The coverage also makes a refreshing change from other sports, in particular the commentators remotely interview players and umpires whilst they are still playing, and the video replay/analysis is usually excellent.

I've just finished watching my adoptive team, Kings Eleven Punjab, put a terrible Pune Warriors side to the sword, but its only another hour until the next match.  The Kings XI are a bit of a Dads Army team (the captain Adam Gilchrist is 41) and it always makes me feel better seeing people older than me still playing professional sport (dreading the day I see the first footballer younger than me retire!)

Being a cricket fan in Scotland, cricket is presented to me in a very England-centric way (not a complaint mind you,) but the IPL gives a glimpse of the wider world of cricket; aussies, kiwis, saffers and, er, windiers(?) are all present.  In fact, the only cricket nations you won't see much of are England (who haven't adjusted to the IPL yet) and Pakistan (politics.)  There are another five weeks of games, at least one per day for the next four weeks.  If you've a free afternoon or evening, you could do a lot worse than sit through a match.

Not played WAB in a couple years, don't remember the Romans being this crap!

Not that gaming has completely ground to halt.  I sat in on a game of WAB at the club last week, Syracuse against Republican Rome.  Despite an impressive number of legionnaires on the table, in proper manipular formation too, they didn't make much of an impact once they eventually got into melee with the Phalanx.  Great fun and a real blast from the past, although, I'd forgotten most of the rules; I was chided early on in the game for pre-measuring!  Thanks to Sholto and Carlos for providing the armies and Adam for whining a lot.

Carlos' Syracusian army (left) was built using two boxes of Immortal Hoplites
and one box of Wargames Factory Numidians - Bargain.

Lastly, the last of my eBay auctions go live tonight and tomorrow.  Mainly Warhammer 40K stuff (seriously, why do I still have this, haven't played in years,) but some rulebooks and some bits and pieces too.

Punic Wars - Roman Socii Archers

The eagle eyed of you will have noticed these in my last post, but I managed to get them finished yesterday.  The second entry to the Analogue Painting Challenge, some allied archers for my Punic Wars project.

Again, 10mm Pendraken figures that could use another pose in the range, but still a nice little unit to paint up. I'm gradually getting used to this scale and have an idea now of what will and won't be visible once the basing is finished.

Not exactly the most interesting unit I could have done, but I'm trying to build up some momentum before starting the heavy infantry.  I am undecided over eight or ten figures per base, so it could be up to forty figures per unit, still daunting at this tiny scale!