Part of the hobby is of course working on things and starting new periods so we can add to the mountain of lead and plastic.

So here’s a brief update from me.

A couple of years ago I signed up for a Kickstarter from THMiniatures Terrain who I gather for Kickstarters are pretty damn good at delivering on time and on promise. The white resin pieces arrived pretty much on time and have languished since in the garage. As moving to preparing my Ancient and Dark Age Armies for future combat decided to paint up the ruins with columns etc that suited somewhere around Rome/Greece/Byzantium regions.

First up I cleaned up any rough bits then soaked the pieces in soapy warm water for roughly ten minutes then rinsed them off and left to dry. I then brush on vallejo 70.921, English Uniform and when dry a liberal coat of GW Agrax Earthhade is applied. When that has dried I lighty brush/drybrush on a thin later of Vallejo 70.819 Iraqui Sand. Then on the walls and columns I then applied a light covering of Vallejo 837 Sand Light.

Once dry then they were flocked with mix of Warlord Games Summer Grass and Spring Alpine Grass. A variety of  tufts were then added. Lastly a very light drybrush of Iraqui Sand was applied to the grass to dull down the greeness a bit. The picture shows some of the pieces completed, with some Romans wandering through them.

One of the Ancient Armies I am collecting is that of Pyrrhus of Epirus. With my EIR army basically complete and now rebased from WAB to Hail Caesar rule set I can give this army some long missing love. Fellow Garage Gamer Alan has been brow beaten into collecting a period army and he has chosen Carthaginians. When he purchased the rule set from Warlord Games they came with a free box so he took the Celts as an option. However, after painting then up and then receiving his Victrix reinforcement Samnites and Carthaginian troops, he chose to sell the Celts on Trade Me(local ebay) and reinvest in Victrix Celts. Being a good mate I helped push price up, and got left buying them so I have another unit of Galatians to add to my army. A good win as got at a steal.

The next unexpected project to crash into me is SAGA. This is a skirmish game set in the  Dark Ages and there is a tournament next month(that’s May). Goldie talked me into playing, wasn’t hard, Russ is playing also but apart from that I only had the rules which had never read. I do have a Gripping Beast Byzantine army to make and also the basics of a Moorish army so decided would order in bits would need for a SAGA army for both.

You basically need a Warlord…some units of 4 mounted figures, 8 foot warrior figures and 12 man peasants. So I ordered from Caliver Books some Gripping Beast plastic Arab cavalry, a Warlord and some dice. They have arrived and are below beside some painted Artizan Moors I have so these will move to single bases. Only had quick glance at the plastics but look quite nice. From Gripping Beast I ordered a straight Byzantine Warband as don’t want to break up troops destined for the Hail Caesar army. I do have an unpainted Crusader unit of spears/bows so will use those with the mounted figures from the Warband set.

Have had 1 SAGA game other night with Goldie. He had some variation on Crusaders versus my Byzantines and being both newbies we fumbled our way through the game and it got quite exciting. Can see how it is going to be a good game over a few beers or a whiskey! The fun part is your turn where u roll some dice with symbols on them that when rolled are how you select what mix of your special abilities you can activate. Each differing army has differing abilities so I think I am going to enjoy this skirmish game. Will do reports as we play some games.

That’s all for now.

Terry