Quick Note

This is just a quick note, to make sure that everyone sees I have a new page up, with figures I am willing to part with. That is trade or sell to anyone interested.

~Claus

Arcane Legions: Centaurs

Earlier I mentioned that I got some Centaurs, from the Egyptian Cavalry set. Officially these are known as Centaur Chargers. I bought 2 packs of this Cavalry set, which gave me some 10 Centaur Chargers. That is 5 in each box. I also got an Extra from a Arcane Legions, League Booster Pack. This one prepainted (or factory painted, if you like to call it that.)

Yesterday I got a few more Centaurs, this time Centaur Archers, as they are officially known, in the Arcane Legions Booster Brick. You get 6 of those, in each Booster Brick, all prepainted.

This is how they look. As you can see, the paintjob is not half bad, not good, but definately passable, if you do not want to paint them, and you do not have a different colorscheme in mind, and can live with the fact that all the horse bodies are the same colors (I cannot).

You also get the hero Achilles from the Booster Brick. He is a "rare" figure. You get 1 rare figure, and 2 units of Uncommon figures in each Booster Pack. Achilles if you remember the greek fables correctly is a Human, not a Centaur, but the card that comes with him explains, that he is the reincarnated hero, or claims to be. Here are a few pictures of him.

 First picture is from the side. Again it shows him in the same, to me, not very common horse color, of the Centaur Archers.

From this angle you can see that he is blond as well, despite having a black tail. In my world, those two would have to be the same color. So he too will recieve a paint job.

The third picture shows off his nice shield. And I must admit that It looks good. These figures are painted much better than the centaur charger, that I got that was prepainted.

~Claus

Arcane Legions: Egyptian Booster Brick

One thing I realized when browsing the web for pictures and information about what I would actually get if I bought the Egyptian Booster Brick, for Arcane Legions, was the lack of information and decent pictures of the figures I would get.

So I thought, why not publish my findings on the blog. Beats having the information out there but being very hard to find. Originally all the figures could be found on the Arcane Legions website. But like the game, that too is closed down.

So here is a list of what you get from the Egyptian Booster Brick:

1 x  Cleopatra VII
1 x Decidius Saxa
1 x Amenhotep III
1 x Darius of Pontus
1 x Achilles
1 x Masika, Hand of Isis
3 x Hand of Isis
3 x Hand of Osiris
3 x Anubian Guard
5 x Sta, with 1x Egyptian Beast Handler
3 x Criosphinx, with 1x Egyptian Beast Handler
2 x Protosphinx
6 x Centaur Archers
4 x Lionrider of Bast
6 x Undead Golem



In addition to these, Egyptian forces you get the following mercenaries

1 x Warlord Khudu
1 x Gülüg
2 x Kör Tiger Rider
4 x Kör Sniper

A total of 8 Boxes of figures, all prepainted, mostly quite well in fact. I got an additional 2 Egyptian boosters. I wanted to get some Centaur Archers, if possible, extra. I did not get them. In addition to the figures, you get alot of formation cards, and some sortie cards, that are meant to be used with the figures.

~Claus

More Ancient Greek Centaurs

Usually I try and do something different for each post. But... I had these centaurs on my painting desk simply screaming for my attention. I had hoped that I had finished off some other unit too, and I would have shown that unit and then this unit of centaurs.

However as luck would have it, a package arrived, from Germany (took 9 days to get here, which is pretty long), and it contained some prepainted cavalry figures from the Arcane Legions booster pack. Among these 4 cavalry figures, was 1 prepainted (factory painted) centaur, in the pose I had made my previous unit in.

So here it is, along with some I have painted myself. Can you guess which one is the factory painted one?

It should be obvious, but in case it is not... Here is a picture of the pose from the other side.

Right, still need a clue? The figure in the middle has a different base color... and skin color for that matter, and no, I was not going to do a centaur with that pale skin. In fact it should be very obvious which one is factory painted. Just 4 colors on it, painted on black plastic. I usually don´t rant on about how bad somebody elses painting skills are, cause I do not consider myself very good. But It seems I am better than the factory painter...

Now on to the unit I made.

Here it is from the side. The shields are a design I found on the web, and after double checking that figures had actually been produced with a shield with a spartan symbol, on a centaur, I went ahead and painted it. Incidently, not many Centaurs out there with shields... alot of them have bows though.

Here they are from the other side. I like the unit I painted before this one better. Somehow the colors fit better together. If that makes sense.

And here you can see the 5 figures from the front. I plan on eventually painting the prepainted one like these, and then I will have 6 centaurs in this unit.

For a parting picture, here are two of those I have painted, each presented with a different side to the camera.

I ordered the Booster Brick for the Egyptian side of the game, along with a Roman Booster Brick. So I will get some more centaurs, but these will have bows. I really hope they arrive soon. I have been waiting more than a week now, and it seems they are scheduled to arrive Monday. What to paint until then?

~Claus

Ancient Greek Centaurs

Well, this is really unlike me, but I have been smitten by some ancient greek Centaurs. They may not be the prettiest figures, but they have their charm none the less.

Here is a picture of the unit from the side.

Sizewise these are comparable to 1/72 figures, although they are officially listed as 25mm. They are from the defunct game Arcane Legions, which is made by the Wells Expedition. The plastic is comparable to the one used by Caesar Miniatures. It is sort of a bendy plastic, but not quite as bendy as the Caesar one.

The shields come prepainted. The motif is a centaur wielding a spear. I could not quite duplicate the color, and since one side is not painted, I decided to repaint all the figures.

They come unassembled. But that is not too much of a problem. I glued them with regular plastic glue and it is holding up very well. I wanted to glue the shields on with Superglue, but the glue had dried up and caused a blockage in the tube. So I tried to use regular glue, and it held up pretty well.

Historically of course, there was no such thing as Centaurs. so this is a forray into fantasy. It is not too off topic for me, though. So you will have to live with it. Here is finally a picture of two of the Centaurs placed up against each other, so you can get a good look at the pose.

They were fun to paint, which to me is more important than many other things. The sculpting I read elsewhere is so-so, some even call it bad. I can mention a couple of miniature manufacturers that would be proud of these figures. They are from the Egyptian booster pack, of Cavalry. They are sold along with 2 different poses of "mongol" or "steppe" warriors that are also horsemen.

~Claus

More Samnite Warriors

As the title says, time for some more Samnite Warriors. As has been the theme lately, these are from the Linnen Legion. That is all painted in white, and with the dash of silver inbetween.

Here is the whole unit.

No surpise in the looks. As I wrote above, they are all white. I like to think of these as being the elite Samnites, among the Elites. The Linnen Legion was in itself elite, but someone has to be even more elite than the elite.

Here is the pose that is the most numerous in the unit.

I really like it. He looks tough, and stands like he is more or less ready for anything. Really the pose I like the most of all the poses in the HäT set.

But with so many copies of the same figure in the unit, I thought some variety would be welcome. So three of the have the same helmet now, that the one to the left has on this picture. It was a simple headswap, from the kneeling pose, that I have yet to paint.

The figure on the right is also a headswap conversion. This time with the head from the "officer figure" that I have shown before.

The HäT set does not come wth a standardbearer, as earlier discussed, but I am using the spear with an enemies clothes as one none the less. The horn blower or musician in this picture, below, is not from HäT.

It is from the Odemars, Oscan Infantry set. I found most of the poses in that set useless. Much to flat, or too much flash, and too little definition. Painting this guy was mostly to see if it could be done. And it could. He looks alittle out of place, but not much.

Next up, I think I might just finish the Iberian unit that is on my painting table and has been for a while. I just need to paint the belts and leather straps in plausible colors, and then paint the bases of the figures. So not much. Alas I do not feel up to it in this heat, we are having here these days. But maybe if the nights turn out as sleepless as recently I will do it during one of those.

~Claus

Liebster Award

Sean from Sean´s wargames corner (http://seanswgcorner.blogspot.com/) has awarded me a Liebster Award.

So what is it?
Basically it is an award that is given to a place you like, and you want to give alittle more trafic, because it might have been unnoticed by everyone, or at least many people. One of the requirements to get a Liebster Award, is that you have less than 200 followers.

Sean has given it to me because he thought my figures were nicely painted, and that is good enough for me. I appreciate the sentiment, and I would like to thank him, and accept the Liebster.

Already it has increased the trafic my blog has recieved, by quite a bit, and I have gotten another follower. Cool. So it works. Once again, thanks Sean!


Usually you answer a couple (11) questions, which vary from blog to blog as far as I have noticed, and choose 11 other blogs that get a nomination to get the Liebster Award. Sean has graciously allowed that none of his recipients need do that, and I am going to do as he wishes, and not nominate anybody.

Although if you should want to visit one of the places I like alot, with few followers, go here: 1/72 Ancient Wargames (http://ironcolumn.blogspot.dk/)  which I enjoy reading every once in a while.

Yours
~Claus 

Balaeric Slingers (Iberians)

Ok, it has been a while once again. I have slowly been painting up a few Samnites, but for now I thought I would show you the figures I am using and am going to use as Balaeric slingers. That is the famed slingers from the Balaeric Islands.

Here is a picture of the first unit.

And a picture of the second unit of them.

Notice how the figures are the same, but the feel is quite different. The ones in white with red trims are perhaps the most original, and correct, but the pictures in Ospreys books also shows them in brownish garments with brownish trims. So a unit of slingers in these would not be too far fetched. Personally I like the brownish unit most.

Here is first standard poses for each unit

I made the headbands red, before I read that they were supposed to be used as extra slings, for other ranges. Apparantley slings have different ranges, according to how long they are. It makes sense I suppose,

Here is the other standard pose for the units.

The legend goes that as children the Balaerics were given a sling and told, that from now on they would have to find their own food. It is no wonder that they were expert slingers. Notice that unlike the pose in the Orion set, these slingers, from the HäT set, have a dagger each. You never know if you are going to be involved in some hand to hand combat.

I of course, as I do mostly when I can do it, preformed some simple conversions, with these figures. Mostly headswaps, but also one where I removed a hand from a sling. So here are those four poses.

This is a rather old paintjob that I did perhaps some 10 years ago. Glad it is still holding up pretty well...

~Claus