1/72 Napoleonics and Hott

Over the last 2 weeks I finished these first elements of my Hott (Hordes of the Things) army for the Fall EDBAG campaign. The theme is the "Warband of the Winter Witch" inspired partly by Narnia and partly a function of what I had kicking around in my bits boxes. There is obviously a winter theme here, my first time basing with snow. I thought it turned out okay. The General is a Kislev Ice Queen mounted on a High Elf White Lion, she will be a Magician - General element. Also on the table here are two warbands (Crusader Berzerkers and Thralls from their Viking range) and two shooters (Crusader Bondi with bow, also from their Viking range). The other half of the army is primed and waiting for my next 28mm whim.

I also dug back into my 1/72 Napoleonics after playing a game of GW-Waterloo (meh- some nice ideas and a beautiful book, but a few glaring play problems that obviously didn't get shaken out with sufficient playtesting. Two that come to mind: cavalry cannot counter-charge enemy cavalry, so my French dragoons were best able to take a charge from lancers by standing and firing their musketoons. Huh? Also, the ground scale is fucked. Musket range is 18" but infantry only move 4" per turn. Do the math, it means we catch a lot of musketballs before closing...I digress...) So I am now inspired to play some Lasalle, I am working on a few units needed to run the La Haye Sainte scenario from the book. Here I have some nice but too-spiffy looking French Legere infantry (Zvezda)
 

And the Tiger tanks of the Napoleonic Wars, Cuirassiers! These guys are by Strelets and I really like them. Strelets look like poo on the sprue but paint up brilliantly with lots of character and excellent oversized details.. a lot like metals.

 

I still have some British dragoons and rocket troops to finish, then we are ready to go.

More Old Glory North Africans for El Cid

10 North African cavalry done this week, these are Old Glory from their crusades range. I like them a lot, lots of character as you expect from OG, and they were very clean casts. A delight to paint! Pennants from LBM.

Muslim reinforcements

A combined unit of 10 spearmen and 10 archers, figures are from Old Glory crusades range, flag is by LBM. The Old Glory crusades range is excellent, I like these guys.

Naked Greeks and Muslims

I added some more hoplites to the growing Greek-Persian Wars project, these are Hat 1/72 from the Theban army box and I intend to use them to represent Persian-allied Greeks of Ionia or Boetia. They are okay I guess, a bit flat in terms of sculpting, but the shield transfers help them out and hide their naughty bits.

I also picked off a few more Muslims for the El Cid project, these are 28mm Gripping Beast (I think) that I picked up in the MayDay auction. I stripped them and painted them as North African invaders, the banners are from LBM Studios and I think really help make the unit pop. They are pricey but really worth it.

Scythians

This week I finished a box of Zvezda Scythians (1/72) for the Greek-Persian Wars project. These were very nice figures, lots of detail, and took quite a bit of time to complete because they are irregular with quite a mixture of armour, armament and fabrics. They are based on 60mm frontages for DBx but plan to use them in Impetus with 2 elements per unit.

There are 4 stands of 3Cv noble cavalry

General's element

and 4 stands of LH, horse archers for Impetus, these guys are underrepresented in the box contents, I would have thought they should make up the bulk of a Scythian force.

Next up I have some Muslim 28mm cavalry in the pipeline, and then I might either prep some Thebans for the Greek-Persian Impetus project or something else for my 28mm HOTT army for our next EDBAG campaign now that I have a plan.

Back from hiatus

Bit of a gap since the last post. We took the kids to California for a week and met this chap:

and they miraculously grew these ears:

and wet their feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time:

We returned in time for the annual Edmonton Wargame Group MayDay convention, which was a smashing success. I have a few pics of my Warhammer English Civil War game of the Battle of Inverkeithing which saw a disturbingly historical outcome with the English causing the Scots to flee the field, leaving the road open for Cromwell.

I also felt inspired to revisit the El Cid project, here we have some Gripping Beast camelry out for a walk in my backyard on a glorious May day in Edmonton.

A couple of characters

Sometimes it's nice to spend a few hours on a couple of specisl figures instead of a whole unit on the assembly line. Since it has been snowing in Edmonton for like the last 36h, gotta find something to keep busy with. Here I have finished a highlander (Wee Wullie, the one that comes with the Black Powder expansion, thank you Bruce!) who I plan to use as the chieftain Hector Maclean of Duart for my MayDay Inverkeithing scenario.

I also did this dark age Scottish chief who came with the Saga supplement from Gripping Beast. This is a really nice figure, I may use him to lead my Vikings at MayDay.