20080222

Some general updates

A very generic hobby update:

I´ve been working on this an that - without much to show because I´ve been mainly gluing lead to MDF for 3 or 4 days.

Thats all done now and I´m the proud owner of a Roman Metal Army, mustering on the Field of Mars and waiting to be primed. Here it is parading, joined by the minis that had early access to paint:




In between gluing my fingers I did some 28mm Pirates (The dandy in the middle will be my "Major Pirate": Antoine "La Verrue" (The Wart):



Having glued all my Corvus minis, I did a test base of Legionaries, just to imagine what it will all look like once done. A very easy paint the Corvus minis:



I can expect to have further updates on both the Pirates and the Romans very soon. In paralel I´m advancing (not worthy of photos just yet) the rest of my zombie Germans and some Flames of War Tanks.

20080214

S. Valentines Day Massacre!

Treat your loved one to a special Valentines Day Card... of DEATH!!!! :D


20080208

ROMA VICTOR redux

A very quick post

As promised in the previous entry, the finished command stand, Lucius Vorenus:



Quite different from his "Rome" counterpart (below) , but I don´t really care :)



Now I´m out of Ancients minis untill I get my Corvus Belli order, so I will have to focus on other projects. Mainly I´ll go for my 15mm Napoleonics now.

20080207

ROMA VICTOR



Senātus Populusque Rōmānus: The Senate and the Roman People.

In preparation of the release of Field of Glory (an Ancients themed tabletop wargame, from Biblical times up to 1500AD) I´m prepping a Late Republican Roman Army in 15mm. It will be loosely based in Caeser´s Legions circa 50 BC.

My commanders will be very unhistorical as I´m quite partial to HBO´s mini-series "Rome". So I´ll have Julius Caeser as the overall commander of my army and Vorenus and Pullo as his lieutenants.


Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are historical characters (not as depicted in the show though) and are mentioned by Caeser in Commentaries of the Gallic War. They were actually Centurions, but for the purposes of my Roman Army they´ll be promoted to Generals.

All my orders are placed and some have managed to trickle through to Portugal.
I received last Sunday the Magister Militum portion of the order, in the form of 2 blisters of Cretan Archers and a Mounted Roman command pack (4 minis, good for 1 or 2 command stands). Very nice miniatures all of them, if a little limited regarding different poses (the Cretans are all exactly the same cast...)

I had been waiting for these for a long time, so as soon as I got my hands on them I rushed home, cleaned and primed them and painted them up and based them in one session. And here they are, my Cretan Archers:


In the background is a Work in Progress command stand (It´s Lucius Vorenus) that I have since finished - will post a picture soon.

I hope to get the bulk of my order (excellent minis from Corvus Belli) in the next few days. Ancients is a new period for me and I´m quite excited at painting them all up.

I´ve played a FoG game with a cardboard cutout army and using the Beta rules and quite liked the mechanics.

Expect a torrent of Roman pictures to be put up here once I get my hands on some Corvus wee men :)

For more about Field of Glory, visit the Slitherine forums.

20080204

LeiriaCon 2008: Highlights

A while back, I was invited by my good friend Manuel Pombeiro to do a Flames of War demo for LeiriaCon 2008 (the largest Boardgames yearly convention here in Portugal). Me and Meninobesta, veterans of many a FoW demo, built a couple of 2000 point LW lists, packed up rulebooks and terrain and off we went to be-castled Leiria to spend a day gaming.



We planned of course to get involved in other games, not least of which a record-breaking Wings of War mayhem (we broke the record for simultaneous players and planes for WoW: 47 in a 6 meter long table!!!).



One of the Wings of War games designers, Andrea Angiolino, was present to show us the future wave 2 WoW miniatures and to participate in the record-breaking game.



The record itself is well described at Boardgamegeek, here.

Andrea also reported on it, here.

Some wave 2 WoW miniatures:


There was some interest generated by a lovely set up of Flames of War, and we still found the time to dally in some boardgaming action - a perfect day :)

Games I played:
- 2000 pts LW FoW demo
- Wings of War
- Crokinole (a game that dates back to 1876!!! It´s kind of a tabletop version of Curling with several twists)

- Last Night on Earth (Zombie B-Flick on a table with all the juicy clichés - Cooperate or die! excellent!)

- Ca$h ´n Gun$ (Divide up the loot while menacing people with foam pistols!)


We packed up around midnight and left for home, after a day (very) well spent. I will surely want to attend the 2009 Convention. Good games and good people all around.

Problem is I have succumbed to Wings of War madness and proceeded to dole out some cash in exchange for the base set plus a Sopwith Camel, a Spad XIII, an Albatros d.V and a Fokker Dr. I. I´ve got canvas and spandau fever :)

The Kempf Fokker (I am now the proud owner of a 1/144 version of this :)):


In the middle wing of his Fokker Dr. I he sports the cheeky question: "Do you remember me?"

All the Leiria Con Pictures I took at my Picasa Gallery

and much (much!) more at Manuel´s Gallery