2mm Strength and Honour: Buildings

 

Bit of a work-in-progress here, as I’m looking to add some 2mm scale built-up areas and other terrain/scenic pieces for the Strength and Honour project.

I’ve been making use of the excellent small scale Roman scenery range from Brigade Models in the UK, which includes a variety of buildings in various styles, ranging from an enormous amphitheatre to domestic architecture via mile forts and sections of Hadrians Wall:

https://www.brigademodels.co.uk/SmallScaleScenery/Roman%20Buildings.html

I know the Strength and Honour rules emphasise the use of camps for the protagonists, so perhaps a marching fort for a Roman Legion, or a wagon laager for a Barbarian Horde, but I’m reserving those for another time, being as I’m still easing myself back into the Hobby, and those will likely be quite large scale undertakings….. I’m also torn as to whether to splash the cash and buy the pre-built ones from Antonine Miniatures, or go for something scratch built….. there’s also the point that my Punic Army needs a home - but maybe the walls of Carthage might be a bit ambitious !

So for now,  thought I’d use the Roman buildings pack from Brigade to do a farm compound and some urban tiles - I had a 120x60mm cavalry base left over, so painting up the bare label strip at the rear as a stretch of road, I used a pin vice drill to pop in some holes for Brigades poplar trees - gotta have Lombardy Poplars lining a Roman road ! - and added some grass tufts in as vegetation or cultivated vine or olive trees:

The poplar trees are in metal, so aren’t as irregular as actual trees, but I think give a good representation of the originals seen from a distance. The Brigade buildings are lovely scale models, with some fine detail, although I did find that the fact that the masters are 3D designed/printed meant that in some areas it was hard to actually bring out what was there - not being an expert in Roman architecture, I also just went with putting what buildings looked right together, rather than faithfully following historical convention - I know the guys at Brigade always meticulously research their models - so apologies if I don’t know my Thermae from my Insula !

For the urban one, rather than doing just one large area, I used a number of 60x60mm bases to give me some variety in how they might be placed, tile-like - four making up a 120x120mm square:

I painted the tiles with just some free-handed contrasting greys as the ground surface, and then grouped the buildings as I saw fit - so maybe we have a Temple area, an administrative one, and then some domestic buildings and a bath complex?

I do feel that the bases definitely need something more - I did add in some more of the poplar trees, but when I can find them in the chaos of my Lead Mountain storage, I want to put in some walls from Brigade, as well as their excellent Triumphal Arch - it occurs to me that in future I could also make use of some of the Arab-style buildings from the Middle Eastern range to add in as further domestic dwellings….

As a final flourish, I placed a 6mm figure of a Roman Legate from Rapier Miniatures’ excellent ranges as a suitably impressive statue - the Emperor demands his due !

These were great fun to do, if a little intensive in working with buildings that small - I went with a spray undercoat of brown and then blocked in over the top with colour - no way I was going to be in-filling windows and doors at this a scale !

The next phase will be thinking about doing some woods  - I have a lot of Irregular Miniatures’ large scenic metal pieces that could be employed, as well as some clump foliage on acrylic basing that I did for my 2mm French and Indian War project - but again, if the mood takes me, I might want to do some bespoke, scratch built ones just for this project, looking at covering much larger areas.

As an aside, I also spent some time adding a couple of additional bases to my Roman force, namely two units of Latin Allies, forming the two supporting wings of a Legion:

These were from Irregular Miniatures’ Hoplite blocks - I figure that hoplite-style troops were in keeping with the Italian allies of the time, so I did some twenty blocks per base in four ranks, giving a bit of contrast with the Roman formations - same basic paint job, wielding the paint pens, and some variation in shield and banner colours to add a bit of visual ‘pop’ - these give me ten infantry bases for the Romans alongside the lighter troops and cavalry to face the Carthaginians.

So, overall, things are humming along - I’ll be adding more details and terrain as and when I can, and if I can eventually dig out my terrain cloths from storage, get some battles underway !

2mm Strength and Honour: Resources Primer

 

Thought I’d pull together a list of some of the online resources that I made use of in preparing for the release of Strength and Honour, and when working on my Second Punic War bases.

There is some great inspiration out there, ranging from Mark Backhouse’s  own original home-made forces, to his work with Sidney Roundwood and on to the consistently creative and varied work on display via the 2mm and Small Scale Gaming Facebook Group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1639662269377760/

First up, I would bring out Sidney Roundwood’s excellent Lutzen 1632 project, where I first saw the possibilities for home-made blocks to accompany the 2mm from Irregular Miniatures, and also highlight his painting techniques, which give amazing looking results in depicting mass without forgetting detail:

https://sidneyroundwood.blogspot.com/search/label/2mm

Of course, Mr Roundwood co-operated with Mr Backhouse on the Other Partizan 2mm Siege of Portsmouth project, which rightly won the best participation game in 2018, and set the standard for what could be achieved with the smallest of soldiers:

https://sidneyroundwood.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-siege-of-portsmouth-1642-other.html

Turning to 2mm Ancients, an early and superlative effort was made by the always excellent Per Broden of Roll a One Blog, with his take on matching huge bases with Irregulars’ blocks to produce armies that looked like armies ! :

https://rollaone.com/2020/08/30/some-2mm-bases-for-playtesting-homunculus-est/

Once Strength and Honour had moved on from its roots as Homunculus Est, other manufacturers took up the banner in making troop types available commercially that would be ideal for the rules, and were custom made for its depiction of Mass on the tabletop…..

Principally of course, Antonine Miniatures via Warbases in the UK,

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/figurines/antonine-miniatures/

And now Korhryl Miniatures from Europe, and LaserCast from Australia:

https://korhylminiatures.bigcartel.com/blog

https://lasercast.bigcartel.com/products

Not to forget the original and best, Irregular Miniatures themselves:

https://irregularminiatures.co.uk/

That is not to say, of course, that these were the only candidates for sourcing miniatures, the explosion in 3D printing and the creativity of the STL file makers out there mean that more and more options are becoming available:

https://projectwargaming.com/collections/2mm-ancients

http://timstanks.blogspot.com/search/label/2mm

Not forgetting the more humble, yet incredible home-made ones; check out what this guy uses ! :

https://revengeoftheiceni.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/2mm-ancient-madness/

Since I stepped back from Blogging in 2013, and relegated the Hobby to the back-est of back burners, the growth of content creators on sites such as YouTube has been exponential and is now intrinsic to the hobby - a damned good thing, I say, as it serves to reach audiences that us old Grognards could only dream of, and of course I’m even more pleased to highlight those that include 2mm miniatures like Project Wargaming:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygl00smhwxUygp3v2fFZSpHhWRVDZxBG

Also  - The Joy of Wargaming:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_z29m150g5rATx3QwCAaR3EZVFMGZ0FH

And again, with Prasutagus the Orwell Wargamer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFrpKqiI28k

And with a twist on using the Strength and Honour Rules, T’s Creative Ramblings:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyoNqSLlIiwoBTFN2QCObUMytsr7Zdo5z

Oh, smallest of small-scale war gamers, we are no longer lone voices crying in the wilderness !

Finally, another inspirational place that I visit, namely the Blog of the incredibly productive Jim Jackaman - I think he has a more varied range of interests than anyone else I know, and of course, now in 2mm:

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/search/label/Strength%20and%20Honour

This, thankfully, is only a small proportion of what is now out there for those of us that enjoy the smallest of scales, and the above only a snapshot of what I think we can expect to become available in the near future - I am sure it won’t be long before periods outside of Ancients will be covered in greater variety than ever before, and I , for one, can’t wait !

2mm Strength and Honour: Romans !

 

I’ve made good progress with the 2mm Strength and Honour project, having more or less completed the opposing forces with eight Roman Legionary bases and supports, mostly using 2mm Irregular Miniatures.

I decided to use these rather than Antonine’s as I preferred the flexibility in depicting the deployed formations in three distinct ranks with Velites out front, although I fell in to having marching Maniples on the majority of bases - they just seem right when creating the Roman military ‘machine’. !

Handling the individual strips/blocks (made up of twenty distinct figures from their ABG1) was a bit fiddly, particularly as it dawned on me that I hadn’t got the surface of the basing sand perfectly flat - so a few wayward ranks (cue much bellowing from the Centurions….), but not looking too bad given they’re supposed to be marching over the terrain anyway….

For the Velites, I used Irregular’s ABG24 Bowmen with regular spacing - the weapons themselves are all but invisible at this size, and I liked the look of them - I think even Rome’s irregular troops are best when shown in good order !

Next came a line of Hastati with white shields that had a blob of colour added, then Principes with scarlet shields, and finally a huddle of Triarii with darker red shields denoting their veteran status. I followed the more simplistic style of painting throughout, with a dab of white at the rear of each strip for the tunic, and the helmet with a blob of copper.

For the marching Maniples, I made things simpler still by sticking with just one shield colour throughout - a compromise, but there were a lot of strips to get through - there is some variation in the bases, with all yellow, all blue, all scarlet, all red, etc - not sure how historical this might be, but it works for me ! :-)

I had originally intended to use Irregular’s Ancient cavalry to do the Romans, but having seen the disparity in heft with the Carthaginian bases, I went with those of Antonine - using the three rank blocks for the Equites, and the two rankers for Allies, with some skirmishing Numidians thrown in - these were backed by a single base of allied skirmishers/light infantry.

Having put off working on magnetic labelling strips for the rear of each base for another day (too keen to get these ready to fight) I again went for some easy print ones, this time in a lurid red ! - the surface is ultra shiny and therefore hard to photograph, but they will do the job for now - certainly easy to see, anyway….

Finally, I had a bash at adding in some trees/bushes - at this scale, quite tricky to get right, as they can easily dwarf the miniatures - I know, I know, trees in real life are huge - but they tend to look weird when ‘life’ sized - so made use here of the excellent ready-made tufts available from Serious Play in the UK - they do a massive range of colours and types, with selection packs that give you a range of sizes - a quick pluck of the tweezers, plop onto the base, and they stick straight away - an excellent product, can’t recommend highly enough:

https://www.serious-play.co.uk/

The Legionary bases had to stay tree-less, with not much space to add in any greenery, but of course I am working with my choice of smaller 90x60mm bases for infantry….. I figure all those marching sandals would have trodden everything flat anyway !

Strength and Honour uses a separate command base for the general of your army, as they can be attached to an appropriate unit, so again, in line with the quick and easy theme of this project, I put a couple of Irregular’s blocks on a UK tuppence - definitely need to do something more visually pleasing eventually - maybe even using larger scale figures for more impact, but they will do for now.

I’ve had a blast so far with this whole project, working though it much quicker than I used to back in the day, and not worrying too much about creating mini-masterpieces, rather getting those troops to table with the minimum of fuss. It’s been a nice way to re-introduce myself to the Hobby, after quite the sabbatical….

Spread out together, they don’t look half bad - I’m hoping that Antonine will bring out some Greek-style Sarissas ago-go Phalanx blocks soon, so I can have a bash at yet another ancient era…..

2mm Strength and Honour: Punic Progress

 

An update now, on the progress made with the 2mm Antonine Miniatures for a Carthaginian army for Strength and Honour - I’ve pretty much finished these off, just the bases needing some tidying up, and I’m  cogitating over whether or not to add any additional flocking/scatter as scrub or trees.

I’d originally intended to add magnetic basing for the labels along the rear strip, but haven’t really had the time or patience for this, so for now have just gone with some roughly printed labels in a rather lurid yellow !

I’ve ended up with fifteen bases all told - a core of three medium infantry types; being the Libyan and Italian Veterans, a base of Carthaginian Citizen Spearmen, supported by skirmisher options with a base each of Numidians and Spanish. These are backed up with two Gallic Warbands, and preceded by a pair of Elephant units with Allied Quadriga chariots.

Cavalry wise, I’ve done three bases of Numidian Cavalry making good use of the ‘caracoling/feigned flighting’ blocks of horse from Antonine, and these are supported by a base of light or medium Punic cavalry and finally some heavier Spanish in three ranks.

This should give me all the most common types, if not a truly historical picture - at least a good ‘wargamey’ one !

The smaller 90x60mm infantry bases have turned out quite well - means I can field more variety, if compromising on the massed look of a larger base - you can easily imagine how powerful a full 120x60 or even 80mm base would look….. I’m just on a budget right now !

The shield colours on the major infantry units are very plain - just a mix of basic colours - but I thought shield devices was going a bit far at this size of minis ….. the Veterans have blue, purple, scarlet and white, whilst the homegrown Carthaginian Citizens are all white.

On the more irregular units, there is some variation in shield and helmet colours, although the Numidians have only the heads/helmets picked out - the blocks are otherwise just left in the original base colouring - as I said in my previous post, keeping it simple…

Next up the various cavalry bases, and the chariots:

 

The chariots from Irregular Miniatures are actually incredibly detailed for their tiny size, but I went for a simplified colour scheme, not really worrying about picking out much of their crews - they are, too be honest, looking a bit underwhelming - perhaps I need to invest in the newly released ones from Antonine, which should scale better alongside the more hefty cavalry. To be honest, though, I think chariots are probably a bit out of date for the Second Punic War, so no loss, really.

Finally, those all important Elephants - again, Irregular’s ones are actually very detailed - you can see a mahout, the castle’s crew as well as the straps for the saddle cloth and a shield protecting the howdah’s sides - minuscule masterpieces - but again, I cheated by keeping things simple - no faces or weapons done here - although of course I bodged on some white for the all important tusks.

Garish labelling aside, I’m pretty pleased so far with these - the Elephants have small integral bases of their own which I need to finesse a bit to blend in with the ground cover, although, as I said, I’m thinking of adding more flocking when time and taste allows……

Having made (for me) relatively quick progress, I’ve pushed ahead with working on some Roman bases for the opposing force, and have here decided to mainly use 2mm Irregular - two reasons really, I feel that the currently available all-in-one blocks from Antonine are depicting solid formations that look a bit too deep to my eye - more Phalanx than Legionary - and more importantly, because I’d already amassed a huge pile of the strips from Irregular - so again, being frugal, decided to use what I had to hand.

I’m hoping as well to more faithfully depict a more Republican-looking Roman formation, with maniples arrayed, or indeed with the Velites out front, with the three lines of Hastati, Principes and Triarii to the rear.

A sneak peak of my progress so far - more to come in my next post !

2mm Antonine Miniatures Painting and Basing

 

Following up with my approach to painting and basing the new 2mm Ancients from Antonine Miniatures; thought I’d nail down how I wanted to put together a Carthaginian Army for the Second Punic War.

As I was new to this range, and also had not yet obtained an actual copy of the Strength and Honour rules, I went my own way with planning how to depict the units - first off with regard to basing - I knew that this new Ancients ruleset was built around grand battles on 120mm by 60mm bases, but I wanted to make my initial purchase stretch as far as possible, so made the decision to have cavalry on the large bases, but restrict infantry units to 90mm by 60mm - more bang for my buck - I figured as the rules are structured around ‘no measurement’ area boxes on the terrain - I could get away with this - and I like the idea of horsed formations looking like they take up more ground.

I bought a couple of packs each of the various types of cavalry from Warbases, and multiples of the TT1 Trained Troops set - this combines a horde-looking block with some nice formed line shapes, as well as the useful SKI 1 Skirmish Troops with further smaller groupings of figures and lines.

Being no expert on the minutiae of the Ancients period, I felt a basic conglomeration of medium and light infantry types, some mock-legionaries, cavalry in both medium and light, as well as skirmishing cavalry to depict Numidian allies would cover a Carthaginian type force, with of course, Elephants ! ( as I mentioned in my previous post, I went in early with my purchase before the release of Antonines’ own ones, so used those from Irregular Miniatures).

 

So, on to painting: - I’ve had quite a bit of experience with the tiniest of troops from back in the day, but looking at the smooth block surfaces of this new range, I wanted to try something of different; whereas I’d tried in the past to do some justice  to any existing detail - these ‘blanks’ of the various troop types were going to get a much simpler, one-size fits all approach - there was going to be no attempt at painting faces or uniform colours beyond the most basic identifiers - with no weapons visible on the sculpts, it was a case of going for what you might see of real horses or men at a five hundred metres away - blocks of base colour and a few notional ‘highlights’ or brighter spots. This was going to be about the quick production of masses of miniatures - and with this in mind, I went wild and put the paintbrushes away - and pulled out the brush pens !

I thought the Posca range of paint pens from Uni/Mitsubishi would be perfect for this, so, after a spray undercoat of Humbrol Mid Earth Brown (29) to give some ‘tooth’, and provide a good pretend shade/stand in for gaps in-between the ranks, I started stippling away on all those hundreds of bobble heads….

Gold or bronze went in for the majority as helmets, with a break to brown and black to add variation, and then the odd red one to suggest some crests or other decorations……this saved a significant amount of time, in that there is no re-charging of a brush or cleaning in-between colours, and the stiff brush ends of the pens were perfectly suited for the round sculpted heads - splash a bit too much on? - no worries - in the mass, that’s just a glint of armour…..

 

This was followed up by working on the horses, and I must admit this did involve reverting to the paintbrush, particularly as I wanted to outline a horse ‘shape’ on the outlying riders of the blocks - the base brown would serve as one colour of horse, then some whites, some burnt siennas and umbers - with the way the sculpts are moulded, this often meant nothing more than adding blobs of colour - simples !

With the cavalry I also added in a stripe at the rear of the rider as a cloak colour, and then moved on to the shields of the infantry - the sculptings merely have a blank face at the front for this - so again, a stripe of colour as appropriate….

Colour a bit splotchy? - coverage not uniform? - no problem - again, in the MASS, this all blends in.

The final touches were a brush-on of Army Painter soft tone wash to the upper surfaces and rear of each block just to get back a bit of definition, and a little bit of shine, and then last of all, the lightest and driest of silver dry-brushing across the tops - just to restore the glinting metallic colours of the helmets….

Now, skilled painters might recoil in horror at this slapdash approach - but this was very much a ‘keep it simple stupid’ in/out/and done method - result - yep - that looks like a whole body of men on the march ! 

Basing wise, I have seen that most people have gone with corner to corner ground cover and flocking, but I wanted to leave a long label strip clear at the rear of each - I think this will aid my old age eyesight in identification and orientation, and also allow easy swapping in of differing labels - Punic cavalry and Equites Romana all in one - one block of block-figures is very much like the other !

I made use of the 2mm MDF bases from Warbases, as well as their Fine and Very Fine basing sand - I always make sure to use a spray-on Acrylic Sanding Sealer from Chestnut to seal the MDF and prevent warping when the white glue (ModPoge) goes on, then a mix of the sands to taste, sifted over, and some paint shading/drybrushing once done; - I find with the Warbases sand, that you could just leave them au-natural, but wanted a bit more of a temperate look, so a dark brown followed by mid green with a light green highlight, and done !

So, not much fuss, very little muss - and the job’s done ! - or at least is ongoing…… next up, I’ll have some shots of how the completed units look together, and will consider doing some of the traditional 2mm Irregular alongside, and of course - have a think about the opposition, namely the Romans.