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.

New 2mm Antonine Miniatures: some initial thoughts

 

Tap…..Tap….. does this thing still work….?   I dunno - you pop out for the proverbial pint of milk and nine years go by……. Never thought the Blog would go on such a long hiatus….. I feel like Rip Van Winkle or a defrosting Captain Buck Rogers, waking up from a thousand year long sleep….. 

“3D printed miniatures on demand you say……The Wargames Website created, you say…..2mm Facebook Group thriving….semi -pro YouTubers promoting the Hobby left right and centre you say” ….. it all seems like science fiction for this old Grognard…..

I haven’t really been up to much, just letting Real Life get in the way of the One True Hobby, and getting on with the day to day rather than putting brush to mini, or delving into project creation, or indeed, blogging about it…..

Not that I let this pause prevent me from indulging in all sorts of ‘ooh - shiny’ purchases in the intervening years (!)…. Rather I’ve been stocking up on all sorts of additions to the Lead Mountain, so hopefully some grist to the mill for posting about, if I can resurrect this old Blog and get it to creak back into life….

So in the spirit of being well out of the loop, thought I’d catch up a bit with a look at the newest of new-fangled 2mm Ancients by Antonine Miniatures via Warbases in the UK, released to complement the Strength and Honour Rules by Mark Backhouse.

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

Now having once been a keen proponent of the tiniest of miniatures, I’ve been watching with interest the various recent developments in the nominal 2mm scale, with the groundwork put in place by Zac Duckworth of Forward March Miniatures, the various iterations of 3D printed and home designed ranges, and was very excited to see Mr Backhouses’ new rules grow from a Homunculus to the fully fledged Lard-sponsored Strength and Honour with the miniatures to match.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbo4NdmjqmsDAVhNsQMYBrJABhHBUYxDz

I’d always wanted to try the vast scale of Ancient battles in 2mm - seemed like such a natural fit, particularly for the range from Irregular Miniatures, but had held off in that I felt the strip-like block nature of their output did not do enough justice to the more ‘irregular’ troops in terms of depicting formations….. with the best will in the world, and some creative cutting of the strips, they did not quite seem to be enough to depict hordes of well…Hordes….. or large skirmishing groups….. so was pleased to see this new range have blobs and blobs of just such miniatures - so had to have a delve !

Long preamble then, (apologies….. haven’t said a word in nine years, remember), but hopefully the start to a series of postings on my thoughts as I have a go at a Carthaginian army in 2mm.

Now I jumped in to purchasing these new minis from Warbases before they had produced either elephants or chariots, definite pre-requisites for Punic shenanigans, but I am pleased to report that these are now also available, and having scads of Irregular Miniatures’ pachyderms and quadriga lying around, went with those in the interim.

I purchased a selection of the various codes that would scratch the itch of producing everything from imitation Legionaries to Gallic allies, from Numidian skirmishing horse to Carthaginian cavalry…

So, perhaps the burning question for a dyed in the wool Irregular man, just what did I think of these new chaps on the block ?

They are obviously designed with the depiction of ‘Mass’ on the tabletop, perhaps even more so than my old favourites, and are made to represent, for the most part, large groupings of men or animals - the detail is therefore very limited, with a blob on a block on a hobby-horse appearance….. is this a criticism - absolutely not ! - I think this plays very well to the strengths of this small scale, and allows some very quick and expressionist painting - my favourite kind !

Where with 2mm from Irregular you could find visible and distinct helmeted heads, legs, armour, shield shapes, weapons, horses legs, standards and flags - all of which detail you could easily paint if your eyes are young enough or you own a good Optivisor - the Antonine 2mm are perfect for a broader brush approach - a spot of colour from above for the helmeted head, a stripe of another shade at the rear for a cloak or clothing, a splash at the front for the shield, a solid block of tint for the horse, some slapping on of quickshade shading, a very light drybrush of silver and done.

The minis themselves are very smartly produced with a smooth finish true to their computer design, and are nicely proportioned - no flash or venting remnants to deal with (smooth bottoms !), and only on the larger bases did I detect a bit of under-moulding where the odd head or two was diminished - not really a problem when it’s depicting a giant mass of people.

Size-wise, the cavalry is a little larger in proportions than you might expect when set beside the infantry figures, however, again, this gives them the added visual heft of the more impactful formation without seeming overblown.

How do they compare with the 2mm from Irregular - well, apologies for the poor photography below, but I would say that the infantry are pretty compatible in size - although of course without the detailing, and it is only with the mounted figures that the size is visibly different and the artificially block-like nature of the Antonine looks a bit odd against the sculpted and modelled horseflesh from Irregular.

So, perhaps not working if placed on the same base, but not too out of kilter if used in the same, or an opposing army. 

I haven’t done a price comparison with Irregular, but I think the minis from Antonine are quite competitive and given you are getting masses of troops, very reasonable in terms the cost - Warbases also offer the option of purchasing MDF bases to complement the new rules, which is handy.

Overall, I’m very pleased to see these new entrants become available in a retail setting - I don’t have a 3D printer so haven’t (Yet !) availed myself of the files that would open a whole new cornucopia of tiny troops - but feel they are a worthy addition to the ranks - I’m looking forward to seeing more and more become available.

In the next post, I’ll look at my take on painting and basing the little fellers,  and give some more thoughts on how they will be employed in a Second Punic War setting.

Finally, it’s good to be back!  😀

 

RIP Avon - Paul Darrow 1941~2019

Sad to hear that the incomparable, inimitable Paul Darrow has joined Gareth Thomas, Jacqueline Pearce, David Jackson and Peter Tuddenham in the pantheon of lost stars......

I think it is true to say that no other actor could have brought the character of Blakes 7's Kerr Avon to life with such aplomb - a cynical, sardonic anti-hero - the foil to the earnest freedom fighter Blake, his dry wit and mellifluous delivery giving a richness to the part that quite frankly, stole the show!

A real loss :


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=atuNdPgM8eY