An Internal Conversation

Bill's Shoulder Devil: "Hey, you kind of regret missing out on Da Boyz GT tournament earlier this month.  Since you're not going to go back to Age of Sigmar or jump on the Warhammer 40K bandwagon, you should build a Kings of War army for next year's tournament."

Bill's Shoulder Angel: "But you hate the idea of painting hundreds of figures for an army."

Bill's Shoulder Devil: "Sure, so why not build a small model count army, like Ogres?"

Bill's Shoulder Angel: "But you don't like Mantic's Ogre sculpts, and Kings of War tournaments tend to have a minimum Mantic model requirement."

Bill's Shoulder Devil: "Hey, says here in the rules for this year's Da Boyz show that there's no minimum number of Mantic models required for their Kings of War tournament.  You should find some ogre models you do like."

Bill's Shoulder Angel: "Well, you have been really admiring the ogres that Bob Olley sculpted for Ral Partha back in 1991, and they are available again from Iron Wind Metals..."

Bill's Shoulder Devil: "We could do an army of under 40 figures total."

Bill's Shoulder Angel: "Yeah, I don't have a counterpoint."

Bill's Shoulder Devil: "Just to make it interesting, you should paint tartans on them all.  Make each unit it's own ogre clan, and give each unit a different patterned tartan on their cloaks or kilts."

***

So I guess I'm adding this to my project list for the 9th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and beyond.  I've got an army list drawn up that I like and am happy with, figured out which figures I'll need, and emailed Jacob Fathbruckner of Ral Partha/IWM about getting the ones that aren't currently in the IWM online store. 

Painting Gods have mercy on me. 

Another Battle Mat and Thanksgiving

Back in early September, I ordered an arena battle mat from Hotz Mats for Sons of Mars.  It finally arrived yesterday.  It's an attractive mat, though not as high-end as the Arena Rex mat I bought at Just Games two weeks ago.  I think I'll be using this for "Local" matches and the AR mat for "Regional/Festival" matches. 

I definitely recommend Sons of Mars for anyone looking for a fast and light game of Roman Gladiators, and the publisher, Gods Eye Games, is having a month-long sale on the rules and PDF packs of NPC gladiators and reference cards. 

Finally, for my fellow Americans, today is Thanksgiving.  All I'll say is may your plates be heavy and your hearts light today. 

Challenge Accepted

The Ninth Annual Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge has been announced, with a theme of "Fellowship." This will be my third year participating (would be fourth, but a loss of mojo took me out just before the Challenge began last year), and I'm eager to take part again.  I've got a loose bit of a plan:

• Finish off my current collection of based and primed gladiators from Wargames Foundry and Crusader Miniatures.  I think there's between 12 and 18 of those to go.  
• Paint a retinue for Lion Rampant.  I have some "Later Crusaders" figures on order from Crusader Miniatures (and hopefully more will be appearing under the tree come Christmas morning) that I'm planning to paint up as Simon de Montfort and his supporters in the 2nd Baron's War.  Some nice bright heraldry (that isn't stupidly complicated) to paint after all the bronze and bare skin of these gladiators.  
• A few odds and ends, especially for the bonus rounds.

4 More Gladiators

With these four complete (other than touching up the bases), I now have 20 painted gladiators.  I also finally got an arena mat to play on, and I've done a couple solo games of Sons of Mars to try it out.  Long story short, I like it a lot; it's a fast-playing beer and pretzels kind of game (with the option for more technical complexity), especially in the absence of terrain or obstacles; I might need to pick up some of those wedding cake columns at the craft store and break up the open field some. 

I'm at least halfway through my collection of gladiator miniatures now, and maybe have less than 20 to go; there's also been some talk of a Lion Rampant group getting together in my area, so putting together a retinue for that is on my horizon. 

More Gladiators

My FLGS has begun hosting a biweekly "Open Painting" event for people to bring whatever miniatures they're working on and sit, paint and chat with each other.  I brought a handful of Foundry and Crusader gladiators to work on, and had a great time - met a couple other guys who are interested in historical games, and I spun my tale of how I invested heavily in Sons of Mars, planning to demo it at the store, a week before everyone bought into Arena Rex instead.  I'll bring the rulebook next time and see if I can't drum up some interest. 

Here's what I accomplished:

Saturday Night Speed Paint - Wargames Foundry Dimachaerus Gladiator

I needed to unwind a bit tonight, and there is a speed-painting competition coming up at my FLGS that I want to practice for.  So, I grabbed a primed figure - in this case, a Dimachaerus ("Two Knives") from Wargames Foundry's Gladiators range - and set to work, seeing how quickly I could arrive at an acceptably finished figure.  In this case, it took me just shy of an hour.  Some of the Crusader Games gladiators are nice hefty, chunky sculpts that might lend themselves better to a 45-minute speed paint. 

I should go back and paint the studs on his belt and armor straps before I varnish him.