Wargames Atlantic and Footsore Miniatures announced on April 1st a brand new range of multi part plastics to support the existing range of Paul Hicks sculpted metal figures for The Barons’ War. And it was no joke!
These plastic minis have been sculpted by resident Wargames Atlantic sculpter Rob McFarlane, assisted by Paul Hicks and Andy Hobday. The first of five boxed sets being foot knights.
The knights can be kitted out with a variety of weapons and shields, and have good selection of heads to choose from.
A selection of knights I built and painted for the box art and advertising.
It was great to be invited to paint up a set of pre-production prints of the figures to feature on the box art and advertising. I also put my graphic design skills to the test and designed the packaging and advertising, my first work for Wargames Atlantic!
Some mean knights looking to give someone a bad day!
So what do you think? Will you be picking up a box to add to your Barons’ War collection?
I particularly like the grim Templar in this bunch.
The branding I designed for the Kickstarter campaign
Footsore Miniatures & Games are currently running a fantastic Kickstarter campaign to launch a brand new and very comprehensive range of 28mm Viking Miniatures.
I was invited to paint some test resin casts of the new Matt Bickley Vikings.
Sculptor Matt Bickley has produced over 70 dynamic figures, all wonderfully detailed and characterful. The figures are nicely scaled and work well with Footsore’s original range of dark age (early medieval) figures and of course most of the other ranges from a wealth of manufacturers.
So if you’re looking to start a Viking warband or wanting to add some new characters to an existing collection then please do give this Kickstarter a look.
There are 4 days to go as of writing this post to jump in!
Wild Gallic Warriors rush forward. A few of my painted figures. Plastics from Warlord Games.
One of my favourite things growing up was going to the library, grabbing an armful of Asterix the Gaul books and immersing myself in that colourful, fun world.
As a war-gamer and painter it’s no surprise then that one of the projects on my bucket list to collect and paint would be a Gallic army.
This army project however has caused me to have a few false starts. I’ve attempted to work on this army 4 or 5 times already, often stalling after painting just a handful of figures. I’ve had these figures knocking about in my pile of opportunity for a number of years, but I could never quite decide what to do with them. So what was the problem?
Rulesets and basing!
Gauls take a fair bit of work to paint. The bright colours, patterned clothing, wode war-paint and fancy shields are a daunting prospect. And painting the minis is commitment! So you want to make all that work count, and to make it count I wanted to base them in such a way that they worked well visually and work well for a few different games. I had already tried out 3 or 4 figures on 40x40mm bases and also basing singularly on both round and square bases, 20mm and 25mm. But I just couldn’t settle on a preferred choice. Did I want to do mass battle or skirmish games with these? Gauls look their best en-masse, charging blocks of Romans. it has to be mass battle!
My warband of Gauls made up of plastic figures from Victrix.
December last year I finally committed to a plan of action. I chose to base each warband of 32 figures on four bases. Each base measuring 100x40mm with 8 figures.
I’m quite fond of the Kings of War Historical ruleset and in these rules I would have the option to field each war-band 3 ways. 4 troops, 2 regiments or one hoard. The hoard would be made up of all 4 bases giving a footprint of 200x80mm. The other rules I’d like to try are Warlord Games’ Hail Caesar which fields Gauls in large war-bands only and the hoard footprint would work perfectly!
And so on to the painting!
I had a lot of Gauls to paint both plastic and metal. This warband is made up of metal figures from Foundry and Black Tree Design.
I opted to batch paint each war-band of 32 in one go. Having already attempted to paint these several times I knew I had to bite the bullet, get my head down and get on with it. I wasn’t going to get distracted and paint anything else until I had painted these 3 war-bands!
I painted all the skin tones and faces first on all the figures.
Then the hair, choosing just 4 colours and dividing equally among the figures.
I then split the figures into groups of 5 or 6, these were groups of a coloured item of clothing, 5 red trousers, 5 red shirt, 5 yellow trousers, 5 yellow shirts… etc. and when I had painted all the clothes and then painted the belts, and shoes using the same mix of paints on each figure just to keep things simple and moving.
After that I painted the weapons and then it was onto the patterns. Most items of clothing just got a stripes of a complementary colour, and a few got checks or another contrasting stripe.
For the wode, I kept it simple with a swirl on the pectorals and a few stripes on the arms.
Gauls with wode war-paint.
I went for decals on the shields, I did try hand painting a few and they looked OK but it was a lot of extra work. I used decals from Warlord, Little Big Men and Battle Flag, and was happy with the end result.
Grim looking Gauls showing no mercy!
The figures were based on MDF and then varnished using Vallejo Matt varnish through an airbrush and then I added a layer of Vallejo earth texture paste to the base. I then sprinkled on some Geek Gaming scenics pine forest scatter and added a mix of tufts from my collection.
And there we go! I finally got these wonderful looking Gauls painted up. 98 figures painted since December 2023, not bad going.
Now to add a few more units of skirmishers, cavalry and fanatics!
Torch and Shield is a new fantasy dungeon delving game and a range of very characterful dwarf miniatures from tabletop games company Grimskald.
Grimskald very kindly reached out to me over on my Instagram page @stevebpaints asking if I would be willing to take a look at some of their new minis, and after taking a quick glance at their webpage I was happy to oblige.
I recieved a blister pack chock full of minis and some nice cobblestone bases, perfect for the game’s dungeon setting.
Contents of the Blister pack.
The pack contained 7 dwarves in medieval/renaissance style garb, with a selection of hands holding weapons, musket, pistols, crossbow, axes and sword and objects such as shields, a purse, flagon of ale and a torch and lantern. Cast or printed in a tough and pliable (but not bendy) resin.
I love the slightly cartoon look to the figures, they would fit well in a Warhammer Old World dwarf army. All the parts were easy to assemble and I was keen to get some paint on them.
On the painting table.All painted and ready for some dungeoneering!
The figures were fun to paint. They all had crisp clear bold details. I really like them and I think they would make great playable characters in a number of fantasy skirmish games and of course leading units of troops in big battles too!
Torch and Shield is of course a game too and the minis and the rulebook will be coming to Kickstarter on 10th October. So if dungeoneering with a pack of tough looking dwarves is your thing, keep an eye out for Torch and Shield.
The Barons’ War, Grand Melee 2023 which will be held at Firestorm Games in Cardiff, will see retinues of bloodthirsty barons battle it out over 4 games with the winner being crowned British Champion!
I was commissioned by the game’s creator Andy Hobday to create some publicity artwork for the new tournament event. Having the Greatest Knight, William Marshall take centre stage of course was a no brainier!
For more info on the event and the Barons’ War game check out Warhost.online and follow The Barons’ War : A Medieval Skirmish Game on Facebook.
I have teamed up with Greg over at Agema Miniatures and we are offering Fantasy Football players of the old world the chance to field a team fuelled by Poitin and a little bit of luck!
So I was on sketch duties this time, the idea being that this Leprechaun team would be a fun way to play Halflings in that bloody game of fantasy football we all know and love!
I sketched out the full team of linemen, catchers and hefty’s, and the sketches went over to sculptor Bob Plociennik who has done a wonderful job at interpreting the drawings into 3D minis.
Check this small selection below and keep an eye on Agema Miniatures for there imminent release onto the football field!
Look out, there will be some Leprechaun Star players coming soon too!
Salve citizens. Gangs of Rome version 2 was recently funded over on Kickstarter. The campaign had a wonderful response from enthusiastic mobs!
This is exciting for me because I will be tasked with designing the brand new book. I have been working with Andy Hobday and the team at Warhost to produce the graphics and illustrations you have seen so far including page mock ups, token artwork and diagrams.
What is really exciting for me is sketching new characters and then seeing them brought to life in miniature!
Pencil sketch of Gangs of Rome lead character, Priscus Brutus.
Andy asked me to design a new veteran fighter for Gangs of Rome. Briefing me with a number of references and ideas, I started scribbling and Priscus Brutus was born! This gnarly vet will be leading the reader through the new book. But that’s not all…
Figure sculptor, Paul Hicks was then asked to bring Priscus to life in miniature.
Priscus Brutus, sculpted by Paul Hicks
Paul has done a brilliant job in translating the sketch into a miniature.
Now the hard work starts on producing the new book. I really do enjoy getting stuck into a big project like this, there is lots still to do so please do look out for more of these updates on the design process as things develop.
A brand new miniature manufacturer rampages onto the scene in the guise of Minotaur Miniatures!
I was happy to be asked to design a logo for the new start up, and working closely with company owner Ashley Bye from a sketch he provided we arrived at this strikingly bold identity.
Minotaur Miniatures are working with popular sculpter Stavros Zouliatis to produce a range of 28mm historical miniatures. Firstly with these stunning Afghan Timurids.
Original sculpts by Stavros
I wish Ashley at Minotaur Miniatures all the best in this new venture. Please do check out minotaurminiatures.co.uk for more.
Over the last few months my gaming has centred around learning author Daniel Mersey’s “Rampant” games. Titles include Lion Rampant, Dragon Rampant and now the sci fi variant Xenos Rampant! Daniel Mersey’s large skirmish rules system also drives his other historical games all published by Osprey Games, The Pikeman’s Lament, The Men Who Would Be Kings and Rebels and Patriots. But it’s the Rampant titles that I have been playing recently.
The Rampant rule set is a solid, fun and no faff, easy to pick up and play system. This really suits me as most of my gaming takes place at home on a weekend afternoon with my teenage boys. The Rampants’ allow me to get a good number of figures on the table and have a scrap within a 2 hour window! They also allow for some really creative army building due to the flexible nature of the way units in the game can be represented. Great fun for those of us who like a narrative game and telling stories with our miniatures, and of course for dusting off some old favourites and getting them back on the table.
For the rest of this post I’m going to focus on the new kid on the block, Xenos Rampant, co- authored by Richard Cowen, which I played my first game of last weekend using my collection of Star Wars Legion models. I wrote two army lists from the selection of units available in the book. For example I ran Stormtroopers in units of 5 as ‘Heavy Infantry’ with the heavy weapon option (one of the troopers was modelled with a rocket launcher). Rebel soldiers however were ‘Light Infantry’ with the Guerrillas option to help them resist fire while in soft cover. Darth Vader was represented as ‘Elite Infantry’ and as a one model unit tooled up with a selection of extra options and Xenos rules to give him the flavour of being a merciless dark lord of the Sith. Likewise Luke was approached in much the same way, but of course taking options and Xenos rules that were much more in keeping with a Jedi Knight.
Xenos rules are flavoursome special rules that can be added to units by paying extra points. For example Darth had the ‘Force Field’ Xenos rule for 1 point allowing him to deflect hits on the roll of a 6!
It was Luke vs Vader in my first game of Xenos Rampant.
We played a 36 point game with six units a side and it worked really well and was a lot of fun. It’s got me digging through my figure cases and pulling out some models that have not seen any action in a long time and i’m having fun putting different sets of figures together to form new detachments for the game.
Plastic Algoryn AI Troopers from the Beyond the Gates of Antares. I’m happy with the paint job on these but will rebase on Games Workshop style 32mm bases to compliment the rest of my current Sci Fi collection.
So my first hobby project for Xenos Rampant is to build a detachment using some of my Beyond the Gates of Antares figures. I have 15 Algoryn troopers which I can run as 3 units of Heavy Infantry, and to compliment them I will add a couple of Mercenary units of Light Infantry and Recon Infantry using some really nice models from CP Models Alien Federation range.
A selection of alien types which will represent a mercenary unit in future games of Xenos Rampant. Models are multi part metal figures from CP Models. Squid Head however has a head swap from a Stargrave plastic kit.More Alien Federation models from CP. Again red on the far right has a head swap from a Stargrave kit. I will add a drone model from my Antares collection to each of these units to bring them up to 5.
But what next? Another detachment to fight this new one I’ve put together, certainly. But what models do I use? Well that’s the fun of it. I’ll probably dig out some more old models and spruce them up a bit initially. I like matching different ranges together and making them look like a coherent force, so i’ll be doing a bit of that sort of thing going forward. Watch this space!
Do check out Xenos Rampant, it’s well worth a look.
Just a quick hobby update on the 10mm Early Imperial Roman army project. You may remember I picked up some cracking 3D printed figures from Cromarty Forge and work is continuing apace on the figures to build up an army to invade Britain on the tabletop!
Initially I was looking at playing some games with the Hail Caesar rules by Rick Priestley, and one day that may well happen, but I’m now looking at Kings of War Historical to get my Roman Invasion of Britain games to the table. Still big armies but slightly more manageable for one person (me) to paint both armies and have some fun games.
Kings of War Historical published by Mantic Games
I’ve had this book since it’s release in 2016, but haven’t done anything with it. It looks like a great set of light fast play rules, with lots of scope to build interesting armies and inject some character in them. So with this in mind, let’s take a look at where things are at.
My 10mm Roman army so far…
In Kings of War terms, the picture above shows 6 regiments of Legionaries, 4 Troops of Auxiliary archers and 4 Troops of Balearic Slingers. The troop bases could also be paired up to form regiments if desired.
Next up I’m looking to add some Auxiliary cavalry, scorpion bolt throwers and command options to the army. Then it will be onto collecting and painting the Britons!
A closer look at the Legionaries
So stay tuned for further developments. I’ve got a few other hobby projects bubbling away too, including some stuff for Dragon Rampant and Xenos Rampant, Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game and Flames of War.
Plus I’ll be attending my first ever Wargaming tournament in February, more on that soon…
Miniature Giant 