On the land warfare front, the end of the week sees completion of another batch of upgrading to Theban infantry - 16 improvements to previously painted figures from the HäT Theban army set, 8 newly painted figures that match the pose from HäT's Macedonian Hypaspists set.
As can be seen in the background in the picture above, some 20mm ancient cavalry have appeared on the painting desk as well. This was not intended, but rather more bronze paint than expected came out of the bottle as I was doing the metalwork on the Thebans. Rather than waste it I looked around for some figures I could use it on and found a draw full of assorted light cavalry that I had decided to rebase a long time ago and got no further than taking them off the old bases. So, a dozen each of Macedonian Prodromoi and Thracian cavalry, six each of Greek horse archers and Paeonians, plus three Numidian officer types with some metal work on them all now have shiny helmets or shield bosses. Having got them out I will now finish them off and rebase them before returning to the final batches of Theban Hoplites.
On the naval front I continue to work on the rules - and have ordered William Murray's 'The Age of Titans' to flesh out my understanding of how the larger ships of the Hellenistic age may have functioned. While I test out ideas using printed cards to show squadrons, I have made a prototype for squadron basing of the 1:2400 scale ships that I have.
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| Prototype with three Roman quinquiremes attached. The models are from Tumbling Dice |
All of the ship models already have magnetic bases, so a squadron base receptive to magnets that would blend into the 'sea' was needed. I cut out a flat piece from a tin and fixed this to a 120mm by 60mm sheet of 1mm thick plastic card. The tin is slightly less than the dimensions of the card so that sharp edges won't be a risk. The base is then covered with patterned paper matching that which I use for sea. I am pleased with the result.
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| The models can be turned to line astern from line abreast with ease, and adhere well to the magnetically receptive tin through the paper. |
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| The squadron base blends well into the sea and can have magnetic markers added to it keep track of status during action. The dolphin marker in the lower right of the picture is a corner marker for the grid scheme. At the moment I'm trying out 200mm squares but will experiment with other arrangements. |
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