Victrix Mid Republican Romans have arrived!!!!

Yes what a great day off. I got a good sleep in to 7.30am (normally I’m up at 5.30am for work) and within a few hours of being up i had two packages arrive – one from Warlord games and the other from Victrix.

As you can imagine i had the packages open within a minute.

I’m going to be busy!!
I intend to do a review of my thoughts on Hail Caesar once i read the rules fully but for now onto the models.
First up I’ve only opened up the two boxes of the legionaries in chain mail so my review will be based on them. The quality of the sprue’s is top notch. The mould lines are very small and were very easy to clean up. The miniatures details are very crisp. The detail on the faces is very good although perhaps a tad cartoony a little like Warlord games bolt action figures. (although i like that as it gives them some character)


 
As i said the mould lines are very small and you could almost get away without removing the lines on many of the figures. My OCD would never let me do that though.
Here are some shots of one of the miniatures which had some of the lines that could be seen. A sharp knife and about 15-20 seconds and it was perfect for painting.

The figures thankfully come in very few pieces. The legs and torso are all one piece as is the left arm that holds the shield. The head, right arm and the shield is separate. Although the poses are slightly different the poses are all of standing legionaries designed to rank up. The arms allow the choice of Pilum for the Hastatus or Princeps  as well as spears for the Triarius.
I brought two boxes of the Chainmail legionaries which allows me to make 5 units 16 strong each. 2 Units of Triarii and 3 units of Principes. The third box will allow me to do two units of Hastati with the pectoral chest plate.  It is worth noting that there are a choice of several different helmet designs including the odd one often seen in illustrations which looks like it is worn like a Corinthian helm and often shown worn by Triarii. There are enough of this design to give one unit of 16 per box. I think it will help mark out the Triarii units as different (yes i know the spears will do that as well).
Here’s a pic of my clean up progress so far.
 
Now i haven’t touched on the light troops that you also get in each box. A rather large number of 18 figures per box .  I haven’t actually looked at those figures yet so i will review them in another post.
So what do i think over all – I give them a 9 out of 10. I think there are well proportioned miniatures and the detail on them is excellent. If you are on the lookout for a Mid Republic Roman army then i personally don’t think you could find a better option.

WW2 French Buildings and Warrior Monks.

So ive had a few days off and decided to do some extra work on my sarissa precision buildings.  Not a lot to say really so here are some pics.

Will be good to see them on the table in a game later today.

 

The warrior monks near completion. I just need some proper bases for them and then i will finish off the last few details and we will be ready for some Legends of the Rising Sun trial games.

 

Also I've had word that my Hail Caesar rulebook and my Vitrix Romans have shipped so i will do some reviews in the near future.

Warrior Monks

So the Warrior monks from The Assault Group arrived a couple of days ago. i was lucky enough to have the next day off work so i got stuck in and started painting the first  6 out of 17 models.

here is a few quick pics.

 

Ill get some more pics up once they are all finished and based.

Hobby Update –Wild West, Samurai & Bolt action plus future plans!

  Wow its been months since i posted about anything.  Have no fear i haven't given up on painting or gaming. In fact i have been pretty busy on the painting front and gaming has been going well. Anyone who follows Will (Wills Ramblings)or Robs (Painted Addiction) blogs will know what we have been up too. If you don’t follow their blogs go check them out. Apart from being my best mates and keen war gamers they are also enthusiast photographers' and have some great pics to view. – Anyways back to the pictures. I intend to get the lads to take some nice pics of each of the figs on their big flash cameras but these pics will have to suffice for the moment.  

Legends of the old west.

I’ve managed to paint up two more gangs for my legends of the old west gaming. All the figures are from Black Scorpions Tombstone range.

First up a Cowboys!

The next gang is Lawmen.

Legends of the rising sun.

following on from the Legends of the old west i found some modified LOTOW rules for Samurai battles aptly named Legends of the rising sun.  You have Buntai (gangs) for Samurai, Warrior Monks, Ninja  - basically i was hooked.  About 8 or 9 months back i got a set of the Koryu Buntai for Ospreys Ronin war game. We had one test game of this but it didn't really grab the lads so we haven't played it since. We i found the LOTRS rules i pulled my gang out and decided to paint them up with hopes of a first game this weekend. As we all like the LOTOW rules system we should get in a few games of this modification. I'm also so keen on this i have ordered some Warrior monks from The Assault group Medieval Asia range.

The First Buntai.

These are the first Samurai I've ever painted and to be honest i was a little intimidated with clothing colours and symbols. I’ve watched a pile (probably over 100) of old black and white Samurai films including all the Akira Kurosawa classics. But i never really gave colours much thought until i started painting these. I used a pile of photos off Google as reference and am pretty happy with what I've come up with.  I’m looking forward to the warrior monks turning up so i can get stunk into them as i have allot of reference material for colour schemes for them.

 

Bolt Action

This has been the big star over the last 2-3 months and the one i have spent the most time painting!!  1000 points of late war British plus a couple of extra bits so i have some options.

 

Not the most exciting force to look at but I'm happy with how its turned out. I just have to get around to doing unit markings and its finished.

 

Future Gaming plans.

Looking to the future for gaming and painting Rob and I are planning on armies for Warlord Games Hail Caesar. The only issue i see with this rule set is we will need a lot of figures. I’ve decided to do an army that I've always wanted to paint - Mid Republican Romans. The Punic wars period is my favourite and I'm looking forward to this project. I've chosen to order Vitrix’s new plastic 28mm Mid Republican Romans – ill be doing a review once they turn up. (No Seriously i will) 

these are the first two boxes and apparently there will be a third box featuring allied Italian states. I have hopes for plastic elephants but i may be kidding myself (But a man can dream!!!)    

I suspect that this project is going to take a long time as the army is probably going to be around 400 figures all up. (yes i may well be mad!!).