Puttering, podcasts and paint, oh my!

Hi,

Just thought I'd touch base. Soviets sold, not as high as I'd hoped, but I still got a decent price. They're winging their way to sunny California as I write this, and I hope they like their new home.

As noted previously, this leaves me with a clean slate. I have no painted armies. The result, predictably, has been a feverish scouring of both rulebooks and the internet to decide what I'm doing next, despite the long list of projects already waiting for me. The local game club has been talking about doing something with the Lasalle rules for the 2012 Borodino anniversary. The thought of this managed to devour several lunches worth of internet time, as I compared the relative merits of different 15mm figure ranges before remembering that a) we're talking about something a year and a half away, and b) right now, I have no money for new toys.

What I have been tinkering with is my first unit for Impetus - successor pike for my Pyrrhus army. Borrowing an idea for format from JET at Geektactica:








Impetus Unit Type: FP
Base Size: 8cm x 3cm
Manufacturer: Old Glory 15mm

I quite like these OG15mm figs. They have good detail, a reasonable range of poses, and mix well with the other 15mm figs I have, from Xyston. The plan for the basing is to reflect southern Itally and Scicily, where Pyrrhus did most of his romping around. I might want to warm up the colours a little, but for a kind of baked earth effect, it seems to work. This is the front unit of what will eventually be a three-deep "large base" of pike. There's actually very little info on what Pyrrhus' forces looked like, especially his Epirotes, but from what I've been able to dig up, the core of his forces were actually a gift from Ptolemy of Egypt.

For the first unit of pike, I figured I'd go with some classic Macedonian-style colours and insignia, hence the yellow and red, and the use of the Macedonian star throughout. I might add in some Ptolemeic sheild insignia as I move into the rear units. I've read that the trident was a common image for the Epirotes, and that Pyrrhus had a symbol he used, though I've not been able to find an example of the latter. I'll likely use those for sheilds in the planned second base of pike.

These were fun to paint, and had me stretching a little. While I've painted lots of 15mm, it's mostly been WWII, with fairly drab colours, so learning to paint bright colours like red and yellow has been interesting. I suspect I'm going to end up somewhere between the techniques I use for 28mm and those I developed for 6mm. Faces, sheilds, etc. will get a little more attention to smooth colour transition, but I'll have to pay attention to contrast and tone to make the smaller figures pop and make detail stand out. I've already noticed that the highlighting on the yellow, especially the sheilds, seems to wash out in the photos.

The pike base has the added advantage of being the most figure dense base that appears in the army - everything else involves painting the same number or less. Next up for Pyrrhus will be some cavalry, either Macedonian or Itallian Greek, with the plan to work towards a 300 point list. Once that's done, I'll get to work on 300 points of spartans, and then use those armies to try and hook in some locals for a game.

Having been doing some painting, I've also been getting caught up on my podcasts. I assume if you're reading this you're aware of the interetherwebs, but on the off chance you're unfamiliar, think of them as a radio show on the internet. I've fallen into the habit of listening to them while painting, or sometimes on the commute to work. There are a number of them out there, and I though it was high time I gave them their propers. The d6 Generation and Meeples and Miniatures are both excellent podcasts that cover a wide range of the hobby. I painted a good chunk of my Soviets listeming to What Would Patton Do, and for Warhammer, there's Podhammer. The latter tend to earn their R rating at times, but include good insight into the dynamics of the game.

FMB