Blood and Spectacles: On the Painting Desk: Gangsters, Greeks and 6mm Madness

Monday, April 13, 2020

On the Painting Desk: Gangsters, Greeks and 6mm Madness

My corporate masters decided to close down the office and send us all to work from home. My kid’s school also closed down and sent her to homeschool too. My wife was working diligently with her client’s to get them as online friendly as she could. I imagine many of you are in the same boat thanks to COVID-19. I hope as you read this that you and your loved ones are healthy and whole.

This has not really given me more time to paint, but I have been painting a lot more anyway. I don’t know why. However, my main painting goals haven’t changed. I still need to paint gangsters, greeks, and anything else I can find that is unpainted in my collection.

In the Men of Bronze rulebooks there are a number of sample armies to help get you started. I have always intended on having model versions of the Spartan and Corinthian sample armies for demo games and on the blog. Last year I managed to finish painting my sample Macedonian army list. I wanted a couple of “true” Greek armies too.

After two years, I have finally done it. Here are the last units I needed to complete both of those armies. There is one unit of Spartan Hoplites, one unit of Corinthian Hoplites, and 1 Peltast unit. These are all 28mm Victrix models. These were great sets to assemble, paint, and I got a lot of units out of each box. I think I could still make one more unit out of each box if I wanted too!

In addition to the Greeks, I have been working diligently on my Copplestone Casting models for Turf War, Strange Aeons, and other game systems. These models are all metal. They are a joy to paint due to solid sculpting and deep detail. They accept basic techniques easily and each one is full of character.

I have been working on finishing off the last handful of models I have from these selections. I have more than enough to play a variety of games, but I want them all to be painted! I did the same with my gladiators. I had plenty to play but I painted them all anyway. They look great on my painted shelves.

I have also been working on a few Fantasy models my fellow RPGers picked out for the group. I finished the group a while ago, but I have a few stragglers I have been working on. Most of them are not handy as they are with the DM, but here are a few shots I took of them. I am hoping to use them for a game of Rampant Swords in the near future too.

Finally, I have turned my attention to my 6mm armies from Baccus. These guys intimidated me. I was not sure where to begin. However, Baccus has a variety of helpful tutorials on their website, and I watched a couple videos. With my confidence boosted and some tips and tricks under my belt I decided to get to work. They were not going to be painting themselves after all.

I decided to start by painting the three bases of archers. Each base was 60mm x 60mm. I intended to use these to play Heirs to Empire. Therefore, I base would be one unit. I put 32 models on each base to make them look like a big unit.

The hardest part of painting them was actually the base! Only in wargaming do you put real dirt on a base, and then paint it to make it look like dirt! This stage was murder on my brushes, but I had a few set aside for sacrifice. Good thing I mostly use cheap, big-box retailer brushes.

So, that’s what I have been painting. You can see it all aligns closely with my 2020 goals. I have painted 45+ miniatures this year. That is a pretty good pace for me. I look forward to continuing to work on my painting goals for 2020.

As a random aside, I spent some of my time creating a new wargame and posted it on our Wargame Vault page. It is called Foam Force Five. It is a mash-up of Little Wars, Castle Defense games, and my other Dexterity based wargames.

What you need to play is a dart gun, sling shot, rubber band gun, etc. and a variety of targets such as green army men, flats, paper templates, etc. It is silly, simple fun and suitable for ages 5 to adult. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Have fun in self-quarantine.