Stone Chapel Pilots

Not quite the music sensation of a similar name, but this weekend I had the privilege of doing some archaeological stuff down at the Kent Archaeological Field School; where I helped excavate a Roman Bath House last year. This weekend was spent processing some pilot samples for a Stone Chapel nearby last year's dig. We were using a flotation tank on the test samples to see where would be eligible for excavation next season. We had several samples to process over the weekend and we got loads of information from them. I am not allowed to comment any further, but some great stuff was found (purely of academic value).

Now last year's stuff has been processed and is in the public domain, I will comment soon on what I got up to last year.

The reason I like this archaeology lark is because I find the stories that are raised by these excavations lead me to think about various 'What if?' scenarios. The KAFS stuff is especially interesting, for me anyway, as the sites are Roman in origin.

Roman Auxiliary Spearmen III

The ongoing warm weather in the UK has led me to look at all of those chores around the house that I have been putting off these last few months (years?). I got very little figure painting done this weekend as all of my time was spent emptying the garage and taking the contents down to the local recycling centre. The garage is almost empty now but will be used for storage again soon, but in better conditions. I will be mopping down the walls and giving them a fresh coat of paint and then putting up some shelving units. You may be wondering what this has to do with gaming? The shelving will be used to store most of my gaming stuff, thus freeing up large sections of the house for living in. If all of my stuff is in one place then it will be easier to find and catalogue and it will be out of my wife's hair. I'll gain a little bolt hole into the bargain!

Anyway, onto this weekend's efforts. I managed to finish off one more of those Roman Auxiliary spearmen units; only three more to go now plus their command...

I also managed to put a few licks of paint onto those Ral Partha demons and start on the basing for a couple of really early Citadel Space Marines.

Gaming wise, I put out an invite to a few friends to see if they wanted to play my new strategy game. I am hoping to start running that at the end of August.

Roman Auxiliary Spearmen II

Here's the second squad of Western Auxiliary Spearmen.

As mentioned previously, I will be finishing them a squad at a time, by pose.

The Lord of the Rings stuff is also coming along slowly but surely. I decided on basing elites, leaders and heroes on display bases, so I had to accrue some. All miniatures have now been based except for 6 mounted miniatures. I am aiming to try to get some different horses as I am bored of the same two poses for every rider so far.

I have completed the first coat on 24 horses so far, so the actual Riders of Rohan are coming along nicely. Overall, I am making quite good headway into getting the hundred or so miniatures started at least.

Next time should be more of the same - more Romans and an update on the LotR Rohirrim. I have also almost finished a couple of demons and a couple of very early GW Space Marines painted up for Mega City One style gaming.

Roman Auxiliary Spearmen

Here is a picture of the first 'squad' of Western Roman Auxiliary Spearmen. I have two units of these to paint up; one unit in green and another in blue (to support a unit of Eastern Archers). These are Warlord Games' metal minis, on eof six poses. I have also added a small command of Centurion, standard and cornicen to lead them.

My aim is to create a borderland (Hadrian's Wall?) unit comprising a Century of legionaries, a couple of units of auxiliary spearmen, a couple of units of archers, a cavalry regiment and some Numidian allies, some slingers, a few war machines and a fair few command types (legate, Primus Pilus and so on).

I made some more progress on my Rohan army too. Almost all are now glued up and undercoated. I also dug out some Gripping Beast Arthurian types, so I will see if they fit in scale and sculpt wise to make up the numbers even more.

Rohan begins...

I have now started on my Rohan army for Games Workshop's Strategy Battle Game. All warrior and Rider sprues have been glued and undercoated. I have also started painting a few of the horses. Some of the metals have been cleaned up and undercoated but I am still not sure how I wish to base the elites, command and heroes.

Standard troops and riders are on the bases supplied by GW, but I really like the look of display bases for setting apart 'quality' troops. I have a stack of cavalry sized bases for the purpose that are the same diameter, but the foot bases are 30mm diameter as opposed to standard 25mm. This gives a small advantage to troops attacking them, but I am not too fussed as they are tough cookies anyway. This base size issue in itself is no problem except if I want to use them for War of the Ring (not that I have the rules anyway), when the larger bases won't fit into the sabot bases for units. I have to say I am more of a skirmish gamer, so I will just have to make my mind up in the next few days as to whether I want to play WotR or not. I have played one session down at my local GW, and found the combat a bit too simplistic and brutal for my liking.

I will continue working on some of those half-completed models this weekend too. I am currently putting the finishing touches to those Roman auxiliary spearmen. The first squad should hopefully be finished today.