Sunday 4 May 2014

Menis! Rage, goddess...

The first Danaans are ready to fight at Troy. These Long-haired Achaeans, led by cunning Odysseus and Diomedes, master of the war cry, are prepared to seek the aid of Athene in their conflict with the sons of Priam.
'Let's go get us some aristeia, Odysseus!'
'I think the Trojans are actually this way Diomedes.'
'First we need to kill some cows for our nifty shields.'
Archers - providing inadequate covering fire since 1250 BC.
'We're a long way from Ithaca boys. Never mind, if we follow Odysseus I'm sure we'll all make it home.'
'For Athene's sake Gymnos, this is a family blog! Here. let me strategically place my spear.'
'Close up men! Don't step outside of this rectangular movement tray!'
'Spread out boys - we have a whole CD for just the five of us.'
I'm aiming to use the Of Gods and Mortals rules from Osprey for the Trojan War. The main reason is that I wanted something that captured the feel of heroes and gods intervening directly in the battle. I also really liked Song of Blades and Heroes and as this rule-set is also written by Andrea I can imagine that I will enjoy it. A quick read-through also seems to confirm this.
The figures are all Black Tree Designs, except Odysseus and the shields which I purchased from Redoubt Enterprises. They are fantastic figures to paint up, but this time around I decided that I wasn't going to paint eyes. It would probably take me about half an hour to do them all, and that may not be much time in the grand scheme of things, but I don't know if they need them.  It isn't really noticeable at a distance, and not even that bad close up. What do you out there in blogging land think?  I've added a poll to the right. Please take a second and vote.
I've got another unit of spearmen and a unit of light javelinmen to go - and of course big bad Athene! Oh, and the Trojans.

Nate

14 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Excellent brush work
    I just voted yes to the eyes question as it's only a few figures for a skirmish game.
    Cheers

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    1. Thanks and good point. It isn't going to be a heartbreaker to go back and paint eyes on them.

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  2. Very nice work, excellent photo's too. My vote is for the eyes too. Cheers, Paul :-)

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    1. Thanks Paul. The vocal commenters seem pretty solid in wanting eyes...

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  3. Love the captioning. Looking good, vote yes for eyes, do eeet!

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    1. Cheers dude. You'll just have to rig the voting...

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  4. You do eyes well, stick with it.

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    1. Cheers Andrew. I'm giving it serious consideration.

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  5. Excellent work. You might also like to try Crooked Dice's 7th Voyage its a great ruleset.

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    1. Thanks Simon. I might give them a go further down the track. My reading of reviews gives me the impression that they would be quirky and fun.

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  6. Very nice work as always Nate. I like the setting and looking forward to hearing more about the rules. As for eyes, I'd say for a small skirmish game, of 28mm scale figures, if you have the skill to paint them well then do it... I'm busy with my Hobbit dwarves and doing their eyes at the mo'. If you are painting 300 or so figures for an army i'd forgive you for not doing the rank and file, but perhaps still try and do the characters/heroes/officers... ;-)

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    1. Thanks Scott. I have to admit I'm looking forward to nest year's big project, the ECW and how I can paint two whole armies of 28mm figures, make them look good, and not go insane. I'm guessing that if not painting eyes doesn't bug me too much on smaller projects, I might get it out of my system by 2015!

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  7. Nice work. Those cow skin shields look excellent.
    cheers

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