Sunday 18 October 2009

Bavarian Temptation

Why, oh why did Foundry lower prices on [these](http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/xmaswinter/BIGBATBAV/1/index.asp) to something only a bear's whisker north of 1€ per figure?

OK, I already own one of these armies (and one unit is [already painted](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000335.html) ), but with a second one I'll have just about the entire Bavarian army of the period at a 1:30 scale.

Tempting, very tempting...

Thursday 8 October 2009

Painting log: Roman auxilia

To augment my growing plastic Roman army, I just finished a unit of 15 of [Warlord Games](http://www.warlordgames.co.uk) new [plastic auxilia](http://shop.warlordgames.co.uk/plastic-imperial-roman-auxiliaries-1945-p.asp).

While I like their legionaries, I'm not an undivided fan of these auxilia (which is a bit of a shame, as I've got 4 boxes of them :) ). They are nice figures, but they have a few drawbacks. One of them is that it is virtually impossible to build them differently than intended - the seperate arms are so specific to each pose that it leads to extremely silly results when you combine them with the body of a different pose (spot the auxilia with the extremely small arm in upcoming photos). Secondly, the spears they are armed with are plastic, and just in handling them while painting I already broke 3 of them - I shudder to think how much they will suffer in a game.

That said, this month's total is now 15 points. Last month, I got up to 62, just shy of my target of 70 per month.

Next up is 6 metal (old Foundry figs) cavalry for [my Celtic army](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000197.html).

Saturday 3 October 2009

Book Review: The River War by W.S.Churchill

Spending some time abroad without any form of communication to the outside world (no internet, tv, or even radio), is always a good time to catch up with reading some books that have been sitting unread on the bookshelf for too long. So it came I read 'The River War' during my latest holiday in Corsica. 'The River War', written by Winston Churchill in 1899, chronicles the Nile Campaign of the British Army at the end of the 19th century. It describes in a fluent style the rise of the Mahdi and the Dervish Empire, the murder of General Gordon at Khartoum and the reconquest of the Sudan by the Anglo-Egyptian force under General Kitchener, culminating in the battle of Omdurman, in which Churchill himself took part as young officer of the 21st Lancers Cavalry Regiment.

The story reads fluently, and one is easily transported back to military campaign that happened over a century ago. As a wargamer, I often judge a book on military history by how inspired I become to recreate the events on the wargaming table. 'The River War' did not dissappoint me. During several reading sessions I regularly dreamed up several scenarios, along with grandiose plans of purchasing large quantities of figures for the period. And although I realize such initial enthusiasm wears off after a while, it is a strong indicator of the vivid descriptions present in the book.