Review: Musketeer Miniatures Naffatun

 Ancients, Pulp  1 Response »
May 102007
 

Musketeer Miniatures Naffatun Shortly after I posted a link to Musketeer Miniatures excellent sculpting tutorial back in March I ordered a couple of their 28mm Naffatun figures from their Armies of the Caliphates range and some ProCreate epoxy putty.

Unfortunately my first order got lost in the International mail, but Bill from Musketeer was good enough to send me a replacement free of charge which reached me last week. I certainly appreciate that level of customer service and it was very kind of him considering the margins most independent figure manufacturers work with.

The figures are expertly cast with barely noticeable mold lines and a few tiny flash spikes from venting holes. It took me around a minute each figure to flick the spikes off and run an Xacto blade over the mold lines. The figures are cleanly sculpted and posed in convincing throwing stances. For people wielding naptha bombs they’re appropriately dressed in heavy robes, trousers and have covered faces. I’ve you’ve seen 300 recently you may recall Persian Naffatun appeared briefly before suffering an unfortunate accident with their stockpile of grenades.

Muskeeter have several interesting ranges that seem to be aimed at the Warhammer Historical rule set. These Naffatun figures come from the Caliphates range which I believe is designed as opponents for early Medieval Crusader armies around 1000AD. Their other ranges include early Saxons, from a similar period, as well as Russians and Swedes from the 1700′s.

However I’ll be using them as generic Pulp Hashshashins, throwing who knows what – could be naptha, or hand grenades, or pots of flesh eating scarabs! This is why I’ve placed a Copplestone Castings Pulp Hero between the two Naffatun above for scale comparison. As you can see they’re a perfectly good match for the 28mm scale hero and it’s something of a pity Museketeer only have two distinct Naffatun figures otherwise I’d have ordered more. These figures didn’t come with bases by the way, I’ve rebased them on the Games Workshop plastic bases I use for all my Pulp figures.

I summary I’m perfectly happy with the figures and impressed with the level of service I received from Musketeer, particularly since I placed such a small order. I also received a pack of ProCreate putty from Musketeer which I haven’t had a chance to try yet. I’ll review this in the future once I’ve sculpted something interesting with it!

 Posted by at 10:02 am

Primer Madness II

 Ancients, Flames Of War, General, Pulp  5 Responses »
Apr 102007
 

Primer Madness Keeping on the painting roll, I’ve primed another batch of figures including my first Ancients DBA army: Corvus Bellis 15mm Carthaginians. I’ve also dug up enough research (thanks in part to Phil from PitYak) to paint them in some reasonable approximation of historical accuracy.

Although of course there’s a lot of leeway in interpretation, since modern descriptions of armies that existed over two millenia ago largely rely on contemporary fragments of ancient statuary, pottery and books, many of which were created hundreds of years after the fact.

De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) requires your 15mm figures to be based quite close together, particularly Infantry elements like Blade and Spear, which also have quite shallow bases to represent their disciplined nature (it reduces the command distance). So for the first time I’ll have to resort to painting most of the 15mm figures prior to basing them which will be an interesting exercise. Hence you can see a lot of Infantry and Cavalry horses on iceblock sticks or with lengths of garden wire up their fundaments. Now they’re primed I have to say they don’t look that daunting. DBA is twelve bases per army, which is equivalent to say two full Infantry platoons in Flames of War. Surely they won’t take that long to paint!

I’ve also primed two more Flames of War British 6pdr Portees for my NZ force. My gaming group is starting a 600pt Flames of War campaign which I think we’re all using as an excuse to get a few more figures painted. Nothing motivates one more than a few games with unpainted units! I’ll be playing my primed DAK Germans, but figure I might as well knock a few NZers on the head first. Flames of War with 600pts a side is good fun by the way as you can play quite a challenging game to completion in around an hour and a half tops, even with foot sloggers involved.

Finally to the far left the last group of figures to get primed were the Westwind Cairo civilians which I need to get painted up for the next .45 Pulp Adventure campaign.

 Posted by at 10:00 am

Primer Madness

 Ancients, Flames Of War, General, Pulp  5 Responses »
Mar 222007
 

Primer Madness I have a garage full of unpainted figures and various spray cans of primer, colours, varnish etc. like most hobbyists I imagine. I tend to clean up, base and prime figures in small batches and leave them on my paint station until they’re done. That way I’ve always got something to pick up when I feel like painting, but I don’t have to expend a lot of effort to clean and base figures that aren’t going to see a brush for months or even years.

Late last year I finished up my last can of Citadel ‘Skull White’ primer and dutifully purchased a replacement from a local model store. However I didn’t get around to using it a couple of weeks ago, when I discovered to my disgust that a full can of white primer had somehow rusted itself shut around the point the nozzle attaches to the can. I’ve never had a can do this to me before so I’m at a loss to explain what caused it. It’s summer over here and the can was stored on a high shelf in a bone dry garage. Yet there was obvious rust around the can top and not a drop would spray – despite the fact the can was definitely full.

It was at this point I noticed the can I’d purchased late 2006 was the older style – namely a simple white can without the Games Workshop branding. Does anybody recall when GW changed their primer can branding? Presumably the can I’d purchased had been sitting on a store shelf long before that.

After cursing the fates, local model store owners, Games Workshop and swearing never to use their products again I eventually relented and picked up a fresh can of primer from Vagabond in Queen St. This time I made very sure it was a new blue, rebranded spray can.

Since then I’ve been in the grip of ‘Primer Madness’. Basing and priming all my outstanding Pulp figures from Copplestone, Artizan and Obelisk, including the Obelisk Baboons and Hyenas that just arrived last week. I’ve also primed the two Bolt Action Sdkfz 222 Scout Cars that arrived mid January and that 15mm Flames of War Jeep you can see to the left is the last transport vehicle I have to paint to complete my NZers.

Ominously there also appears to be something odd with my current can too: the nozzle tends to angle spray downwards, hitting the side of the can and your hand as well, which is why the can top above is slowly turning white. I just hope the damn thing lasts long enough to prime my Flames of War DAK Panzergrenadiers and Corvus Bellis Romans and Carthaginians.

Now I’ll have to spend the rest of 2007 painting this lot!

 Posted by at 10:02 am

Corvus Belli 15mm Romans

 Ancients  2 Responses »
Jan 022007
 

Covus Belli Romans' Over the holidays I’ve cleaned and based (with blu tack) my DBA Corvus Belli Romans, mainly because I was curious to see how they looked ranked up and compared with the Carthaginians. With six Blades, sundry support from Auxillaries and Psiloi they correspond to the DBA II/33 Polybian Roman list.

Covus Belli Romans' Although as I stated in the earlier post these figures aren’t historically accurate as the majority of them are wearing the wrong type of armor. I’m still wondering if I should fix this issue. It’ll cost me around $15 Australian plus shipping for some more figures from Olympian Games but to be honest I doubt these figures will ever leave my garage so it’s probably not worth bothering.

Covus Belli Romans' Anyway, the ranks of Roman infantry look quite imposing, if not a little slow considering there’s only two cavalry elements, one of which contains the general – so the most he’s ever likely to be doing is racing up and down the back of the ranks attempting to keep elements in command.

Covus Belli Romans' The figures are just as excellent as the Carthaginians, although I suspect they’ll be a little more monotonous to paint considering half the army is Blade elements. Countering that though is the Cavalry and Infantry command figures I purchased. They look like they’ll be great fun to paint with a Roman Eagle standard, a musician and a couple of gentlemen in fine breast plates. This pack of figures included a couple of slaves as well who I’ve left off the base. I’ll probably use them to represent a couple of camp followers once I get around to constructing an appropriate camp for the Roman army.

Over the Xmas break I also poured over the WADBAG Unofficial Guide to DBA with my trusty highlighter and now feel I at least have a tenuous grip on the rules. Fortunately as the Romans nor Carthaginians contain no war wagons, nor any elements capable of distant shooting there are some sections I can ignore to start with.

 Posted by at 10:03 am

Corvus Belli Carthaginians

 Ancients  3 Responses »
Dec 212006
 

The two 15mm Corvus Belli DBA armies I ordered from Olympian Games in Australia arrived last week. Great service from Olympian again, thanks Dean, I’ll certainly be back.

Corvus Belli 15mm DBA Carthaginians I’ve been cutting bases from 1.5mm plasticard and slowly cleaning up the individual figures since then. I blu tacked the Carthaginians together last night just to get some idea of what the final force will look like, so here’s some quick photos. I’m still cleaning the Polybian Romans and have learned I’ve made a historic error since I picked up three bags of Lorica segmentata armored Legonnaires when this armor apparently wasn’t used until around 20BC, some 126 years after Carthage was razed by the Romans! I may or may not correct this error next year.

Corvus Belli 15mm DBA Carthaginian Cavalry The Corvus Belli figures are excellent, and I’m amazed at the level of detail the sculptor has achieved. Many of the figures have bare feet, where each toe is obvious despite the fact the foot is less than 3mm across. Poses and facial expressions are very nicely done too, with some very interesting looking characters in the ranks. I particularly like one of the Light Horse figures who has his spear casually slung across his shoulders. I can’t really do a fair comparison of the Corvus Belli figures as I don’t own any other 15mm Ancients at this point. So I’ll leave it at that.

Corvus Belli 15mm DBA Carthaginian Infantry For those of you with DBA these are II/32 Late Carthaginian with the 1 x Elephant, 1 x Cavalry, 1 x Aux and 3 x Psiloi options. I can see why some DBA sites talk about the mixed arms tactics of this force, since they’re a varied bunch of elements compared to the Polybian Romans.

Corvus Belli 15mm DBA Carthaginian ElephantStill I couldn’t resist an Ancients army that can field Elephants! Despite the fact they sound like a nightmare to control and a potential disaster to both friend and foe. I did restrain myself though and only purchased one Elephant rather than two. I also have enough spare figures to take the option of replacing the beast with an element of Light Horse should it prove too difficult.

I’m looking forward to painting these great little figures and maybe press ganging some of my regular opponents into a game or two of DBA as it looks like an amusing and quick system. I’m also amazed at how cheap these figures were! It cost me roughly $50nz per army! That’s a price point I can definitely live with.

 Posted by at 9:38 am

Unofficial Guide to De Bellis Antiquitatis

 Ancients  5 Responses »
Dec 012006
 

I’ve been reading both the Wargame Research Group DBA and DBM rule sets as I try and find a local (well, Australian) supplier for Corvus Belli 15mm Ancients. I have to say the rules are not easy going as they’re written in a particularly terse English, with only a few examples – at least the slightly older versions I have are.

Fortunately the Washington Area DBA Gamers Club have a very easy to read DBA Guide available as a PDF download. It’s well formatted, easy to read and packed with lots of clear examples.

Definitely worth checking out if you’re considering trying DBA or it’s larger cousin DBM.

 Posted by at 9:34 am

Corvus Belli 15mm Ancients

 Ancients  8 Responses »
Nov 242006
 

Corvus Belli Ancient Romans I’ve never played Ancients in the past but these excellent Corvus Belli 15mm armies are calling to me. For roughly $40US you get an entire 15mm DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) army in a boxed set.

They’re lovely looking like 15mm figures and after painting a Flames of War 15mm force I’m fairly confident I could knock them off without too much difficulty. Of course I’d have to play in North Africa again so I can reuse my table and terrain. That would imply Romans and Numidians would be good choices possibly?

Hmmm now before I go off half cocked I should find a copy of these rules and give them a read. Anybody out there got any DBA pointers they care to share with me? There’s also Warhammer Historical to consider I suppose.

 Posted by at 9:44 am
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