Vern and his Historical Armies

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Byzantine Kavallarioi (Cavalry) work in progress

My byzantine cavalry men are still WIP but I have finished a majority of them and leaving only the command group and shields left (don't ask me why they have 4 command models...it just happen to be this way). My original plan was to finish the whole unit over the weekend but I was too exhausted by the time the rank and file were completed. They are actually quite fun to do. One may notice that the color scheme is a bit dark. Rather than my usual technique of choosing a dull color and highlighting, I have chosen instead to shade down the models even more. I feel that such a dark color scheme is more suitable for historicals. The scab red trappings help to break the monotony. I was reluctant to use scab red initially as my decision was to reserve red for the more elite troops. However scab red is really too good for this role! I also reasoned that I will be using blood red for my elites so it is not that bad. Finally Kavallarioi are also elites to a lesser degree (especially so in the Paleolagi Dynasty army).

These troops are actually quite decent, I give them a 4+ save so that they can charge 16 inches and outrange all other heavy cavalry. In addition they are Byzantine Superior Cavalry under BTGG rules or Eastern Shock Cavalry in Vlad the Impaler. This allow them to do the chessy charge-fall back-charge trick. And in BTGG, they can even reroll to hit in the turn they charge!

Here is a pic depicting the painting progress.



Here are some pictures of the "typical" cavalryman and his steed.





Random Roman done

Lawrence's Roman Legionary is done. It is easy to paint due to the large amount of metal surfaces. I have chosen a color scheme that is close to my Byzantine army.



I apologise for the low quality of the photo. Although it was taken late in the day, I chose not to use the flash.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

How I do my horses

Some people have asked me questions on the way I do my horses. Allow me to present my method.

The picture below shows the preparation stage, all the way from a model on a green base to one that is based.



THe first thing to note about Gripping Beast minis is that they come with a relatively tall base. This implies that is it absolutely necessary to apply some green stuff to make the base more even, as seen in the picture above. The steps after that will be the standard basing techniques (white glue, sand, then a coat of watered down white glue).

The following step is to paint. The picture belows shows the various stages that I took, all the unpainted stage to the finished model.



Step 1: Undercoat the model
Step 2: Basecoat with scorched brown
Step 3: Highlight the raised muscle areas with bestial bestial brown. It may look quite wrong at first, but allow the paint to dry and you will realise that it will contrast nicely with the basecoat. It is actually useful to have some knowledge of the horse's muscular structure here, which I unfortunately lack.
Step 4: Do the details like stripes, reins, tassles etc This is also a time to rectify any mistakes.

Note that I have not painted the base yet. This is because I have yet to decide on the colors. I am not sure if I wanted to do a base representing the Thracian landscape or one representing Anatolia.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Horses in progress

So the second post is done abt 20 min after the first post. I will just be quick here. I have done 4 horses and finally decided on the method to use. Here are the pics of horses in progress (a bit messy coz there are dwarves and a random roman around...that dude is a gift from lawrence).







That's it for now :)

The Byzantines have arrived.

I got my 1st batch of Byzantine cavalry from Gripping Beast a couple of weeks ago. However I was too busy to update this blog.

The first thing that struck me were the size of the minis. 28mm is so small compared to 28mm heroic. I hereby attached some pictures here for reference.





Notice how small the cataphract is compared to the dark rider.

I hereby also attached a few more solo shots of the gripping beast miniatures. Just to show the minis in detail.







Byzantine cataphract all ten of them



Byzantine Themata Kallavaroi (Themata Cavalry)



Byzantine Cavalry in their unpainted "glory".

I have actually done up some of the horses. But I will upload the pictures next time...ok I will give a small preview below