More cavalry

 This week we have a slightly belated post, I was in the mountains and when I got back life took over and I didn't manage to post until now.

I have another trio of historical cavalry models, this time Macedonians from RAFM, the classic models in 25mm with separate heads and shields, with wire lances.

I painted these more or less at the same time as the Greek ones I posted last week.

I used some leftover 15mm Greek transfers for the shields, they are not 100% historically accurate, but still better than what I could have done freehand, so I call them a win.

They might, as the Greek ones, end up being used in fantasy wargaming as well as historical.

Maceonian cavalry. 25mm, RAFM, painted by Ginzio

Some cavalry

 This week I have a trio of Greek citizen cavalry from Ral Partha. As usual, I loved painting these figures, very simple and very good looking. 

I don't have a Greek army, but I might be able to use these models as mercenaries in my tiny Macedonian force or, as often happens, in some D&D or Battlesystem game.

I am also posting a single Blood Bowl snotling that my friend Tino converted and painted at the end of the 90s. It is part of some figures he gifted to my brother last year. Its base was not done, so I just completed it in the same was as all our other Blood Bowl models are.

Greek citizen cavalry. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by ginzio

Blood Bowl snotling lineman. 25mm, Citadel, converted and painted by Tino

Battletech game - Word of Blake Vs Kurita

 Last Sunday we had another game of Battletech, this time we decided to change the subject of the game, an encounter between the Work of Blake and the Draconis Combine, we changed, but remained in the same area of the Inner Sphere map, the Kuritan Capital of Luthien, this time in 3067.

Gian took inspiration for the scenario from an of issue of Batthetechnology, the Battletech magazine from the 80s and 90s.

The scenario has rules for rain and mud around the river, which made the game very interesting.

We just decided to scale it down to eight mechs per side to make it more manageable for four players.

It ended up in a Kuritan victory, but we are not sure of the balance of the forces, we might have made some mistakes.

 The game was fun as usual and we manage to finish it by about 5pm with a lunch break.

Back to historicals

 This week we have an early post, I would not have been able to post tomorrow, so I am uploading today.

These are the last Byzantine models I had prepared to paint in winter 2023/24. After more than two years I finally got around to finishing them. 

I still have a bunch of Byzantines to prepare and paint, but those will have to wait a bit longer, I am still trying to organize my stuff after the move and first of all I need to finish all the figures that I prepared, but didn't get around to finish.

Mounted general. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Mounted officer. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Mounted army standard bearer. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Mounted command. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Cavallaroi heavy cavalry. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Mounted section.

Terrain pieces and recycling

This will be a slightly odd post, all I'll be posting has been seen on the blog before, but very long ago and in different shape. 

This is a collection of terrain pieces or tabletop accessories that I put together with previously discarded items or broken models. As some might remember, I moved back to Italy last summer and, although the move was fairly smooth, there were some casualties.

Whatever could be salvaged in some way was repurposed and turned into terrain pieces. I also have more old banners from our very early days as hobbyists that became baggage train decors and a few very very old fences that my brother built in the early 90s that after laying around and broken for over thirty years, were finally restored and painted, the principle being that anything that involved some work should not be wasted and turned into tabletop usable items.

Following you can see the eclectic mix of pieces that I repaired and painted for a whole different set of settings and games.

One of the casualties of the move, one of my beloved three winter Panzer IVs. The turret was caved in, it lost a few roadwheels and the tracks were broken in a couple spots, it was definitely not fixable, so I decided to put a ton of snow on it and use it as a piece of terrain in a winter setting of WWII.

 

These are the fences that IlVJ built circa 1993, there were actually more, but after traveling through different boxes, shelves and cabinets, this is what I could salvage. I based them and gave them a quick paintjob and they are ready for the table.

These are the banners from the first incarnation of my dwarf army, built between 1989 and the end of the 90s. Around 2000 I decided to strip them all down and repaint them (I still have 2 units and a catapult to complete). These were the banners that proudly flew over some of the units, now they will serve as a reminder of the old glories of Warhammer third edition on the background of future battles.

This was a 3D printed Daedalus industrial mech that someone from my Canadian gaming group printed for me for a campaign, its loading arm and a leg snapped during the shipping, it now sits as a wreck on the field of battle.

All these were completed on the side, while painting other stuff, so just came along as I was doing something else.

I enjoy giving a second life to little bits and stuff that would otherwise end up in the garbage, with a bit of work anything can be reused and serve a new purpose.

Dragonlance, Huma on Silver Dragon

 This model is part of a trade that IlVJ did with one of his co-workers years ago.

 It is a quite old Ral Partha model that we got already painted and I just wanted to touch it up, unfortunately one of the wings broke and it sat there waiting for almost fifteen years. I finally decided to repair and restore it.

I touched up the dragon itself and repainted the rider, the famous Huma Dragonbane from the Dragonlance saga. 

I also mounted it on a base that I decorated with rocks. I'm pretty pleased with the result, it turned out to be way more work than expected, but it was worth the effort.

Huma Dragonbane on Silver Dragon. 25mm, Ral Partha, refurbished by Ginzio

Terrain pieces

 This has been a slightly unproductive week, I've been busy with other stuff and I got stuck on restoring a model that is almost done and you will see next week that took quite a bit of time.

What I have this week is a set of hedges that come form some boardgame, I can't remember which (maybe Battlemasters?). They are basically 2D pieces with some shallow details, it took literally no time to finish them, not the greatest, but they are decent enough and, as per my usual policy, anything with some paint on is worth of a gaming table, so they'll add to the terrain collection which is never big enough.

The second thing I'm posting is an old banner that used to be IlVJ's wood elf army standard. When he stripped that army, we saved it, mostly out of a nostalgic feel and now, after many years, I had the idea to put it on a base with some rocks and use it in a baggage train setup (if we'll ever use one in a game).

Following this I am currently doing the same with the banners from the first incarnation of my dwarf army, it is a small thing, but brings my memory back to 30+ years ago when we were young and had that kind of enthusiasm that gets lost (or better changes) over the years.

Field hedges. 28mm, unknown manufacturer, painted by Ginzio.

Wood elf army standard. 28mm, built and painted by IlVJ in the mid 90s

Orcs get command

 I managed to finish three more stands of Tom Meyer's orcs, two of which are command stands with very peculiar standards.

Three regular orcs. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by Ginzio

Command groups with Motorhead standards. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by Ginzio

The unit so far, at the moment it is 33 models strong, I still have 15 or 16 to paint, so I should be anle to field 2 units of 24 or one giant unit of 48-49 orcs.