Supplementary Supplies and Clearing the Decks

Right, having placed a big order for more SYW/AWS figures*, I did a check on the ancillary supplies that I would need. This resulted in several more purchases:

• Black spray paint for undercoating, picked up with yellow and orange acrylics from Warhammer locally.
• MDF bases - I had just about enough for the figures on order but not enough for the Carthaginians that I hadn't got around to yet.
• Some 'Summer grass' scatter material.
• Magnetic squares for the underneath of bases to hold the figures in place in their boxes.
• Polypropylene storage boxes, internal dimensions 310x335x25mm.
• White sticky labels for the boxes (I'm forever picking the wrong boxes out and desperately need some name tags).
• An incidental with the MDF bases from Pendraken, a couple of buildings which might suit my Ancients.

* Of course I realised afterwards that I had overlooked the Palatines and Würtembergers that fought with the French in Westphalia, though the Reichstruppen would probably do for these.

I finally got round to preparing the Carthaginians. All are now based for painting, undercoated and 'fleshed'. Hence the need for the black spray paint.  The flesh is probably too pale (OK for the Celts but not the North Africans) so I'll claim I'm going for the look of the Italian made sword & sandal epics (Steve Reeves appeared in a ton of these). Incidentally, sticking the crew on the elephants was a right pain in the neck, with superglue all over my finger tips.

With Hannibal's lads on all of my lolly sticks and several MDF bases ready to paint, I realised I needed to crack on with them to make room for the new SYW recruits. I finished a couple of bases of Liby-Phoenecian heavy infantry already, but have 90+% of the army still to do. I'm using the old Osprey book I bought a few months ago as my guide. Having decided not to dig too deeply into this as very much a secondary period for me, I didn't want to invest heavily in books or spend too much time on 'research'. 

The boxes came from an idea from Richard in a comment on my previous post. He suggested some boxes similar to the ones I ordered, only A4 size and slightly deeper. I'll see how I get on with the square ones. If these work out I might undertake a full-scale re-boxing, just to keep everything neat.

If this wasn't enough, on the back burner, I've been toying with the idea of an Ottoman army (the Twilight rules cater for 'Eastern Horse' etc), but seeing the aforesaid pachyderms reminded my of Steve's Indian armies of the SYW period. Hmmm!