Hearts of Oak (well MDF...)

[hammurabi70]

I saw a demo game at SELWG put on by Two fat Lardies using his figure blocks. I was less than impressed.

They looked like blocks with raised braille type dots on them. Personally I think you might as well use  counters or kriegspiel blocks. The board games by GMT are visually more impressive,  they look better than these figure blocks.

If you want small figures to game very large actions I would use Irregular Miniatures 2mm figures - they at least look like figures when painted. Nik on this forum painted the ones on the Irregular miniatures site, and they are impressive.

I have toyed with the idea of Counters or Kriegsspiel blocks!  I have heard others use similar descriptions.

I have quite a few Antonine Miniatures though as with most of my collections the bulk are as yet unpainted,

I use a mix of Irregular Miniatures 2mm, 3D printed 2mm and Antonine Miniatures for Strength and Honour.

My Rorarii and Numidian cavalry are Antonine.

I quite like them. Each to their own though.

Images of my Strength and Honour stuff is here - https://imageshack.com/a/icUW7/1

An image below of the army of Pompous Magnus on the march. Numidians by Antonine at front and rear. First legion is Irregular Miniatures, second to fourth and the elephants are 3D printed. The Ballistarii are 6mm Baccus engines with Irregular figures as crew.

It was for Strength & Honour that I was considering their use.  I have used 2mm Irregular for Napoleonics, which was my first experience of 2mm.  I used them for C&C over Zoom, replacing large size counters I had made up.  Antonine gives the advantage of putting all the troops on a single base but it would seem people have mixed views about using them and I admit to being sceptical about the troop layout; the flexibility of Irregular seems advantageous.

Very helpful to have the input.

[Ithoriel]

Strength & Honour is designed for 120mm x 60mm bases on a 75mm grid. Being a cheapskate I opted for 80mm x 40mm on a 50mm grid. It means I can use fewer of the Antonine castings per base. For example my Numidian horse are a single pack spread over two bases.

The reduced base size means that I will be using rather fewer of the, even to me, rather blobby formations for warbands. But a fairly straight front edge but a trail of the less enthusiastic behind doesn't seem out of keeping with how a warband might look so that's what mine will look like.

The design of the Antonine blocks are as suggested by the rule's author and are also used by Korhyl Minatures for their S&H bases. The advantage of Antonine over Korhyl for me were that the latter were complete 120mm x 80mm bases. The Antonine stuff gave me more scope.

S&H is very much about creating the effect of masses of men as seen from hundreds of feet up not of creating beautifully painted minis.

For me, Antonine do that.

As for the adventures of Pompous Magnus, they'll have to wait until I paint some Gauls as the dastardly Eautibix retired just  before Christmas and decided to move to Australia to be near his brother and sister-in-law, taking his Gallic Tribe with him!

[Last Hussar]

Here's a thought (he said, dragging the thread back to topic, and away from Ancients...  )

Would a car spray paint work on MDF?  Halfords are more likely to have the correct shade than Hobbycraft.  Could I use acrylics over car spray?

[Ithoriel]

I use car spray to undercoat lead figures and paint with acrylics on top so that bit should be OK.

[Orcs]

I have used Halfords car primers under acrylics but not a normal colour which I assume will be gloss.

[sunjester]

Here's a thought (he said, dragging the thread back to topic, and away from Ancients...  )

Would a car spray paint work on MDF?  Halfords are more likely to have the correct shade than Hobbycraft.  Could I use acrylics over car spray?

Are you new to posting on this forum???

[Last Hussar]

 

[Orcs]

Are you new to posting on this forum???

  

[Last Hussar]

Was down the trading estate that has the Halfords on the other week, looked at Halfords, and wondered why I thought I should go in, as I need nothing for the car...

Anyway, have bought the darkest green I could find in HobbyCraft,  and have painted about 8 strips (smallest 2 blobs I could get out of the tube, one for the fronts, one for test on backs).

Going to see how these dry.

[Last Hussar]

Dried green on Russians. The camera has made it look less green than it actually is.

It's not a Russian Green (pantone 420 seems to be the closest), but it is darker than a mid green.

I think we can just assume in a period of non-fast dyes this is OK.

Note how the cut back is darker than the treated front of the MDF.

First Russians - testing paint colour by Last Hussar, on Flickr

[Last Hussar]

Ignore previous...

Wrong paint. 

I'll post a pic of the correct ones in the next few minutes.

[Last Hussar]

Correct  green,

Darker green by Last Hussar, on Flickr

I've done one side of 72 strips; that is 36 stands worth, about 9 bases for Blucher. Going to need about 25 to 30 infantry bases, so about 120 bases/240 strips.

[Last Hussar]

Further thoughts on numbers. If I paint half an army, about 200 points worth, first, I can ally them with the Austrians for a 1813/14 battle. Thus I will aim for that, as it is more achievable,  then add on as I go.

For every 24 strips=12 stands, I need 6 artillery stands =2 artillery bases!

[Last Hussar]

I might need to make a curry!

To explain; I use the Aldi curry sauces. This isn't just a jar of sauce. Over the lid is a cap with spices in.

Cook the chicken pieces,  sprinkle the spices over, cook a bit longer,  then add sauce.

These caps are ideal paint holders when using the larger artists tubes, and for the Russians this is what I am using for the main two colours, green and (intending to use) white.

Except I can't find a spare.

I do however have a jar of sauce in the cupboard...

In the meantime I will have to mass paint more infantry strips green. Might do face's as well, as obviously on the other end to trousers, and I can't do the shakos until I have done faces on the Little Wooden Men. (On 3d figures I usually do face's last, but have found on LWM it is easier to work from waist to top/bottom. Thus I won't do boots until I have done the legs)

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Also curry sauces are good!