Giraffes

 

These long necked beasts were something a little different for me to paint and after staring at them for about a month I finally managed to add the colour and I am pleased with the results! I am now back in my comfort zone and have quite a varied collection of goodies on my workbench, pictures soon :0)

Old School Dark Elf Hero

I painted this fine chap from the 80s for a comp on the oldhammer forum called the Golden Gobbo, all good fun as you had to come up with a back story for your entry. this chap is now the leader of my slowly growing band of 80s citadel Dark Elves all sculpted by Bob Naismith. Which i am going to use to play games of Warhammer fantsy battle 2nd edition. Yep i'm that old ! !

Seljuk Turk heavy cavalry

I recently painted these Seljuks for gripping beast and I have to say i love them!When I originally started collecting for my Crusades project I jumped on the Perry miniatures site and pressed buy buy buy! without looking else where. I would of robbed myself of some great looking figures, that paint up real nice if i hadnt of grabbed a few of these.

My lead mountain has just grown with a unit of 12 of these bad boys and 2 units of heavily armoured Ghulams from musketeer miniatures. I now have a decent sized force, all it needs is for me to get painting!

 

 

Figures from GB shield transfers from LBMS. Basing to be done by the Beast.  

Pergamene command set

Philetaerus, an officer of Lysimachus, deserted in 282 B.C., taking control of Pergamon and large treasures deposited there. At first nominally a Seleukid suzerainty, Upon his succession, Eumenes, with the encouragement of Ptolemy II, who was at war with the Seleucids, revolted. Defeating the Seleucid king Antiochus I near the Lydian capital of Sardis in 261 B.C. He was able to free Pergamon and greatly increase the territories under his control, turning Pergamon into a strong and prosperous kingdom. Although he never took the title of king, Eumenes did exercise all of the powers of one. 
   Since he had no surviving heir, Eumenes adopted his second cousin, Attalus I, who succeeded him as ruler of Pergamon.  Loyal allies of Rome in the Macedonian Wars and against the Seleucids, they were rewarded with all the former Seleucid domains in Asia Minor. .
When the Pergamene king Attalus III died without an heir in 133 B.C., in order to prevent a civil war, he bequeathed the whole of Pergamon to Rome.

Figures are from the fantastic Grippingbeast Successors range. Great fun to paint!

Queen Zenobia of Palmyra

the Queen with her command group

 

  The Palmyrene Empire (260-273) was a splinter empire that broke off from the Roman Empire during its Crisis in the Third Century. It encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and parts of Asia Minor.

It was ruled by Queen Zenobia as regent for her infant son Vaballathus. The capital of the short-lived empire was the city of Palmyra.

 Since Rome was unable to protect its eastern provinces against the Sassanids persians. The governor Septimius Odaenathus decided to use the legions he had at his disposal to defend his provinces, rather than intervene in the struggles for Rome.

When Septimius Odaenathus was assassinated (probably by his nephew), his infant son Vabalathus was made king (rex consul imperator dux Romanorum, “illustrious King of Kings” and corrector totius orientis) of the Palmyrene Empire.

But as always the real power behind the throne was his mother Zenobia. and with the legions at her disposal Queen Zenobia conquered Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor and Lebanon. She even adopted the title of Augustus for her son and herself.

Everything was going well for our warrior queen until the Emperor Aurelian started his camapign to reconquer land lost to the secessionist Palmyrene Empire. He had come to the East willing to show his mercy to the Roman peoples of the area, and had defeated Zenobia at the battle of Immae, near Antioch. Zenobia and her general Zabdas fled to Emesa.

The Battle of Emesa was fought in 272 between Roman and Palmyran forces. The armies forces clashed on the plain in front of the city. As at Immae, the Palmyrene heavy cavalry was far superior to the Roman equivalent. However, after beating the Roman cavalry they dispersed in the pursuit of it and were then spanked by the Roman infantry. According to Zosimus, the Palestinian units, with their clubs, slaughtered the heavily armoured Palmyrene horsemen.

  Zenobia then retreated into Emesa, but later escaped to Palmyra, having failed to recover the treasure from Emesa. While Aurelian attacked and conquered Palmyra, Zenobia fled towards Persia, but was captured when she reached the Euphrates. Aurelian showed her mercy, and Zenobia was not executed.

 

 

    

Being as she was between a rock and a hard place (the Roman and Sassanid Persian empires), Queen Zenobia was very brave to throw off the Roman yolk. A real warrior queen and apparently she was fit to!

All figures are from A and A miniatures excellent range.

the last march of the Ents

Saruman looks on as the trees come alive

 

feel the earth shake!

 

make like a tree and leave

the evil ones concoct a plan

 

the Ents are surrounded, but not for long!

the unit with crossbows took out a few too many Ents

awesome Orcs!

the caualties mount amongst the trees

another tree felled...

the dam is straight ahead

Orthanc in all its glory

Last weekend a few of us met for a game of War of the ring. We played the last march of the Ents and were able to muster 19 of the shepherds of the forest.
Mick and I took the role of the woody ones, whilst Dave and Steve led the defence of Isengard and Sam umpired. We had a little addition to the rules which was event cards, we use these in quite a lot of our games and they come from the "war tokens" idea in Steves AB one games system. This time each side got one event card a turn, plus they could earn extra by answering riddles from the Hobbit book. Its been a good 20 years since i read The Hobbit, but i did finally manage to solve one...
The game was great fun and it was good to see how much damage the Ents could do to the massive units of Orcs, which looked intimidating but were quite squishy underfoot.  
  After hours of squishing Orcs in between eating buns, sausage rolls and wine gums ably supplied by Mick, We ran out of time just as Treebeard reached the dam. As far as I'm concerned it was a victory for good over evil, but Saruman may disagree.

Of note was an Ent who single handedly killed to trolls, that was fun eh Dave ;0)