The completed nomadic barbarian horde

This is the completed renovation job, with mammoth enhancements (ahem).

From a HotT perspective, far moire than the 72 points we would need for a Big Battle HotT army. There are more than enough troops there too for Big Battle DBA, and Armati. I think I can do an interesting Kings of War army too.

So.. still pondering what next.

A major renovation milestone

This is one of those major milestones: the basic Hun army renovation completed. These are the Goths I created as another of those classic 70's conversions: Airfix American Civil war cavalry hacked about with a craft knife to remove ACW looking detail, with the addition of a drawing pin shield and a dressmaking pin javelin.

They are not too pretty up close, but you can almost see the nostalgia dripping off them. I touched up the paint work (well worn after nearly 40 years), re-textured the bases with sand, paint and static grass (and a black edging, as is my preference these days) and then applied a black wash to the figures.

They would never win a painting or 'Best Army' award, but they saw good service in the 70s and 80s, and ... well.. I love 'em. For HotT they are nomadic barbarian knights, for DBA they are Gothic cavalry to support the Huns, and for Armati they are Gothic Heavy Cavalry in support of the Huns.
I have worked out that I can create a very interesting Kings of War Kingdoms of Men army in 20mm too.

Not sure what next. It might be the renovation of those 25mm Romans, or the barbarian/early Germans to create opponents for the Huns in HotT/DBA/Armati/KoW, or .... um... hmmmmmmm.

Mystery parcel opened (partly)

Wondering what was in the mystery parcel? Probably not, but I'm telling readers (both of you) anyway: two mammoths to be used as Behemoths in the HotT nomadic (read .. Hun) army.

The models are actually 15mm mammoths from the Irregular range.

There was more in that parcel, but more on that later.

Hunnic Horde - ready for action

The great renovations is complete. Fifty two bases of Hunnic types have been touched up (purely in  a platonic painting sense, you understand), washed (in a 'making dirtier' sense), and given nice 'scenic'ed'  (is that even a word?) bases replete with sand, highlights and static grass.

Why? Well, because they were there, and because they would give me another army that looks reasonable on the table (more on that later). This gives me the option of Big Battle HotT (with a few additions) at 72 points, or Big Battle DBA (which I am warming to once more), or Armati (which I still love too).

So here is the Hunnic Horde - 52 bases worth.

The entire Horde.

Attila on the right, and a Goth type general on the left. 

Hunnic nobles, knights.

Hunnic light horse up close

The Airfix Hussar conversions, as you can see they are not too pretty up close. However as they say 'quantity has a quality of its own'. I pondered attribution of the comment. It seems there is debate about who said it. I have seen it attributed to Napoleon, and to Stalin. I even found this:

The general principle that quantity begets quality is a key tenet of the Marxist theory of dialectical materialism, as formulated by Marx and Engels, phrased as the law of the passage of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.

Source: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own

Regardless of who said it, it certainly seems to fit the bill as an observation on my particular Hun army.

The slightly tricky aspect of all this is that I seem to have accumulated more Huns that I am likely to use at one time in any of the game systems I like. These numbers were originally accumulated for WRG 3rd Edition, and then DBM, neither of which I play today.

Oh well, at the risk of seeming to be far too philosophical for a hobby blog, can you ever have too many Huns?

And this arrived the other day..

How could a small parcel like this be connected with the Huns?

Those 1970s 'epic figure conversions'

Some of the comments on my blog in response to the Hun conversions from the old Airfix Hussar figures lead me down memory lane this morning, reminiscing on some of the conversions we did 'back in the day' as they say, and the uses to which we put several versatile figure sets. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. Here are some more:

The archer figures from the Robin Hood set. IIRC the Hun list for that WRG edition called for a horde of levy archers, or something similar. This was mine.

In close up

And could we ever forget the versatility of the American Civil war cavalry? These were conversions to Gothic cavalry, drawing pin shields and pins for javelins.

The Airfix Romans were also put to a multitude of uses. These were conversions into Roman Auxilia (Light Heavy infantry in that specific WRG edition).

Airfix Romans

The auxilia again. The shields were made from plasticard

And this was a combination: the horse, and rider's lower torso/legs, from the ACW cavalry, with a roman legionary torso and head pinned to it, to give Roman light cavalry of the 1st centuryAD.

Roman light cavalry, with shields hand made from plasticard

Are we 'ad it tuff in our day - you try tellin' the young people o'today that. They won;'t believe you!!
That said, I think these will all be repurposed and re-used. They were a love affair at the time, and continue to be so despite the beautiful miniatures available on the market today.

If you re of that age, why not share some of your own epic conversions. I'll bet there are some astounding pieces of work out there.

So what's this then? eh?

Looking for new horizons? Well how about this then? It was the summer of 1976. We were 'ensorcelled' by the arrival in town of Russell P, a trainee teacher at the time, and a master of WRG's 3rd Edition Ancients wargames rules. Russell arrived with fellow teacher trainee Kevin O, and between them they revolutionised ancients wargaming in Christchurch. Russell was a master of creating armies from what little we had available, even casting his own figures from conversions sculpted from those few plastic figures available, often adapted with the application of plasticine.

I had a Roman army at the time, carefully crafted using those wonderfully historical Airfix Roman legionaries. I was longing for something different. Russell suggested Huns. Um, how does that work then? Simple, he cried. Take Airfix Hussars, carve away the head dress, clean up the pelisse, remove the sabre and replace with a javelin, a quick barbarian paint job, and you have Huns.

Several boxes of Hussars later, and I had 56 Huns, later based for a later edition of WRG's ancients rules ( I can't recall which) giving m 28 bases of light horse. They had their share of the limelight, and then we moved on. So this army, 40 years old this year, has sat in a box ever since.

Until NOW!!!

I have a plan.

The basic box of Hunnic light horse

In close up

Hunnic Nobles... long lance and shield, based 3 to a base to make them knights

More of the light horse

And Attilla himself .. can't recall the figure manufacturer (maybe Hinchcliffe?), but he always looked to me as if he had a dislocated shoulder.

And they were the only army I ever tried to protect with gloss varnish. I cringe when I think of it. So, there are quite a few repairs to be made, horses to be glued to bases, riders to horses, and paint touch ups. They had a lot of use in their day.

They aren't exactly top quality, but they do have an endearing quality.  They look suitably 'barbarian', or 'hairy' as we used to say.

They'll do for Big Battle DBA. And what else he cried? Watch this space.

Egyptian Army behemoth stand: the Mummy's tomb.

Andy just provided me with thee photos of this latest element for his semi-historical ancient Egyptian HotT army: a behemoth. He wanted to encapsulate the idea of relentlessly powerful mummies breaking through the stonework. I thought the base was just gorgeous, gobsmackingly good in fact, so I had to share his photos.