Paper Flags and Pewter Bayonets

Adler Miniatures ACW range - strips ACW1C/ACW2C

Those two strips supply those weary, dust-covered troopers on the march. As previously, two basic variants are available. I feel however that minis from strip XACW1A work very well together with those figures.

Since the first part of the transfer went relatively smoothly, here is next section of the review of basic miniature strips with kepis.

Adler Miniatures ACW Range - Strips ACW1B/ACW2B

Miniatures on those strips have same basic advancing pose. Difference between variants 1 and 2 is as with the other two basic variants in this range - figures are equiped with backpacks or blanket rolls. In units that consist of those strips I usually add a couple of minis from strips XACW5 and XACW1B.

So let's face it - the homepage that I tried to build couple of years ago was a flopp. Not enough time and lack of enthusiasm made the updates quite rare and after a while I've abandoned it completely. However, during the time when I managed to keep my interest alive, I've published two articles that I believe actually contribute to the hobby. The two pages I'm thinking about are my reviews of Adler Miniatures' 6mm ACW range. I actually know for a fact that some people had use of them when deciding wheter to buy Adler miniatures. And since I'm toying with the idea of removing my old "Miniatures Corner", I've decided to move those two pages over to the blogg.

The thing is though that I hate how pictures are handled in Blogger and find it very difficult to post here anything with large amount of images. So I will split my reviews into smaller pieces, which hopefully will be more managable in Blogger's horrible text editor.

Part one deals with miniatures with kepis and in firing positions.

As far as I understand, firing poses are the least popular with wargamers. I have to agree that marching/advancing units look better on a wargaming table. At the same time I like the firing pose, and used it for a couple of my regiments. In combination with strip XACW3 you can create a very "warlike" unit with those minis.

Couple of weeks ago I had a great pleasure of visiting Glyptoteket Art Museum in Copenhagen (thank you, Ewa). For those unfamiliar with what Glyptoteket is, it was created by the son of Danish brewer Carl Jacobsen, who thought that his workers should have access to fine art. Glyptoteket is an art museum, so it may seem strange that I am posting about my visit on this forum. The thing is though that Glyptoteket has a huge Etruscan collection and quite a few objects related to Etruscan military.

So without any further comments, below are some pictures that some of you could find of interest.

I guess a gladiator project is one of those projects that are on every historical wargamer’s “to do”-list. In my case it’s been on slow-burner for a long time, because I had some trouble finding a rules et that would catch my interest. I wanted something fairly detailed, with clear definition of different gladiator types and most importantly, a system that wouldn’t be based on ‘highest dice roll wins’.

Trusty TMP gave me strong impression that an American ruleset called ‘ Morituti Te Salutant’ was exactly what I was looking for. Problem is that ordering from the States is not something I decide to do very lightly – delivery costs and customs fees often rise the costs to unacceptable levels. However, couple of months ago I’ve found out that ‘Morituri Te Salutant’ were now available from English company Black Hat Miniatures. Even better, they sold it in PDF format, which these days is my favorite way to purchase rules sets.

Black Hat Miniatures was a company that was previously unfamiliar to me, but my first impression of it is very positive – purchase of the rules set was smooth and without any hiccups. First impression of the rules set was even better –combat system is quite detailed and seems to give a lot of room for the players to apply some tactical thinking. Campaign rules put the individual bouts in a larger context and the idea of putting the players in the role of gladiator school owner is simply brilliant.

Having solved the problem with the rules set, I now had to decide on which miniatures to get. Foundry’s line is of course most impressive, but as always, their insane price and delivery costs made me hesitate. Also, there are no mounted gladiators in their range. Yes, I know that they were quite rare, but I wanted at least one or two of them anyway. Black Tree Design has a couple of gladiators, but for some reason I didn’t like the looks of them. There are several other companies that have some gladiators in their product range, but for one reason or another I couldn’t bring myself to ‘pull the trigger’.

Then, couple of weeks ago I found out completely by coincidence that Crusader Miniatures have a small, but surprisingly complete range of figures. This “discovery” was promptly followed by a quick order of about 20 miniatures, which arrived to me about a week later. Picture below shows my gladiator school in raw state. As can be seen, some cleaning up will be necessary, but I’m very pleased with the miniatures and look forward to painting them.

Now, about that gladiator arena…

There really isn’t much space for variation in WAB list for Romano-Bristish. Basic unit is either formed from plain milites or even plainer pedes. Still, pedes are good, sturdy peasants that hopefully will stand long enough in their shieldwall for the more flashy commanipulares to hack their way through whoever is on the opposite side. Also, they are cheap and that’s never a bad thing.

For my pedes I stuck with the miniatures from Gripping Beast. Unit in pictures below consists of a unit pack that is being sold at slightly reduced price. To be honest, I’m pretty sure, I will stuck with Gripping Beast for most of this project – I like the sculpts and the range covers all my needs.

The look I was going for was that of poor peasants, so no flashy garments or elaborate shield designs. Plain, drab colors and mostly handpainted shields, although I did try to get some more variation with shield decals from Little Big Men Studio. Unfortunately, all of the decals that I've got from them, were to small by at least 5 milimeters for the huge shields these minis are equiped with.