The one where I paint 7000 miniatures in an evening.

Long time no Blog!
That doesn't mean the Factorium has been quiet, nor me sitting idle.
Au contraire mon cherié, there has simply been to much fun hobbying going on so I haven't really had the time to sit down and focus enough to update the blog. 

I'll just start with the reason for the blogpost, some Romans for Mark Backhouse's excellent ancient wargamerules Strength & Honor, published by the Lardies. You probably already know what it is and if not then there are several good videos on the youtubes. A good startingpoint is Alex's Watling Street BR over on the Storm of Steel Wargaming channel.

Speaking of Watling Street, that´s what I am building my forces for as an intruduction into the system aswell. It's a fairly small game with few elements of troops so it suits me perfectly. Not to mention, Boudiccas revolt against the Romans in 60-61 AD is really the stuff that makes legends.

A quick rundown of the events is pretty much this;
The Romans failed to uphold a deal after the death of the queens husband, even going as far as raping her daughters and publicly flogging the queen herself.
She didn't take that very kindly and managed to rally the might of the nearby tribes and marched to war with over 200000 warriors to drive the romans from the island. The huge army burned their way thru the roman settlements in southern England, even Londonium was burned to the ground and all it's inhabitants were killed (after countless atrocities). The roman army made it's last stand at a hill where todays Watling Street is located (hence the name of the battle) and managed to defeat the oncoming horde as thru a miracle, even tho their numbers were 20:1. The wikipedia page on the Boudiccan Revolt is a nice startingpoint if you want to get into it further.

The models I have used for this quick and dirty project are the excellent free ones from Ben Wonnocott on Thingiverse, and I have printed them in FDM. It's been really cold and snowy in Linköping the past week so I can't be arsed to go out to the printingroom several times per day. The scale (2mm) and the stl's lend themselves well to FDM. Again, 1 meter rule and we are trying to get an effect of massed troops rather than individuals. 

The picture above is the completed roman army for the scenario, and below I am adding a few WIP for the britons. I will print the more fiddly bits as chariots, cavalry and wagon laagers in resin. FDM doesn't really cut it.

Drilling out the holes for the magnets that will hold unit-designations. This makes the armies/elements useable for several different troops in the gamesystem. To the right some wip of a legion, roman commander and briton warbands. I went with blues for the Iceni warbands as an homage to one of my favorite boardgames ever, Britannia. It was first published by Avalon Hill in 1986 and while it kinda shows it's age in the modern boardgaming era, it's still a worthvile buy. Even the latest version on Steam is worth every penny for someone interested in the period from the roman invasion of the british isles in 46 AD up until Hastings 1066.

Some more wip. The Romans are essentially just red with a grey drybrush followed by a silver metallic drybrush over the top. The same goes for their auxilia (green and 2 drynbrushes). The warbands are primed in whites and dabbed with contrastapaints all over, followed by a few drybrushes of browns (hair), a couple dabs silver (some have helmets) and a couple healthy lathers of brown washes. I'll do a separate post with the tribes later on as they are completed. To the right, the forces as shown in the book.

What about all the other stuff I've been doing?
Well, there has been alot of painting (across several different projects and eras), printing and building terrain, 5-6 game-nights on both board and tabletop, a DBMM tournament, a whole day of boardgames, 3 sessions of Call of Cthulhu with old friends, 2 sessions of Pathfinder in different constellations over at Forge and Brush which has become my home away from home online over the past couple of months and..

Hmm.. 

I think that's it.
/Fred
Back to The Factorium!