A Hasty Gathering

Another year ending and what have I done?

Well I haven't finished any of my expanded Elastolin armies but after long but periodic internal debate I called closure and forced myself to make a "final" decision which is to base them permanently rather than either sticking with the trial magnetic bases which just didn't feel satisfying or going back to single figure skirmish games and that has allowed me to finally make some progress.

Elastolin Romans repainted to better fit the image in my head.
A few shields left to finish.

Occasionally I feel like I should have an urge to  do more semi-roleplaying skirmish Prince Michael games but to be honest the ones I've done were more fun to write up than to play and the stories were basically built around the bare events of the game after the fact rather than having been part of the game as "should" have happened with a talented GM and a group of players.  It would be as easy to add the narrative to a Gathering of Hosts game.

More than any other period, my views on what Ancient Warriors should look like were formed early and deep. This illustration is from the Living World of History which I got for Christmas 1964 when I was 9.

That done I was planning on finishing any repainting and conversion work before basing but I was stalled and REALLY wanted to play and not with figures half stuck on scraps on cardboard. More than that, I'm not going to do complete repaints on any figures. Just some touch ups to help them all look like they belong and I can do that on the based figures since they aren't in tight formations. So, I gathered what cut bases I had, organized the Romans into units with similar shield shape and design, glued, sawdusted and applied a base coat of green. Over the winter I'll finish the last couple of stands which need conversion and painting from scratch and do the various touch ups but at least I have a basic force for small games.

The last Roman Hosting: 5x2 infantry, 1x2 archers, 1x2 Light Cavalry, 1x2 Heavy Cavalry, 1x2 Artillery. There are 2 Generals, 1 with the Heavy Cavalry, 1+ Eagle with an infantry unit.
Hmm could use some barbarian light infantry perhaps.

Now, the plan was/is 1 stand is a unit and no grid but......... it just so happened that the figures divided nicely into groups of 2x4 man bases each forming a distinct, recognizable   unit which just happens to fit the new 6" grid. Hmmm. This may take some thought  and experimentation.

A Barbarian Horde to follow.

Happy 2017 to all the oh so patient and amazingly persistent readers of the sporadic GofH blog!