Gladiators

Well, unfortunately the kickstarter I mentioned in my last post has been cancelled :(  Two good things though - I'm not spending money I can't really afford and they did say they plan to relaunch after some re-working of the project ...

On a gaming front, the launch of Zabadak's Gladiator World is the foundation of both good and bad news for me.

Bad news:- it led me to recollect just how much fun the Spartacus TV series was to watch, which in turn led to me watching it on Netflix, and again seeing the fantastic performances in the show (specifically John Hannah and Lucy Lawless as Batiatus and Lucretia). Which then led to me buying the 3rd and 4th seasons of the TV show on DVD, plus the boardgame! I'm getting the boardgame to: a) hopefully play with my daughter & b) perhaps use it as a campaign framework

These purchases qualify as bad news as I really can't afford them, but I've always been particularly susceptible to shiny-itis and I'm really looking forward to watching them!

Good news:- it's got me posting here again, gaming mojo on the increase and planning a foamboard arena using WorldWorks Games Arena Works package. If you look at that product's pictures on that page, it seems (to me anyway!) to be of a more medieval style than Mystic Mountain's Coliseum (which I also have), which appears 'properly Roman'. However, MM's Coliseum is a much more complicated build and I'm planning to use this arena for more than just 'roman' gladiator combat; I'm intending to use it for fantastical gladiators as well as small scale skirmishes ...

More about these plans if it ever actually gets built!  I have signed up to the Frostgrave Nickstarter and am hoping that perhaps those rules can be used in some way ...

In summary though, I'm glad that Joe has started Zabadak's Gladiator World and even happier that he's back blogging again - even if he is forcing me to spend money! :)

First Painted Gladiators

Well I finished my first pair of plastic gladiators and decided to experiment with the photos. While at Eastern Front I had a conversation with Zombie Ad during which we both moaned about our inability to take decent photos of our toys. Ad said that he was going to get a tripod and try the timer funciton on his camera and I realised that I had a tripod myself so I thought I'd give it a go. Below you can see the results. I often find that a picture looks fine on the camera's viewscreen but when I upload it to the PC, I find it's blurry. Such was the case with the left side of this picture. This composite photo has the same view, both pictures taken using the tripod, but the left side is with me pressing the button and the right side is using the timer ...

I think you'll agree it makes one helluva difference and I shall certainly be using the timer for all my pics from now on! According to 'Red Sand, Blue Sky' the rules I'll be using this gladiator as a Dimachaerus (means two-weapon-man apparently). 

Facing Left



His back



Facing right

After taking these pics, I've added some Tamiya Clear Red to his blades and it look pretty good!

Next we have a gladiatrix (female gladiator) from the Pegasus set 2. I really like this figure and she seems closest to a Murmillo in RSBS. She's the only one to have a name so far - Bodacea from Britannia. The blue circle on her belt has been painted silver and a coat of Tamiya Clear Blue applied, as with the blue stone on the front of her helm. I think it's come out very well



facing left

From the front

and rear shot, facing right

Finally, in a comment on my last post I promised a comparison shot of Pegasus and Italeri gladiators. Well here it is;  on the left is a Pegasus mini and on the right Italeri. I prefer the Pegasus myself. On consideration, I could have chosen a better pair, but these were to hand. I will use them together without any quibbles anyway, and I think the difference is more of a 'style' thing than a problem



Left Pegasus - Right Italeri


Next time, a few more gladiators, a bear, a lion and my arena ideas. Well probably anyway ... something else might take my fancy first!

Gladiators WIP

Well I promised some work-in-progress (WIP) pics of the 1/32 (54mm) Gladiators so here they are. First of all some photos as they came out of the boxes. This first photo shows the Italeri Gladiators; there are two identical sprues in the box, and the photo shows one of them. On the one hand it seems a bit of a waste to have two identical bears and lions, but I figured, I'll use one of each with my 40mm greeks as giant/legendary examples of their breed, so I'm not too disappointed. I'll just have to get the knife to the identical gladiators.

Next up is the single sprue contained in Pegasus Hobbies Gladiators set 1. For some reason, Pegasus have decided to make their figures seperate from their bases. So I happily used my normal glue for plastics - Revell 'Contacta Professional' - only to find that it doesn't seem to work on these figures! This was a real shock as it's worked a treat on both Wargames Factory's Zombies and Mantic Games Ghouls, as well as the Amera plastic buildings that I had ... I guess it's a different kind of plastic! Anyway, here is the sprue:

And here is the sprue of bases and weapons for this set:

Finally for the sets this is the contents of Pegasus Hobbies Gladiators set 2. As you can see, some of the gladiators had seperated from the sprue before they got to me - no damage though.

And again the seperate bases and weapons.

Each of the boxes had photos on the back showing how the figures should be assembled, so I've kept those and binned the rest of the boxes.

I got the figures from modelhobbies.co.uk, placing my order about 8pm last tuesday and was pleasantly surpised when they arrived on friday morning! No fuss or quibbles - the boxes were listed as being in stock, and given the speed of delivery they must have been! When I order stuff in future I shall be sure to check their site. I had done some research on price, and if they weren't the lowest, they were definitely close.

So over the long weekend we've just had, I got the figures washed and assembled and have stuck them all on 60x60mm MDF bases that I had in 'stock' from an abandoned Polemos project. Adding some metal bases I had to add a bit of weight to the bases, I used DAS modelling clay to hide the weights and smooth out the figures bases. Then I painted them all 'Sand'. When finished I intend to give them a couat of diluted PVA, stick some real sand to them and then varnish. For the real sand, I was in Tesco's the other day and saw they do 10kg bags of playpit sand for £2 so I bought one of them - beats sivving (sp?) out sharp sand which is what I had been intending!

With the clay dry and painted, I started on the figures themselves, adopting a production line technique - i.e. the same colour on all the figs using it, then doing the next colour and so on. Sometimes though, I find that disheartening as it seems that you're not making any progress, so I'm going to switch to one figure at a time.

Here is an overhead group shot of the progress so far. One thing to note - I undercoated them with my ususal spray paint of choice - Halford's matt grey primer paint - but given the size fo the figures I found this too dark, some colours (e.g. white and tanned flesh) needing 2-3 coats to stop the grey showing. I now have some Halford's white plastic primer for the rest!

And the same group from a lower angle. I'll post individual pics as I make more progress.

One final note, having finally watched 'Salute to the Juggers' over the weekend I realise that these figures won't do for a Qwik team, so it's only one project! Need another solution for Qwik ...