15mm Painting During Lockdown - Scythians

Last of my Scythian Infantry Completed

Back in August 2018 I blogged about painting my Scythian Archers and 21 months later I have finally painted up the last of the Xyston Scythian infantry I have to complete this army. I had 115 castings to paint and started them six weeks ago just after the UK COVID-19 Lockdown started. 

I was missing 18 x Irr Hd O elements which accounted for 90 castings meaning I had 25 castings left over going spare. After giving it a lot of thought due to the mix of castings I had left over I decided to create an additional eight Irr Ax O elements from the remainders and hid the single odd casting within one of the horde elements as I hate to waste figures! These auxilia are in my to sell pile of finished figures and will end up on EBay in due course.

I still have a large number of horse archers to paint up but I dont need to paint them at present as I have more than enough finished elements in my box for my current needs unless I go for the almost entirely light horse variation of the army. The thought of over 100 Irr LH F plus the lone Irr Cv O CinC is quite daunting!

So here are the completed eighteen Horde elements.

Here are the eight spare Auxilia elements.Which are now on EBay UK

Finally as part of the Chinese lot I blogged about on the 10th May 2020 there were four orphan elements of Indian Light Horse with javelins. I had to repair two of the castings which had broken javelins and repainted their shields into Black Lacquer so they matched in with my own Indian army collection.. The figures were otherwise very nice and I rebased them in the style of my own Indian army bases for a very quick win as I was missing a couple of Irr LH O elements anyway.

ADLG 15mm Commission - Part 2

Another Commission From Australia

After sending off my previous commission to the guy in Australia. He tells me hes really pleased with the order and wants something else. Its yet more troops for his Condotta Army plus some Scythian Horse Archers to go with a Classical Era army he is building.

Project Lead Mountain has been producing lots of spare bits and pieces since 2012 but it has reached the stage that I have started to run out of sufficient left over castings to make up similar looking elements for some troop types. He wanted a camp for his Condotta, another Pike Block, base of Halberdiers and three elements of Mounted Crossbowmen. I already had a camp that I was about to list on EBay so this was a quick sale. I managed to source the Halberdiers and Mounted Crossbowmen but didn't have any pikemen. A quick look on EBay saw a lot for sale from Minifigs Renaissance Range. I submitted a bid for these as well as for some Muslim type Civilians and waited for the clock to tick down. I was not at home when the auction ended but was lucky enough to have won both lots. It was a mixed bag of Condotta period troops and included 12 identical pikemen.

I also had six left over Scythian Horse Archers that were perfect for his needs.

So now it's all painted I am just waiting for the varnish to cure properly before packing them for their flight to Australia. 

ADLG Commanders on 40mm Circular Bases

Minifigs Mounted Crossbowmen

Mixed makes Halberdiers

Alternative Armies Code MR5

 

Baeuda Kings Tent on 120mm x 80mm base 

Minifigs Scythian Horse Archers

Scythians - More Horse Archers

Another EBay Bargain Rears It's Head

Scythian Horse Archers - I have the unpainted metal to paint up lots more Scythian Horse Archers, in fact enough Museum Miniatures castings to create 36 elements of Irr LH F.

I have stopped painting Scythians at present as I fancied a break but browsing on EBay yet again last week and what do I see 16 elements of very old Minifigs 1st Generation Horse Archers. Whilst the riders are unchanged in today's Minifigs range their horses have gone through three changes since the late 1970's. These castings are clearly some of the very oldest they sold.

Unfortunately one horse was totally destroyed in transit meaning my original purchase of 32 horse archers has dropped to 31 horse archers and the prospect of going into the Project Lead Mountain reserve stock of old redundant 1st Generation Minifigs horses to find a suitable replacement. I will match paint the damaged horse and reuse the perfectly good rider in due course. I will almost certainly end up rebasing these castings but for now they will do out of the box.

Not bad for £25 plus P&P!

UPDATE 03/01/19
Above you read that I had a destroyed horse when this purchase was delivered. I finally got around to finding a suitable horse from Project Lead Mountain - a 1st Generation Minifigs horse which I painted over the Xmas break. The horse [painted brown] is on the right as you look at the picture below and with the old rider and new basing you can't really tell the difference between the old horse and its replacement as I tried to match paint the style.

Scythians - The Archers

Scythian Archers - Or How I wasted 3 Weeks Of My Life

Because I am using Xyston castings for my Scythian infantry I ended up with some of the best designed and sculpted castings on the market. The Scythians are a colourful lot and their clothing has lots of contrasting trim, a mix of either fur or cloth stripes. I had a total of 72 castings to paint and the colour mix meant that there was a lot of mixing and matching of paints as I worked through them. I started to get bored painting them and kept getting distracted during August painting other things or working on small commissions which meant they seemed to drag out. In the end it took me a total of 21 days to complete these figures. As is usual Xyston castings are mostly clean and required minimal cleaning up before painting could begin. The DBMM army list allows you to use a maximum of 24 elements of Bw archers. They are a perfect fit with the other infantry I have already blogged. I still have eighteen elements of Hordes to complete which totals another 90 castings but I am going to take a break from painting Scythians for a while as I can use other Hd elements as a quick fix substitute if necessary whilst I work on a different army.

Ancient Camptastic Elements

15mm Ancient Baggage Elements Completed - Scythians

As with any wargamer I started to accumulate leftover bits and pieces as part of Project Lead Mountain. This included four large hide covered tent like structures similar to Yurts, lots of Baueda Ancient, Generic and Napoleonic supplies, Xyston civilians and camp accessories from Donningtons, Irregular and Museum Miniatures. They will be suitable for literally lots of nomadic and other warmer climate armies from the Chariot through to the Dark Ages.

The Yurt like tents were too large to fit on a single or even on a double size baggage element so I decided to make feature pieces out of them. I have no idea who made the tents but since I had four of them to use I decided to make up an eight element and two four element baggage features.

First up is a 160mm  x 80mm eight element Baggage Camp. This is ideal to use for larger games and as a base camp in lots of rules. This will end up on EBay in due course.

Next is 80mm x 80mm four element Baggage Camp No:1.
This is ideal to use for a feature camp or to bulk out your existing baggage for larger games and as a base camp in lots of rules. This will end up on EBay in due course.

Next is 80mm x 80mm four element Baggage Camp No:2.
This is ideal to use for a feature camp or to bulk out your existing baggage for larger games and as a base camp in lots of rules. This will end up on EBay in due course.

Finally I have finished off eleven single baggage elements all on 40mm x 40mm bases. I have used most of my left over castings. I will need to keep two elements back for use with my Scythians, but I also have three Made in Battle Scythian wagons to paint up as double sized baggage elements so I may just keep one of them instead.

I have presented the baggage in three groups. A group of three elements and two groups of four elements but this was for photographic convenience reasons.

Group Nr:1

Group Nr:2

Group Nr:3

If there's anything that takes your fancy contact me and we can discuss terms?