More ebayed minis... and vallejo paint info

Well once again I fell for the temptation of Ebay and bought some new minis. 31 to be precise.
They are Kallistra's Romano British Horse Archers and seem to be very nicely sculpted and free of any sculpting-errors. As is always, I'm tempted to say, the case with Kallistra - by far my favorite company as their models always ooze of character.

They retail at 10£ from the shop plus shipping, but they were only 4£ including postage on Ebay, so under half price - sweet.

(The Romanoes, there are ten of each pose)

Only thing is that I now have even more unpainted lead staring at me when I open the closet of horrors....

Oh btw; my favourite paint surplyer; SnM Stuff has opened an online store (instead of ebay), so now the vallejo paints are even cheaper. I really recommend buying from this guy; low price and instant shipping.

DIY scaling ladders

These outlaws have indeed a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced leaders, my castle may defy them.
-Ivanhoe

Hello, in the hope that we will some day get to fight a siege - the holy grail of all gamers - I had been pondering how to make cheap scaling ladders (me being too scroungy with my money to actually buy some..).
And a possible solution struck me while we were moving stuff around the other day as I found some leftover material that I had refused to throw out in the hopes of being able to use it one day. The material is used for strenghthening walls before finishing them with glasfelt (which is a direct translation from the Danish word as I was unable to find an equivalent) and is available in all (Danish) toolshops and DIY for next to nothing.

When cut to the right size and after a quick brown paintjob they do look like scaling ladders and one can do a dozen in as many minutes.

(A pair of scaling ladders carried by some German infantry,
anxious to get over the walls of a Roman fort)

Anyways, they'll suit our purposes nicely and now there's one thing less on the list of to-dos before a siege is possible.

Unfortunately they don't resemble this example of a "high"-tech medieval Chinese example of a scaling ladder:

Very nice!
Anyways, have fun and let me know if you could use the tip for anything.

German Warband (better pictures...)

Hopefully these pictures are a more appropriate size... Please enjoy.

(Oh well, I give up - at least the second picture is large enough to see all the terible detail and mistakes that I cannot see with my eyes. Photos this magnified is a terrible thing to do to oneself, but it keeps the Hybris at bay :-) ).

Best regards,
K.

German Warband

Finally! At long last I managed to get some minis painted to a finished state (and I've even managed to get half way through another unit).

The finished models consist of three stands of nine minis each and the models are 10mm Early German Warband from Steve Barber Models (who btw has just launched a line of 10mm Zulu's that look great). The models are all amazingly detailed and without any miscasting - very high quality. Actually there are more details than I could pick out and they receive a high grade from me.

They are painted to stand in for generic horde-army types of infantry and as such should be usable for both Carthagian warbands as well as celtic infantry, therefore I chose to refrain from any wode-tattoes and other "country-specific" markings.
They will be part of my green-brigade which are all the more untrained infantry, which hopefully at some time will constitute an army in their own right. The white is to tie them into my main army (black and white colourscheme).

Anyways, here are the barbarians - ready to wreck havoc:

(Sorry for the small size (not of the minis but the pictures), I'll upload some larger ones monday)

The Eagle Series and The Saxon Stories

Hello - just some quick book reviews and recommendation. I just finished the first three books in the Eagle series by Simon Scarrow and heartily enjoyed them.

For those who have not read them or heard about the series it is a "historic" tale of a centurion and his optio in the second Roman legion, beginning in Germania and moving to Britain in the next two books. It is really well written and a great read, the pages seem to evaporate very quickly. As one of my friends said "it's Barbara Cartland for men" :-).
The stories are split between a micro and macro storyline and in my view the micro (following the two troopers' troubled campaigning) is much better than the macro which follows the tribunes tribulations.
The series gets my fullest recommendation and I already ordered the rest of the series from Amazon (as thebookdepository has decided not to do their otherwise wonderful frees hipping to Denmark anymore).

I also recently finished the first three in another similar series; The Saxon Stories.

These follow the wars between Anglo-saxons and vikings in Britain during the 9th century. Although they are enjoyable and eacily read they do seem to lack a certain something; maybe it's because the hero is superhuman and a wee bit to unrealistic or maybe its because he chooses to fight against the danes (which I naturally as a Dane think is wrong :-)) and as such is not as gooda s the other series. Although I would still recommend it.

Have fun reading,
Kasper.