Overview of 2025

It’s that time of year again to look back on the output in 2025. So what were the plans for this year? I just had the two, Republican Romans and Franco Prussian War, both in 15mm.

For the Franco Prussian War, I definitely smashed this one out of the park. With 3 large linked games at the beginning of the year I found myself highly motivated to get the collection expanded. For the Prussians I added the Baden Division, a Hessian Division, Prussian Cavalry Division. This brought the army up to three full Infantry Corps and 2 Cavalry Divisions. I only need a few artillery pieces and a couple of infantry regiments to complete a 4th Corps. For the French I did a little re-organising before adding 2 more infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions. I could do with adding at least 1 more infantry division to the 4th Corps.

The 3 linked games were well received by the club members, so much so that Thom ended up adding the French I Corps which helped balance the numbers. On the horizon Neil B is planning another campaign so the collection should see some action in 2026.

For the Republican Romans, I didn’t really get started until around May and have been slowly building up the collection to include Carthaginians, Gauls and Italians. I even picked up the Midgard rules and after a couple of games I really like them, so definitely expect more of these next year.

Painting Totals for 2025, just under 1400 figures, this is well down on the last 2 years, but I feel those 2 years were inflated with the epic scale ECW infantry in strips.

• 10mm Scenic/building - 4

• 15mm Artillery - 14

• 15mm Foot figures - 730

• 15mm Mounted figures - 141

• 15mm Scenic/building - 13

• 15mm Vehicles - 13

• 28mm Artillery - 3

• 28mm Foot figures - 306

• 28mm Monster - 8

• 28mm Mounted figures - 19

• 28mm Scenic/building - 111

• 28mm Vehicles - 17

Overall a productive year, though I could do with actually playing a few more games myself instead of being the one running the majority of the games. For those that follow the blog and/or leave comments it is much appreciated. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and your dice roll well. Hopefully see you back in 2026

Robin's merry men

These will likely be the last figures I get completed in 2025. They've been on the painting table for a couple of weeks now, so it was time to get them finished. All 3 figures are from Footsore miniatures, representing Little John, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet.

Friar Tuck

Little John

Will Scarlet

The whole band together

With a planned game for Border Reiver, one of the factions will be outlaws, so these will see some use added to the peasants I've already got painted up.

Merry Christmas one and all

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Also to thank you for following this blog and/or commenting. It's much appreciated. Now as the year slowly comes to an end I'm trying to clear the painting decks in readiness for 2026.

This small offering is some Numidian cavalry for my Punic Wars project. They are 3d prints that I picked up off EBay, mainly because I already had 6 figures painted and needed another 6 and most manufacturers sell them in packs of 4. These actually came as a pack of 7 so one was quickly identified as a Commander.

The figures themselves didn't have loads of details which made them both quick to paint but not very interesting which reflected in the paintwork, not my best but they are done. 

Robin and Marion

With the announcement of an upcoming supplement for Baron's War, King John, I decided I wanted to make a start on a new retinue, Outlaws, which will feature in the new book. Now for this period the stand out outlaw of course is Robin Hood, luckily Footsore miniatures produce a model for Robin and a number of his companions which I have picked up to lead the retinue.

The model for Robin has him firing his bow, quite an appropriate pose for the legendary outlaw. For colours I deliberately went for woodland colours, in keeping with Sherwood forest. 

 The second model I did was for the Maid Marion. I like the pose of this figure, holding her own bow. I went for muted colours which turned out pretty much how I envisaged her.

Robin and Marion

I've got the figures for Friar Tuck, Little John and Will Scarlett already undercoated. I hope to make some progress on these over the coming weeks in between some Punic War figures.

Finished tree and a cottage

Following on from yesterday's post. I finally got the tree finished. I gave the whole model a quick dry brush of a grey followed by a cream to add a bit of depth to the branches. Once it was all dry I gave the upper branches a good covering of carpet adhesive (nice and strong bond) and simply added plenty of flock before shaking off the excess, I did a second coat to cover areas that I missed. The base was just my normal sand sealed with wood varnish with some static grass added. I even picked out a couple of stones. I'm very happy with the model and put an order in with Thom to print some more.

First coat of flock added

A finished tree

With thoughts on the upcoming Border Reiver show, I needed a few more cottages to replace the Dark age buildings I've been using. This first model is a plastic kit from Tabletop Workshop, it literally took a few minutes to put together. For painting it was a simple chocolate brown undercoat followed by a grey  then cream dry brush. The roof had a light yellow dry brush. The daub was picked out with a couple of coats of white with some weathering powder added to complete.

Alongside the tree for a height comparison

By my reckoning I probably only need 2 or 3 more cottages and will try and pick up the one from Perry miniatures after Christmas as I don't want them all looking the same.

More Carthaginians and future plans

It's taken me awhile but I finally got a couple of extra units done for my Carthaginians. Not my best work as I lost a bit of enthusiasm painting these up. I seem to lose impetus when it takes too long to get stuff done, these took nearly 3 weeks. The Balearic slingers are from Forged in Battle, one of the elephants is a 3d printed model from Mitch while the other is from Museum miniatures.

With the Border Reiver show moving from its September date to March next year, I've put the Punic War battle on hold as I will not have enough time to get everything done for a display game. So I've decided to go with The Baron's War. Most of the figures are already done as well as most of the buildings and fences etc. One thing I am short of is some trees. I probably only need a dozen or so, but the ones we have at the club are showing their age. So Thom has printed off a tree from a 'haunted woods' range. He can also resize them so they are not all uniform in height. He gave me a test model to try out before he prints anymore.

The basic model added to a mdf base

I set to work with some rubberised horsehair, attaching it to the branches to try and get a basic 'tree' shape. Once dried I gave the whole model a chocolate brown undercoat. Now I'll leave it to dry and continue tomorrow. I think I'll give the model a grey then cream dry-brush before adding the flock to the horsehair.

 So far so good. I should bet the model finished tomorrow and then start basing it.

Another outbuilding

Painting has pretty much slowed down at the moment. The dark nights and damp miserable weather has seen me retreat from the shed, so opportunities to get anything done are reduced to the weekends and even these have been disrupted with trips to the vets for the family pet. 8 teeth out and a swollen face.

Bailey feeling sorry for himself

So I did manage to put together another outbuilding with an enclosure from an existing building I had done and the left over renedra fencing. The base is from Warbases. The path is made from some cut down coffee stirrers.

All the new additions

I think I should have enough terrain now for Barons War, well except for a keep, hopefully one of the club members with a 3d printer can sort that. The plan is to put a game on at the Border Reiver show, which has now moved from its September date to March. It doesn't leave a lot of time, but I should have most of the stuff I need already done. I can add the above to 3 resin houses, a church and plenty of wattle fencing and stone walls.

On another note Thom is printing me a couple of tree trunks as I want to try and make my own trees for the game and have a few ideas to try out. It's probably one of the few things I can get done at the moment.

Libyan skirmishers and Elephants

With a small game being arranged for Thursday I put a bit of effort in to get a few more units across the painting table. First up is two units of Libyan skirmishers from Forged in Battle. Pretty straight forward to paint up. 

The next unit is made up of a pair of elephants. These were 3d prints provided by Mitch. They only required a little work to get the Howdahs to fit the back of the elephant. The only issue with painting is that the crew are part of the model and not separate, however I think they turned out well enough for me.

I've got another of these models to paint up as well as a metal figure from Museum miniatures. These are built and hopefully get painted up at the weekend. I do have a few command figures for both the Romans and Carthaginians that are painted, they just need basing up. Now to prepare a few more figures.

More Scenery and back to Punic Wars

As I want to return to the Punic Wars, I decided to clear up the last few terrain pieces I had for the Baron's War. There was a wattle and daub outbuilding from Renedra and some left over wattle fencing that I turned into another small enclosure. I made the gate from some coffee stirrers and the posts from some bamboo skewers. With these added to the collection I should have more than enough options for a table layout.

With the scenery done I could now turn my attention back to the Punic Wars, inspired by the purchase of the Midgard rules. I've made a few purchases, the infantry to complete a 4th Roman legion as well as some 3d prints from Mitch of some Spanish light cavalry and Elephants. I'm still waiting for some extra Italian infantry to complete a force of Campanians, to either act as an ally or enemy of Rome.

Meanwhile I finally made a start on some Carthaginians from Forged in Battle, 4 bases of unarmoured African Spearmen from their starter set. I hand painted the shields, a bit rough and ready, but fine in 15mm scale. This will bring me up to 6 bases or 3 units for Midgard,

I now have some Libyan skirmishers on the painting table as I begin prepping the Elephants and some cavalry.

William de Vesci has a horse

After completing a mounted version of my second retinue, it was appropriate to do the same for my first retinue. So William de Vesci, Baron of Alnwick finally got himself a horse and so did his banner man. Both figures are from Fireforge miniatures.

The crosses aren't too bad, I may have to resort to transfers in the future because as I get older I find my hands are less steady. But still at least I have the option to field him either on foot or mounted. The only other thing I did this weekend was a hand cart from Warbases. Another bit of scenery to bring the table to life.

 Quite a rustic little piece and can see some use in a number of periods. 

In other news I finally picked up the Midgard rules, it may spur me on to get back to the Punic wars and paint up those Carthaginians, though I do have enough Barons war figures to try out the rules 

28mm Scenery

With enjoying games of Barons War, I decided I needed to spruce up some of my old buildings, namely the two stone outbuildings with enclosures. These are two old resin pieces I picked up from Gripping Beast many years ago, along with some of their  small metal pieces of wattle fencing. I also picked up a couple of sprues from Renedra of their wattle fencing and some MDF bases from Warbases. So a quick evening's work and I had 4 new enclosures, 2 with outbuildings. Perfect to fight over in Barons War and a number of other settings.

I do have a few more pieces of the wattle fencing left, but none with gates. I may try to make some with coffee stirrers and balsa wood.

I also had another game on Thursday night, 750 point game, trying out a few different units. The serjeant marksmen proved their worth, but the mounted knights were severely hampered by the terrain. Think I need to give them another run out. Anyway a few pictures from the game. Honours were about even at the end of the night.

Sean really does like his mounted troops, though they also were hampered by the terrain. There are rumours of a supplement for Barons War covering King John, which will cover Welsh and Outlaws, so I've duly picked up Robin hood and some of his merry men to paint up when it comes out.