David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Tuesday 22 December 2020

🎼 “It’s a long, long time...

 ...from May to December!” At least is has certainly  felt as if it was on several occasions. But, all the hours and minutes spent at the painting desk here in GHQ have now come to fruition with the completion of the three phases I envisaged when I first embarked on the Punic Wars project around my 70th Birthday in May and in the midst of all the Coronavirus malarky! Readers of my blog here will have followed my progress along the way, as might readers of Wargames Illustrated where the project featured over three issues in the latter part of the year, so don’t go expecting to see anything new today! What I do have to show is the whole collection laid out on the table here in GHQ. I hope it will give a sense of what I’ve managed and perhaps even inspire someone else to take up their own project as we head inevitably for a New Year Lockdown Mk3 ~

Now, I mentioned the fact that I’d envisioned this project evolving to completion in three phases, each tied to a purchase of figures for the phase. Those are now all completed of course, but along the way the project has acquired an added phase 4! That came in the decision to add some Spanish heavy cavalry to the Carthaginian army with figures from Wargames Foundry and with the wonderful offer of a bargain box of Aventine Miniatures Republican Romans from fellow wargamer David. His generosity has enabled the addition to the project of more cavalry, some command bases, some Levy and the Velites I was missing for the Allied Italian Legion. They should move across the painting desk in the coming weeks, all being well of course. In the meantime, a few pictures of the whole effort to date ~

The balance of this bargain buy has now gone into the  RUBs containing the Lead Pimple under my desk while I give serious thought as to whether I want to deploy more figures or whether I want to move the remainder on. There must be others who would appreciate a bargain addition to their Republican Roman collection. We shall have to see where that one goes...

24 comments:

  1. A truly inspiring inspiring sight, great to see them in all their glory. Hope the gods of war are with you in 2021, have a great Christmas, best regards Airhead

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    1. Thank you for the fulsome endorsement, much appreciated.

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  2. A splendid sight to behold and a job well done, one thinks they will do marvellously.

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    1. Let's home we can soon meet up on the miniature battlefield!

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  3. A fantastic looking collection David!

    Christopher

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  4. Your army makes for a very impressive sight. Outstanding work, David!

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  5. Real armies, very impressive David and some left over!

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    1. Thanks George, glad you recognise my efforts at an army!

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  6. A splendid array of troops there David and it must be very satisfying to see them like this after all the hours of painting etc.

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    1. Thank you SteveJ, I was pleasantly surprised when I laid them all out.

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  7. Splendid stuff, that makes a lovely pair of armies, and one of my favourite matchups, even if warfare in period should be historically modelled by the Roman player continuously failing to show up for scheduled games. :)

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    1. Thanks Doug, though noone is showing up for games lately.. ☹️

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  8. Exciting army. Make me want to get off my duff. So I can finish my spanish troop and the remainder of Carthaginian army. Being a couple of year old than you. I also have grown tired of the Virus B.S. We both more than likely survived many flu. Plus whatever the government can throw at us to break our spirit. Merry Christmas. Please continue this outstanding blog.

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    1. Thank you Gary! I shall do my best to oblige!

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  9. This is a great looking collection and just goes to show every cloud (Covid Lockdowns) has a silver lining! A friend of mine has been "working from home" since March and has painted untold numbers of Great Northern War figures that would usually have taken him several years to complete! I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year and that its not too long till you get the chance to put this army onto a table for a face to face game!

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  10. Fantastic effort David and two impressive armies ready to go. I am always impressed by your ability to focus on one project. Let’s hope these see some action soon in the new year

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    1. Thanks Matt, though I should confess to being a tad OCD.

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  11. A fantastic looking collection David...
    Here’s to them seeing a lot of action in the next year...
    Phil has been regularly loosing against himself... its about time he got back to loosing property 😁.

    All the best. Aly

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    1. That is kind and very much appreciated from your good self Aly. As to Phil loosing, well, this year's stats do not seem to reflect that reality...

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