Preparing for Arthur and Merlin in 10mm

Yesterday I blogged about preparing my Covenant of Antarctica fleet for painting, while getting these ready I also prepped some 10mm Dark Age figures and started work on some terrain pieces.  More on the terrain pieces later, for now I want to quickly post about the 10mm figures I ordered.

I have a variety of minis games on the shelf at the moment that haven't seen play, to be honest, it is likely that they won't see play for a little while yet (I have Song of Blades and Heroes and Dystopian Wars clamouring for my immediate attention).  A while ago I ordered two sets of Dark Age rules - Dux Bellorum, which seems a rule set from the lineage that brought us DBA, and Dux Britanniarum - which seems a fun campaign system with a rules set attached.  Of course I also have a spin-off of the Song of Blades and Heroes skirmish game - called Song of Arthur and Merlin.

I wanted to get some miniatures that would eventually allow me to play all these games.  For a long time I was trying decide between 15mm scale figures (something like those available from Splintered Light), and 10mm - from either Pendraken or Magister Militum.  In the end I obviously chose to try the 10mm figures.  The most glaring con of this choice is the fact that these minis will not be able to be used in conjunction with the ones I already have for Song of Blades and Heroes, but the pros, I think, far outweigh that con.

So why 10mm?  The choice of which scale to collect is always a tough one, usually it is somewhat dictated by whatever is used by the people with whom one games.  In my case I would be the only player collecting these minis, and wanted enough for two players to be able to play. I also wanted to be able to get enough to allow me to play (at least basically) all of the Dark Age rules sets I had, though admittedly I think I'll need to look into sabot bases for both Dux games.

Given that I wanted so many figures, I also had the problems that came with them - first they need to be purchased, they need to be painted and they need to be stored somewhere (and I'm very short of spare storage space for large scale armies).  In all of these cases the smaller the scale the better the pay-off seemed to be, and in the end I turned to Pendraken, and I'm very glad I did.

For a relatively cheap price I was able to grab a set of minis representing the Late Romans and the Saxons - both armies that would allow me to play all three games - Song of Arthur and Merlin, Dux Bellorum, and Dux Britanniarum.  And while it will likely take me a long time to get enough figures painted to be playing the latter two, I at least have enough to keep me going long into the future.

So this is what the various sets looked like after they arrived:

Divided into their types (spear, archer, mounted etc)

The Saxons divided... a veritable multitude.

I also ordered some 20mm laser-cut MDF bases (around 100 or so), for a very reasonable price, and mounted enough to allow me some choices when I play Song of Arthur and Merlin.

Late Romans...

Saxons...

So after trimming and filing some of the flash and mold lines I glued them to their bases.  After the glue was dry I used a tooth-pick to spread some PVA over the bases, and then dipped them into some fine sand - this is to add texture and also to build the MDF base up so the figures aren't sitting atop their little mounds they were molded with.

I'm pretty happy with how the bases turned out.  They manage to add texture as well as build up the simple wood.  After laying on the sand I also used an old paint brush laden with heavily watered down PVA to moisten all the sand on the base (just touching the base with the brush was enough - as whatever sand was dry really sucked up the liquid).  Once dried this made the sand really quite solid.

I used a cheap undercoat - which I'm not overly happy with (I was impatient and had used everything else up on my Dystopian Wars fleet), but I think they come up well once I start painting them.  All in all I'm really happy how they turned out.  The Pendraken figures are nicely detailed, and should work really well.  I have a lot more waiting to be based ready for the Dux games - but that's a project for another day...

Cheers,
Giles.