Monday, July 4, 2022

2mm Romans and Barbarians for 'Strength & Honour' and 'To the Stongest'


Hi All!

Earlier this spring I picked up Mark Blackhouse's 'Strength & Honour' which has been recently released through the Too Fat Lardies' Reisswitz Press imprint. A few years ago I participated in a very early playtest session with Mark and really enjoyed many of the concepts he had developed for his rules. Well, I can say that the finished product is absolutely terrific, and a real credit to all his hard work.  

'Strength & Honour' is similar is scale to Simon Miller's excellent 'To the Strongest', but has a completely different approach to combat resolution and army morale - not necessarily better or worse, just different and innovative. While the rules are simple to learn, they provide a lot of depth, giving players a lot of nail-biting decisions and easily resolved combats. I think it's a great game, and a wonderful addition to the Ancients stable of rules. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to play those large iconic battles of the period within a manageable space and a reasonable amount of time.

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Being a fan of the smaller scales, I was keen to try my hand at creating some 2mm units for use both Strength and Honour and To the Strongest, so with no further ado here are some of my recent efforts.

Barbarian Warbands


The basis for all these units is built around 3d models from the talented fella over at Project Wargaming. I played around with the designs in the slicer to create more irregular mobs/formations - it worked okay for the most part, especially when they are viewed at an arms length away.

Two Roman Legions in triple and double acies formation.

The majority of the units are based on 130mm x 60mm MDF provided by my good pal Byron over at Northern Lights Terrain. Due to the figures' tiny size, I kept the groundwork fairly minimalistic to help mitigate the figures being lost in the muddle. 

A couple units of formed cavalry.



Light Cavalry


I pretty much exclusively used Citadel Contrast Paints for this project as I find they provide an interesting tonal depth to the colours, which I kind of like. The other benefit was that they allowed me to bang-out most of these units (essentially two armies of 12 bases each) in around a month. 

Skirmishers


A base of British light chariots.


A Barbarian Camp


A Roman Camp


For the labels, I cut thin strips of magnetic paper along the back of the bases. This allows me to swap-in whatever I need for the scenario at hand. After a few years of hosting games, I find that if one can provide as much information on the units themselves then it saves both time and confusion for players when the game is underway.

Anyway, there you go, a neat little project that helped me while away my spring. Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a terrific day.

- Curt


21 comments:

  1. I love your work on these stands, they look fantastic

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  2. They look great Curt, even greater close up and better still when my legios roll back the barbarian hordes!

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    1. Thanks Peter! We've been having some good fun with this 'little' diversion.

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    2. Peter, them are fighting words!!

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  3. Magnificent work Curt, I like they way you based them as well.

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  4. Lovely work Kurt from another fan of the smaller scales

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  5. They look fantastic, Curt! It always surprises me how you manage to make your painting look so clean and tidy. Yes, I have Strength and Honour lying around too, another “small” project waiting to happen…

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  6. They look great, Curt! :)

    I had been thinking of Strength & Honour now that I have a 3D printer - I've seen a bunch of free files on Thingiverse, but they aren't as detailed. Perhaps these ones would be a better bet, but no idea how they'd turn out on a FDM printer.

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    1. Thank you Tamsin! Yes, give them a try as their design might actually work with a FDM, especially if you upscale a bit.

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  7. Absolutely beautiful work.
    Would it be possible to get a list of the paints you used for the camp bases?
    I really love the golden olive kind of colour you've achieved for the grass and was hoping to replicate something similar for my own 2mm project.

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    1. Thanks very much. I used a mix of GW Contrast paint for these. The trick is to prime with a dark brown and then drybrush light grey for the contrast paint to 'grab' onto. The main grass colour is 'Plaguebearer Flesh' whereas the darker green is 'Warp Lightning' which I drybrush lighter with a cheap leaf green craft paint. I'll also apply some 'Arggaros Dunes' and 'Snakebite Leather' for the browns. I try to work them in when they are wet, so they blend together for a more natural effect.

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)