Lard Magazine 2021 Out Now! Hurrah!

In the event that you're not a member of any Lard Groups on social media; the Lard Magazine 2021 is not available from HERE.

Whether or not you play any of the "Lardie" games systems the mag is always full of great scenario ideas, the how to of planning games, modelling ideas, and previews of up and coming TooFatLardies publications, and easily adapted to whatever rules system you prefer to play.

For me personally, I'm looking forward to reading Sidney Roundwood's ideas on modelling the urban environment of 17th century Paris, a preview of Mark Backhouse's Strength and Honour 2mm Ancients rules. I have it open on my laptop now and i'm about to dive in. might I be so bold as to suggest that you do so too? You would be mad to to, right?

A Huge Thank You!

I have not got any eye candy to show but  as I've been very busy cracking away at prepping my Late Romans for the The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge as well as slowly managing to do a few bits and bobs 

on my latest Early Byzantine Kavallaroi (I'm pretty sure I've just made up a Greek word here!)

I thought I would take this opportunity to thank the people who got in touch with me, who offered me kindness and understanding when I was really struggling earlier this year.

I want you to know that you made a real difference. It was at once very humbling and a huge morale boost. Although my physical circumstances have not changed your kindness (along with some very high quality therapy) have allowed me to keep slowly chipping away and moving forward again. I might not be here without you guys- you know who you are- so just know that your efforts were deeply appreciated. 

Oops! I nearly forgot! Have a lovely holiday, be you religious, agnostic or an atheist. 

The City Walls of Dara Battlement and Tower Type Information Request?

I've been combing the net in a determined effort to find some information what types of battlements and towers the City of Dara 530AD would have been surrounded by with a view to making or getting a model for the display game of the  Battle of Dara we have planned for later this year.

So far I have been unable to find any images of what the battlements might have looked like so I thought I would put up a post asking if anyone if they have any ideas on how they would look? Square towers or round? Western European (Late Roman) battlements or more a more Eastern influence?

The Ruins of Dara

As I'm sure you can appreciate, it is hard to discern exactly what the battlements and towers of Dara might have looked like from the ruins that sit in place today.

Early Byzantine Underground Water Cistern.

I did happen upon some images of the Turkish town of  which seems to portray both "square" and "round" towers with Late Roman type battlements but I cannot be sure when they were actually built from the images on then net.

The only thing I have to go on thus far are the famous Walls of Constantinople which were modified over the centuries.

Restored Section of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople:

Byzantine Heavy Kavallaroi in Progress

I had a spare half an hour so decided to take a few shots of the first six, basically the front ranks of a unit of Early Byzantine Heavy Kavallaroi in I have on my painting table in the studio. The horses are complete but remain unvarnished. I learned a lesson when putting together Belisarius' Boukellaroi in that I forgot to make sure the cavalry models actually fitted onto the horses which resulted in a great deal of anguish as I feverishly (but very gently) filed away at the painted and varnished Boukellaroi models until they eventually fit the barded horses. A mistake that I wasn't going to repeat again. So, it was out with the "bastard file" (TM) which I used to file the underside of all of the Kavallaroi models in order for them to fit on all of their mounts. I didn't want to leave anything to chance! This meant trying out each Kavallaroi model on each horse. Worth to avoid a repeat of the heartbreak of having to repaint  and varnish the filed "underbellies" of the Boukellaroi!

I recently bought a very large number of Late Roman models from both Footsore Miniatures Late Roman Range and Gripping Beast Late Roman range in preparation for the The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge which will of course be documented on this blog. My aim with the Early Byzantine Heavy Kavallaroi is to get the unit finished as well as three Infantry Command Bases prior to The Challenge. I will almost certainly complete the former task in time but might fall short of getting the command bases completed simply because of the sheer volume of Late Romans I have to clean up and prepare by December the 20th so I can start slapping on the paint the next day. 

I thought it might be of interest to some to see how my miniatures look roughly half way through the painting process. They looks a bit untidy in places, which is not a worry as my Art College education is a real boon in terms of mixing colours that match the hues already applied to the models. I am lucky in that it's not something that I usually have to spend too much time ruminating on; as colour theory (re; Colour spheres!) were drummed into me at an earlier age.

A word or two on the horses. The tones of the horseflesh are more of less made up and somewhat removed from how they would appear in reality. This is fine by me as I really enjoy painting horses and it would be unusual for me to be unhappy with the results. As long as I can take my time, have a good old mess around mixed with some experimentation, I am good.

As usual all the images are "clickabe". If you have any trouble, just right click, then click on "open image in new tab" and you will open a new page with the full sized image.

The Kavallaroi models are roughly at the halfway stage. It should be pretty clear that I paint from a very flat matt black undercoat on top of a black primer. As mentioned in the above, it should also be somewhat clear that I have an idea of what colours I'm going to apply to where as I paint.