The show was held at a different venue this year - just across from the Armoury. I didn't think it was as good as the previous venue (with its various side rooms making it more of a magical mystery tour!) and it certainly seemed quieter - maybe the recession is biting more than we thought.
As my main requirement at the moment is 10mm ancients, this made life pretty easy - a trip to the Pendraken stand (as Magister Militum weren't there) and checking out the various paint options (mainly 'horsey' colours for my Parthians and Gallic cavalry / chariots). There were some good games going on as well - especially Hasslefree Miniatures sci-fi epic with zombies, mutants, aliens, heroes and guards going toe-to-toe in some impressive scenery (complete with flashing lights!).
Russ picked up a starter pack for his Indian ancients army from Pendraken - good value at £19 - and has ordered another wodge of Indian figures to field a Field of Glory Classical Indian army. They appear to be rock hard (elephants, archers who double as swordsmen, heavy chariots, javelinmen who also double as swordsmen etc.) so I'm not looking forward to taking them on.
Then I came across the East Riding Miniatures stand. Best known for the Platoon 20 range, they don't really tick my box (20th century troops) BUT he was also selling off various collections - including a hefty Greek 10mm army amongst others. I'm looking to build a Classical Greek army - and so is Russ - so we thought we could build one each and have a bash at Persian / Peloponnesian / Classical Greek battles.
The bag of Greeks came in at £20 (the same price as a starter pack of Pendraken figures) but seemed to be stuffed with hoplites so we decided to buy it (or rather I did as Russ had run out of cash) and split the troops / cost. When I got it home I found that I had most of the periphary BG's (cavalry, skirmishers, etc.) already - as well as a big block of hoplites in a couple of poses (standing and crouching). In all there were 358 figures in the pack (which retail would have cost in the region of £60!).
This broke down as :-
24 archers
24 javelinmen
24 command figures
18 Light Horse
18 Heavy Cavalry
30 Standing Hoplites
220 Crouching Hoplites
So using this big bag of Greeks and my existing Greek troops I developed a balanced army for both of us. This involved putting some of my 'standing' hoplites into Russ' army (in return for a similar number of 'crouching') to ensure Russ had 48 standing troops (i.e. enough to create 12 bases - or 2BG) to differentiate them from his 'crouchers'. So he could now use the standers to represent 2BG of Spartan Citizen Hoplites (for example) and use the crouchers to represent Spartan perioikoi hoplites (thereby making differentiation easier).
As I already have enough Greek light and heavy cavalry, peltasts and archers this meant that Russ could have all these figures in the pack, together with the 18 standers I'd added to the 30 in the pack. Therefore I just needed to divide up the remaining 'crouchers' to ensure we both had enough.
I took 88 of the crouchers - so accounting for the 18 I put into Russ' pack I ended up taking the equivalent of 70 figures out of the big bag of Greeks - with Russ taking the remainder. This gives him (and me) enough troops to field the following
8 BG of hoplites (assuming 6 bases to a BG)
2 BG of Light Horse
1 BG of Heavy Cavalry
1 BG of Javelinmen (or up to 12 bases)
1 BG of Cretan / Athenian archers (or up to 12 bases)
5 Command bases (foot)
Russ may need to invest in a pack of javelinmen and / or archers but he's now got enough to field a Greek / Spartan army. As he got c.85% of the pack, this equates to £16.50 for a full Classical Greek army! Not a bad result.
I also bought a Marian Roman army starter pack for £12 (usual price £19). The figures I'm more likely to use as Imitation Legionaires for other armies of the period but also gives me the option to develop a Marian army in the future.
I got a small pack of Middle Eastern houses from the Baggage Train (£2.50) to provide us with a village option for the Carthaginians.
I also bought some horse paints (Roan, Chestnut, Light Bay and Palameno) to make horsey painting for the bazillion Parthian and Gallic horse units a bit easier - I already have greys and a couple of darker browns so they should look tasty when finally completed.
And that was about it. I had a brief look at the FOG renaissance rules and Foundry's Napoleon rules. The former because they will form the basis (eventually) of FOG's Napoleonic rules and the latter to see if they could be used in a scaled down version (6mm).
I managed to avoid buying some MDF bases (as I need to work out how many I actually need), scenery (although there was some good stuff on show) and dice (as I already have about 300 d6).
We had a good chat on the way back and overall found it a very enjoyable day.
Until the realisation that I have another 500+ more figures to paint. Oh, Lordy!
