Yes, I know I said I was going to move on to the clothing, but when I decided to grab an hour this evening to move things a bit further forward, I picked up the first strip and thought, “hmmm, I wonder…”

So, this is one of those little detours that could have proved fruitless in this scale, but I’m in the mood to experiment, and since this is the only time I’m ever going to be painting Greek and Persian armies in this diminutive size, I might as well make the effort to make them as good as I can make them.

To begin with, let me say that this is where mounting the figures on wooden strips and working in production-line method pays dividends. Highlighting at this scale needs a steady hand, calm breathing and often constitutes the merest touch of the brush tip on the figure. Practice makes perfect, and having gone boggle-eyed on the first few, I was dabbing at speed by the last, taking only a second or two per figure.

In this first picture you can see the tremendous benefits afforded by mounting thse tiny critters on a strip of wood. When it comes to highlighting, we are generally talking about the merest touch of the tip of a size 1 or 0 brush on the figure, so a steady hand and calm breathing are imperative! Here, you can see that I’m minimising hand and brush shake by using the edge of the table as a support, with the light from the anglepoise coming from above and to the left front. Another anglepoise is directed from the right rear.

The second picture is very similar to the first, but shows how different areas of the figures can be accessed by a simple rotation and tilting of the strip of wood, leaving the brush hand in the same, comfortable and stable position. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the colour I’m using is Citadel/GW’s Elf Flesh, diluted about 50/50. I’m simply running the brush along the upper surfaces of arms that would be lit by sunlight from above, putting a wee dab on shoulders, thighs, calf muscles and so on. For faces, where I can identify a nose or forehead, that gets a dab too. Do not get stressed about accidents: “paint the unit, not the man”!

Here you can see the finished results, with the hoplites closest to the camera. Yes, okay, okay, it’s subtle, but when you consider how tiny these fellers are, I’m pretty gobsmacked that it’s worked at all, but there is undeniably a shading effect happening here, and my Athenian and Theban finest are coming to life. When I start on the Persians, I’m making a ‘note to self’ about trying a slightly different flesh tone to reflect the different origins of the men who served the King of Kings.

And finally, a macro close-up showing the archers closest to the camera, and the effect of brushing along the uppermost surfaces of the flesh clearly visible. As to whether it’s been worth it – we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? But since this little exercise took less than an hour, I’m happy. In essence, of course, it’s the Dallimore two-colour method writ small. Umm, make that “very small”.

So, next time, I really shall be moving on to other bits! (Darn, Henry, don’t forget about all those tiny toenails…) And I mustn’t forget, of course, that this is just the first of my hoplite phalanxes, with another nine to follow – and that’s before I order some more! (Oh dear, I had a sudden urge to cackle in a maniacal fashion there. Perhaps it’s just that it’s very late again…)

Okay, another short session tonight to start preparing the 6mm Greeks for painting. I have taken a trio of photos to show you precisely what I’ve done.

In the first picture, I’ve laid out the tools and materials I’m using next to the first completed unit (noble cavalry). There are some 12″ strips of 1/4″ square softwood for mounting the figures, and a roll of double-sided sticky tape which I’ve sliced along its length whilst still on the roll using a very sharp scalpel. Keep your fingers well out of the way! I decided to try the tape as I get fed up with stringy glue like UHU and Bostik leaving spider webs everywhere, and I have had a couple of unfortunate incidents where PVA (white) glue has attached figures so securely that getting them off again has been a devil of a job! The tape is just a bit wider than the wood, so I can do twice as many figures by halving the width of the tape.

Also in the equipment shot you can see the big file I use to level the underside of the bases (I just run each strip from side to side along the flat side a dozen or so times), and a pair of GW clippers for separating individual figures from the strips where necessary, as in the case of cavalry and skirmishing troops. The hoplites will stay in their groups of four. I also have a penknife/multitool close at hand, and a pair of scissors for cutting the sticky tape into lengths. The little cardboard box is used as a containment device when clipping the figures from their strips — without it, the little blighters sail into orbit!

Pictures two and three show this evening’s completed batch, ready for priming. There’s the unit of noble cavalry, a unit of light cavalry (Thessalians, I imagine), a unit each of javelin skirmishers and archers, and the first unit of hoplites, 24 stands of four, making 96 tiny warriors. And there are another 11 units to go after this one!

I’m already thinking about the Persians too, and feeling that I may not have bought enough…

Okay, next step will be undercoating, and my thanks to Tyler Provick whose comment has given me some interesting ideas.

There are many people who — often without actually reading it — have classified my magazine as ‘old school’. I’m sure that Pete Berry of Baccus is familiar with this kind of pigeonholing situation, when untutored folks say that 6mm figures are ‘nasty little blobs that are impossible to paint’. Well, there’s something to be gained for both of us, then, when I reveal that whilst I do, indeed, enjoy a bit of 30mm fun with games played by the rules of “Charge!” or “The War Game”, I’m equally at home with other forms of wargaming, scales of figures, and periods remote from the mid-18th century.

It just so happens that I’ve loved the ancient period since the days of, crikey, WRG 5th Edition. Something about the wars of Greece and Persia intrigued me: there seemed to be a kind of ‘purity’ about the fighting styles, and a huge range of battles ranging from small skirmishes up to the famous landmark battles like Marathon, Thermopylae or Platea. Stretch things a bit further into the Late Achemaenid and Alexandrian periods and you have the challenge of huge phalanxes of pikes facing not only the Persians, but Indians too. But it’s the 5th century BC that is my first love, so for some time, I had been contemplating replacing the armies I sold off (at bargain-basement, pre-eBay prices!) many years ago.

Battlegames readers may recall that issue 1 featured a lovely piece by Harry Pearson about his own Greeks v Persians rules: “Marathon 490BC”. The sight of serried ranks of old-style 25mm Minifigs filled me with nostalgia, and I began scanning the lists on their website. But, at around this time, I also met ancient and medieval specialist Dan Mersey for the first time, and we became friends and started meeting occasionally for games.

It just so happens that, like many young folk in the south, our Dan is hampered by the ludicrous house prices round here and lives in conditions more cramped than he or his girlfriend would like. The effect of this is that he has limited space for his hobby, and whilst he enjoys his visits to the Battlegames ‘Loftwaffe’ for games on my 8’ x 6’ table (which can also be extended), he cannot contemplate amassing sizeable armies of 20–30mm figures. For him, therefore, skirmish games with a handful of figures have been the norm for some years, together with some Dark Ages forces in 15mm for DBA.

It seems, however, that Dan had been eyeing up Pete Berry’s little beauties — I mean his miniatures, of course — for some time, and when Rob Broom at Warhammer Historical sent me a copy of Warmaster Ancients to review, it seemed that fate was pushing us inexorably towards our decision to take the plunge. Canadian micro-gaming whiz Barmy Bob Barnetson (forgive me, Bob, it’s a term of affection!) has also had a hand in this: his piece in Battlegames about the Teutoburger Wald, for which he seemed to spray out painted micro-minis faster than a Gatling Gun, showed just what can be achieved with a little application and a desire to display ancient warfare truly en masse.

The final tipping point was Dan reviewing the new Baccus ACW figures recently. It had to be Baccus. I saw the glint in his eye, and decided “What the heck? Let’s go for it!”

So, we shook hands and agreed that each of us would collect our favourite opposing armies. He’s dithering about whether to amass Romans and barbarians, or Saxons and something else Dark-Agey, but I already knew what I wanted. Greeks; Persians; and a lot of them.

Pete Berry wasn’t surprised when I called — he knew I was micro-friendly (that doesn’t mean I go “ping!” every five minutes, I’m not a household device) and that, following conversations we’d had at shows, it was only a matter of time before I succumbed to his wares. Nor, indeed was he taken aback when I said that I’d looked at the Warmaster lists on the site, but I wanted twice as many per unit! “Ah,” he said, “someone who wants to do it properly!”

And so, when the box of beauties arrived (it’s always slightly alarming, it has to be said, that a couple of thousand figures can fit into such a tiny box!), I of course began with a small parade of the new arrivals. I just had to see what those hoplites looked like, ranked up in whopping Warmaster-size units. I think you’ll agree that, even in the naked pewter state, they look pretty awesome. “Oohh,” was Pete’s comment on this photo, “looking at it, that’s an awful lot of lead! It looks unstoppable, but wait till you get the Persians out…”

Now, as you can imagine, as a chap running a major magazine single-handed, I’m pretty busy, and I have other projects on the go too, so when Peter suggested that I run this as an online project, I thought it would actually be a good idea to help me maintain momentum as I paint the eyelashes on a thousand hoplites (it’s okay, really, I’m kidding, honest…). I haven’t gamed with 6mm stuff since 1980-something, at which point I was using Heroics & Ros, so I have no preconceptions about how I’m going to achieve this monumental project. How monumental? Well, I’ve bought 1,000 point armies to begin with, but I want to fight REALLY big battles in due course, so I’m sure I will treble or quadruple what I’ve got so far.

So, from time to time, I’ll drop in with an update, revealing what I think has gone well, and what I think I could have done better, and perhaps even asking for suggestions when I think I’ve gone seriously astray!

Right, now, where’s that one-hair brush…

Henry