Celts | Gisby's Gaming Blog

October 11, 2024

More Plastic Chariots

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Plastic Figures, Wargames Factory — gisby @ 10:00

Many years ago, Wargames Factory produced 28mm plastic Celtic chariots. They have long been one of my favourite plastic kits.

I have reviewed them here, and their Celtic infantry as well.

I am slowly building my way through all my boxes, six chariots at a time. I reserved some of my infantry to use as chariot drivers and crew – Two boxes worth, as it turns out.

I have been building them in a random manner. I build a bunch of chariots, a bunch of horses, and a bunch of crew, then pull them together randomly.

Some crew are infantry figures, if so, I remove the base. The drivers’ hands are drilled to take reins, and their hair filled hair out with putty.

The warriors have also had their hair filled out, and have been given wire spears. They each have a wire peg added to their foot and glued to a hole drilled in the chariot floor.

The horses have mostly the reined heads with the reins trimmed away, and a hole drilled for cotton reins.

The chariots were assembled as per instructions, except I shortened the yoke poles by about 5mm. Assembly was done with plastic cement, except for attaching wire spears and pegs.

Chariots and horses were assembled on 40x60mm bases, with the chariot wheels sitting on pieces of horse base. (So it will be level with the horses.)

Drivers and crew were glued in place. The wire gives a secure joint. Space can be tight, so you may want to check before gluing, and even switch crew around to see who fits best where.

Reins were made from crochet cotton, dipped in a mixture of white glue and paint. Draw the rein through your fingers to squeeze out excess glue/paint. This should also remove the fuzziness. Hang it to dry.

Put the rein through the horse mouth, then feed it through the rings on the yoke. Put both ends of the rein through one hand. Repeat on the other side. Trim reins to length.

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August 21, 2020

Wargames Atlantic Irish Chariot

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Plastic Figures, Victrix, Wargames Atlantic — gisby @ 14:40

I made an Irish Chariot for my Wargames Atlantic Irish: I used a Victrix chariot, because I had one.

irchar1

The Warrior is Wargames Atlantic, and the driver is the original Victrix driver – With his knee breeches he is far more accurate as Irish than he is as a Briton or Gaul. He has a Wargames Atlantic Irish head, though. The two figures scale well together, and the head fit like it was made for him.

irchar3

The dogs running alongside are WA as well – If you do this, be careful. I have noticed the tendency is to pick it up by the dogs, and since they each have two feet on the ground, they flex alarmingly.

irchar2

The gawdawful plastic reins have been replaced with crochet cotton. The shield is painted freehand. It probably shouldn’t have a design, but people seem to expect one…

I had to enlarge the base a bit for the length of the chariot, and the width of the dogs

irchar4

The Victrix Chariot is a nice kit, but has a lot of pieces for a wargames model. It also seems a bit large, but Victrix figures are pretty big, so it fits with them. The driver is more suited to Irish or Cisalpine Gauls than Britons, but that worked out well for me.

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December 17, 2019

RENEGADE Celts

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, RENEGADE Miniatures — gisby @ 16:57

No surprise, I have a bunch of RENEGADE Celts. They are tall, hefty figures, well-detailed, and well sculpted. Their swords are a bit big, but could be worse.

The pictures are a bit overexposed, sorry.

My one and only RENEGADE chariot. Compared to my other chariots, it’s huge. The base is still OK at 40mm width, but it had to be lengthened to fit the chariot.

12 Gallic cavalry. They too tower over my other cavalry, those horses are big. They barely fit on the 20mm x 40mm bases.

3 units of 50 LMI. They are a mix of all the various packs. RENEGADE has/had 4 packs of warriors, plus slingers and archers.

To get maximum variety in the units, I took packs of slingers and archers and converted them to spearmen.

I painted and based them all, then separated them into 50-man units.

I’m left with an extra 16 figures, to be mixed in with some of my other random Celts.

There’s a 12-man LI javelin unit converted from archers…. Shields are thumb tacks, javelins are wire.

And 12 archers with no conversion.

Nice figures, and big enough to have held their own against scale creep. I like ’em. I wish RENEGADE was still in production.

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October 21, 2018

Wargames Factory Celts

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Wargames Factory — gisby @ 16:39

plachar

Although this is rather out-of-date, I love the Wargames Factory Celtic Chariots. So very much. A plastic model that makes three Celtic chariots? Just wonderful.

I’ll be honest. I don’t love the Wargames Factory Celtic infantry. The poses are sort of iffy, and they really take a fair amount of work to get them to look normal. But they beat out the competition in many ways. (NB This was before the Victrix Celts, who look quite lovely)

wfacgalli4

Their poses, iffy or not, were far better than the Warlord Celts who all seemed to be imitating Christ on the Cross. And their shields – o joy – were gems. Thin, well-shaped, and lots of them. Warlord supplied oddly-shaped targes, and nowhere enough for the figures unless they included supplemental metal shields. (Although that might have been their plan, so they could use the Celts as other types.)

wfacgalli2

At this point, I have built enough WF Celts that I know what works with what, and what arms don’t fit, etc. I also replace all weapons with hammered wire. As a result, I have come to appreciate them more than I originally did. The figure mix on my units is also different because I have a lot of chariot crew figures mixed in – I used infantry figures on the chariots for variety.

I have several other units of WF Celts, but to be honest, they all look much the same.

The pictures below are my first WF Celts. I took a 32-man box and split it in two to make different troops, just to see.

4cal1

The first unit is a group of Caledones, a group living between the Picts and Britannia. They have Pictish-styled shields and tattoos, but wear trousers. Their hair has been filled out with putty.

4cal2

The last group is Gauls or Britons. Like the troops above their hair has been filled out with putty.

4celt3

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October 6, 2016

Irregular Miniatures Celts

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Irregular Miniatures — gisby @ 17:39

irrgalla0x

These are Irregular Miniatures Celts, the three Command figures plus some of the variants of IP29 and IP30. They provide a nice 15-figure General and bodyguard unit.

. irrceltcmd

These are the Command figures (IP40 a, b, c), unmodified except for replacing the standard shaft with wire.

irrgalla01

The spearmen come with open hands for the wire spears supplied.

irrgalla02

I have heard Irregular described as ‘Old School’ wargaming figures, and I suppose they are. But Irregular was providing codes with head, equipment, and pose variations long before it became fashionable.

irrgalla03

It’s actually nice to see figures that aren’t waving their arms about pointlessly: They fit on their bases and rank up nicely.

irrgalla04

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August 2, 2015

More Random Celts

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Old Glory Miniatures — gisby @ 00:01

When I was 18, I first tried my hand at sculpting. I sculpted a naked Celt, using Sculpey clay over a wire armature. (Epoxy putty did not yet exist) He was sculpted spread-eagled, and when cast, didn’t animate well, paint up well, or look particularly good. Weapons are wire, shields are cut from plastic sheet.

In spite of all that, he didn’t look worse than a lot of the stuff that was on the market.

I wound up using him as the bodyguard to a General converted from a Lamming Viking.

The shields are decorated with waterslide decals I had made. I sold them for a while, and still find occasional sets in random boxes.

Believe it or not, where I’m from, Old Glory are almost exotic. No retailer within an 8-hour drive carried them, and for a long time the exchange rate made ordering them very expensive. These are two of the few packs of Old Glory I own.

First of all, Celtic Naked Warriors. All weapons have been replaced with wire versions. (Swords are flattened wire). Shields come separate.

The figures are pleasing, anatomy is in general good, although as always, some poses are somewhat suspect. But enough make sense that the group looks good together.

There may be a few too many helmets in the mix, but that’s just a matter of taste.

The second pack is Bare chest, no helmet. (Their clothed Celts are sorted by helmet/no helmet and bare chest/tunic so you can tailor the mix to your own taste. Command is sold separately) All the comments about the above pack apply to this pack as well.

Overall, the Old Glory Celts are good-looking sets, I wouldn’t mind having more of them.

They also have released more Celts in their Carthaginian range, with weapon hands that peg onto the wrists, and they look to be even better figures. (I’ve only seen photos)

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June 29, 2015

Some Random Celts

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Irregular Miniatures, Wargames Foundry — gisby @ 00:01

When I started Ancients Wargaming 40+ years ago, the first army I built was Ancient Britons. I was enamoured of the Chariots and wild infantry, still no doubt influenced by ‘Eagle of the Ninth’ and the Airfix Ancient Britons. Since then, I have built Gallic, Galatian, and Pictish armies, filling shelves with plaid and chariots. There were Minifigs, Hinchliffe, Lamming, Ral Partha, and everything under the sun. The units were very mixed.

In fact, the Gallic army was made in order to use up the extra figures I’d acquired when making my Britons.

I haven’t been an active Ancients gamer in over 20 years. This hasn’t stopped me from adding to my Celtic hordes, I now have several armies worth of Celts, they are just not organized into a formal army. Sometimes I just get samples, sometimes I just go nuts.

I’ll start with the samples.

Alternative Armies: These figures are from their Celtic Myth range. The infantry look very much like Old Glory both in style and size. The Warlord on shield I particularly like, in spite of the follower in a breech cloth. (All weapons have been replaced with wire. His spear is a clumsy attempt at a flamberge-style spearhead.)

fancelta alt1

I bought the Prince August 28mm Celtic moulds when they were on sale. I have yet to produce any decent figures from them. They do however sell Command sets precast. They are expensive, and a bit bigger than the figures in the moulds, but they are nice nonetheless. One-piece castings.

pacelr

Mirliton has a selection of Celts in their range, Weapons and shields are separate and quite fine, although I have replaced all the weapons.

The first three in the third picture are their nude fanatics, the rest are run-of-the-mill warrior types. There are several duplicates, as they don’t have a lot of different types.

In spite of being their webmaster for years, I never got many of Wargames Foundry‘s Celts, even though they have several beautiful ranges. I have one chariot, one infantry, and one cavalry and that’s about it.

I’m also a big fan of Irregular Miniatures, but have only a chariot from their range. (Since I made this post I have bought more. See: Irregular Miniatures Celts)

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June 15, 2015

Warrior Miniatures 25mm Celts & Gauls

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Review, Warrior Miniatures — gisby @ 00:01

Warrior Miniatures has several under-appreciated ranges useful for building or filling out 25-28mm Celtic forces. They are also economical, especially if purchased in armies.

The first is listed as 25mm ‘Celts’, and is illustrated on their Gallery Pages. All figures are open-handed, with separate spears and shields. I have replaced the cast spears with wire spears.

Detail tends to be a bit soft, but it’s there, and the anatomy is good. Shields are held in front of the body, and they aren’t waving weapons around like they’ve never seen one before. They mix well in size with other ranges listed as 28mm.

The range has three cavalry types, one in mail, two without. There is only one horse pose, but it’s not bad-looking.

I thoroughly recommend their Chariot. Mainly because I sculpted it. (Actually, they had the crew, ponies and wheels, so I sculpted the rest of the chariot. I am very pleased with how it turned out, and I encourage everyone to buy a unit or two of them.)

The range has 8 various infantry that paint up quite well. They are mostly rather sedate, but look good in units, and rank well on bases.

There is also a range of ‘Gauls,’ rather more spirited, and with a bit of a ‘Victorian illustration’ look to them. There are seven infantry poses plus a single cavalry pose.

They are a slightly smaller 25mm, but not so different that they do not mix well. They are cast with spears and shields in place, I have replaced the spears with wire spears. The cast-on spears tend to be a bit thick but aren’t hard to remove.

The horse for the mounted warrior is small, more of a pony, making him more suitable for British cavalry than Gallic .You could of course remount him on a larger horse. I like the figure very much though.

In the mixed group below, the figure with the yellow shield is from the Celts range, the rest are Gauls. There is a slight size difference, but if mixed in a unit, it would not really be noticeable.

warcelt5 ‘ warcav1

There are also a pair of Celts in their ‘Macedonian and Punic Wars’ range, similar in style to the ‘Celts’ with separate weapons and shields.

The figures are available from Warrior Miniatures

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