Mojo returning?

 Well it's been a wee while but I am back into some sort of groove, most of my hobby time has been basing some SYW stuff that I have got from TJ, these are non Minden figures a mixture of Black Hussar, Foundry and some Front Rank French and British, most have been based but some needed finishing off so that has taken most of what little free time I have had, but that has now changed!

I finished work on Friday for a break of nine days free from the grind and with the gardening all but done of the year I really should get some painting done and indeed I have!

I needed something to reignite my painting funk and fancied getting away from the late 17th, 18th or 19th centuries that are my usual, so what did I go for?  Well sorting out some books for putting on my wargame library shelfs I found a copy of the first DBA rule set, now I haven;t dabbled with DBA since far too many years to even try to remember so thought that this may be the little project needed to get me back into some serious hobby time.

First purchase was a gaming mat, 2 x 2 grassy fields for playing it on, decent deal of ebay, paid and duly arrived, happy with it, so that's one thing ticked off the list. Now I haven't thought about DBA or figures for playing the game so after looking about a bit online I decided I wanted an old school vibe for this project and after a bit of browsing I went for Toy Soldier's ready assembled DBA packs, these range in price from £19 to £42 depending on whatever army and how exotic it is. They are seriously old style 15mm figures, chunky and look the part for me, so I picked 4 armies to get me going, Numidian, Hoplite, Macedonian and Successor, order placed and within the week package delivered, super service from TS and really happy with the packs.

First day of my break so out with my painting table and out with the DBA packs, now I haven't painted anything in 15mm in donkeys years and was a bit worried after years of dedicated 28mm figures but these little guys are quite chunky and actually rather easier to paint than I had thought, first on the table were the Numidians, I thought these might be the easiest, tunics, basic equipment and right enough they were a good choice, so for a couple of hours I managed to paint the first elements of this army, a couple of light infantry stands of 4 figures each, light armed figures with javelins and small shield, very little flash and once primed they painted up very easily and are pretty much done other than some highlighting, vanishing and basing, tomorrows job!

To finish off, this has been something different for me and has recharged the creative batteries, hopefully pictures to follow once they are done. On anther ancient topic, reading the excellent Palouse Wargaming Journal blog, I really enjoyed seeing Jon's biblical projects, some great work, it made me go and purchase a Hittite and an Egyptian army packs from Newline Designs for a future retirement project, thanks for the inspiration Jon, I think!!!

Well until next time folks....