Teeny Tiny Trojan Wars : April Update

At Salute and Partizan last year, my 15/18mm game of the Battle of Degsastan was surprisingly popular. Given the love shown for small soldiering, I thought I’d go down a couple of sizes for my next game and do the Trojan War in 6mm!

These little guys have some huge advantages – low cost and easy storage/ transport being well up there – but foremost, I feel, is the ability to create massed units that look impressive and can fit on a kitchen table. I’ve already covered the first few pieces painted in my blog entry here: https://mogsymakes.net/2024/02/01/teeny-tiny-trojan-wars/

Currently, I am working on producing two opposing forces and a small layout (4 x 3′) to represent the plain of Ilium for Trojan War purposes, which I’m hoping to have ready for the Partizan show at Newark on Trent on May 19th 2024.

The start of April saw me taking all the unpainted units on holiday. Fortunately, 6mm being a much simpler paint job than my usual 28mms, I managed to get the remaining Achaeans and Trojans all painted within 7 days. Upon returning, I set to basing them all up. Each unit is on a 8 x 4cm magnetised base.

I wanted a specific mat for the game which was created from a piece of polar fleece fabric bought from eBay.

Cut to a rectangle, this was then sprayed and flocked to match my figure bases, taking a total of about two hours.

Much of the project is being based on the illustrations of Peter Connolly in his book The Legend of Odysseus (Oxford University Press, 1986).

Despite the title, the book covers the Trojan War as well as the Odyssey and is well worth finding a copy of.

A section of Troy is going to be represented using the superb Leven Miniatures models which I’m mounting on a specific city base created from plastic card and Milliput.

Also needed were a number of ‘black ships’ along the beach. After investigating various 3D printed and cast options, I decided to go old school and hand carve the ships from scraps of balsa wood.

This didn’t take too long although fudging together bows and sterns from Milliput was a more complex process! Anyway, I don’t think it;s going to matter once they’re painted.

In keeping with Connolly’s illustration of Ajax defending the ships, I modelled them with dropped masts and some stakes supporting the hulls on the beach.

Warbases’ very useful ‘pond bases’ came in handy once again – this time to make sections of Greek camp with tents (Leven Miniatures again), ships and a rough palisade (balsa wood).

The section of sea is just a piece of plasticard with a shoreline modelled on with sand. I’m currently in the process of painting the whole thing in multiple layers, then will add varnish.

That’s it for now. It’s all gradually coming together and I hope to have it ready by May! Thanks for following.