Hello there! After possibly the longest hiatus in my gaming life, I seem to be back. And back, perhaps unsurprisingly, to Romans again. There really is nothing to compare with Romans, as far as I'm concerned.
On my workbench at the moment, are the 3rd century 'Syrian' townhouses I was working on back in early December last year. I've finished (I think!) detailing them, and have been painting them. The doors (which I shall add once the painting is done) are finished, and I have got the base-coat on the buildings themselves. Waiting for the base-coat to dry properly, and then I'll get on with dry-brushing.
I'm also thinking hard about ancient siege rules. I'm coming back to the idea of using Warhammer Ancient Battles, and its 'Siege and Conquest' supplement. I might not end up using that, 'unadulterated', but I think it will probably have a strong influence on my game. One thing which works particularly well about WAB (and which, in my opinion, makes it less than satisfactory as a 'battle' rule-set), is the way it can switch, effortlessly, between being a game with groups of figures and a pure skirmish between individuals - that is probably key to writing rules the sort of siege game I want to play.
I've been doing a lot of reading about sieges in ancient times - particularly Jerusalem, Hatra, and Dura Europos. Ancient authors don't have an awful lot to say about sieges, but modern archaeology fills in a lot of the detail.
4Ground seem to be making some spectacular 28mm Old West buildings, to suit Great Escape Games' Dead Man's Hand rules - Great Escape are also making some nice sets of figures. I need to find out just how large or small they are compared to those made by others… And then my 'Old West' project might be on again.