"Fire in the East" is drawing to a close. Apart from another unit - Roman auxilia - I am finished with my plan for 2,500 point armies. I may add another unit or two to each side - more cavalry for the Sassanids and some camels for the Romans. I do need, fairly desperately, to make or acquire some desert terrain in order to be able to play some games with them.
But I am thinking hard about what next.
Crusades would be possible, but somehow, I'm just not happy with what I did before. The Saracens are okay, but something about the Crusaders I did just doesn't feel right, & consequently, I am not inspired to carry on - at least, not until someone does a 'pukka' range of 3rd Crusade figures, and I really can't think why no-one ever has!
'El Cid' is a possibility. The eponymous supplement for WAB has always been a favourite, and I have a few models (from Artizan and Crusader) sitting in a box in my lead mountain. They'd be fairly easy to paint and dip. I doubt if they'd turn out as nice as these ones painted by Brian Phillips, but if they were even half as nice, I'd be happy.
Keith from Aventine Miniatures has offered me a few samples from their forthcoming Velites, to see if I fancy doing Republican Romans. If I do that, I won't be doing the 2nd Punic War, Hannibal and all that, but a somewhat earlier army, and the opposition will be Pyrrhus and his Epirotes. I'm quite looking forward to receiving, and painting, the samples.
Or there's late Romans - I've often fancied a Late Roman (or Arthurian?) army - but what to pit against them? I don't really fancy painting another 'warband' army so soon after all those ancient Britons!
Or I could return to 20mm WW2. Or Lord of the Rings. Or the Peninsular War. Or more Napoleonic naval. Or go back 20 years (or 3,000?) into my wargaming past and do 'Biblicals' again.
Oh dear me, I'm not very decisive am I?
Yesterday evening, Hicksy sent me a couple of photos of the work-in-progress new shields I commissioned him to sculpt for my Sassanid infantry - based on recently published archaeological research. They're looking good. Once they're finished, and we get through the master casting process, I may well offer some castings for sale - not least to try to recoup some of the cost of sculpting and production.
I'm currently painting the 'last' unit of Roman auxilia. They're going to be a fairly colourful bunch - a Roman officer commanding locally recruited troops. The shields will be mainly yellow - using MIR(A&A)18 transfers from Little Big Men Studios - Link.