Looting baskets and pots

I have based up the Ancient Temple I've shared here before - I wasn't sure if I should go AC Odyssey pots and baskets and stuff but the consensus on Twitter was to do it, so I did!

Once painted I plan to add lots of flowers around the sides of the Temple - another nod to AC Odyssey!

The pots and baskets are from Crom's Anvil - and I think they look perfect!

I'm waiting on some suitably sized bases for the Forged in Battle Greek Village houses - when they do I'll be including more of the Crom's Anvil accessories to really take them up a level.  I'll share them here when they are done!

Sons of Adonis Mercenary Lochos complete!

The final (for now... those Persians are still a possible!) Lochos for 15mm Mortal Gods - the mercenary band I've called the Sons of Adonis!  As with the Athenians and Spartans these are all Museum Miniatures Z range of Classical Greek Hoplites.

First the heroes - one fella is clearly very proud of his physique:

I opted for a more detailed freehand shield on these compared to their Athenian and Spartan rivals - I looked at a range of hoplite shield designs and plumped for the trophy design as I thought it the simplest to do - I think it turned out OK for the size mini!

Next up are some bands of Hoplites - first a couple of proudly buff chaps (using the Sacred Band minis from Museum):

Next some light hoplites wearing skirts:

Finally on the hoplite front - some heavy hoplites (clearly less proud of their physique than most of the Lochos!):

Rounding out the Lochos are a couple of groups of slingers:

I opted for pink for this Lochos - it'll mark them out from the other Greeks (and I intend to use purple for any Persians so that colour wasn't an option!).  I actually think the pink pops quite well!  The basing scheme is the same as the other Lochos to place them all in the same world.

Spartan Lochos complete!

Today I'm sharing my completed Spartan Lochos for 15mm Mortal Gods - they are all from Museum Miniatures 'Z' range.

Starting with the heroes of the band:

As with the Athenians I painted a design onto the hero-level miniatures - in this case a red Lambda (not that you can see it in this pic! 😅)

Next is a couple of groups of heavy Hoplites I intend to use as Krypteia as they stand out from the other Hoplites in this force:

Speaking of the other Hoplites - here they are, three groups of '300' style dudes:

Finishing off the warband are some expendables Helots with javelins:

I've followed the same basing style as on the Athenians to tie them all into the same world.  I'm particularly pleased with how the two Lochoi contrast with each other colour-wise!

15mm Market Goods and Vases

After seeing my wife playing a lot of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I knew I needed quite a few pots and baskets and the like to add detail to the scenery collection for our games of Mortal Gods.

I looked around and found that Crom's Anvil had what looked perfect - a set of market goods and a set of vases that are printed to order.  So, of course I ordered a pack of each - and I am very happy with them!

First up the vases - the pack includes a mix of 20 vases and pots in a nice variety of styles - here's a selection to show you the look and the quality:

These will look great dressing the bases of the Forged in Battle buildings - as well as some market stalls that I'll be putting together when my brain gremlins allow!

The market wares pack includes 32 pieces - a mix of barrels, baskets and trays of produce - here's a sample of the different designs in the pack:

The baskets and trays will be very useful for Mortal Gods - the barrels won't work for the setting, but as they are useful for a lot of other periods/settings I'm happy to have some ready for a future project - they could even by kegs for 28mm!

The printing quality of both sets is perfect - I highly recommend them if you need some detail for your 15mm projects!  I can see these working across a lot of ancient settings!

Forged in Battle - Greek Village and Ancient Temple

Having got the miniatures for 15mm Mortal Gods I knew I needed some game-specific scenery pieces.  I looked around and there weren't all that many suppliers of suitable buildings in the scale - with the exception of Forged in Battle.  I ended up taking the plunge and placed an order - starting with the Greek Village set which includes 6 buildings.

First a pair of not-quite-square footprint buildings - I've taken the photo of both so you can see how the different sides of the buildings look:

Also in the set are two of the same design building, but slightly different sizes:

Finally the pack includes a smaller building and an L-shaped building:

I also ordered the Ancient Temple:

This building comes as two big resin pieces (the roof is one piece and the rest is the other), 8 metal pillars and 2 metal urns.

To give you an idea of how they'll look in games I took a pic with one of my Athenians:

I might have to put the buildings on bases to raise them up a little...

Athenian Lochos complete!

I wanted to share the first of my completed 15mm Lochos for Mortal Gods - the Athenians.  These are all from Museum Miniatures 'Z' range.

First the heroes for the band:-

I decided to mark the heroes out a bit from their comrades by giving them shield designs - in this case an Alpha character.

Next are a couple of groups of Heavy Hoplites:

And a couple of groups of Light Hoplites:

Providing the Lochos with some ranged threat are a couple of groups of Archers:

Finally there were three individual Hoplites of various 'weight' that can use up some points when needed:

I'm happy with how the Athenians have turned out - I kept to the blue and white so that they would stand out from the Spartans and Mercenaries.  I also decided to keep the heroes' shields as the only ones with decoration - partially to mark them out, but also freehand isn't a strong point and I'd rather have nice and clean than wobbly bodge-job designs. 🤷  The tufts are the ToeFunk 2mm ones (paired on the larger hero bases with the odd Tajima1 slightly larger tuft in similar colours).

The Sons of Adonis

The last Lochos (for now... still contemplating a Persian band!) is a Mercenary Band I've called the Sons of Adonis.

This used up the last of the Commander miniatures - and the nude chap with the dory gave me the idea for the band's name.

For the mercenaries I've got a mix of Hoplite styles, and have two groups of each type - first some nude dudes:

And some light Hoplites - wearing skirts at least!

Finally some heavy Hoplites (these I opted for in their 'shield wall' pose from Museum to highlight their difference to the other types in the Lochos):

Providing the Sons with some ranged firepower are some slingers (so each of three Lochoi has a different ranged unit - check me out 😉).  Again I've got two groups of these chaps:

Athens rises!

The next Lochos in the 15mm Mortal Gods project is, of course, Athens.  As with their Spartan rivals, I picked a couple of Commander miniatures to function as heroes in the Athenian warband:

In a similar way to the Spartans, I selected a couple of packs of Hoplites in different styles to provide options for the Lochos.  As it turns out, I'd opted for two types that match the helm-styles of the two heroes (nice when things work out eh?).  First the Corinithian style (the one most people think of when they think Greek helmet I suppose):

Thanks to having a spare one of these from a Mortal Gods Lochos I'm still assembling, I've been able to make three groups of these Hoplites.

The other pack I selected was the high-crested version - here's the three poses in that pack.  I've got two groups of these ones in the Lochos:

Finally I opted for a pack of Archers (without shields) to provide the ranged threat:

I've got two groups of these prepped to fight for Athens.

I do still have one more Lochos to prep - a mercenary band... watch out for those!

A new dawn for Sparta!

With my discovery of Museum Miniatures (and in particular their new 'Z' ranges) I found the perfect way to circumnavigate the horribly designed official miniatures for Mortal Gods - as well as to take it into a smaller scale making additional forces more likely (double win in my eyes!).

First up I've prepped the Spartans.

I got the Greek Commanders pack which gives a random sampling of a few officer/command type packs in the hopes I'd net enough variety to do both the Spartans and the Athenians... as luck would have it I got enough for another Lochoi besides!

Anyway - these are the two I picked for the Spartans; the Leonidas-alike and the transverse crest chap:

The only very slight issue to be aware of is the cloak on Leonidas-alike which at around thigh/knee level has a very thin gap - nothing that a little putty won't fix though.

For the backbone of the Lochoi I selected the 300 Spartans pack.  This was supposed to have 8 miniatures - but I was lucky and seem to have got a bonus dude which means I can make three full units in Mortal Gods.  Here's the three poses from the pack (these poses form the basis of the Greek Z range):

I also wanted something I could use as Krypteia - the two crest style isn't available from Museum - so I had opted for the transverse crest instead.  As this is mostly to mark them as different from the Hoplites above I think this will suffice for Mortal Gods.  Again, here's the three poses from the pack - I've made up a couple of units of these:

Finally I ordered a pack of Lt Javelin-men - as my wife will be using the Spartans as her force I asked her to pick the shield type and she went for the pelta style.  These will be Helots in this force.  Again I've made two units - here's a sample of the poses:

I'm very impressed by Museum Miniatures - the quality is superb, the details enough without being overwhelming.  The prices are great value and the service was very fast too.  I'm definitely planning on branching out into the Persians for Mortal Gods using the Z range!

Cacti and Wares

I've been on a bit of a brain-hype thing about Dracula's America again recently (got a homebrew posse in the works that I'll share when a first draft is ready!) - so had a look around for some suitable scenery bits, namely cacti!

I came across a seller on eBay - chcha_5648 who was offering a range of 3d printed items, including a selection of cacti.  I opted for a mixed pack of 8 different plants to use as scatter in games of Dracula's America.

Of course the main draw was a couple of iconic tree-like cacti - these are a little taller than the others so will give some nice height to the scatter pieces:

The pack also included a couple of columnar cacti, one being a small cluster for added variety:

Finally on the cacti front, there was a globular style cactus and an Opuntia (Prickly Pear) style one:

But the pack also included a couple of leaf succulent style plants too which really adds to the variety:

These all just need some very minor cleaning up (you can see it mostly on the succulents) but I'm very happy with them.  The print quality is good and the integral bases make it easier to get to the table.  These were just what I was looking for!

At the same time I picked up a pack of Bazaar Props - I figured these would work for games set anywhere around the Mediterranean, the Middle East or North Africa.

First up a selection of woven baskets and a tall-necked vessel:

I'm not so happy about this - the vessel's neck is broken (an easy fix) but the tall woven basket (in the front of this pic) looks half-finished and the base is very 'spooly' for want of a better word.  I'm not sure I will bother trying to salvage this particular piece.

Thankfully the others in the set are a little better - the highlight of this piece is the rolled fabric in the pot:

This piece has a rectangular basket to give increased variety:

Finally this piece has a stack of rolled fabric in addition to the usual baskets and vessels:

The grain of all these pieces is much coarser than the cacti pack - which is ok on the woven baskets, but will look rather rough on the other items.  The basing sections are all pretty bad so I'll have to try to do something with those on any I plan to try to make work.  A bit frustrating and overall I can't really recommend the Bazaar Props pack.

A mixed bag overall - but those cacti (and their leaf succulent buddies) are perfect so I'll chalk it up as a minor victory 😅