15mm Fantasy Circus Maximus chariot race - updated 1/29/15

[pacarat]

Hey all...

Here's some WIP shots of some chariot teams and crews I'm working on. These will be used in a fantasy version of Circus Maximus I'll be running at local cons and LGS  - plan is to have these done by February for Genghis Con...

Dark elves with raptors


Should have most of the major fantasy races represented:

Humans (Araby, Amazons, Rangers/Woodsmen, Brets/Knights)
Elves (Wood, High, Dark)
Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Ratlings, Bugbears
Undead (Vampires, Skeletons, Zombies)
Hobbits/Halflings, Horus, Fauns/Centaurs


Teams -  I've tried to "match" crew races with suitable team species/types.
I'll have the expected horses and camels, plus some others that are all over the place:
Skeleton horses and wolves, zombie horses,
Wingless Griffons, Elk, Giant Weasels, Giant Wolfhounds, Dire Wolves, Wargs,
Giant Boars, Bears (Polar and Griz), Raptors, Unicorns, Wooly Rhinos, Saber Tooth Cats,
and yes even Ostriches...

Scale - 15mm
Figures - Teams are mostly Splintered Light Miniatures. Crews are SLM and Iron Wind Metals. Some other makes here and there (Essex, Chariot, T&R, and a couple others I cant remember off hand).  Chariots will be a combination of SLM fantasy carts, some ancient / chariot age carts, and some that I am scratch building.

I have crafted the harness for all teams except the SLM wingless griffons, using either GS or very thin lead foil from wine bottles.

Biggest challenge to this effort was finding figures suitable for all the races - both the crews and teams.  My initial thought was I'd be lucky to field 8-10 teams, and a bug chunk of those of human type. Fortunately I ran in to the SLM booth at Historicon this past summer. Jackpot!

SLM has a great variety, with really great sculpts and poses. I picked up a bunch of packs at Historicon, and the owner was willing to do a special order for select foot figures to man the carts, and some extra animals to fill out the teams. I was also able to pick up some single figs from IWM's booth there. The ratling teams are 25mm scale "giant rats" but they work perfectly at 15mm.

So my initial field has grown from about 10 teams to over 25....yep, crazy.  Don't think I'd have them all on the board at once  - but I can have a good variety of heavy, medium and light chariots, and some interesting racial and animal features that will allow lots of choices to the players, and hopefully make game more interesting.

Rules - Plan to use a lightly modified version of the the board game's rules. Will have special rules and characteristics set up for the races/species, both crew and team.

Still to do:

- odds and ends of touch ups and harness work (want fairly unique color schemes for each team)
- chariot cars - assembly and painting.
- reins, weapons, lashes for the crews
- crews for the teams shown in last pic
- a few more human teams and a faun/centaur team
- the track - I have a large piece of fabric in a sand color that has a nice texture to it. Will draw the squares using permanent marker.
- maybe a center piece for the  interior oval of the track - this will need to be light weight and portable, and low in height so as to not block sight across the table.


Will post additional pics as progress warrants...


  

[Doomsdave]

Wow.  Great idea and nice looking figures.  I will be watching. 

[YPU]

This is a great idea, one of this inspirational flares where you can list a whole bunch of team/crew combinations that would be interesting but never get round to actually buying them all. Not you tough. Good to hear the guys from SLM were helpful as they indeed have just the things for such a game.
I will be watching this with interest. Not familiar with the board game curcus maximus, I mean I went to the actual place once but there were a lot of Romans watching football on a big screen, no chariots at all.

[dijit]

Great looking project, it'll be a sight to see and play!

[DeafNala]

What a cool idea! It sounds like an exciting game & the minis are BEAUTIFUL. I can hardly wait for the  race reports.

[pacarat]

Thanks all.  

I've played the AH board game many many times, and this past April i played a fantasy version at a local game club. Although lots of fun (the game used fantasy races with special rules) the minis were typical ancient/biblical (human/horse) chariots, so visually lacked any indication of a fantasy world.

So, light goes on ( I am always interested in something fun/easy to run at club or cons) and I'm thinking it would be cool to have a huge mix of WYSIWYG drivers and teams.

Figured there had to be some kind of 15mm fantasy based chariots out there somewheres.  Worst case I could use standard ancient chariots with horses, and use fantasy figs as drivers to capture the look I wanted. (And unfortunately I sold off a bunch of odds and ends 15mm fantasy figs a couple years ago, which I could have used as crew.)

Running across Splintered Light really opened up the opportunities, as they have such a huge variety of animals. Was hesitant to order off the net base on solely on pics, so seeing their booth at Historicon was perfect.

Getting the special Order set up with David at SLM allowed me to cherry pick figs that would be suitable for chariot drivers and drew.

Here are some closeups of the teams:


Bugbears with wargs


Ratings with giant rats


Goblins with giant boars


Orcs and wargs


Sons of Horus with griffons



Vampires with dire wolves



Undead with skeleton wolves



Zombies


Skellies



Hobbitses



Woodsmen/rangers  with giant weasels



High Elves with unicorns



Elves with big cats



Wood Elves with big cats


Araby



Dwarves with polar bears. Will have second team of dwarves with grizzlies.

[pacarat]

Weird ... Double post glitch.

[pacarat]

Ok, here's the scrap pile that will someday be a couple dozen chariots.

I'll be using "stock" historical chariots from a variety of mfgrs, some fantasy models from SLM, and some custom jobs built from craft jewelry bitz, 25mm pieces/parts, electronics pins, thread, spit, bailing wire, etc., etc., etc.


Bonus points for anyone who can identify the the grey plastic bits that I made into a chariot basket on lower right of the 9 shown in center, and on the left, still on the sprue. :-)

[LordOdo]

Looks very promising! I really like the idea, might borrow it (one day, I hope, when I have time.. )

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Bonus points for anyone who can identify the the grey plastic bits that I made into a chariot basket on lower right of the 9 shown in center, and on the left, still on the sprue. :-)

That one on the left looks like vampire bat wings or similar

[pacarat]

That one on the left looks like vampire bat wings or similar

Definitely some kind of 25mm scale evil wings - no clue as to origin. Scrounged from a bits box I got from a fellow gamer a few years back.

Update: I just spent the past hour sorting through teams and assigning potential chariot carriages/bodies.

Will eventually have 25 teams. Roughly half will have scratch built carriages, rest will be stock or slightly modified. I have to balance uniqueness with modeling time...and try not to get carried away in the scratch building department.

[OSHIROmodels]

Looking forward to seeing the arena 

I think the grey on the sprues is from something GW orky?

cheers

James

[pacarat]

Looking forward to seeing the arena 

I think the grey on the sprues is from something GW orky?

cheers

James

Not GW,  not SciFi or fantasy ...

[OSHIROmodels]

Aha! The front parts from a Churchills track protection?

cheers

James

[pacarat]

Aha! The front parts from a Churchills track protection?

cheers

James

To quote Don Rickles..."very good, you win a cookie!" 

Parts were scrounged from my son's 1/72 scale Churchill sprues.