I bought myself a birthday present (from my wife). I ordered it in August so that it would have plenty of time to get to me by early October because it had to travel from Xyston Miniatures in Scotland all the way to Melbourne in Australia. I hadn’t realized the extent of just how awful our Autralian Post had become. Couple that with my suspicion that the UK Mail sent it by sea (apparently COVID 19 affects arimail) and it didn’t arrive. 

Until Now!

On Saturday, we came home from a shopping trip and there, sitting on the door step, was a package that looked suspiciously like the same packaging used by Xyston Miniatures. Oh Lordy! My birthday present had arrived – a month late and three months in the mail – But there it was!

So what was this bountiful cornucopia that arrived on my doorstep? It’s a bunch of ancient Spanish ~ Iberians to be exact. I took time to decide on my next ancient army and settled on Iberians because they fought for and against just about everyone for a few hundred years. Against Rome they fought with Hannibal, by themselves or along with other Spanish peoples. They fought with Sertorius, they fought in the earlier Sicilian wars, they fought everywhere. And they were good.

I got to painting them straight away and since Saturday I’ve managed to paint up 8 bases of scucatri (their basic medium infantry). The first few bases were a bit difficult because I wasn’t sure what to do with the shields. In the end I looked up some pictures and pretty much just did what I want. They’re nothing special but they look okay.

They’ll look nice and colourful on the table when I get the lot done. They’re 15mm so I can paint them pretty fast and expect I’ll have the army finished by the end of the year. I’m looking forward to painting the cavalry but I want to get some light infantry done first.