Preparing the the Siege ~ pt6

Preparations of the Siege of Rhodes continues at apace.

This week I've been getting more troops ready. Some rebasing needed to be done in a couple of places but, in general, it was a pretty painless exersize.

The Antigonids' are looking better off at the moment with a big influx of theurophori and peltasts. They do have the larger army so it's only expected that I need to make a lot more of them. The Rhodians, on the other hand have grown at a slower rate. The main re-basing that I did was on their javelin infantry. I decided that I should reduce the number of figures on the single unit I had already completed and by painting a few more I managed to turn one unit + a few, into three light infantry units. Again, the Rhodian units are split into two bases to allow them to be placed onto the city walls.

For Rhodes:

Three units of javelins.

 Elite Missile Troops - Cretan Archers & Rhodian Slingers

 A General and some marines for harbour defence.

For the Antigonids:

Four units of light infantry ~ Peltasts.

 Theurophori have doubled their numbers to 6 units.

These are mines covered by a penthouse. The idea is to work out some sort of rule to allow the use of mines as well as counter mining measures. I have a basic idea but I have to make sure the rules are uncomplicated, play quickly, and sneaky.

 Two more battering rams.

And last, but certainly not least... The man of the moment Demetrius Poliorketes - The Besieger himself. Also the full contingent of Hyspaspists/Silver Shields. There's not many of them but they are elite heavy infantry and should make quite an impact when committed to battle.

I also finished a couple more units of archers for Demetrius and more scaling ladders. But I didn't take any photos so they're not here.

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One thing I am having trouble finding is the names of the other generals fighting with Demetrius. I've found one ~ Alcimus ~ who lead the incursion into the city after the walls were breached anddied there. As for the Rhodian commanders, I'm going to use the names of those mentioned in L. Sprauge De Camp's novel: The Bronze God of Rhodes (whether they are real persons of not!).

Quick Edit: 

Another unit of Rhodian Marines (just finished).

Preparing for the Siege pt5

I've been making little boxes. Little boxes made of ticky-tack...

Well I've been making tiny houses to fill the void that is Rhodes. I think I'd made about 45 (I don't really know). It looked like an impressive amount sitting on the bench. I've used a mix of my own basic designs, and some of the Roman Sea print buildings. I wasn't sure if they'd look right but the do. So I decided to set up the city again and see what I had.

As it was... Not nearly enough:

So I started making more - mainly little ones from the Little Wars TV Ancient City pdf - but I did make a few medium/larger ones too. I now have about 60 buildings. These filled out the town a bit more,  but I'll need still more.

I was lucky enought to be the benefactor of a sad occurence. My wargaming friend Jim Lawrence passed away a few weeks back and last week at our club a whole bunch of his wargaming kit was put out for members to take what they wanted. I was lucky enough to gain some 6mm latex fields and roads. And they fit perfectly. Vale Jim, and thank you.

I also layed out some hills for the acropolis and the theater. These are main objectives for the game (the theater being the historical high point of the attacker's incursions). I think I need to find a better building to represent the theater. I also need to make the outskirts of Demetrius' camp.

So far it's looking good and I'll keep on making those little boxes.

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As shown in my previous post, I've been painting troops so I decided to take the opportunity to put them out and man the walls just to see how they looked. I didn't think I had many troops as yet but I was dismayed to see that I had next to bugger-all. A pitiful few. I really need to step up the painting.

But they looked good on the terrain.

 The siege tower looks like a giant wooden Dalek.

Some Troops for the Siege

After getting the walls together for the city of Rhodes I started work on the city buildings. I chose to use the card/print buildings from Roman Seas and I got quite a few done. Unfortunately, I ran out of card to print on and I've had trouble sourcing the right sort of card to continue for the time being.

So I decided to start painting some troops. I did previously paint up some Irregular Miniatures to test my 6mm painting skills and then moved on to some Rapier Miniatures. But I also received my first order from Baccus. So I have plenty to get working on at the moment.

I'll most likely ditch most of the Irregular figures because the scale is out of whack with Rapier and Baccus.

I haven't painted too many of them as yet and I'm going to need an awful lot more but this is what I've done so far:

For Rhodes I have some archers and javelinmen. Rhodes will have a lot of light infantry manning the walls with their heavy infantry initially remaining in reserve pending any breakthrough. You'll note that I've mounted the Rhodians on 40x20mm bases. This is so that the base can be split to mount them on the walls. The rules will be that only 1 unit can defend a wall section and only 1 single unit may attack a section of wall (with supports though).

 Some light engine batteries for placement either on the walls on in the towers.

 And a unit of Ptolemy's veteran reinforcements. There will be a total of 3 or 4 units of these troops.

For Demetrius:
Some archers/skirmishers. These figures are Rapier on the left and Irregular on the right. You can easily see the size disparity.

Theurophori - Medium troops armed with spear and javelin. I have enough to make another 3 units at this stage. Baccus

Mercinary hoplites and some phalangites armed with spears (pikes not being the best weapon for storming a walled city). Baccus on the left / Rapier on the right.

Hyspaspists - (aka: Silver Shields). The elite troops of the Antigonid forces. There will only be two units of these troops on the table. Rapier with Baccus command.

Rhodes will also have mercinary hoplites, marines & citizen militia as well as Rhodian Slingers and both sides will have a couple of units of Cretan archers.

From a previous post I've also prepared some of Demetrius's siege engines.

Preparing for the Siege ~ pt 4

I'm on a roll so I'm taking advantage of it.

I had the afternoon off so I set up the table and mat again and got to flocking it. First I gave it two coats of dry brushing: a pale green acrylic followed by a sand coloured acrylic. I then found a large (mostly full) can of lacquer sitting forgotten on a shelf and I started to spray and throw some of my vast quantity of home-made flock on it. Then more spray and more flock and more spray...

Eventually I was satisfied. So I let it dry.

Then I decided to see how it looked with the sea mat underneath.

And I saw that it was good.

So I then put the walls up again to try and work a better configuration.

You can see some of the detail of the walls here.

 This bottom corner was still giving me trouble and after trying various configurations I decided to make a couple of "special" pieces that angled back a bit more acutely than the other pieces.

This solution worked.

I then added some basic hills to represent the high ground. I might make some bespoke pieces for these areas. The high ground is where the acropolis stands so there are a couple of temples and the stadium. These are important areas and this is where a main part of the fighting took place when Demitrious's troops broke into the city. So this area will be one of the major objectives for the game.

(P.S.~ The Rhodians ejected them with much slaughter).

I also put some ships in the port because I've been wondering if they will look in-scale in context with the city. I think they look okay. Like the ground forces, they really represent counters that, in turn, are representing actual units.

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Next, I have to make the town.

Preparing for the Siege ~ pt 3

Part 3 of my work on my 6mm Siege of Rhodes 305 BC.

I've made a bunch of walls and towers for the city and I've pretty much got the plan down but I'm still not 100% happy with the southern wall. But today's effort was really about getting the northern sea wall down so that I could cut out the shoreline.

I did a lot of thinking about how to make the mat and decided on a large piece of green marine mat that I've had for a long, long time. It was originally the covering of a gaming table that I made back in 2004. It was covered with lots of horrible marks from years of previous projects and it eventually became unstuck. So what you see is the pristine underside.

The walls and towers are all made from printed card. I made the designs from scratch using Photoshop and put them into pdf's for printing. I think there's about 60 pieces all up. They're easy to make, lightweight and pretty sturdy (for what they are. I did play with the idea of other methods and mediums but the sheer amount and variety of pieces made that impractical.

I also made the sea walls for the military harbour today. Designing them took about an hour and assembly took about another hour. So it was a pretty productive and easy process. In the pics you can see another thing sticking out of the shore. This is the Mole and will have a slightly larger fortified wall and tower (this part was constructed for defence prior to the siege and it became one of the major areas of contention.

The South Gatehouse.

The military harbour.

 The Harbour Gatehouse.

I'm not sure how I'll do the harbour itself. I want it to look paved but I also need it to be able to roll up for storage and transport.. This is a bit of a dilemma at present.

As for the sea, I'll be placing this big green piece on top of my crushed velvet sea mat.

Another problem I have is trying to remember how the whole bloody thing goes together. The pic below is how I set it out yesterday and I much prefer the way I set out the south west corner as compared to today. It's packed up now (so I can get my car back into the garage) but I'll set it up again tomorrow to see where I can improve it.

One thing I did differently today was to shift everything down the table (south) to give a bit more room for the naval action. And now I've cut it out so that's that!

And for those who might be interested, here are some images of the pdfs. I made for the city defences. There are about 10 or so different designs with various lengths and angles and so on. If you want them leave me a message and see about I'll sending them to you. I might eventually put them all together. annotate them and sell them as a set. Who knows?