Αντίο φίλοι μου

A quick post to say farewell to my beloved Ancient Greek hoplites. This was the first ancient army I made and it was a labour of love. I really like this army but, as with many of the troops I make, they sit in a box, on a shelf and don't get onto the wargaming table often enough. They've had a few battles but the last time they were out was about 5 years back. I'd rather see them being used for what I made them for.

So now they're moving on but... I still have my other Greek army - Macedonian Successors with lots of pikes!

The majority of these figures are AB Miniatures with a few Xyston thrown in. The reason for this is because I could visit Eureka Miniatures each week at the time and pick the AB's up directly. They're lovely little figures.

Spartans on the right. Armoured Athenians in the centre and poorer, unarmoured hoplites on the left.

When I made this army I didn't know that you could buy shield decals for 15mm. So I painted all the shields by hand. Some of the early ones are a bit rough but I got better and, in my opinion, I did a few really good ones towards the end.

So goodbye my little hoplites. Go and defend your homes and families from the Persian's once again.

Macedonia v's Carthage ~ To The Strongest

One fine day in Sicily...

Two great armies stood across the plain looking at each other. The skirmishers in the front ranks advanced and the battle began.

Today I introduced my friend Pete to, To The Strongest. He had a Carthaginian army that he inherited from his son and I brought my Macedonians along to give them a good beating. To make up numbers I took my half completed Iberians to fill out the ranks of Carthago.

I played a couple of games of TtS last year so I was pretty rusty on some of the finer details. But the idea of the game was to get a basic game happening. We can iron out details and other things we got wrong in later games. Today was about getting figures on the table and getting a game going. And it was a great game!

My weak left. It was held by theurophoroi, Thacian peltasts and light cavalry.

Facing them were the Iberians who were pretty much equal in infantry but stronger in cavalry.

The early game was very much a clash of skirmishers. Javelins and arrows few as the light troops fought. Neither side gained any advantage in the initial exchanges. There were very few hits and all of them were saved. I sent my skirmishers well ahead of the phalanx, opting to keep my pikes in place and advance when the way was clear.

The first few turns were spent trying to get our light troops into range and then we set to a war of arrows and javelins. We kept record of the arrow ammunition but not the javelins. They did bugger all at first but eventually our units started falling and going 1 for 1 as our missiles hit and armour saves were failed. 

The Carthaginians deployed with their Citizen Infantry and Italian allies in the center. They put the Iberians on my left and a mix of Gauls and Numidian horse facing my right. I deployed in a classical Macedonian way with my strength on my right and my weaker troops on my left.

The first real fighting happened on my weak left. The Iberians took some high ground and their cavalry soon began to out flank me. I had advanced a bit too far and now I had to try and protect my flank. First blood went to my light horse who charged the flank of some heavy Spanish cavalry (The little red dot is what we used to mark "Disorder").

Also, we used a bag of chits for orders/activations and we each had a deck of cards for our combat/saves. I found that cards were a bit to intrusive for 15mm troops so I made these up using Photoshop.

I put out a couple of Elephants. They look great and really add flavour to the game but they're are a pain in the arse. They broke a couple of light units but I was too afraid to get up close behind them in case they rampaged through my phalanx. Both ended up running amok but they did very little disruption. I'd definitely use them again, but maybe off to one side and not right in front of my best troops.

I eventually decided the time was near for some bold action and my king advanced the heavy Macedonian cavalry and charged in to a large unit of Gallic heavy cavalry (see above). For a few turns the battle kept on going with neither side gaining the upper hand. My smaller unit of cavalry was pushed back by a warband and got flanked by Numidian cavalry who entered some woods on my right (we weren't sure what to do here but we'll work that out for later games).

However, in the very first charge the Carthaginian general was killed (I think his name was Handlebar Barker). This put a dent in the Punic plans.

As the fight on my left continued my light cavalry were progressively defeated because I was stupid and used them to charge instead of using their missiles. As you can see I was getting well and truely out flanked. The only ray of light was that General Pete was concentrating on out flanking me and neglecting the mass of Iberian foot who just sat an watched for several turns.

Eventually the skirmishing ended and the pikes got stuck in. There was plenty of push and shove for a couple of turns but eventually my pikes began to win and broke through the center in several places. The Carthaginians were almost broken but by this time the Spanish infantry were getting stuck in and I was loosing badly on that flank.

My king charged his companions once, twice, three times into the Gaulic cavalry. They were a deep unit like my own and they were on the verge of collapse but I just couldn't break them. The Numidians in the woods had managed to Disrupt my second unit of heavy cavalry and I couldn't rally them.

The Spanish dished out more punishment on my left but I was still hanging on by the skin of my teeth. The Numidians hurled more javelins in the flank of my cavalry but they held on. A second round of Numidian darts flew from the woods and my proud heavy Macedonian cavalry broke and so did my army.

A great cheer went up! (Literally - We had a few onlookers by the end of the game and the final couple of turns were on a knifes edge.) Just like at Waterloo 2000 years later: La Garde recule! Sauve qui peut! And the rest of the army faltered and broke.

This game was an absolute blast. We certainly got a lot of things wrong and missed many of the finer points. A reread of the rules will reveal plenty of mistakes but we got the basics down pretty quickly and we had a fantastic game that came down to the wire. The armies were big, there was plenty of colour, we both won and lost and buggered things up and it was great.

Flipping over the cards for the combat is great. It gives the game a real gritty feel. Not like rolling dice at all. Flipping a high card and slappin' it down felt great (especially towards the end). 

I'm really looking forward to a re-match. Thanks very much to Pete and Robin who cheers us both on to victory (unfortunately I didn't get there. Bugger!) 

Did You Say You Want More Iberians?

I got a few more of my Ancient Iberians done during the week. These figures are taking me a bit longer than normal because of the shields. Choosing to do them by hand is really slowing me down and making the job of painting them a bit of a chore. I don't usually put a lot of detail in 15mm, I just do enough to make them look good en mass. I wish I had opted to go for decals but... In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm painting them and that's that!

I wasn't sure about the shields on these guys. I wasn't too keen on the cavalry using the scutum (large shield) as it seemed a bit off and I thought they'd be better with the lighter (caetra) shields. Unfortunately, there is very little information available online so I went back to my, somewhat vague, Osprey book.  Reading through that tome of wisdom once again, I read a passage where it stated that the caetra was the most popular shield for all cavalry. So, in my newly enlightened state, I decided to go 50/50 on the shields.

Once again, I decided to base them on 80x40mm bases. I'm not sure if this is a good move or not. I do like the look of them and I also like that they are less fiddly when handling them. But I don't know... Maybe I'm just stuck in the DBA/M mind set. I want them to be versatile for any set of rules and the DB[insert relative initial] style still seems the most prevalent way of basing ancients.

This is a commander. He's from the Iberian Nobles pack. The Standard Bearer set comes with standard bearers (shock!) but no actual standards. To get them I need to put in another order and wait for them to arrive from Scotland. I decided that a bit of greenstuff and some carefully selected swear words were the quicker option.

Because I'm basing the infantry 11 to a base I have left over figures. These come in handy. In To The Strongest you can attach Champions or Heroes (I can't remember what they're called) to some units. They give a unit a one off bonus. Off the top of my head I recall that you can use the champion to re-flip a card to give the unit a combat bonus or to get them motivated and moving. They might also do other things that I can't remember. In any games, I prefer to use single figures instead of tokens where I can. So here you go. A couple of Iberian champions.

So they're slowly coming along. I've doubled my cavalry and next I think I need to make a bit more infantry. We'll see what happens (no doubt I'll get distracted).

It's Time For a Holiday In Iberia

 As implied and mentioned in previous posts, I'm back to painting my Ancient Spanish ~ Iberians to be exact. If you're anything like me, I get excited about a new project. I do a bunch of research and I look up the various figures available. I look at rules and army lists and work out what I want. Then I place an order and I wait for the figures to arrive and then I go on a painting blitz and try to get the whole lot painted and ready for the table.

This is what I've finished up to date:

However, this time around my regular method got stymied by The Plague and my order got stuck in customs and ended up taking over three months to arrive, by which time my enthusiasm waned and wandered off into other directions. Unfortunately this meant that I've been slow to paint this army.

But I started getting back into them and this is what I've recently finished:

Light Cavalry: I intend to make at least another two stands of these if not another four. I think light horse should make up the bulk of the cavalry. It seems right.

Noble Scutarii: Just one stand of these. They are the cream of the infantry and could really be considered the general's bodyguard. I have a few of these figures left over and these will be mounted on single bases so I can use them as "Heroes" or markers, etc...

Balearic Slingers: Just one stand of these for the time being. I could add another stand, I suppose. I have a few left over & I think I have a few standard Hellenic slinger figures sitting in a box that could help make up a base.

I've now have enough of these chaps done to call them an allied contingent for whoever needs them but I have enough figures still waiting to make an entire army. The shields are a pain in the arse to paint and they slow me down considerably. I wish I'd decided on decals but it's too late for that now.

Also...

Just to show that I haven't entirely moved away from fantasy: Here's a giant bug.

I've had this for a while and if I recall correctly it's from Khurasan Miniatures from their 15mm Sci-Fi range. The body is a single piece of resin & the legs and lower mandible of the jaw are metal. For a 15mm creature it still measures up as a pretty formidable foe for a 28mm Barbarian. Although from the angle below, it looks a bit more like a crab than a bug.

More Iberians ~ Alternative Basing

I've painted up a few more Iberians during the week. After doing the initial batch of scutarii I found I wasn't happy with the basing. They looked far too neat and tidy with three to a base in nice neat ranks. As tribal warriors, I felt that they needed to look a bit less regimented. 

After asking some questions on forums and deciding what rules I would be using them with, I decided to put them onto IMPETVS style bases (80 x 40mm) single bases. I did the same with the new figures I painted too.

I prefer this basing. I think it looks better and it will make moving individual units easier too. I expect to be playing To The Strongest and Sword & Spear with them and both sets of rules work well with 4xDBA base size as a standard unit. I will never play DBA/M so it's really quite pointless for me to base my units in such a manner.

I like them and I now have the nucleus of an army done. Next up, I think I'll paint some cavalry before getting back to more infantry.  

Scutarii - Another benefit is that I've only put 11 figures on the base which saves me a painting a few extra figures and makes them look a bit irregular.

Caestrati ~ (light infantry) I only used 6 figures instead of 8 which means I will probably be able to make an extra 2 units with the figures I've purchased. Another bonus is that I can paint a 6 figure unit quicker than an 8 figure unit.

And here is all that I've done so far, including a command base.

It's an Iberian Thing

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.

So in the end, versatility won the day. I bought enough in one order to make a pretty decent sized army with plenty of infantry, skirmishers, heavy and light infantry as well as command.

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.

Ancient Quickie

I painted up some more ancients during the week. This time it's some light infantry because I think, after some games, that I need some more. Another reason is to get them out of the lead pile where they've been sitting for some time.

First up: I finished up some Italiote javelinmen from Xyston. I've painted some of these before and they're pretty easy. Painting the shield designs is fun. I think I have a few more and I'd quite like to get a fourth unit for the table to go with the four units of spears that I've finished.

These ones are Hellenic peltasts from Forged in battle. These are the first FiB infantry that I've painted and they're not bad. They're very easy to prep with minimal mould lines and the fact that spears and shields are part of the mould makes life even easier. 

The FiB figures are a little smaller than my Xyston Successors but they'll be in separate units so there should be no problem. However, I could also use them with my Ancient Greeks and that may be a bit of a problem. My Greeks are AB Figures which are 18mm and the size difference is pretty noticeable. To add to that, the AB Greek peltasts that I've had for years are almost 20mm and they look big next to the AB hoplites. Next to these guys they look like giants. Maybe the the old figures will have to go.

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P.S. This is the first post I've done using the New and Improved Blogger format and I don't like it very much. It seems to give me much less control about how I want the formatting of the post to appear and how I can post images. It also seems that all of my labels have vanished too.

I'm not very happy with this change. I wonder if I can move this blog to another platform?

Mama Mia, I've Got Socii!

After a bit of ancients wargaming, I decided to get some of my 15mm lead pile painted up. What I'm really lacking is cavalry, so that's where I started. I finished painting the Roman Equites that have been sitting on my desk, half painted and looking at me with their big brown eyes... They looked unloved and forgotten so I gave them some love. I should get some more but I don't think I will.

Then I finished off the horrible Xyston Tarentine cavalry. I finished what I had and I have vowed to never buy any more of them! They look okay once painted but they are crappy figures. One of the horses needed some sculpting done on its legs to get it up to scratch, and another was so badly cast that it couldn't be saved and I replaced it with a spare Macedonian Companion horse that I had in a box. One of the riders needed to have a new foot sculpted. I really don't like these figures at all!

And now for the Socii you've all been waiting for...

Next came some Italian heavy cavalry. These figures are from Forged in Battle. I've had a few packs of FiB figures for a while but these are the first ones I've painted. I'm pretty happy with them. They are a tiny bit smaller that Xyston but, they're not in the same unit so they'll look okay. They add a nice dash of colour and variety to the Roman's and can also be used to fight against the Romans. The only thing I don't like about them is that there is only a single horse pose. Other than that, they're easy to prepare, nice to paint,and they look pretty good.

I had a look through this blog before posting these new figures because I wasn't sure what I'd painted and posted before. My last efforts for painting ancients got sidetracked into doing my 6mm Siege of Rhodes back in December 2018. Nothing unusual for me, but it does make me lose track of what I've previously done.

Anyhow, the Italian cavalry above, is intended to go with my other ancient Italian infantry. These troops make up my Socii.  And a beautiful bunch Socii they are. I discovered that I'd never posted the finished project. I'd posted the light javelinmen and a few of the spearmen but not the finished result. So, here they are: better late than never:

I have more of these to do and I will do them in the future (about enough for another half a dozen stands). But I currently have 4 units of spearmen and 4 units of light infantry javelins. That's enough for the moment. They are colourful and they look really nice so I'm pretty happy with them.

Something I don't understand is why most wargamers make the ancient world look dark and dull. I blame the movie 300.