Old Glory Paionian Cavalry

Well, my first unit of the year is finished: 16 Old Glory Paionian cavalry in 15mm.  They have been given a very basic paint job, and so are nothing much to write home about except that they break what has been a pretty long painting drought.

According to Duncan Head in "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars", the Paionians fought for Alexander, and under Lysimachus and the later Antigonids Paionia itself was incorporated into Macedon. 

The horses were done in batches several years ago, and the riders given a white undercoat and straight flesh wash that was inspired by Simon MacDowall's method as demonstrated on his Legio blog.  He gets very good results, but I think for my style (characterised by a general laziness and desire to paint as few steps as possible!) I'll probably in future stick with my standard dark brown wash over a gray undercoat.

As usual with Old Glory cavalry there are two reasonably lively rider poses, but because of the large horse batch I did a few years ago I was able to mix horse from different packs across units, which gives, I think, a pleasing variation.

The tunics were, as mentioned, straight flesh wash over a white undercoat, and I then splashed on variously Tamiya Buff, Mr. Hobby Sail Color, Mr, Hobby Off-White, and Turner White.

Just quietly, my camera lens might need a bit of a clean...

So there we have it.  They've had their two washes of Future/Klear for toughness and all that's left to do is apply a spray of matt varnish and flock the bases.

I might just have to do a Successor battle to see how they perform on the table!

Where it all began - a trip down WFB lane

While in New Zealand recently I got a surprise message from an old sparring partner, Barrie.  He and his brother Greg introduced me to 'official' wargaming via Warhammer Fantasy Battle in the very early '90s.

We had some great games, and I often find myself reminiscing fondly of those times playing on a ping pong table with books for hills, the odd unpainted regiment, and one rule book shared amongst the three of us.

So when Barrie messaged me through Facebook asking if I'd like a game while I was in town I jumped at the chance.

I went round to his place on the Wednesday night and he had set up his table and brought out Orc and Empire armies.  I hadn't seen Barrie in 20 years, so we were naturally distracted by catching up as much as I was by seeing some of the same figures we used to game with all those years ago.

I took the Orcs because it sounded like the Empire army required spell casting and what not, which was never my favourite part of WFB.  The rules have changed since the edition we played with back then, and I was sorry to see that the old no-measuring rule which required you to estimate charge and war engine fire ranges by eye has gone by the wayside.

This disappointment was largely due to range estimation being a part of the game I was good at!

We used the recent rules for setting up the table, and by the end there were masses of terrain.  I decided to concentrate on a narrow front, with war engines in the centre to try and break up the enemy horse as they came in.  My main strike force of chariots was on the right, and I hoped that they'd be able to give as good as they got.

I kept trolls and a chariot to guard my left flank, and another chariot and the unit of Black Orcs in reserve.*

My right flank.

The Empire line was just a giant whack of horsemen, with some light types that scooted around my left flank and started the game in a very nice spot.  They also had some kind of magical war machine of impressive dimensions in the centre.

The sneaky light horse on their sneaky way.

The Empire left and centre, with sneaky horse in the distance.

Barrie started off by getting his light horse into position to harass my left, immediately killing off a chariot with pistol fire.  He advanced his main line a little, casting various spells of protection on his units and necessitating some dispel attempts of my own.

Those pesky blokes with pistols who killed my chariot...

Some chaps on fearsome war beasts.

In my turn I charged in on the right with the chariots, hoping to knock over his left-most unit of cavalry and from there roll up his flank.  We almost succeeded with the first part of that grand scheme, but magical saves and hatred helped him to win the first round of combat.

My chariots then gallantly turned and fled.

Charge!

Nearly...

Oh dear, here we go!

I shot with my missile weapons with some success, but we were not in a good place for the counter attack.

When it came, it looked something like the scene below.

Barrie charged in all along the line and my 'narrow frontage' plan proved to be less than inspired, as he was able to concentrate two mounted units against each of my single ones of foot.  The initial results were not, from my perspective, especially encouraging.

The Orc foot not in formation are all casualties.  The remaining three were then destroyed in the exploitation charge...

 The space where my right used to be.

Things were also messy on the other flank...

The infantry and war machine toilers were wiped out to an Orc by this charge, and then everyone else ran away in panic.

In the interests of the children I refuse to show any further pictures of the carnage.

So, there it was: game over in two turns for the enemy, one for me, and my undefeated record in WFB shattered!  What a lot of fun it was.  My tactics were, as Barrie noted, those of another time and place, but I was just happy to catch up with an old mucker again, push some figures around and roll some dice.

Will look forward to doing it again next time I'm back home.

*note to self: don't put Black Orcs in reserve!

Games in the mail and books on the Kindle

Last acts before heading off have been to put in an order at NWS online bookstore for a few bits and pieces, namely:

Nightfighter, Ship of the Line and The Skirmisher

...and a quick visit to Project Gutenberg for a bit of holiday reading.

Always good to have something to look forward to on the trip back!

Off to a wedding

I am happy to report that I'll be away for the next couple of weeks attending my brother's wedding.  There will be feasting, mead and some beardy types handy with axes, so let's hope that Grendel and his mother keep a low profile.

Anyway, I will be back posting at some stage in early February.  I trust that you will all behave yourselves in my absence!  

Best wishes to one and all!

Ordering from Old Glory 15s - very good experience

With US postal prices due to go up in a few days I decided to get in now and pick up a couple of final bits and pieces I need for some 15mm projects.  Accordingly, I went to the Old Glory 15s site, as the bulk of the purchase would be more of their Marian legionaries to match the ones I got in an ebay buy last year.

It wasn't something I was greatly looking forward to, as I've not found the Old Glory site the easiest to order through in the past.  Happily, I found that they have revamped it entirely.  You set up an account (email and password), search through their stock (they now have enlargeable photos which is a big improvement), put items in your cart, and go to checkout as normal.  You can then check your postage charges by going part-way through the checkout process, and when you are ready to pay can use credit card or paypal.  It's all done quickly and with no fuss.  I was very impressed.

People have their own opinion about Old Glory figures, and I am in the 'very useful' to 'quite like them' camp.  Their foot figures can be a bit chunky of leg, but I really like their cavalry, and you can actually do a bit with some of their less desirable poses if you are prepared to get out your Xacto knife.  So, if you want to pick up some figures in bulk you can do worse than look at Old Glory.

BTW, something I noticed is that if you order your figures in Field of Glory battlegroups rather than individual packs you can get often get a slightly better deal: 32 foot figures for $12 rather than 24 for $10, for example.  If, like me, you prefer the big battalions, this can be a nice perk.

Do any readers use Old Glory 15s?

Grand Dreams in 15mm

As I getting back into painting thoughts naturally turn to projects done and projects yet to be finished.  The plan is that I will one day have enough painted 15mm figures to re-fight any of the scenarios in Phil Sabin's Lost Battles, Hydaspes and (perhaps) Cunaxa excepted.

Now is probably as good a time as any to take stock of where I am on that, and to think about the best painting strategy to take into the future.

Classical Greeks.  I need two Greek armies.  These I have purchased, but I may need to add more hoplites to this force eventually.  Only light troops painted. 15% done.

Persians.  I need a large Persian force. The figures for this I have also purchased.  Unpainted except for the horse archers, but there are 18 bases of them.  10% done.

Macedonians and Successor Kingdoms.  I really do need two pike armies.  I have one painted - the heavy infantry done by Fernando in Sri Lanka - and another purchased.  Another pike block and more cavalry needs to be painted up.  65% done.

Carthaginians.  I have enough Carthaginians for all my Second Punic War needs, though purely for vanity's sake I would like to get more of Hannibal's veterans in Roman armour.  95% done.

Spanish.  I need these as Second Punic War allies, for skirmishes amongst themselves, and for Sertorian battles.  Purchased and the rest are on the painting table now.  75% done.

Gauls.  I need Gauls for Sentinum, as Carthaginian allies, and for fighting Caesar..  Figures are purchased and mostly prepped but yet to be painted.  5% done.

Italian City States.  I need a smattering of these guys as allies and for Sentinum.  80% purchased, 60% painted.

Polybian Romans.  I need a large force of these guys, and have it.  Painted.  100% done, but I do have another army to build because, well, you can never have enough Polybian Romans!

Marian Romans.  I need two large armies so that I can do the civil wars of the late Republic and sundry examples of imperialist aggression.  Purchased and mostly painted after an ebay score.  They just need tidying up, another 140 infantry and 50 cavalry painted, and to be put into units and based.  70% done.

Parthians.  I have a small Parthian force to allow me to do Carrhae in half scale, but when I say small I do mean small - only 22 bases!  100% done, but these do double duty as horse archers for my Persians and cataphracts for my Successors, so calling them a separate army is cheating.

So, of the thirteen armies I need to finish this project, only five are currently tableworthy.  There is clearly much work to be done!

The first task is to finish off the Spanish.  After that I'd like to knock the Marians on the head as that will open up a whole new range of possibilities for civil war battles.  In doing those I'll have to paint up Gallic cavalry, so that will get me some way into the next project, which should probably be Gauls.

Then it will be time for the Successors, though I really enjoy Successor battles, so may bump some phalangites up the queue.  Ideally, I'd send this lot off to get painted as well, but conscience won't allow that at this time.

And there we are - that's the state of play in the 15mm ancients Mediterranean project.  The thing is that almost all the purchasing has been done.  Apart from some more hoplites and Italian troops, I've got pretty much all I need.

Now, if I could only get them painted...

Workbench

After being inspired by Jason over at Light Bobs and Paint Blobs, I stopped in at the hardware store today and picked up a lamp for painting.  As a result, 6th Fleet got put back in its box and the figures and paints took its place on the table for what was the first decent painting session I've had for a while.

Although I have piles upon piles of boxes filled with prepped figures (and many more with unprepped), the ones I've really been wanting to finish off are my Punic War era Celtiberians.  There are about 180 of them in various stages of completion and there will be psalms in wargaming heaven when I finally get them done.

I got these little guys about seven years ago and the ones that I painted then look a bit ragged compared to the ones that I'm painting now, so the project has had to expand to bring the older paints into line with the newer ones, as I did with my other Spanish.

The truth of the matter is that this is real production line stuff.  I'm relying on the shield painting to standardize everything and hoping that the different painting styles I've gone through will, when combined within the same unit, promote a 'pleasing sense of irregularity'.  But we shall have to wait and see on that score!    

New lamp and workbench

Paionian horse having had some left over brown applied to their spears...

I'd also like to welcome Craig, who is the most recent person to have begun following my blog.  Thanks for doing so, and please feel free to introduce yourself and/or jump in with comments or criticisms any time.