Camelphracts.

God I'm bored. I have a huge amount of marking to do, about 2 weeks worth, so weekend break is off as it's already late.
Still enough of 1st world problems, at least I've done some painting and some terrible photography

A unit a Parthian Camelphracts. I really love camelphracts but I bet they were rubbish, camels are stubborn and very tall. They are very fast and do scare horses though, they smell bad. 

The figures are Xyston and lovely to paint

 The 7YW project continues with the Prussians.

Hulsen Infantry regiment

10mm from Pendraken. I've also painted some cannon but no crew yet.

For a couple of nights this week James and I have played a WW2 game over Zoom with Dave being the Germans and the croupier. Great game, I was the para infantry and suffered 50% casualties, mainly from bloody nebelwerfers. It was a great game and can be found on Dave's blog.

I'm enjoying online gaming, takes a while to get your act together but the experience is great.

Stay safe

Galatians!

More lockdown painting. Watching Grayson Perry's art club as I write, so may do something weird for the next post. But for this post I continue with my 90bc near east world

Couple of units of slingers Forged in Battle

Unit of soldurii with a couple of dead Romans - Xyston

I have 4 more units of warriors and 4 of cavalry which will give me an army of 14 regiments so a wing of a Pontic army in a massive battle or an entire Galatian army. 

I have a soft spot of Galatians. I have known 3 Turks in my life, 2 amazing women and a really nice guy. The guy was quite conservative and he worked with this crazy Turkish woman. Whenever she used to wind him up he used to call her a Galatian. Which was apt as she had red hair, some really impressive tatoos and was actually Galatian from the middle of Turkey.

Right off to get the modelling clay out

Thessalian Heavy Cavalry and Eastern Cataphracts

Evening all. Hope you are all well. I'm cracking through my 15mm 1st century BC ancients. Luckily I had a delivery yesterday.
Couple of cavalry units completed this week.

1st up an unit of Thessalian heavy cavaly. you can tell they are impact cavalry because there are 3 to a base. No brain surgery here.

These are from Xyston and are nice figures. Like the blue cloaks and the white spears. Seems like they should have shields but they don't. if I end up with some spares then they may in the future

Next, also from Xyston, some Eastern Cataphracts. These will act as Parthians but looking at then will work for most cataphracts from Saka to late Roman

Love painting cataphracts, the joy of black undercoat, dry brushing with Mithril Silver, yes I still have some but not much, and then pick out details in gold.

Next up will be Galatians, of which there will be many. I also have a plan to fight the battle of the Ford of the River God, the climatic battle at the end of the 1st Tyrant book by Christian Cameron. He is one of my favourite authors. I have the Greek types and the Saka, just need a way to make it epic 

Parthian Bedouin Camel Achers

Morning all, hope you are well. So I have just completed my 1st week in self-isolation. I have an underlying medical condition, nothing serious or debilitating but I am diabetic and controlling with diet and pills.
Work effectively closed down 7 days ago and we moved online, I work at a University. The nove to online was an epic demonstration of people pulling together and working together. Like work is supposed to be.
So working from home is weird and it is taking me a while to get used to it. I am incredibly busy and I need to organise it better but I have enough toilet roll to last at least 9 more weeks (6 rolls - I've done the maths). After that we can move to an egg based diet.
I knew that the actions imposed were coming so I have restocked with lead pile before all companies shut down, Colonel Bill is still working as he works from home although not sure how long his stocks will last, and I an order has been despatchd by Bad Squiddo. That coupled with the bumper stock bought 2 weeks ago should tide me over.
So enough rambling onto the painting.
I'v edecided to build up as many armies from about 80bc as possible in the area around modern day Turkey. I already have a large Pontic army and it contains a wide variety of troops that I can mix into other forces. So I've loads of Romans, Thracians and generic pike blocks to paint to add to my Indian army to make it more chronologically relevant.
First up some Bedouin camel archers that were part of the Parthian army.

These are Xystoin miniatures, bought from ColBill, and are very nice figures to paint. There are 16 of them and the fun go to rules are Kings of War, so will be 4 troops or 2 regiments.

Really enjoyed painting them over the last 4 days, no rush at the moment. I really like painting 15mm, they fit nicely with my painting ability.

Next up I will start some Thracians.

I hope all of you stay safe, I think it will be August before we start to get back to normal and longer before this was a memory.

To end on a cheery note 

Martin 

Cuppa at Colonel Bills

Can't believe it's been more than a month since I last posted. The challenge is hoovering up my life and I find it odd to post the same stuff twice. Work and life have also hoover up my time - Covid 19 planning is exhaustive and exhausting.
So the plan was to take today off and travel down with the guys to Hammerhead where we are putting on a "For Joshua" game.
However because of perfectly sensible reasons relating to work and C-19 responses we couldn't go. Annoying and 100% the correct decision.
Therefore I have a free day off work and a free weekend. The downside is that I had placed a collect at show order with Colonel Bills, and collect at show orders come with 10% discount and no postage. I mailed him last night and we agreed that I could go down to his home this morning and collect my purchases. Which is fine as it's only an hour away and the nearest town, Barnard Castle, is a nice spot to walk around.
So off I set this morning and picked up my purchase.

These are all Forged in Battle and were a bargain at £60 for all 8 packs, one of which is a double sized pike block

Stu, Colonel Bill is his nomme de guerre, was a great host and we chatted over a cuppa. We got to talking about his business and the lines he is starting and those he is discontinuing. Xyston are one of the brands he stocks and I've bought them before. They are excellent figures, I prefer Forged in Battle but these are almost as good. So He made me an offer and I picked up these

Gallic infantry and cavalry

Successor pikes and cavalry and some Arab camels, £65 or all 8 packs (4x£12 and 4x£8)

So why all these. Well my lead mountain has been strip mined and I've nearly finsihed the 10m &YW army - 6 inf regiments and 2 cavalry ones - plus some Prussians, fewer of these, 4-5 infantry regiments, a cav regiment and loads of heavy artillery. Once I've painted them the prussians will go on to tick over. 

I needed a new project and i loved painting my 15mm ancients - Pontus and Classical Indian. Now I can go for loads more armies in the near and east, Thracians, Galatians / Gauls (if I want), Parthians and others.

I also picked up 10 pack of Forged in Battle Romans and Gauls from ebay today at £10 each. So I've spent £225 today for 17 packs of 15mm figures. That will keep me busy for a while.

Also found out yesterday one of the guys at work paints napoleonics but doesn't play. So he's coming over to be educated. Bit concerned as he is ex forces and may actually know how to do this properly, on the upside he was in the Navy

The Glorious Army of Mithridates VI

All summer I have been slowly, very slowly, painting my 15mm Pontic Army of Mithridites VI, scourge of Rome. Mithridates VI was spectacularly rich (his army dripped wit gold and jewels, ruled the Kingdom of Pontus in NE Turkey in 1st century BC and hated Rome, really hated Rome. With his exotic army of Successor style troops, Armenians, Sarmatians and Galatians he conquered Turkey, Greece and controlled the Black Sea.
He was terrified of being assassinated and took a dose of poison every day to build up his immunity. He was fortunate that Rome was in the middle of a civil war and unfortunate that when Rome got its act together he faced Pompey, Sulla and Marius, 3 of its greatest generals, who stomped all over him. Eventually he was betrayed by his son and killed himself. His legacy does live on in the flag of Turkey, symbol of Pontus was a crescent moon and a star.
The army is mainly forged in battle, fab figures, with some Xyston figs thrown in, also great but a little large and badly photographed.

It's a big army of 3 divisions 

Cavalry division of horse archers and heavy cavalry

The shock division of scythed chariots, Galatians, basternae and light infantry

Heavy infantry division of pikemen and thureophoroi with skirmishers

The generals

And now the units

Skythian horse archers - I have enough Steppe types for an army of their own

Companion cavalry

Sarmatian Cataphract cavalry

Scythed chariots 50:50 chance of being deadly or useless

Galatian Warband - deadly

Bastarnae - deadly and mental

Black Sea Light Infantry - space occupiers

Armenian Javelin men - more space occupiers

Light Archers

Slingers

Pike blocks - crammed these in with 8 figs per base

Thureophoroi - fairly good infantry

Overall it's big - 500pts in Hail Casear. it is my 2nd 15mm army but will lose against my 15mm WW2 paratroopers. Should get a battle in next month.