Monday 27 April 2020

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



Wednesday 22 April 2020

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 

Friday 17 April 2020

On painting the unexpected and schoolboy errors

So I'm still ticking over. Painting is happening but work is very very busy and remote is not my natural habitat so painting is happening slowly, I'm spending far too much time eating. I've sold the dirt wagon and used the money to buy cake. I'm not complaining, apart from the cake, in every way I'm better off than almost every body
No with the painting, that's why you came.

1st up a Bactrian Pike block These are forged in battle and I picked them up 2nd hand ffom Col Bill. They will be a horde in KoW and therefore need 8 stands, so 2 missing

I set the 3rd and 4th rows too far back, wasn't paying attention. I was 2 figures short but had a couple of casualties to add to the back roews

As I was 2 bases short and Westwind are shut I picked up some Xyston Bactrian types from Col Bill. Xyston are nice figs but they don't match

Spare figs made a command stand. 
So I am now in the hell of balancing figs, I need 8 figs walking and 8 figs presenting. the packs are different and come in 24s inc 3 command figs. That will leave 13 spare in each one. Which won't add up to full stands. This will go on ad infinitum. 

Next up Thracian heavy cav, again Forged in Battle from Col Bill

Nice figs. I've ordered some infantry from A&M so I now have a decent sized Thracian army, enough for a wing in a massive 15mm battle

Next up I've finished another scifi type from Bad Squiddo. 



 And now something completely new to me. Spaceships. I was on the Plastic Soldier Company website and you can buy a pack of 34 plastic space ships for £10. They arrived and are really great. 11 different types and about 3 inches long. They are cast oin hard plastic and have an amazing amount of detail

So i painted one up. The stand is a 60x30 base and the uprights are cocktail sticks

It looks really great and as i learn how to paint them better hopefully they will get better - white on black is tricky


With a 28mm one for scale. Now I need some rules for space armada battles - suggestions welcome

Stay safe, stay well and see you at a show in the autumn

.

Thursday 9 April 2020

The Battle of the Pass of Apollo

I enjoyed my last Kings of War battle between Classical Indians and Pontus so much that I fought another one.
The Indians buoyed on by their last victory are racing through nothern Turkey while the Pontic King rapidly gathers his allies to defend his Kingdom. His last chance was the Pass of Apollo on the Silk Road.

The Pass of Apollo flankes by steep cliffs and steep hills, with hilly and wooded land to the North. Each army was divided in to 4. The Indians into 4 equal dvisions of archers, spearmen, warriors, super heavy chariots, cavalry and elephants. The Pontic forces were a blocking forace of light troops and Thracian Allies with a large pike block to hold the pass. The remaining forces would arrive on a dice roll

The Indians arrived to find the pass blocked

As they advance the 2nd indian division arrives, but there are no reinforcements for Pontus

The Indians try to clear the hills while elephants and chariots advance towards the pikemen

Another Indian division arrives lead by the Indian general on an elephant. Still no Pontic reinforcements

The general leads his divison round through the hills t the North, towards the Thracian skirmishers and light horse

The fight above the pass


An Indian chariot smashes into the pike block as the elephants advance. From the temple on the heights a unit of Armenian skirmishers snipe away at the advancing Indians.

The Royal army of Pontus arrives, lots of heavy troops including elephants, scythed chariots and heavy cavalry

The chariot is gone but the elephants are up next

The Indian general has lead his troops around the hill under the fire of the Thracians in the woods

Indian cavalry has swept the enemy from the hill

Having made it to the Pontic rear indian elephants attack lead by their general - this could be a mistake

The final Indian dvision arrives but Pontus is still short of men, maybe the allies won't show up

It's all blood and tusks in the middle

as the Indian cavalry sweeps away the Thracians from the woods

The fight around the back of the hill is getting messy

but still the Indians batter away

The Pontic elephants have made a hole inthe advancing Indians and the general looks a little isolated. 

The 1st pike block routs eventually butthe 2nd one is there. However the Indians behimd the hill have destroyed the heavy cav and can flank the pike block. Where the **** are the reinforcements


Disaster. The indian general is caught and killed

At last. The Galatian reinforecments. These guys are well hard and

too late. The pike block and the chariots in the pass are gone and the way is open. The Galatians go home and the Scythians never showed up.

This was great fun, played of 4 days. KoW is a riotous laugh to play and I tweaked thestats for the elephants to make them less hard by giving them the same nerve as heavy cavalry regiment. This worked well.

Friday 3 April 2020

Random Painting and News of a Battle

I've  managed to get some free time and today fought a 15mm solo battle using KoW.

I set up the battle in my spare room, which has terrible lghting. Simple layout with smal village and ruined temple in the centre and some small hills down the middle. The deployment was set up blind using cards 

On the left the Kingdom of Pontus, a late Successor army with large pike blocks, scythed chariots wild Galatians, cataphracts and light cavalry. In deployment 2/3 of them turned up. On the right a classical Indian army heavy with elephants, 4 horse chariots, cavalry. spearmen and load of archers. However only 1/3  of them turned up. Reinforcements would arrive randomly each turn. Basically both sides had lots of light stuff and lots of heavy stuff

At this point the visibility deteriorated and photography became difficult. The ensuing battle was brutal with both side smashing into each other relentlessly. 1st the Indian cavaly swept away the Pontic skirmishers and light cavalry. Then the Pontic cavalry destroyed the Indian cavalry. Then the Indian heavy chariots destroyed the Pontic cavalry and chariots. The the Indian elephants ran over the Galatians and that was it. 1/3 of the Pontic force was destroyed and the intact pike blocks were surrounded. Crushing indian victory. 
Next up fix the lighting and a new battle with a tweak to the stats.

I've also been painting in the evenings

28mm post apocalyptic sniper from Bad Squiddo





54mm female warrior on a ostrich - Mr lees





15mm Thracian Light Cav - Forged in Battle



15mm Thracian archers, slingers and a general - Forged in Battle