Saturday, 12 January 2013

Cleopatra is a harsh mistress...


I'm plugging away with my Ptolemaic phalanx, but it is proving quite a job! 

Above are batch 4 (blocked in, not yet stained) and batch 5 (half painted, right), which, when finished, will give me the 96 phalangites I need for my second and third pike blocks (of 11!).  I'm going for varied bright colours for the tunics based on the new Stephane Thion Lagid Army book.

I've fired off 100 pikemen to Dr. Simon's painter, to get them blocked in and will be getting another 64 painted ones from Raglan, so I think I'm slightly ahead of where I need to be at this stage.  No room for complacency, though! My mate Nick is going to paint Ptolemy and his bodyguard, too, which is a result.  I'll be using Aventines for these.

I've also been amending my draft rules to include heffalumps and long pointy sticks.

Finally, my mate Ian has lent me his treasured Bar Kochba account of the battle, which looks like it will be invaluable for understanding deployents and what actually happened on the day.  Already I've decided that I'll be drawing up parts of my phalanx 6 deep, perhaps even deeper... 
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8 comments:

  1. Corporal_Trim12 January 2013 at 18:38

    These are going to look great when you finish, Simon.

    Glad you were able to make use of the new Ptolemies book, how do you like it ?

    Regards,
    Steve

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  2. BigRedBat12 January 2013 at 18:57

    Hi Steve,

    I've not actually got the book yet (am waiting for mine to come from Amazon), but I did get a chance to see the pages relevant to Raphia, and they looked very useful. I exchanged a couple of emails with Stephane who is clearly very knowledgeable.

    Cheers, Simon

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  3. Wargame News and Terrain Blog12 January 2013 at 20:57

    Eagerly awaiting to see them finished and based.

    Cheers

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  4. Willie Anderson12 January 2013 at 21:41

    11 wow that will be some sight Simon! Looking forward to more!!

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  5. Handgrenadealien12 January 2013 at 23:51

    Its always a bit of a do when painting turns into a job, hopefully you'll find a few units along the way that alleviate the onerous nature of your task:) Best of luck with this, no doubt it will be worth the effort.
    Regards HGA.

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  6. BigRedBat13 January 2013 at 00:21

    Thanks chaps.

    HGA, aside from the phalanx there are some fun bits, some elephants, command and some Cretan archers I'm looking forward to. I really enjoy painting the Foundry phalangites, too

    Cheers, Simon.

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  7. Silver Whistle13 January 2013 at 09:10

    I take my hat off to you, eleven blocks. I look forward to seeing the end result.
    Cheers,
    Pat.

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  8. Prufrock13 January 2013 at 13:50

    Looking forward to seeing these! Good luck with keeping on schedule :)

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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Thanks for commenting. I will post this as soon as I am able to review it.