I'm getting not one, but two new herds of elephants ready for the huge Ipsus game at the London GT in September. On the left are fifteen "Indian" Indian elephants, and on the right fourteen "Macedonian" Indian ride-on elephants.
The reason I need 29 more elephants is that we don't believe the howdah was in use at the time of Ipsus, and most of my previous elephants have these, so it's a perfect opportunity to collect more models. When these are finished and "in the field" I'll have six different elephant herds. As well as the two above, I'll have Successor Indian elephants with towers, Successor African elephants, Seleucid armoured elephants and Carthaginian African elephants.
The "Indian" Indian elephants are a real mixture. At the front are seven of the relatively new resin Aventines, lovely light models. Further back are some veteran Vendel and Essex elephants, and other pachyderms whose origins are lost in the mists of time. I still need to add crews and finish the basing. After Ipsus, these will, later, form the core of Porus' herd when I do the Hydaspes next year, or the year after. These were mostly painted by Dan Toone.
Here are the the "Macedonian" Indian elephants. They will be crewed by a mahout and a single pikeman and escorted by Greek-style archers. They will form an elephant screen across the front of the two Ipsus armies. These still need some detailing, weapons adding and basing. These were painted by Shaun McTague and Dan Toone. They are such lovely models that I'm tempted to add a few more, before the game, if time permits.
Above is an earlier version of the Ipsus game that I'll be running at the London GT in September. The new version will be 50% larger than this, with around 3000 minis on a table almost 6m wide, quite possibly the largest ancient battle run at a show- certainly the largest I've ever run by some margin. The pike phalanx alone will include some 1500 minis.
Both this and chum Tim's Rome vs. Hannibal Battle of the Trebbia will be ten player games. They will be played at the London GT at the Lee Valley Athletics Center, on Saturday 25th September. You can book tickets for it below- there are only 20 tickets in total, and some have already sold, so don't leave it too late! If you come, you'll get to play both games and see all the other things going on at the event.
There's a big TtS! tournament on the day after, Sunday 26th, too, the details of that are below. Why not make a weekend of it? I certainly plan to. :-) I'm prepping minis for a secret army.
It's been far too long since we have gamed properly! I hope to greet the post-apocalypse in some style- and I hope that some of you will be able to join me!
