Showing posts with label Raphia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raphia. Show all posts

Thursday, 28 January 2016

Wedges


Pharoah Ptolemy is still recruiting furiously for my big Raphia game. Here are two regiments of Ptolemaic xystophoroi (lancers) in the process of being based as wedges- units in wedge can charge on a diagonal without the usual difficult activation penalty.. Both use Polemarch riders on Aventine steeds. The sharp-eyed will recognise the unit on the left from the cover of the rules (below), they were painted by Welsh Raglan. The all-new unit on the right was recently painted to match by Shaun McTague. I am really pleased with them and might go on to raise a third ilai.  


Unfortunately I couldn't get a table at Salute so Raphia only be played at the Wargames Holiday Centre on the weekend after Salute (22nd-24th April), along with the Sabis, Leuctra, Cremona and a Late Roman bash. Mark still has a couple of places...

Thursday, 20 June 2013

A tale of two Ptolemies

For last month's Raphia game, I found myself in the unusual position of having a commanding general too many. I never got around to posting the "finished" shots... 

The first Ptolemy IV, below, is from Polemarch, kindly donated by Jim Clarke, who commissioned the range.  I put him on a Foundry horse, asked Nick to paint him, and gave him a couple of Polemarch aides (painted by Raglan), an Aventine Standard and a Salute-giveaway Punic military advisor (very kindly donated by Jeffski off the WD3 forum).  I named this Ptolemy the Effete Youth.


I also wanted a Ptolemy with more military bearing; after all he did lead the bodyguard cavalry, in the battle.  The Dashing Commander below is an Aventine, with a Polemarch standard-bearer, again both on Foundry horses and painted by Nick Speller. The eagle symbol was used by the Ptolemies.


On the day of the game, I went with the Effete Youth, over the Dashing Commander.  The rest, as they say, was history...

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Echecrates the Thessalian


Nick did a fine job of painting this Foundry mini as the commander of the right wing Thessalian mercenary cavalry, for Raphia (I based and added a shield transfer).  In the original battle, Echecrates somehow managed to turn the Seleucid wing and made a valuable contribution to the Ptolemaic victory.  In our game he also managed to turn the wing, but not, alas, before the battle had been lost in the centre.

Monday, 3 June 2013

Pikes, pachyderms and Partizan

Yesterday we played the long-planned game of Raphia at Partizan.

I was far too busy to take many photos, but I did get a few good shots of the setup, and one of the team involved; so here goes!  This is a view down the 14' long table; the Seleucids being on the right.


Below, this is my phalanx, with first the agema/peltastoi, then the libyans, the five chalkaspides and three deeper machimoi taxis; some 600 minis with long pointy sticks!  There were 11 lovely Aventine  elephants on the table, and Craig's phalanx was very colourful in pink and blue.  


Below, Craig's lovely converted arabs stare across the plain towards the Egyptian phalanx, no doubt with considerable trepidation...


A view from behind the Seleucid left flank.


There seems to be something wrong with our elephants today... an African elephant routs through the King's Companions.


And below, an Indian routs through the Seleucid mercenary phalanx.


Eventually the Seleucid cavalry were able to turn onto the exposed wing of the Ptolemaic phalanx, and roll it up.  


I hope to get some more shots of the battle, later.  My "To the Strongest!") rules worked very well, in their largest test to date, and Keith and Craig had a couple of very interesting suggestions, that I am pondering...

Craig has posted a fuller AAR here.

Here are the various involved parties: Keith, Adam, Craig, John, yrs. truly and Dug.


Partizan was great fun; very well organised, as ever, and I love the high ceiling of the main hall.  Sadly I didn't have time to see many of the other games, or even spend any money.  I did meet lots of bloggers and gamers, though, and enjoyed chatting with the WSS crew on the next table, too, as well as catching up with Keith, Adam, Dug and Craig.  

Now...  what to do next?  ;-)

Friday, 31 May 2013

You wait six months for a Ptolemy, and then two come along at the same time...


A hurried WIP shot of the remaining command stands for Sunday; flocking today!  

I seem to have 2 Ptolemys.  I can't decide whether to go with the effete youth (front left) or the dashing cavalry commander (rear right).  Strangely, Alexander the Great has also joined his less illustrious heirs.

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

Temporarily Echecrates

Echecrates the Thessalian commanded the mercenary horse on the Ptolemaic right, and contributed to their victory by defeating the opposing Seleucid cavalry wing.  





This is a lovely Aventine Pyrrhus casting, superbly painted by Raglan, who will proxy for Echecrates.  Gareth has a very interesting painting style, which I intend to study a little later on... reminds me of the Fauves.  I love his cloaks!

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Raphia Commanders

I’m frantically basing up the officers that I have, for command roles in the Ptolemaic army on Sunday.  They are somewhat rushed, but will look fine from afar.  Just don’t click!  ;-)

The first stand, left, is the guard commander, Eurylochus the Magnesian. I've used Polemarch figures with a converted Foundry Perseus as a standard bearer, holding an Aventine standard.  

The second stand, right, represents Phoxidas the Achaean, who led the Ptolemaic mercenaries
(thureophoroi, I have assumed).   He played a key role in the battle, as it was their attack that routed the riff-raff on the Seleucid left.  Polemarch minis, with a Foundry standard bearer.

Ptolemy, himself, will be travelling in the Royal Mail today, from Nick.  In the finest traditions of show games, the varnish will, no doubt, be drying as I drive up the motorway!  :-)

Monday, 27 May 2013

The last phalanx...

...for the time being.


This is an unusual unit, as only the front 2 elements are fully based.  The rear 4 bases are temporary, and consist of 32 figures in the same pose.  When the figures that are still off with the painter arrive, I'll mix them together with these, and re-base.  

I plan to carry on with the phalanx in a more low-key manner, after Raphia.  At some point, I'll want to build a late Macedonian or Seleucid phalanx, too.

Monday, 20 May 2013

Ptolemaic Elephant Corp


Last night I completed basing the Ptolemaic Elephant Corp, for Raphia.  Ptolemy deployed 73 of these African elephants in an attempt to counter the rather larger number of rather larger Seleucid Indians.  Unfortunately he failed to put them through the elephant equivalent of assertiveness training, and most of them subsequently routed back, through his own forces.  As usual, all photos are clickable.


The magnificent beasts and crews are from Aventine's range.  I painted the elephants, and my good friend Nick Speller, the crews (beautifully).


Nick also painted the escorting Cretan and NeoCretan archers, who are a mixture of Foundry and Gorgon miniatures.  You may be able to see that they are in several different shades of red.  In the game these will form 5 units, each of one elephant and two stands of escorts.

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Elephants and Cretans

These are the Ptolemaic Raphia elephants; mostly based now (no tufts, yet), but no crew.


I have enough additional escorts (not shown) for one more elephant, and think I should add one more as 5 is a bit of a random number, and 6 would enable me to use them un-escorted, in pairs.

I had a bit of good news yesterday; I've got a large table to take an enlarged version of my Thapsus game, to SELWG, on October 13th.  This will enable me to take my rules on a new outing.  I'll want to get a load more legionaries painted... luckily I have quite a few that Nick painted for me last year, ready to base.  I'll also need some more terrain, including some Roman ships...

Saturday, 6 April 2013

Aventine African Elephants WIP II

Since my last post, I have finished the howdahs, stained and varnished.  I was very pleased with how the howdahs came up, Rawhide!  Now they just need crews, and escorts...


I based the trapping colours on those of a rug I bought in Marrakech 10 years ago, that is on our lounge floor.  Post Raphia, when time permits, I will probably go back and add some more detail to the trappings.


When the crew are added, I might add a very fine dry-brush of dust to the completed models.

Thursday, 17 January 2013

Welsh Ptolemaics


64 Ptolemaic reinforcements arrive from Raglan's Welsh mountain fastness... these are going to form the front ranks of my 192-strong white shield phalanx, for Raphia.  Huzzah!

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... 

Thursday, 20 December 2012

A centimetre a day...


As I've previously mentioned, I'm painting a Ptolemaic pike phalanx for our Raphia game, at Partizan in June.  This is, I hope, going to be a very large phalanx, indeed, and I expect that it will occupy the bulk of my painting time for the next 5 months.

I'm currently painting pikemen in batches of 18.  Some almost finished miniatures are at rear left, and a big batch of primed minis are in reserve in case of bad priming weather.  I'm also incorporating a few minis from eBay purchases.

I find I can prepare, paint and base 18 miniatures in around a week; it dawned on me that my 4-deep phalanx is only growing at a rate of 1 centimetre of width each day.  :-(

I'm also a bit worried becuase I'm part way into the project, but at some point in early January a new publication is coming out on the Ptolemaic army, and there is a danger that I might find I've painted them all wrong.  Gulp. 

Friday, 14 December 2012

Xystophoroi


Xystophoroi (such a lovely word!) means cavalry armed with the xyston spear, which was slender but could be up to 4 metres long, and could be used one or two handed.  These are Egyptian xystophoroi, and will be in the left flank striking force of the Ptolemaic host for Raphia, at Partizan.  This is the first unit completed specifically for the Raphia game.

The figures were superbly painted by Gareth Lane, and I couldn't resist buying them, when he sold them recently.  I gave them longer spears and a different standard, did a tiny amount of inking, and rebased.  The riders are Polemarch (and one Aventine), and the horses Aventine; a happy combination!


Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Masses more Machimoi


220 more Polemarch Egyptian phalangites arrived today, from Gripping Beast.  I now have just about enough minis for my Phalanx (528); but can I get them painted in time (even with assistance)?  Where's me brush?

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Raphia Phalanx begins...

A week since my last post; life has been interfering with art, again.  Just so that you don't think that I've gone away and left you, below are a couple of quick WIP shot of my next big project.


Above, 30 Foundry Egyptian-style phalangites, started in 2010 and finished, belatedly, this week.  Below 24 Polemarch Egyptian Machimoi, painted last week.  Both clickable.


My plan is to mix the Foundry and Polemarchs together, and paint an awful lot more to match, in order to re-fight of Raphia with mate Craig at Partizan in June.  More anon!