The Great Wargaming Survey 2015

The survey is once again upon us!  I urge you to go forth and enter, it only takes 5-10 minutes and the results are invariably interesting.  I would also like to see the few, the happy few, the band of brothers that are the Ancients and Medieval wargaming communities as fully represented as possible.

You can enter here.

Athens and Sparta Part I

Last night I decided that I had had just about* enough Athenians to provide some opposition up against my Spartans. Here are pictures of three of the five Athenian phalanx; the newly raised phalanx is at the top. I love Steve's hand-painted Octopus! The single figures are hero markers.

N.B. One doesn't need to use this many figures to represent a phalanx; 18 or so would do just as well. However I do like to "go large."

I drew up rosters for my To the Strongest! rules by editing the appropriate army lists in the free "Frogs around a Pond" booklet.  Here are the Athenians; currently quite a high quality force. Later I will field more raw allied hoplites so that I can extend the line.

Here is the Spartan phalanx, waiting, silently for the pipers to signal the advance:

And here's the opposing Spartan list:

Both armies are 100 points in TtS! terms. The Spartans have a pair of elite Spartiate units, which, unlike other hoplites, can turn without penalty. The Athenian light troops and cavalry are slightly higher quality than their Lacedaemonian equivalents. 

Tomorrow I'll show some photos of the battle and write a brief review.

* I had to use a few Bruttians to bolster the Athenian ranks and later Thessalian cavalry pending the arrival of the Hippeis.

Athenians

At Partizan Steve Jones very kindly sold me his WAB-based Greek army, and I'm around 70% of the way through rebasing them as an Athenian force to fight my Spartans. It is just too hot to take proper photos today, but here are the fruits of my labours, so far; the first seven units.

I have based all of the light infantry on my new large 18cm wide bases. This is fast becoming my personal standard for use with "To the Strongest!". They look great on such bases, and are really easy to move around the table. I have far too many lights compared to hoplites. I think this is partly due to Foundry selling a high ratio of lights to hoplites, and partly because the lights are so much easier to paint! The hoplites are based 12 to a stand.

Steve did a stunning job painting these including tunic borders and shield designs. I'll show photos of the individual units during the course of this week.

Standing in the footprints of giants...

Last year I bought some lovely Middle Imperials from David Imrie, and recently, with great trepidation, I started to paint the few additional minis I required to complete the units.

I have expanded the units from David's 12cm frontage to 18cm, which is the size of unit I prefer for my 28mm gaming. In the sagittarii unit below, David's figures are the central five and my two are on the wings. Mine aren't as good as his but they work reasonably well together as a unit.

The second unit (below) are lanciarii.  I only had three of David's minis, so painted the other four on the wings.  Fortunately poor focus conceals the worst of my daubing. The base came out well; I extended David's original base with strips of card and matched the style.

I think I am possibly unique in terms of base size- I've not seen anyone else making such hulking great elements. I find that they really help with setting up games quickly. Since in my rules light units die on the first hit, there is no need for casualty removal!  ;-) On these bases I've decreased the number of minis from my usual 9 to 7, which I think actually improves the look.

Finally, in the closeup you can see how much better painted David's mini (right) is than mine.  But they will look the same from 18" away (or so I keep telling myself!).

Athenians for sale

As part of a recent purchase I picked up some nicely painted 28mm Greeks from the older Wargames Foundry Greek range, that are a little smaller than the hulking WotGs that I collect.  I've rebased these on 12 cm wide elements for Impetus (or for that matter To the Strongest!) and they are for sale at a modest £50 plus postage for the pair.

I also have another 8 similar but unpainted Foundry Greek riders for £12 and 19 primed 1st Corps Persian Immortals for £8.  If you'd like them, please drop me a line at the email on the blog header! 

Money for nothing

I've recently added some splendid new Victory Medals (for To the Strongest!) to the BigRedBatShop; some lovely chunky and misshapen replica Armorican silver staters for your celtic warriors...

 ...and replica silver didrachim and gold staters with Athena and an owl on for your hoplite armies:

To celebrate the launch of the new medals I shall be giving away a set of the replica Armorican staters (my personal favourites, despite my well-known misgivings about celts) to a randomly selected person who "likes" this post, either here or on the To the Strongest Facebook account.

If you share this I'll give you an extra entry to the draw, which will be held one week today at 12:00 GMT.  

All of the coins (including the earlier Roman releases) are available here:

http://bigredbatshop.co.uk/collections/all/victory-medals

Basing and more basing

I'm busy basing up units mostly of painted minis. On the left are four units that I bought from David Imrie that I'm expanding.  I've painted some minis to match, but it is slow work trying to match David's wonderful brush.

In the front and below are six units of light infantry that I recently bought off of Steve Jones. These are also very well painted, with many having elaborate tunic borders.

Steve also very kindly sold me around a hundred hoplites (not shown) that I will be able to use to build my Athenian army up to a critical mass. These are stunning models, and I'm really looking forward to getting grips with basing them.

For those with an interest in To the Strongest! I have recently loaded up several new army lists notably a later Achaemenid Persian list, a Medieval Swiss list, a Palmyran list and a Pyrrhic list. I'm working on a Camillan Romans and will shortly have a look at Burgundians.  The lists can be downloaded from here:

http://bigredbatshop.co.uk/collections/all/army-lists