Tuesday, 8 June 2010

Ideas for next year's game III - Magnesia

Magnesia is the third possibility for a big game in 2011.  

Plusses with Magnesia are that it really does have all the toys; armoured elephants, pikes, Romans legions   scythed chariots, camelry and cataphracts.  There aren't really many ancient battles that have a more varied selection of interesting troop types.  Some of the new figure ranges such as the Polemarch Successors and Aventine's Romans and elephants would tie in well with the project.  Finally, the flat battlefield I built for Zama could easily be adapted as Magnesia, by adding a river on the Roman left, and a camp behind the Roman centre, making it that bit different from Zama.

Issues with Magnesia are that we'd need a similar number of Romans to last year's game; essentially all of Craig's and Keith's (unless I get my Romans painted up).  We'd need to paint a large number of pikemen, elephants and a very large number of scruffy Seleucid skirmishers.   We'd also need  lots of Seleucid cavalry, that we'd probably need to source from Polemarch to match the bigger Aventine/Foundry minis we will be using (and I have some reservations about the necks on the horses; I need to see samples).  There were thousands of cataphracts....  we might need as many as 80-90 of these, alone.  Finally, we'd need scythed chariots, and Polemarch's aren't out, yet. 

Despite these difficulties, Magnesia would be a very engaging game, as it was the last major attempt of the Successors to resist the rise of Rome, and the quite possibly the last pike vs pilum battle.  Tempting...

Thursday, 3 June 2010

Ideas for next year's game... II; Asculum

I posted a week or so ago about Chaeronea as one idea for a Very Big Battle for 2011.

The second battle I'd like to look at is Asculum, 279BC, which was fought between Pyrrhus of Epirus and his Italian allies and a Roman army under the Consul Decimus Mus.  
 
I considered the other Pyrrhic battles, but unfortunately none fit the available terrain.  The battlefield featured some hills and woods.  I think we could add some of these to the Zama boards; perhaps adding some extra boards, or freestanding hills.  We would want to fit Pyrrhus' camp in, too, as this played a part in the battle.
 
The troop types aren't as varied as Chaeronea , but a game would include a very large number of pikemen, some elephants and a large number of Roman anti-elephant carts, which would be very interesting to model.  It would be a good one if we could access Aventine and Craig's Romans again; and would tie in very well with Aventines' projected Tarantine range.  I'd think a 3m long pike phalanx would look very fine!

Sunday, 30 May 2010

On the painting table

These chaps are another eBay purchase that I've been restoring for a while, they'll form part of my first Egyptian phalanx.  I'm about to order a bunch of Polemarchs to join them.   I've painted their linothorax in a pale grey, and intend to Army-Painter it, then overpaint in white.  The shields and helmets will get a coat of Army Painter, too. 

Yet another eBay purchase that I've substantially repainted, and added LBMS transfers to.  When the chaps at the back are painted, and a command stand added, they will become the VIIIth Cohort of my EIR legion.  At the moment I'm alternating painting EIRs and phalangites.

Saturday, 29 May 2010

A Little Roman Camp...

This is a 15mm marching camp I made for my mate Ian for his Birthday, last year.   Someone was asking on TMP about making ditched and banks.  There is on ditch, here, but there is certainly a bank!  It's not perfect; in particular the gate isn't correct,  but it'll look great on the table.


In the closeup, below, you can see the construction.  It is made of foamcore on a card base.  Each length is 8cm, by 4cm deep.  There is enough space on the walkway for 15mm DBx-based elements.  The sticks are broom bristle cut to irregular lengths, and glued into the gap between the pieces of foamcore.  It is primed a sand colour, and I need to paint it to match his battlecloth.


 This year for his Birthday, I'm going finish painting the terrain, and paint up some Baeuda tents to go with it.

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Perdicas' Purple Phalanx Completed

This is the phalanx I bought on eBay and started to expand and repaint a couple of weeks back.

Above is the"before" shot. 

I did a lot of work on them in the end, but they were still a lot quicker than starting a unit from scratch.

So that is my first Successor phalanx complete; I ultimately want at least 8 such units, each identically structured, with 3 elements of 8 and 2 of 4 figures, with 100mm pikes and with the same shade of bronze shields.  I've started the second....

Saturday, 22 May 2010

Ideas for next year's game... I

I've created a shortlist of 3 battles that we could turn into a Very Big Battle for 2011, and I'll briefly post on each over the next week or so; then we can take a collective decision about which to go for.  I'd anticipate  that all 3 projects would be a similar size, with c. 2000 miniatures on a 20'+ wide table based on the Zama terrain.

The first battle I'd like to look at is Chaeronea, 86BC; a big engagement fought on a flat plain in a Greek valley between Sulla's Romans and Mithridates' General Archaelaus, which is described on Wikipedia.  It is, also, a battle we've previously fought (links to the 3rd part of an article about our game).

Here are some links to photos of the plain near Chaeronea, including one from the hills.  The Zama boards would lend themselves very well to this, and a couple of large hills could be sculpted to represent the edges of the valley.  There is also a river, a fortified hilltop and IIRC there may be a temple; all potetiallly striking terrain, and where there was also some fighting.  It might be possible to fit a camp in, too.

Other plusses are that the troops types involved are fairly varied, and include pikes (including a phalanx formed of former slaves), scythed chariots, thureophoroi, Skythian or Hellenistic heavy cavalry and tons of Romans.  No elephants, iunfortunately.  One further plus is that I already have quite a lot of painted suitable for this game, although  in a sense, this is also a minus in that there would be less to paint, and painting everything for Zama was half the fun.  Still, we could up the numbers and make the game absolutely huge.

Wednesday, 19 May 2010

A prodigy!

Those who know of BigRedBat's famous aversion to anything that smacks of skirmish gaming, will be suprised to see these photos of yesterday's outbreak of WW2 in the BigRedBatCave.

Here the men of the Afrika Korps advance through the sparse fields outside a small North African village...

...where the defending tommies are dug in (with two of the worst sited machine guns in military history; there was more dead ground than you'd find in Highgate Cemetary, East and West, added together!).

We played a very enjoyable game using the Tide of Iron boardgame rules.  I think we will be using these, a lot. All the very nicely painted figures belong to my fellow Muswell Militiaman, Dr. Simon, and my friend Ian provided the rules and umpired.