Saturday, 2 April 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela III and Final Part

...being the remainder of Dug's game 1 (all pictures clickable).  

In the above, it looks to me like the Persians in the centre are pressing forward onto the Macedonian pikes- not something I'd fancy, personally!

Elephants' graveyard.

 Companions pushing forwards, in the centre.

Above, the Companions are well forward, and one of the phalanx blocks seems to be half way to Babylon, already.  I wonder whether the chariot is Darius?

Final shot of the battle above.  I understand that the Macedonians won by a fair margin, and the following 2 games, too!  Looks like the players had a fun day.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela II

Some more photo's of Dug's excellent game. There are an awful lot of elephants in the Guagamela scenario; rather too many, in my view.  But they look good...






And my favourite two closeups... the pikes, in particular, look brilliant!  It is the first time that I have regretted that my own pikes are all vertical.


Thursday, 31 March 2011

Not my Epic Guagamela

At the Society of Ancients Game Day, last year, one of the players was a chap name Dug.  Dug caught the C&C Ancients bug very badly, indeed, and barely a day has gone by without a few photos of one of his games thudding into my Inbox.  

His latest game is the Epic Guagamela scenario. Apparently they managed to fight this huge battle three times in a single day! 

Below are some photos; the closeups were taken by Mark, who also played at Zama.  Dug has an impressively large collection of minis... I also rather envy his large gaming shed.  You don't tend to get gaming rooms like that in London.  :-(




Above is a closeup of the Persian hordes.  The Macedonians do look somewhat outnumbered! 

I shall post a few more photos as they come along...

Monday, 28 March 2011

Coh. I Legio Secunda Traiana Fortis


My first Middle Imperial Roman unit (pictures clickable; worth it for the LBMS shields...).  I bought these painted on fleaBay, painted one more mini to match, replaced the shields and rebased.  Whoever originally painted them was very talented.  I aspire to a small army... some II Parthians, Lanciarii and a unit with the Dura Europos shield.

My impressions of the A&A miniatures are very favourable. I've ordered (and received) some more.  Minis that look somewhat dubious on their Website, are actually very nice in the hand...  Most or all of the Romans were sculpted by Aventine Adam, I believe.


Now I can't decide whether to paint another pretty unit of MIRs, or some French Napoleonic artillery, by way of a change.  Tough call...

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Can a man have too many Romans?

This is the first of a number of Middle Imperial Romans units that I intend to paint.  I bought 23 of these, nicely painted, on eBay, and painted one more to match.  I've taken them off their WAB bases , retouched and removed their shields (they had oval shields, which feels wrong with Segmentata).  I've given them Black Tree Scuta, becuase I feel the A&A are a little irregular in size.  I hope to start basing, tonight...
I will be doing a Late Roman army too, lots to do...

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

200 Followers!

Welcome to everyone who has signed up as a follower, and a particular welcome to "The Man Cave", who is number 200! 

I've run out of catapults for the moment, but include a picture here that I've shamlessly nicked from the net, of the ballista I'd like to build next.  Well, like this one, but a bit bigger.


Saturday, 19 March 2011

Quattor Ballistae Magnae

Here are the rump of my Roman artillery pieces; 4 large scorpions (all pictures are clickable).

The first 2 are my favourites, 20mm scale Zvezda plastics with BTD and Foundry crew.

The bases are coffee stirrers of varied thicknesses, stuck onto thin metal plates, scribed with lines, painted and magnabased.  My concept with the planking is that I can use them in towers, or in siege fortifications.  The yellow shield is the design I've picked for my second legion.


The second pair (below) are from Black Tree Design; rather simpler, but serviceable.

I like their loaders with the long bolts (below).


I have got quite a lot more Ballistae of various sizes (mostly smaller), but I want to press on with my legion command figures, and paint a few Napoleonics.