Friday, 10 May 2013

German Invasion!


The most illustrious Ironmitten, has very kindly (and unexpectedly) sent me this wonderful cartoon this morning.  Many thanks, Simon!

I suspect that he picked a German, because he knows that I have been on the scrounge, recently, for Germans for my next project.  Post Partizan, I want to assemble a small German army of 250 or so  miniatures.   I've been able to pick up some painted minis from eBay, some from friends (watch this space) and hopefully some from painter mate Nick Speller, who painted my sole German infantry unit, so far (below).  


They will be a nice change, from pikes!

Thursday, 9 May 2013

Painting furiously...


I've still not received the phalanx minis I was hoping to get from my painter, so I have been redoubling my painting efforts in order to close the gap.  Here are 40 more Ptolemaic peasants, ready to fill the rear ranks of the machimoi phalanx.  I'm desperately painting another batch, and am also going to borrow a phalanx off mate George, tonight.

Craig Davey has been busy, with the opposition...

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Yet more phalangites

I thought it might be fun to sum up where I've got to, with 30 days to go.

Here are the other elements of the phalanx, finished so far.  All are clickable...  The line:-


 and the libyans/peltastoi/agemata basilikoi.


Finally, below is a collage of the 6 finished units, so far; 2 machimoi, 2 line, the libyans and the peltastoi/agema.  You'll need to click this one...


Still 240 minis short!

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Machimoi Phalangitae

Here are the first 2 (of 4) units for our Raphia game on 2nd June.



Machimoi was an Egyptian term for native soldiers, in this case raised as an emergency force and trained as phalangites, by Ptolemy IV, to resist the Seleucid invasion. 

The miniatures are a blend of Gripping Beast Polemarch and Foundry (the unarmoured ones).  The shield transfers are from LBMS, Steve there very kindly produced some additional sheets for me, with battle-damaged designs.  I'm preparing some rear-rank elements with more unarmoured, bare-headed troops.

And now... both together!


Monday, 29 April 2013

Rearguard


These are the last bunch of recruits for the Raphia project*.   They will be the rear rankers for the Machimoi phalanx.  Pikes have not yet been issued; in their absence, at the rear right, you may be able to make out a couple of miniatures practicing their karate moves.

*...but I'm currently chewing my nails over the 150 miniatures still out with a painter

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...

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Cretans WIP

There is going to be a 1 metre wide screen of Cretans, Neocretans and elephants, screening the front of the wings of the Ptolemaic army.  The below were beautifully painted by mate Nick Speller, and will be based shortly...


It's not very clear in the above photo, but they are painted in 3 different shades of red, and are a mix of Foundry and Gorgon archer miniatures.