Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Thureophoroi


Here are a new unit of thureophoroi for Raphia. The minis were painted by Craig Davey- I have just replaced lead spears with the ubiquitous North Stars and carried out a little work on the bases. Nice models from Aventine!

Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Even more xystophoroi


Here are another two regiments of xystophoroi for the big WHC Raphia game, bringing the total to nine. These will be on the Seleucid side; there is now just one regiment remaining to base. These lovely Aventines were mostly painted by Craig Davey, with a couple of extras painted by Shaun McTague. I retouched and re-based. They are going to hit the table tonight, I bet every card they play will be an Ace!

Below is another shot of Andrew Brentnall's 6mm Pharsalus game- this looks better each time I see it. I have a scenario written for this battle which I'll publish later on.


Monday, 21 March 2016

Praetorians


I recently bought a beautiful (late) Early Imperial Roman army from Aventine's Adam Smith and he has kindly painted up some further units to round it out. These are the Praetorians of what will be my third Early Imperial army (EIR3).

Like Adam, I love to see Praetorians with Black shields; very Hollywood!  These will hopefully see action later this year against a German army. 

Sunday, 20 March 2016

Small but beautifully formed

Mate Andrew Brentnall will be putting on a spectacular Pharsalus game at the Society of Ancients Battle Day at Bletchley on April 2nd, using To the Strongest! and his lovely 6mm Romans. Below are pictures of an earlier test game; the final scenario is rather larger!


I am astonished how effective minis in the smaller scale look these days, especially used en masse in conjunction with the new cloth mats (these ones are the steppe design 10cm grid). Reminds me of that scene in Spartacus...


On the left are the Pompeians and on the right are the Caesarians with (mostly) small units. The Pompeians have deep cavalry units and the Caesarians small, veteran cavalry units.

Andrew is looking for players so if you think you can make it to Bletchley for the day (it's always a very enjoyable day out) then please drop me a line (or leave a comment) and I'll put you in touch with him. I hope to be there myself to see how it plays out!

Monday, 14 March 2016

Ptolemaic Xystorphoroi

I've re-based the Xystphoroi on the front of my rulebook (which was painted by Raglan) into wedge and added a second unit painted by Shaun McTague.  Shaun will shortly paint a third regiment to match. I really like the look of wedges for Successor cavalry. There will be seven regiments in wedge, two in rhomboid and four in line in the Raphia battle, for a total thirteen.


Both units are of Polemarch riders, sold by Gripping Beast, on Aventine Successor horses.  These are their older horse range- the new horses are slightly different but just as nice.  These units can be deployed in line or wedge as I prefer. 

After Raphia I plan to add some Alexandrian companions, some prodromoi, some Thracians and a whole load of Persians to the mix, which will permit me to re-fight most of the  Successor battles.

Friday, 11 March 2016

Pyrrhus of Epirus


Above is Pyrrhus of Epirus at the head of his companions. Pyrrhus was the general rated by Hannibal as the second best of all time (after Alexander the Great), although he was slated by the Argives (boom boom!).

These are the superb Aventine Miniatures Pyrrhic range- super sculpts, especially the man himself at the front. Incidentally Aventine now stock my rules, should you want to add a set to your next order.

Pyrrhus was painted by Tilman Moritz of LAF and his companions by Redzed. The basing is a clever innovation of mine- the same minis can be deployed in line or wedge as preferred.

So why is Simon basing Pyrrhus when he should be basing Ptolemy, I hear you ask? Well the plan is to make duplicates of the central stand so that the same unit can be used in a variety of different battles each time with a different commander (Ptolemy, Antiochus, Eumenes etc.). This way I'll get maximum use out of the lovely unit!


Monday, 7 March 2016

Slings and arrows...


I had been fretting about not having enough archers for Raphia and my other games in April, so I finished and based up three new units (above). When I got round to putting them away, I realised that I probably hadn't needed to worry - I found no fewer than 15 units of Greek archers and slingers (below)!  :-)