Antiochus' Cavalry

With the completion of the latest Seleucid cavalry I then went onto rebasing the cataphracts and other companions. This is the third (AND FINAL) time for the cataphracts, they were based individually first time round then multibased to the 60x40s now these below. Also a few group shots with Antiochus for good measure.

I'm getting into the swing of mass rebasing and the cavalry is going fairly smoothly. So there are more cheat posts coming soon as old units get new bases but its a good excuse to update the blog and show off the nice Newline Designs 20mm sculpts. I think once the cavalry is all rebased I'll have to paint something from scratch before starting infantry rebases. Also some infantry rebases may require some extra figures so a bit of extra planning and thought needs to go into the units as they change size, especially for the Roman legionaries and Hellenistic pikes which are in larger numbers. Next up will be more rebased cavalry so I've got time to think on it.

 

Seleucid Settler Cavalry

With these Newline Designs 20mm Seleucid companions now  painted up, the part-painted ancients are now done. I opted to give them smaller spears and round shields just for a bit of variety after depicting the first unit as lancers.

There was a bit of experimentation with Citadel Contrasts to see if they could fit into my paint regimes. The following were painted with contrasts; plume, gloves, boots, the feathers and frills on the horses plus the pturges on the riders. As with the previous "Attalid" unit I was impressed with the Apothecary White applied to bright white basecoat, it is a great addition to the paint armoury and the reason I invested in a few more to see if they could speed things up. Other than the success of the white the only other section I though was worthwhile to use contrasts with was the feathers and frills on the horse armour. So ideal for detail heavy parts, I'm still not keen on them in general so far. I intend on giving them a proper go on horses, I couldn't do it with these as they were already base coated and I would like to try them on a nice smoothly primed miniature.

Other than that I painted them as normal, I added variety to the unit in the colours of the metallics and clothing using the shields, feathers and plumes to bring them together. With them complete the Seleucid cavalry for the Lost Battles Magnesia project is done, save for the rebasing of some Celtic/Galatian cavalry (in hand). If it wasn't for my rebasing quest the Magnesia project would just need some Scythed chariots! However I can't help myself and always faff on chopping and changing. I have had a big push on the cavalry rebase. with less figures per unit and sparser bases the rebase has been going quite quick and the next few posts will document the progress of that. The heavy lifting will come with the heavy infantry, there will probably be quite a bit of work to get them sorted, more awkward to apply material and I may have to sort extra figures to square units up, in the mean time I'll focus on the simple stuff!

Heavy Cavalry Rebasing format

The intention was to follow closely the last post with this. However with the new house, work and childcare working in combined arms the blog remained low on the list. Any hobby time has been focused on the painting and modelling side of things. So the Seleucid companions are done awaiting photographs and there has been some rebasing progress with cavalry. Below is a brief summery of the cavalry rebase format.   

I always liked the appearance of the 2x2 formation of my old 60x40mm bases so wanted to keep that 6x2 rider formation if nothing else for display purposes only! However with the quirks of Lost Battles cavalry have an attack "width" of 2 units, which for the purposes of my idiosyncratic collecting would be 160mm. However I settled for 120mm which keeps the figure ratios "correct" and still being wider than infantry bases serves as a visual reminder. To further complicate matters I hope to also use them for To the Strongest! with all units being the same width, furthermore veteran heavy cavalry, ideally 3 riders, can be represented by either the 40mm or 80mm bases. Now thoroughly confused it's best to have some pictures with a brief explanation: 

Component bases 2 x 40mm and 2 x 80mm bases, veteran heavy cavalry.

The original 6x2 formation and "levy heavy cavalry" for Lost Battles

2 x "Average Heavy Cavalry" for Lost Battles 

3 x 80mm units, Impetus, TtS! homebrew rules?

It probably would have made sense to do them all on 40mm square bases but that would have been too simple! I prefer the larger bases but I like the 2 nifty bases that combined make a third 80mm base. If this post makes little sense to you that is probably a good thing, if it does you have my sympathy! 

Lancers of Pergamon

It's been good to get the new hobby room partially functioning. Still a way to go but I have been able to at least get the last bit of highlighting and basing done on these 20mm Maccabean Heavy Cavalry from Newline Designs. They are lovely sculpts that have a great Hellenistic look and as such I am using them to represent Eumenes II's cavalry at Magnesia fighting on the side of Rome against the Seleucid king Antiochus III. 

I ended up using only the leader from the command set the standard bearer and musician are unarmored and wanted to keep the unit all armoured troopers. Thus one of the troopers was bodged to carry a small flag detailed below with an imaged based on a design found on coins from Pergamon. 

I fancied trying out the Vallejo Oxford Blue shade which is more of a toned down purple shade, very pleasant to look at so the unit, which is more than likely overly uniformed for the period, is themed around that shade. The only other thing to note with painting is my first outing with Citadel Contrast paints. I tried Skeleton Hoard on a couple of horses and on the white linen armour, Apothecary White. I found them very useful additions as shades especially so with the white shade. As a light grey wash on top of the Vallejo white it shaded the white areas very nicely which is fantastic as white is a nightmare to deal with. The best thing about the white contrast is that the white base-coat remained bright white, so I look forward to getting more uses out of it. I have since grabbed a few more contrasts I think they will be useful additions to the paint rack. 

I have another post in mind about the basing format but the method for the materials was straight forward. Being cavalry it was easier to apply the ready mixed filler, paint it and apply static grass. I added a few tufts of pre glued clumps of static grass, again something I may get a bit more of a variety in stock.

Overall I am pleased with their turn out and particularly like these sculpts. A second unit pack is set aside which will be used as shielded Hellenistic cavalry. I was thinking of  painting the scalemail as quilted linen armour which would make them good as Ptolemaic cavalry. I'm not sure what I'll be moving onto next. There's loads to crack on with but the desk is still not set up properly and there are bits and bobs that are yet to be located and found. However broadly speaking I was to crack on with rebasing, I particularly want to get the Romans sorted, which may result in painting the remaining Mid republican Roman figures first. There is a part painted unit of Seleucid companions of which I can not find their prepared shields and 3 Scythed Chariots than need painted and assembled. So I may chip away at these various tasks. There is still the matter of the Lost Battles report, I found the notes so might still do a brief AAR when I get a chance.But until then here are many photographs of these Lancers.

Downloadable Counters and board for Lost Battles

For a PDF of some custom click: Lost Battles Counters - So far Hannibal and Scipio battles are covered and extra units included which should allow other battles. A fresh side and a spent side, I have printed some onto some card then have glued them to a bit of "grey board" and are a bit rough and ready but do the job. The board was just printed onto card cut out and sellotaped together to keep them still. There should be a way to make the terrain tiles for Cannae and other battles.

Using unit art graphics from Civilization 2 modders "Fairline" and "Tanelorn" I believe, credit for the beautiful icons go to them. They were cut and pasted onto a printable game mat sample from Wargames Print which made the background and board tiles. Below are a few example of the counters, the files when printed have VHI at 15mm, AHI at 30mm and ALI at 60mm.

I enjoyed making them they provided a nice distraction and I will post a few poor pictures of Zama using these pieces soon.

Aspects of the Hobby

A few weeks ago (months almost!) I was wrapping up my rebased units in home move preparation. Of course having them all out and the fleece battlefield to hand I couldn't resist to get a few snaps of the African and Italian heavy infantry. I'm eagar to get more gaming done so I'll really have to get cracking with the rebase when I get settled in the new place, fingers crossed that will be soon! With a dedicated area that I potentially can leave slightly messier I can do a mass rebase of the Roman legions.

The move or lack thereof has drained me quite a bit and hobby mojo has been very low. I had been working on a homemade Lost Battles "board game" set. I'll eventually post them up and did a refight of Zama with the hastily and crudely assembled pieces again there is a write up to come eventually although it may be brief as the game notes are to the point and my memory is terrible.

Recently my mojo was returning slightly, I was missing painting. I grabbed the last thing that was started and did some work on them. We were on holiday the other week and came across a art supply shop that's usually closed when I've been that way and grabbed a few Citadel Contrasts to try (another post to work on). So have been enjoying a few nights painting but its back to reality the stress of moving has taken over again and might have to start the packing again.

Another bit of hobby activity lately has taken the form of writing down some Ancient wargames rules I think this could be the closest I've gotten to finishing one, not that the bar was high in the first place. However as I was watching wargaming videos, reading various rules and general research came across a few bits on Strength and Honour a ruleset under development by Mark Backhouse. Strength and Honour seems to already have a Facebook group and what I've gleamed (not sure if I am 100 so far from that and this Youtube video is; very grand scale, one base looks to be a full legion, grid based, variable turn length and seems to have 6-12 units per side. Clearly it's visually suited to very small scales 2mm being used by the author! So far I'm very intrigued and will keep an eye on the development of it, although I wouldn't be getting 2mm troops, although it would lose the Kubrick's Spartacus visual appeal by using larger scales, it should still work as a set of rules I'd imagine. 

Newline and Hat Indian Elephants Comparison

It has been difficult to get motivated with the hobby over the last couple of months and I have been struggling also to update this page! Bit by bit I am doing some painting and other tasks; made some board game counters for Lost Battles for if I can't get the miniatures out and made a start on some wargames rule writing.

As often I am asked about comparisons and as you can see one of the latest ones was the Newline Elephants, I can only compare these Indian Elephants between Hat and Newline not having the larger Zvezda ones. The Hat ones are slightly larger but I don't think they would be too out of place together on the tabletop. There's not much else to say as the pictures speak for themselves but I did struggle gluing and undercoating the Hat rubbery plastic. 

I've been slowly painting some Newline Maccabean cavalry as Eumenes II's cavalry at Magnesia, not that there is a particular historical look to them just what I will be using them as. Life continues to interrupt the hobby so I will post the various updates on here when I get a chance and hopefully at some point the cavalry will make it on here too!