ARMIES I HAVE BUILT

Here is a list of completed (or very nearly completed armies I have built)

Hittite

Mycenean

Trojan

Hebrew

Libyan

Arab

Middle Kingdom Egyptian

New Kingdom Egyptian

Assyrian

Assyrian infantry with their backs to us how rude!

Early and Late Persian

Porus Indin

Athenian

Theban

Spartan

'Greek'

Samnite

Samnite army (all Hat except leaders which are newline designs)

Polybian Roman

Marian Roman

Imperial Roman

Late Roman

Macedonian

Scythian

Thracian

Sea Peoples

Philistine 

Sumerian

Han Dynasty Chinese

Han Dynasty Chinese Supplies and HQ (newline and 3D model studio Wen Ding)

Celt / Gaul

Ancient British

Carthaginian

Seleucid

Ptolemaic (under construction)

Later Macedonian

Dacian

Germanic

Next Campaign

NEXT CAMPAIGN

I don't like to just create battles I am after a fuller experience. I like to run the country's resources and diplomacy and so forth and fight battles along the way. My first big battle was Cannae (216 BCE), no I didn't fight it then even though I was born last century I am not that old.

If I can work out how to post the video from Cannae (I made two) I will do so, the result, Carthage easily. 

Clash of arms as Persian army (left) rushes headlong into Macedonians

So I could make up my own strategic rules-I have some using the old "Civilization"(US spelling) game as a base, using space number as Manpower factor (MP) and each city as a '1' for Resource point (RP). Then a combination thereof to buy units. I have seen some very complex affairs through to simply ones. I am tempted by an article I read in Society of the ancients magazine (Slingshot  # 309) where there is a short article on Hellenistic wargaming. I have done a lot of research into various eras to try some campaigns. So my favourite eras to wargame this way would be

• Egyptian XVIII-XX dynasty (New Kingdom), Egypt at it's strongest with a range of leadership styles, up against the Hittites (Lots of chariots here) throw in Mitanni, early Greeks, Assyrians and a scattered range of city states between makes for a good campaign.(I hope to start this one late 2018 CE),
• The Hellenistic Kingdoms (c.300 - 100 BCE) with the main three kingdoms of Macedon, Seleucia (Seleucid greek kingdom) and Ptolemies with a range of lesser states with republican Rome sitting on the side lines and various Indian and Greco Indian kingdoms to the east.
• The Punic Wars, esp 2nd Punic war.

So thats the range to start with. I have done one battle using a lot of random die and came up with a Persian vs Indian battle with Persia as the winner. 

Some Indian troops on the march against Persians only to be smitten quite a lot really.

So the next campagin will be HELLENISTIC SUCCESSOR KINGDOMS (c.280-100 BCE). The kingdoms (and therefore armies) which may be involved will be 

the three main successor states, Republican Rome, Pontus, India, Scythia, Maccabees, Pergamun, Rhodes, Aetolian League, Achean League, Sparta and so on. Random events will play a large part of this. I need to find a good way to build some navies - any suggestions appreciated.

ANCIENT WARGAMING

My SECOND Blog
(The first one didn't load) so lets see how this one goes.

Background

I first played a wargame in about 1979. It was SPI's "The Conquerors". I had never even seen a wargame before but had a high interest in history so when  a friend of mine offered a game after a hockey match I said yep. I played Macedon he played Rome and we re created the 2nd Macedonian war between the Roman Republic and Macedon (200-197 BCE). I held the Romans at bay for several years before they pushed me back to my capital Pella and they laid siege and rolled a '6' and took and sacked the city. I lost my first wargame but was hooked. nearly 40 years later and 500+ wargames later I am still into the hobby.

I started painting figures and building armies about 14 years ago. My first army was a Persian army followed by a Macedonian army.

Part of my Persian army mainly plastic from Hat, Caesar, Zvezda. Notice the red bin for the large amount of loses this army will take and the Immortals ready for battle in their dressing gowns. 

I started to buy Hat plastic figures deciding that 20mm 1/72 was the scale I was going to follow. I decided that if I take one of the larger ancient battles that would work out good for scale, so I decided to build armies to recreate the battle of Gaugemala / Arbela. So I decided to paint enough figures for a 47,000 Macedonian army and a 250,000 Persian force! I soon realised that making this at a scale of one figure=20 men might be a big prohibitive. So I scaled back and found DBM rules and decided that the sclae of 1 element ( a bit of cardboard with figure glued onto it) = 250 men was more easy to manage. So 4 Elements would = c.1,000 men. 

My painting was very rough at the start and I am a lot happier now with my painting, though I am not planning to be a high level painter it is good enough for me. So questions I am asked.....

What brands of figures do you buy? 

I started buying plastic figures for they were cheaper to buy. Hat Industrie make up a lot of my figure collection as do Caesar. Then there are others which are not as good generally such as Strelets, Mars, Airfix, Italerii, Lucky Toys (mind you I think their Indian Porus army is excellent-I must have bought 20 sets of those!). I also buy a lot of figures from Newline Designs in the UK from Sean and some other metal figure from Hong Kong for Han Dynasty. 

What armies do you have?

I have lots, see a future blog for a list! At the moment I am just completing a Seleucid Greek army and am about a third of the way through a Ptolemaic army. 

What types of paints and brushes do you use?

I am not a serious painter so just get most of my paints from Spotlight here in South Australia. My brushed a cheap and nasty '000' as they get wrecked quickly. I do not paint professionally so this not a major concern for me as long as they look OK for me.

Do you have a favourite army?

No, but my top ones would be Persians, Hittites, Pontian, Han Dyansty in no particular order.

Each army has a HQ piece like a king in chess for the Chinese Han dynasty it is this lot making a special appearance is Pigsy, Monkey, Tripitaka and Sandy (plus escort).