Parthian Army in 6mm - Done (Challenge Submission 3)!

My third submission for this year's Painting Challenge is complete - a 6 6mm Parthian army in 6mm.  The figures are from Baccus (of course) and where a lot of fun to paint up.  Looking forward to getting these chaps on the table top when the lock downs begin to ease.

As with the earlier Republican Roman force these are all based for the Age of Caesar rule et and use 40mm square basing.

While one first thinks of cavalry when considering Parthians, they did field some infantry.  My little force has 8 bases of foot archers and 2 bases of skirmishers.

and 4 bases of medium, spear armed infantry.  Maybe not the most fearsome of foot borne troops but they'll be effective speed bumps.

The workhorse of any Parthian force are mounted archers and this little army has 20 bases of them.

The armored fist for the Parthians are cataphracts and this force can field up to 10 bases.

Lastly, just for a bit of fun, some armored camel cataphracts - because who doesn't want camel borne cavalry.

I'll add to the infantry when the Baccus cart opens up.

Next up for the Challenge - a return to work on the 15mm Stalingrad project

Parthians Coming along nicely and preparing to return to the Stalingrad project

 

A 6mm Parthian forces has been painted up and based.  All that's left is to scenic the bases and these chaps will be ready for the tabletop.

These figures are part of the Baccus miniatures Hail Caesar Army Pack plus one pack of 36 armored camel cataphracts.  The Baccus army packs come with a nice discount and do give you a very broad set of troop options.  As with my Republican Romans these are based to be used for the Age of Hannibal ruleset but the basing is flexible enough to use with just about any ancients rules set.

I'm still fiddling with the color scheme for the base scenery - I want a more arid look than the standard "European Field" I used on the Romans.

I  am looking forward to getting these guys on the table soon as cavalry heavy armies are a lot of fun to play in just about all ancients rule sets.  My track record as a commander of horse armies is actually pretty poor but I always have fun zooming around the tabletop.  Plus who doesn't dream of commanding a charge of cataphracts mounted on armored camels?

Once these gentlemen are finished, I think it's time to return to my Stalingrad project, roughly 40% of the table is done and using my AMAZING math skills, I am able to calculate that implies there is 60% remaining to be done.  I'm hoping be able to put this game on at Historicon this year.  I know it's a pretty iffy proposition on the chances of Historicon being held but let's think positively.  Perhaps a more precise way to set the deadline is the earlier of Historicon'21 or the next HMGS convention.  

A picture of the North section of the map, which is bounded to the North by the January 9th Square /  Pavlov's House / Grundin Mill area.  I'm thinking of darkening the road sections as they look a little too "bright" to me.  The game table will cover most of central Stalingrad down to the Univermaf Dept store and Red Square.

Republican Roman Army with Italian and Spanish Allies (Challenge Submissions 1 & 2)

 

My first two submissions for Challenge XI consisted of a 6mm scale Republican Roman army along with some support troops from Spain and Italy.  The figures are all from the Baccus 6mm line and were a joy to paint.  

These chaps netted me 610 points and consist of 150 mounted figures and 920 infantry of various types.  The troops are based on 40mm square bases which is the standard used for "Age of Hannibal" at the club.  These rules were written by a club member and are a very nice fast play set of rules that allow player to recreate entire battles and finish them in an evening.  They're a lot of fun and I enjoy playing them a lot.

On the left side are the Spanish troops:

- 4 Bases of Scutarii medium infantry with 24 figures per base)

- 6 bases of Caetratii light infantry with 8 figures per base

- 9 bases of Spanish light cavalry with 5 figures per base

15 Mounted Roman generals.  The different sized command bases denotes rank with the larger the base, the higher the rank

The heart of any Roman army - heavy infantry.  8 bases of Hastati, 8 bases of Principes and 2 bases of Triarii, all with 24 figures.  In the back are 6 bases of Balearic slingers and 2 bases of scorpions for a little fire support

On the right side are some Italian allies - generic hoplite infantry in the front. Italian medium cavalry.  In the rear are 12 bases of Roman Velites.

The final group are 4 bases of Samnite infantry.

I'm planning to also use the Spanish and Italian troops as Gauls and maybe even Germans if the need arose.  We don't have a full Gualic at the club but could probably cobble together a respectable force with pieces from peoples various collections.  

As you've seen in a previous post, next up on the "Ancients Hit Parade" are some Parthians.  Depending on how hard Mr Berry cracks the whip at the Baccus Casting Furnace, there will also a medium sized Dacian force (with Sarmatians!) and a relatively large Successor Army (cause who doesn't want to paint Ellies?).

With the Republican Romans and their allies done, next up on my list of 6mm Ancients are the Parthians.  When the Baccus cart was last opened I purchased a Hail Caesar Army pack of Parthians plus a pack of Camel Cataphracts because who wouldn't want to paint armored camels?

The Baccus army deals are a great way to get started as they are offered at a nice discount so if you're just starting out give them a look.

Assume I don't break anything this army pack should yield the following:

18 bases of mounted Archers, with 4 figures per base

4 Bases of javelin armed light cavalry with 4 figures per base

12 bases of cataphracts with 6 figures per base

6 bases of camel cataphracts with 6 figures per base

4 bases of spearmen with 24 figs per base

6 bases of foot arches with 16 figures per base

2 bases of skirmishers with 8 figures per base

9 Generals 2, 2 figure bases and 5, 1 figure bases

All of the bases are 40mm squares which have just been purchased from the good folks at Litko.  I ordered them on Monday and got them in two days.  Really top notch service.

I really like fielding cavalry heavy armies for ancients games and am looking forward to trying these guys out on the table.  My first few outings will likely result in complete disaster as cavalry armies tend to be finicky forces to field but they are always fun.  I doubt all 6 of the Camel units will ever get used at the same time but their just too fun not to paint up.

When the Baccus cart opens up, I'll likely pick up another pack of Spearmen (for another 4 bases) and maybe another pack of horse archers.

Now for some research on how to paint Parthians.....

 

"And So it Begins" The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge version XI.0 has started

This year's Painting Challenge has started and after a fairly long painting session yesterday, I've painted and based the majority of my planned Republican Roman army.  All in glorious 6mm with the figures from Baccus.  The bases need to be painted and have some scenery added which will be today's project. 

Along the left side of the picture is a row of partially painted Spanish and Italian allied troops and some Roman generals in the back.  I'll try to get those chaps finished before Christmas.  In addition to being Spanish, Italians or even Samnites, these figures can double for Gauls and Celts in a pinch.

All of the figures are based for the ruleset "Age of Hannibal" which uses 40mm square basing for all units.  Generals are based as single figures on round 25mm bases.  The rules are simple but very fun and allow one to play very large battles to a conclusion in an evening.  They were written by fellow club member Greg Wagman and I suggest you check them out.

There has been a rather silly logistical failure on my part for this year's Challenge.  I seem to have forgotten that is one is building several armies that all use 40mm square bases, one should check ones supply of said bases.   Let us just say the currently my demand for 40mm bases exceeds my supply.  Well my failure is the gain of those fine people at Litko as an order for a rather large number of 40mm bases was placed yesterday afternoon.  Let us all hope their base making machinery has not gone on Christmas break yet.  Crack that whip, Mr Litko - I NEED those bases!!!!!!

Ok, that last line might be a little over-the-top.

 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI: 6mm Republican Romans Assembling for for duty

Preparation efforts for the AHPC XI are accelerating to a frantic pace here in the Lair.  On the work table getting ready for priming is a good part of my planned Republican Roman army.  All of the figures are from Baccus and there are Romans, plus Italian and Spanish allies.

There will be a lot of 6mm ancients painted during this challenge.  The last time the Baccus cart was opened up in early November, I think I can safely say there were some unwarranted exuberance in the shopping cart.  Somehow over the course of a few days 4 different armies were purchased.  Historical scholars will debate for years on what exactly transpired and if I was lead astray by the wiley Peter Berry and his cunning and diabolical marketing ploy of "superb miniatures for a very reasonable price".  At this point, it's best I do not comment further as my lovely, yet fierce wife does peruse this blog and any statements I make can and will be used against me in a future tribunal.  We live perilous times.

In a addition to said Republican Romans, there other armies to be painted are some Parthians, a Dacian/Sarmatian force and a Successor army with lots and lots of Phalanxes.  

on advice of consul, I can not comment of the prospects of a 5th or 6th army as that does require the Baccus cart to be re-opened.  But there are candidates under review......
 

6mm Ancients - UNLEASH PRIMER!

 

With the start of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (version 11.0) a little more than 3 weeks away, it's time to start prepping mini's.  In addition to finishing up my 15mm Stalingrad project, you'll be seeing a lot of 6mm Ancients - literally thousands of the tiny blighters.

My first of two orders from Baccus has arrived.  In that tiny box were figures for a Republican Roman army and a Parthian one.  The second order, which is still being processed has a large Sucessor Army and my favorite - Dacians.

First up for priming are some Roman Hastati, which I will be basing in 3 ranks of 8 on 40mm square bases.  40mm squares are the standard used for the rules Age of Hannibal, which we use at the club and I highly recommend.  I also used 40mm bases for my Russo Japanese armies.

Lighter infantry, such as velites Velites will be less dense, with maybe 6-8 figures per base.  Dense formations like Phalanxes will have 6 ranks of 8 figures so 48 per base.  Steve from the club has a beautiful Macedonian army and has 64 figures crammed onto a 40mm square base.

My Republican Roman army will have 16 bases of Hastati/Principes, 2 Triarii, and handful of Roman cavalry plus both Italian and Spanish allies (mostly light troops)  

 

War & Empire Kickstarter Arrives: Can a Leadpile Ever be Too Big?

Kickstarter can be a wonderful / terrible thing.  I eagerly backed West Wind productions War & Empire III (after doing War & Empire II back in 2016) and the new miniatures just showed up today.

There are 30 packs of minis - 15 for an Early Byzantine army and 15 for an Arab Conquest army.  These will go nicely with my Early Imperial Roman and Sassanid Forces.

The figures are 15mm in scale and paint up nicely.  There arrival is timed very nicely in anticipation of the upcoming analog hobbies painting challenge.  Hmmm, Byzantines, Sassanids and Arabs - I wonder if a campaign is in the works?

Maybe this is why I was building extra storage.....

Basing Sassanids on a Sunday Afternoon

I got a whole bunch of 'em to do today!

Another New Period/Scale.....

Hmmmm, it seems somebody has been a little too promiscuous on Kickstarter.  15mm ancients this time via the recent War and Empire kickstarter.  I picked up 2 armies - Imperial Romans and Sassanid Persians.

I do want to report the quality of the miniatures is fantastic - I'm very happy with them, although I do have a good bit of painting to do now.  If only there was an event coming up that could motivate my painting mojo.... I seem to remember something.

Those of you with better memories might recall that I've got both Imperial Roman and Dacian armies in 28mm and might wonder why I'm doing something so similar in another scale.  Well, you see, that's a funny story and ummm.....  Oh hell, I have no idea why I'm doing it but it really seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, there's nothing illegal or immoral about collecting the same army in multiple scales.  I prefer to think of it as being "thorough"rather than "compulsive".  Of course, one has to concede that having the same army in four or more scales might be pushing the definition of thorough a bit to far.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge: Submissions 11-15 - Blizzard induced productivity

 A bit of a points bomb over this weekend due to being housebound from 30 inches of snow - 5 submissions and 4 different time periods.

 First up 9 civilians from the 28mm Perry AWI line.  I'll be using these as dock workers during the upcoming Historicon game this summer.

 Some German support weapons in 28mm.  All the figures are from Warlord's Bolt Action line and there's an 81mm mortar, a MG42 (gotta have one of those!) and a Fallschirmjager 105mm recoilless artillery piece.

 A bit more WW2 in the form of three AFV's from three manufacturers.  A Warlord BA-10 armored car, a 3D printing panzer IV from RPG and a Hungarian assault gun from Mad Bob Miniatures.

 Switching periods - a 32 figure Portuguese regular infantry unit in 28mm from Frank Rank Miniatures.  I really like Front Rank and am begging to think the quality of their metals is a bit better than the Perry's.  They centennially are much easier to clean up.  The completion of this unit finishes up what I need to put on the game at Historicon.

 The last submission is just for fun - another armored War Elephant from Sgt Major Miniatures.  That brings my collection of allies to 4 and I should add building out a successors army to the to do list.

Next up for the challenge is the defensive terrain bonus round - so I got out my handy Proxxon Hot wire cutter and got to work.  What will this entry be?

You'll just have to wait and see......

AHPC VI: Epic Fail Bonus Round

 A rather silly entry in the Analogue Hobbies painting Challenge "Epic Fail" bonus round depicting a lone Dacian mercenary standing up to a Seleucid Armored War Elephant.  The submission was titled "Hold my Flagon of Mead" and describes how the modern phrase "Hold my Beer" came to have such negative connotations...

 The figures are 28mm scaled with eh Dacian from the Warlord Dacian commanders pack and the Elephant from Sergeant Major Miniatures.  This is the third Elephant I've put together an they are a lot of fun.

Sadly the outcome of the clash was predictable with the poor Dacian (named Gert) being stomped into the ground under his shield like a human nail.

That's why nothing every good follows after the phrase "hold my beer" is uttered.  Truer words have never been spoken (or, in this case, typed).

Historicon Day2: Hail Caesar At the Con

 Just a few shots of the two Hail Caesar games I ran at Historicon.  I'll post some proper battle reports when I have a bit more time.  The same scenario was used for both games - the Roman forces that are besieging the Dacian army are attacked by a relieving Sarmatian calvary force.

 Initial contact during the first game.  I know, I know, Historically Romans didn't mount Scorpions on Elephants but they look cool and these are my toys!  I think at least 20 people felt the urge to try and correct my historical interpretation.

 The first game was decided by this fight as the Romans tried to desperately beat back a Dacian sally and against the odds they did - win to the Romans!

A few shots of the second game, which was much more bloody and saw see-saw fighting for the Hill with the Roman artillery - that was the objective of the Dacians - destroy the artillery and they win.  Those Cataphracts at the bottom of the picture got to within 1.5 inches of the artillery before being beaten back - it was a very cool fight.

The other side of the hill saw a very messy infantry fight with the Romans got the better of - a win to the Romans on the second game.

I was pleased with how the games played as they both went down to the wire and all the participants seemed to be having a great time.

I may run another game tonight - it depends on how much energy I have to set the whole thing up again!

It is both rewarding and fun to be a game master at these events but today I think I'll just go out and play somebody else's game!

Edit 7/22:
I was surprised that I was the only person running Hail Caesar games at Historicon again this year.  The ruleset is very well suited for convention gaming as they can be simplified and are easy to teach.  There was a good bit of Ancients gaming going on but it seemed to be mostly tournament focused using older rules sets.  While Hail Caesar is a great game, it does require a good bit of judgement in rule application and isn't really a good fit for the tournament gaming set.

Historicon Day 1

The first day of Historicon consisted mainly of the Saga tournament.  This was my first tournament experience and it was a blast - I had a respectable 1-1-1 showing and I really enjoyed it.

This was a six point, no heroes tournament and I fielded a Norman force made up of 3 Mounted Hearthguard, 1 Foot Warrior, 1 Warrior with Crossbows and 1 Levy Bowman.  There were a lot of Normans and Welsh war bands at the tournament.

As usual I didn't take many pictures except the a handful of my first game, which I lost to Tom 14-13.  Tom fielded Welsh who have a deceptively weak look about them but have lots a javelins.  Javelins equals dead Normans!

Tom was a great guy to play against and made a great recovery after I got lucky and wiped out his mounted unit.  Those Javelins are mighty painful when used properly.  Give the win to Tom at 14-13, close but no Cigar.

My second game was against a gentlemen named Walt who fielded Vikings.  I adjusted my force to field the 12 mounted Hearthguard into 1, 8 man and 1, 4 man unit.  I found that the combined might of the 8 figure Hearthguard more than compensated for lost SAGA dice.  Given my mobility advantage, Walt took a defensive strategy.  I did foolishly charge some Warriors in Heavy cover and that didn't work out so well but in the end managed to eek out a 9-7 win.  It was a great game and Walt lives near my in Maryland, so hopefully future games await us.

The last game was "The Escort" scenario and I played against Bill and his wonderfully painted Normans.  Out game was a Norman civil war.  I decided to play the game very aggresively and charged his crossbowmen on the first turn and managed to wiped them out.  Bill responded with equal vigor and charged his warlord and a 6 man hearth guard unit into my center and quickly killed two of the three baggage units I had, which meant I could only play for a tie.  On the next turn my warlord and the 8 man hearth guard unit charged into the center and took out Bill's warlord and 6 mounted knights.   Loosing a Warlord is a killer because you loose both his special abilities and two Saga Dice.  Over the next few turns, I used my numerical superiority in both troops and SAGA dice to greatly reduce the rest of Bill's forces and eek out a tie by exiting the baggage cart.  I was extremely lucky to get the tie but this was a very fun game.

All three of the guys I played were class acts and very helpful for a new SAGA and new tournament player.  I'll be running some demo SAGA games Saturday night at the con so hopefully I'll get a bit more experience.

More Progress on the Dacian Fort

 I made a good bit of progress on the sectional Dacian fort for my upcoming "Hail Caesar" game at Historicon.  I've got five feet of fort sections finished (except for some detailing) and will be trying them out in a few test games over the next few days.

 Here's the fort sections as the stood early Saturday morning.  I used pink foam as filler materials for the rear of the fort and to also make the berm in the front.

 In this photo you can see the defensive stakes behind the berms.  The stakes where made out of 1/8 inch dowels and where sharpened using a pencil sharpener - it was surprising how well that worked.

 The front gate actually swings open and closed.  Brass wire was used to make the "hinge" for each gate section.  The holders where thin plastic tubing - it was the tubing that comes with a new brush.

 Making the sections was very messy business and took awhile to clean up.  You can see a can of Army Painter strong shade in the picture.  I experimented with that for coloring the wood but decided to go with brown umber paint.  I think I need a few dry brush passes with a lighter color to soften the tones.

 Another shot from the front of the fort.  I need to add a roadway through the gate and will use either Durham's Water Putty of a piece of plastic cobblestone roadway from Plastruct.  One of the good things about being a former Model Rail Roader is that I have a lot of scenery material lying around waiting to be used.

Here's a picture looking over the wall at the assaulting Roman army.  There's a good bit of work to do to tweak the scenario before the con.

More Saga Normans and No Power

 Due to a freak thunderstorm last friday night, most of the region is still without power and that's impacted my prep for Historicon.  I don't have power / access to my workshop so terrain making for the Historicon game is on hold for now.

I've switched to focusing on fleshing out my Norman Saga war band which will compete in the Saga tournament at the con.  Recently completed are 1 unit of 4 mounted hearth guard (first picture).

 The second unit completed is a 12 figure bowmen levy unit.  This brings my Nroman's up to the six points that are needed to compete.  The war band consists of:
- 3, 4 man mounted Hearthguard units
- 1, 8 figure warrior spearmen unit
- 1, 8 figure warrior with crossbows
- 1, 12 figure Levy bowmen
+ my Warlord who lacks a suitable silly name as of this moment

I'm debating replacing the either the levy bowmen of the warrior spearmen with a second unit of warrior crossbowmen - ahh decisions, decisions.

As for the Hail Caesar game - the base for the Roman Onager was finished and sealed so that unit's good to go.  I still need to test play the scenario a bit but I think it's in good shape.