Maryanna of the King

Biblicals for Easter! Can't be more thematic than that!

My last submission of the painting challenge was a unit of Canaanite Royal Guards, "the Maryanna of the King". I just found time to put them on my blog today, as I've been swamped with real life issues recently (like a water leak in my ceiling!)

Each Canaanite city-state had its cast of maryannu, professionnal warrior whose wealth derived from his holding of a fief. Among the general warrior caste of maryanna was an inner elite of "picked men" (na'arun). These elite units comprised infantry as well as chariotry. From these picked men, a small battle guard called the Maryanna of the King served as Royal Guards.

We know very little about the appearance of these soldiers, so I had the choice to use pretty much any colours I wanted. My royal guard chariotry is dressed in  purple so I had to include the colour, and then I used turquoise for the shield and on the command group to differentiate them from my other elite soldiers. It looks like the kind of expensive colours a truly elite unit of the time would wear. While it is probably doubtful they had a common uniform, kings from the Pharaoh to Murat always enjoyed dressing up their elite soldiers so I figure why not? I will gladly accept pictures to prove me wrong. 

I find the bronze of the armour, helmets and weapons gives them a shiny look which works wonder as an elite and spoiled bunch. I normally am not a fan of single pose infantry, but it works well for troops which would be highly disciplined and it will make them stand out in my Canaanite army.

With this unit, I am but a few chariots away and one small unit from finishing my Canaanite army, and actually respecting to the letter the plan I drew up around 2 years ago. That, is not something I manage often!

This unit helped me reached my goal and, even surpassed it! Yeah me! First time I manage that. I'll post a quick post-mortem of the challenge in a few days.

Back to ancient times...(Canaanite archers)

Today au menu a unit of Canaanites. No I did not forget about my biblical project! I've been waiting patiently for Warlord games to re-release Cutting Edge Maryannu Chariots, which I expect will now be very soon. I need those to finish my second Chariot unit and my Canaanite Prince. In the meantime I worked on my Napoleonics and Oldhammer project, but recently I had to itch to work on some biblicals, so since I have a few infantry units left to paint I figured I'd paint those. My original plan was as follow :

- 2x6 chariots
- 2x24 spearmen (close order)

- 1x20 archers (open order)

- 3x12 skirmishers (slingers or javelinmen)

- 1x Canaanite prince on chariot

However after discussing it with John, and after reading a few rulesets we decided to build forces for War & Conquest first,  of approx. 1650 pts.

So the new plan, very similar, became :

- 1x5 Maryannu Chariots

- 1x4 Maryannu Chariots + Canaanite Prince

- 1x24 Royal Guards

- 2x24 Spearmen 

- 1x12 javelinmen

- 1x12 Shasu Bedouins

- 1x12 Slingers

- 1x16 Archers

It's a bit Chariot light, I think, but Chariots are expensive and long to paint, so hopefully I'll add more as time goes by. So I decided to do the archers next. Royal Guards I will keep for the end I think, as I usually do for my elites. I used the same painting technique as for my other Canaanites, 3 layers with an AP finish, and the same limited colour palette of pale blues, red and raw linen.

Canaanite archers were semi-trained militia or conscripted peasantry. Canaanite tradition dating from tribal days dictated that the infantrymen supplied their own equipment, but it is unclear whether this still applied into biblical times. It seems a distinction was made between militia armed with spears or bows. Canaanite infantry was mainly used as support to the main shock troops, the chariots. 

My original basing scheme was to put 4 or 5 figures per base for open order, but after doing some tests 5 per base is really too much for 50mm square bases and it looks crowded like a close order unit. So I went with 4 per bases, which looks quite good and different enough to both the skirmish bases (3 per base) and the close order (6 per base) to be easily recognizable on the battlefield. 

I might have got an old batch as these were not as clean a casting as what I usually get from Foundry, although not in the Perry level of bad casting. Still I really like Foundry biblical range, and these were no exception. Great movement, and a joy to paint. 

So now all that's left to do is 3 chariots, including my Canaanite Prince, one unit of Royal Guards and a small unit of javelinmen. Not bad at all.  

The striketrough are completed units.

- 1x5 Maryannu Chariots (2 completed)

- 1x4 Maryannu Chariots + Canaanite Prince

- 1x24 Royal Guards

- 2x24 Spearmen 

- 1x12 javelinmen

- 1x12 Shasu Bedouins

- 1x12 Slingers

- 1x16 Archer 

Currently on my workbench on the historical side : the 2nd battalion of the 1st infantry regiment of the Duchy of Warsaw, obviously Murawski Miniatures.

More Canaanite Chariots

It has been a while since my last post. My goal was to feed this blog with at least a post every week or so, but last couple of weeks real life got in the way. Anyways, I did find some time to paint a little so...

Here are a few more chariots to add to my Canaanite army. I've been working on these and the Murawski Miniatures Line Infantry Poles the last couple of weeks.

I was able to use some of the lessons I learned while working on my first batch of Chariots, so I found these easier to paint and especially easier to assemble. Having said that, painting chariots is indeed a time consuming endeavor, although I think they are well worth the time spent as they look awesome in units. Still, I think working on chariots and something else at the same time is the way to go, for me at least, so that when I get tired of seeing those chariots half-finished I can do something else.

While my first chariot unit, meant to represent royal guards, was painted in a matching colour scheme of mostly purple, I wanted my other units to be colourful and varied. Historically, as each Maryannu would provide his own equipment and armement, it is to be expected that each chariots would be different. I think I could've been a bit more colourful on my first chariots, so that's something I took into consideration when painting these.

While the picture below shows the 3 chariot as a unit, actually the purple one will be part of my royal guard unit, and will fight alongside the 3 chariots I previously painted. I just think that painting 3 chariots at a time is more than enough for me! I was thinking of going 4 chariots to a unit, but in the end I might go with my 5 or even my original plan of 6. I recently created a 1600 pts mock army (the approx. size of John's upcoming Egyptian project) using War & Conquest army list and I ended up with 2 units of 5 chariots (including the army general). So at the very least I plan to paint 9 chariots plus one Canaanite prince riding in a chariot in order to play vs John's Egyptians. Looking at John's (usual) fast progress, I expect we should be able to play our first game this fall.

Chariots are Cutting Edge miniatures, crew are a mix of Foundry and Cutting Edge. 

This chariot will be part of my Royal Guards chariots unit

Next in line for my Canaanites: one unit of archers, and then probably some more chariots!

Canaanite spearmen II

Another post on my biblical project, quite appropriate on Easter Sunday!

My second unit of Canaanite Militia spearmen. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this unit missed the deadline by a day, as I couldn't finish the basing in time. Nonetheless, I broke my personnal record by a mile on these; 24 figures painted and based in 8 days is something of a miracle in my case. I usually take 3 or 4 weeks to do a complete unit, and my previous record for 24 figures was a little over 2 weeks. I'm quite happy also as they don't look rushed to me at all; one of the thing which limits my productivity is that I'm very perfectionnist and I cannot find the will to cut corners in order to save time. So while I did rush these a little, very little cutting corners was done!

So this is my second unit of Spearmen (first one here). The first unit was made-up of marching soldiers while this one is much more animated and in attack pose.

The figures are Foundry, and the casualties are actually Foundry Egyptians casualties (as far as I know nobody makes Canaanite casualties); some of the figures in the pack (like the Egyptian casualty in my Vulture vignette) are unusable as Canaanites but some are dressed close enough to pass as. I'm a sucker for putting casualties in units, especially on units in attacking poses. 

Some close-ups...

I must say I am having a lot of fun putting this force together, more so than I first anticipated. I was afraid all that flesh would get to me, but not at all to this point.

 It's time for a progress report :

If we look back at my original plan:
2x6 chariots

2x24 spearmen (close order)

1x20 archers (open order)

3x12 skirmishers (slingers or javelinmen)

1x Canaanite prince on chariot

I've now finished the following :  

3 Chariots

2x 24 Spearmen

2x 12 skirmishers

(plus a small vignette)

Considering the project was started just before Christmas I'm quite pleased with my progress so far. Obviously next up I will have to work on more chariots. Which brings me to a small change I've made in my army organization; my first idea was to create two units of 6 chariots but now I'm aiming at 3 units of 4 chariots, with the possibility of beefing them up to 6 later on. Most rules I intend to try are flexible on chariot unit size with 4 being the minimum size, so that's not a problem. 

So yeah, next up in this project will be 3 more chariots, I started the cleaning yesterday. Although  I also have some Napoleonics on my painting table. Recently I started doing something I never did before; paint two units/group of figures "simultaneously". I find it really helps my productivity, and when I'm tired with a unit I go with the other one. I however never paint more than two at the same time; more than that and I'm going to end up with a collection of half-painted stuff! And of course as per my usual habit I finish, base, etc. those two units before moving on to something else.

Feast of vultures (Analogue contest last submission)

My last submission to the contest was a small diorama I call 'Feast of vultures', with dead Canaanite and Egyptian soldiers surrounded by vultures. 

The vultures are from Foundry and were sent as freebies with my Shasu Bedouins. Not wanting free stuff to go to waste I figured I had to find a way to include these animals in my biblical project. Mostly it's for the looks but maybe I could use them as a marker of some kind.

The casualty figures are also Foundry. I find the addition of a couple vignettes really helps gives personality to an army, as well as making nice tabletop decorations. They are also a nice distraction in between painting units.

Basing tutorial; basing my Canaanites

My Biblical project came with a new challenge; desert terrain. As such, I had to base my army accordingly. Now my regular basing technique  involves using Wood putty to texture the base, sand as grass and adding the occasional rocks and bushes. Usually I go with a brownish autumn as my main base colour. I really like the looks of putty for basing purpose a lot and as such the flock/sand method is dead to me!

I spent some time looking at pictures of terrain of the Levant (Israel, Liban) to figure that I was aiming at more of a "rocky desert" type of terrain than a "sandy desert".

Once I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve, I went to my local artstore and bought a bunch of colours, and made some tests. For basing, I use cheap Acrylic paint tubes, in my case Amsterdam All Acrylics. I'm quite loyal to a brand once I find something I like, and I've been using these for years. I'll spare you the details but after a couple of tests I found what I was looking for. 

I've had a few inquiries on my method in recent weeks, so here is how I do it. Pretty simple, really.

You will need :

• Cheap acrylic paints
• Wood putty
• A couple of small differently sized artist spatulas
• Some medium artist brushes
• A large drybrush
• Tufts of different seasons, I get the Stilflor ones from Scenic Express
• Fish tank aggregates

 

First step is to cover the bases with wood putty. If the putty is a little dry, moisten with water and it should make it more malleable; the stuff dries fast though so once you start a base don't waste time and don't take a tea break! Cover the figure's base as much as possible. You don't want a smooth surface here, so don't hesitate to create cracks and such on the base. Leave it to dry for at least a couple of hours until it's rock solid. Then you can put a few rocks (fish tank aggregates) here and there; I use superglue but white glue will work just fine.

It's now time to start the painting. Paint the bases Burnt Sienna. A good first coat is important to avoid chipping in the future so I usually use two coats just to be sure.

Then apply a wet coat of Raw Sienna. If you still see faint traces of the base coat it's ok, it will look more natural that way.

 

























Drybrush the whole base with Naples Yellow Deep. You want a much lighter colour to really bring out the details. For a better finish you can use successful highlights of lighter colour but I only do this on individual pieces as it really is more time consuming.

The magic of drybrushing!

Now just add a couple of tufts here and there et voilà! The job is finished. Give the base a good coat of matt varnish for extra protection and pour yourself a congratulatory drink; one more unit finished!

Shasu Bedouins

Today au menu we have a unit of Shasu Bedouin javelineers for my Canaanite army. The Shasu Bedouin were Semitic speaking pastoral cattle nomads who appeared in the Levant from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. They were organized in clans under a tribal chieftain. Regarded as outcasts and brigands, they were usually hired as mercenaries to supplement the forces of the Canaanite kings.

I stayed true to my army colour scheme but included more raw linen clothes to reflect the Shasu's standing or lack thereof. Although I did went colourful on the headgears.

As usual, the figures are Foundry, bases by Litko. 

 

These guys are my 5th submission of the contest and give me 60 pts. I'm still way behind my objective but I intend to do my best to at least send one more submission before the end of the contest.

Tomorrow, a tutorial on my basing method, using these guys as examples.

First Chariots (finally!)

Well it took longer than expected but I finished my first batch of chariots. I know I said they would be done last monday, and in fact they were! It's just that they are a submission for the Analogue contest and as per the rules I had to wait for Curt to show them first on his blog before I could do the same. Unfortunately Curt was super busy this week so while I sent the pics last monday he put them up on his blog yesterday.

The primary striking arm of the Canaanite armies,  the elite chariot corps was manned by the social elite of feudal nobles called Maryanna (chariot warriors). Each Maryannu was a professionnal warrior who maintained his chariot, horses, grooms, driver and equipment at his own expense. The Maryannu's wealth was derived from his holding of a fief granted by his king. The Canaanite chariot was heavily influenced by its Mitannian counterpart, and was heavier than the Egyptian vehicle but lighter than the Hittite machine. 

The Canaanite chariot warrior was heavily protected by a mail coat of scale armour. His horse, too, wore a bronze scale coat. This armour consisted of a mail coat with sleeves and a long skirt covered with individual bronze scale plates. The scaled coat and skirt required almost a thousand scales to fabricate, with the sleeves another 200 scales! These devices were designed to protect the horse and crew from the enemies' arrows as they closed to engage. The most common helmet of the era was the bronze helmet. The charioteer neck was often protected by a high, thick bronze collar, typical of the armours of the period. In contrast with the Egyptians and Hittites, the chariot driver was often also well equipped with scale armour and helmet. The driver also carried a small shield (aritu) made of beaten bronze covered wood.

The primary weapons of the Maryannu were the composite bow (plus two quivers of arrows attached to the chariot), a heavy spear and a club, the latter to be used only in the direst emergency should the warrior find himself afoot. These weapons suggest that the tactical role of the chariot was not to fight in close quarters as the Hittites, but rather to either fire or as passing engagement. Both the bow and lance were to be either used from afar or en passant if closely engaged. These chariots could be equally efficient against the heavy chariots of the Hittites or the lighter Egyptian chariots. When fighting Egyptian chariots, the Canaanite machine gave it's charioteer an equal capability of firepower since both the Egyptians and Canaanites were armed with the same composite bow. While the Egyptian chariot held advantage in both speed and maneuverability, the Canaan plains did not offer many opportunities for battle on flat, even plains. The heavier Canaanite vehicle, with it's far better protected charioteer, offered greater advantages in delivering shock and increasing the archer's survivability both when engaged at close range en passant and when employed on uneven terrain, which itself could neutralize the Egyptians' advantage in speed and mobility.

Chariot horses were prized and expensive military assets, and there was an organized system for acquiring, breeding and training horses. Horses began training with the chariots when they were a year old and began pulling chariots by their 3rd year. By their 4th year they became proper chariot horses until their retirement at age 9 or 10.

(source : Richard A. Gabriel, Thutmose III)

Other than one Warhammer Chaos chariot painted well over a decade ago, this was my first time painting chariots. As such I decided to settle on a manageable 3 chariots at a time. After painting 3 chariots, I'm pretty sure this will be my magic number from now on. Chariots do take a lot of time to paint, what with the chariot body, wheels, 2 horses and 2 crews. 

I wanted a colour scheme to set the chariots apart from the rest of the army, which is mostly in red and pale blue, to convey their elite status. I chose purple because the region was known for its purple dye, which was laboriously produced from murex shells. The purple cloth was well known far and wide and later was associated by the Romans with nobility and royalty. Fitting, I thought. Having said that I will probably vary the colour scheme between Chariot units. These 3 chariots will be part of a bigger chariot unit, probably made-up of 6 vehicles.
Although I'm still wondering if I should go instead with smaller 4 chariots units. Food for thought.

I had a few problems along the way, most notably my Army painter drying unexpectedly just when I was about to AP the finished models. Not a big problem just an annoying one. Also yours truly in a stupid clumsy move dropped a wheel on the garage floor when varnishing the models, doh! The wheel ended up below the car, in the winter slush! Panicked, I removed the car and started looking for the wheel, which I found in good shape in the middle of small rocks and salt after a few minutes of  cursing. That was close, as I bloody hate painting wheels! 

I also expect the assembly will go smoother next time. Just little things you learn as you go.

So here are the first 3 chariots of my Canaanite army; the chariots are Cutting Edge and the crew are a mix of Cutting Edge and Foundry. I'll post a review and comparisons of Foundry and Cutting Edge chariots this week to explain why you'd be certifiably insane to pick Foundry chariots over Cutting Edge's. In the end I went with 50x80mm bases, the 50x100mm didn't look right.

So these are my 4th submission of the contest and give me 105 pts.
On the workbench : Bedouin skirmishers and more Canaan Militia Spearmen.

The land of Canaan, part II

I usually base my projects on historical battles and OOB's. Obviously in the case of this project that is difficult to achieve. Because while I can tell you I'd like to represent the battle of Megiddo, I can also tell you we know very little about the forces present at the battle. Moreover, I have to remind myself the ultimate goal of this project is to create a generic Canaanite army that can be used in a variety of rules.

The Canaanite army at Megiddo numbered anywhere between 5000 to 15000 men, depending on your sources. Chariots made-up the bulk of the army, supported by archers, infantry and a small contingent of heavy royal guards. So really, nothing that can't be reproduced on a smaller scale.

So I came up with the following tentative plan :

• 2x6 chariots
• 2x24 spearmen (close order)
• 1x20 archers (open order)
• 3x12 skirmishers (slingers or javelinmen)
• 1x Canaanite prince on chariot

So that's a very manageable 130 foot figures, 24 horses and 13 chariots. This is the bare minimum and a good start. Maybe a bit heavy on the infantry but it's to keep me sane between painting the chariots (I love painting infantry). However since I'm not following a strict OOB, I leave myself room to change things along the way. I used to go with huge plans aimed at creating huge armies, but I've wisen up with the years... Now I like to divide my projects into smaller, achievable (and gameable) steps. Once this plan has been achieved, and depending on how much I enjoyed painting the project, I will come up with another plan, which should include more Chariots, Royal guards and the odd extras, like diorama's and such.

As I mentionned in a previous post, the vast majority of these figures will be Foundry, except for the Chariots (Cutting Edge miniatures).

I already have all the lead necessary for this plan, except for the prince. Surprisingly, I haven't found a Canaanite or Mitanni general figure. Anyone have an idea of a special figure I could use? Otherwise I'll just use one of the regular chariots and paint it extra special.

Source material is however quite scarce, and more often than not one has to use reference books on the Egyptians to get info on the Canaanites. So I got the Osprey on the NKE and Bronze Age Chariots, as well as Thutmose III by Richard A. Gabriel (which contains a whole chapter on the Canaanite and Mitanni armies), and Canaanites, by Jonathan N. Tubb. I'm trying at the moment to get a cheap copy of The Art of Warfare in Biblical Land. If a reader has other suggestion I would love to hear them.

One of the thing I enjoy about painting ancients is the almost complete latitude you have in choosing your figure's colour schemes. Like I did with my TYW army, I spent a lot of time thinking about it as I like the look of my armies to match the 'personnality' of the army and it's people. Many biblical armies are mostly beige and browns, but I wanted something more and decided to go with vibrant colours. First because that's my style of painting but also because for some reason I find it represents better a merchant people. It will also make a good contrast with the mostly whites of Canaan enemies; the Imperialistic Egyptians.

And representations of the Canaanites do show colours :

I decided to paint most of my infantry with a limited palette of raw linen, red and pale blue, in various ways as you have seen with the spearmen and the slingers. It will unify the army without making it look too uniformed. Chariots are special, and as such will have their own colour schemes, I'm thinking purple. After all Canaan was know for it's purple dye industry (from Wiki) :

Tablets found in the Mesopotamian city of Nuzi use the term Kinahnu ("Canaan") as a synonym for red or purple dye, laboriously produced by the Kassite rulers of Babylon from murex shells as early as 1600 BC, and on the Mediterranean coast by the Phoenicians from a byproduct of glassmaking. Purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have been named after their place of origin. The name 'Phoenicia' is connected with the Greek word for "purple", apparently referring to the same product, but it is difficult to state with certainty whether the Greek word came from the name, or vice versa. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far and wide and was associated by the Romans with nobility and royalty.

I said in my previous post I would discuss basing some more, but as John Matrix famously said in Commando; I lied ;-) .

 

(ah good ol" gratuitous violence from the 80s)

Actually I received quite a few question on how I do my basing, so I decided to devote a future post on the subject.

So the plan is set, the colours chosen, the figures bought, the reading in progress, now it's just a matter of completing the damn army!

Oh, and thanks to all my readers; I passed the 2000 hits milestone a few days ago. 

Canaanite spearmen (Analogue contest first submission)

Finally my first entry into the Analogue painting challenge; a unit of 24 Canaanite spearmen (circa 1450 BC). 

Canaanite infantry (hupshu) was made-up of both militia and regular units. Most of the infantry were semi-trained militia or conscripted peasantry, who were lightly armed with spears or bows. Canaanite tradition dating from tribal days dictated that the infantrymen supplied their own equipment, but it is unclear whether this still applied into biblical times. It seems a distinction was made between militia armed with spears or bows. Canaanite infantry was mainly used as support to the main shock troops, the chariots. Obviously, the unit below represents militia spearmen.

The colour scheme is conjectural, of course, and purists will probably say that my blue and red are too bright. But with all that skin I wanted some vivid colours to create contrasts. I used a very limited palette however of red, pale blue and raw linen to give them a unifying theme, a colour scheme I will repeat with most of my infantry units. I'll explain more on that reasoning in the part II of my Canaan post. I quite enjoyed painting them, and they confirmed the high quality of the range.

While some rules treat them as open order, others do not. So I went with what I thought looked better, in this case close order (spearmen always look better in close order). You will notice my lack of desert terrain, it's next on my list of things to buy! 

The figures are Foundry, they are based on 50mm Litko bases.

This unit gets me on the Contest board with 120 pts.

 

 Currently on the painting table : Bedouin skirmishers and Canaanite chariots...