AAR - Nubians vs Achaemenid Persians (ADLG)

Last Monday night I got back my Nubians into the club's ADLG competition with a game against Dave A's Persians. He won the initiative and chose to attack me in "plains" (roughly translates as agricultural).

Having won the initiative, Dave's army advanced rapidly, but stayed just out of shooting range of my massed bowmen.

In my turn I advanced so that I was just inside shooting range and loosed some volleys off - I did inflict some damage, but not as much as I'd have liked.

Unfortunately, being just inside shooting range meant that I was also inside charging range of the Persian cavalry and scythed chariots on my left wing and centre.

"Errmm aren't we meant to win dramatically against light-medium bowmen in the open?"

Meanwhile, my right wing archers were teeing up to get slaughtered by cavalry, swordsmen and an elephant...

I didn't have many troops not engaged in melee for my turn, so not much movement. However, I managed to destroy the scythed chariots (sadly not worth any attrition points) and do some more damage to the cavalry with the general. But one element of archers got wiped out.

On my left wing, the archers had killed off the light horse who had tried to sneak around the flank and were now switching their efforts to the light horse behind the cavalry. Yup, the cavalry who were getting beaten up by bowmen in the open. Actually, I forgot to say that the two units on the right (with white kilts) are elite medium foot swordsmen.

Over to the right wing where Dave's swordsmen and elephant had charged and wiped out a whole bunch of my bowmen.

In the centre he had disengaged his battered cavalry - which meant I couldn't shoot at them this turn.

Back to the left wing where one of his cavalry units had finally broken a unit of elite swordsmen.

On the right wing, I'd lost another unit of bowmen, but some elite swordsmen had hit some severely hurt cavalry in the flank.

On the left, some javelinmen had finally got into position to join the combat with the cavalry, sounding the deathknell to the end unit.

Sadly not quite in time as I'd lost enough units in this turn to break my army.

I'd lost 32 points from a 28 break-point army; Dave had lost 20 from 25.


Thursday's game was against Clive's host of Carthage. I lost spectacularly - 36 points from 28 vs 4 from 24. It didn't help that I'd lost the initiative and Clive decided to defend in "plains", that the only piece of terrain on my half of the table was a plantation right on the left edge, that I stupidly didn't consider that Clive might send his cavalry command on a flank march to come in on my right, that there were no troops facing my left wing so they would have to do a long march to get anywhere useful, that I had really awful dice all night and that Clive's flank march came in on his second turn, leaving me with no time to redeploy to deal with it. oh well, such is life...

Anyway, tomorrow they are facing andy F's Hebrews - hopefully I'll have luckier dice.

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 21

I was a touch over-optimistic about how far I'd get with the hussars today. In my defence, that could be because this is double the number that I've painted in one go previously and there is a lot of fiddly detail to paint.

However, I did get them very close to completion and should be able to finish them tomorrow night. Here's a pic of them as they are now:

All that's left are lacing on the Novoserbskiy (blue/red) guys, straps on the blanket rolls, edging on the shabraques, flesh highlights some minor touch-ups and the metals.


In other news, my Nubians got posted today, earning me 453 points which puts me in 8th place for now, but I expect people to bump me back down as the week goes on.

Preview pic (click to go to the post on the Challenge blog):

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 17

I've had quite a busy evening. First off (well, after a coffee) I had a session with the FlockBox. I added static grass to the bases for the grave vehicles:

And then I made some tufts for the Nubians (and maybe the Sea Peoples if I have any left over).:

2mm static grass

Mix of 2 and 4mm static grass

Close-up of the mixed length tufts

Unfortunately I had a clumsy moment as I was picking up one of the tuft sheets to move it elsewhere to dry:

The squidged tufts should still be usable though.


After a quick break I cracked on with adding grit and sand to the Nubians' bases:

They'll need to dry out overnight, then tomorrow evening I'll seal them with diluted PVA. Tufts and maybe some other foliage will be added on Saturday after I've sprayed them with matt varnish. These will be the last pics until after they've been submitted.

Tomorrow evening I'll also be putting the finishing touches to the grav vehicles - washes and detailing.

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 16

The Nubians have all been popped off the painting sticks and glued onto bases. I'm going to add the sand tomorrow night as sorting the figures out and gluing them down took longer than I'd expected.

Anyway, some piccies of them on the bases:

Baggage element

Light foot and command stands

Medium foot javelinmen and "Fanatic Warriors"

Archers

I've also prepared the static grass mixes for making tufts. I'll be doing those tomorrow, before adding sand and grit to the bases.

If I have time tomorrow I'll also return to the grav vehicles to get them done before the weekend.

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 15

After suffering a very cold day in the office (the heating had shut down a few days ago and they hadn't restored it), when I got home to my nice warm flat my body decided to take advantage and I zonked out for a couple of hours, which meant a later than planned start to this evening's painting. However, I did manage to get the last 48 Nubians finished (helped by having done the first three steps last night).

Piccies of tonight's painting:

And that's everything painted now, so a pic of them all before I pop them off the sticks and glue them onto their bases:

Tomorrow will see them stuck onto bases and - hopefully - having the sand/grit added. I'll also be making the static grass mixes for making tufts to stick on the bases.

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 14

Today has been truly productive on the painting front. I did make a small start on the first batch of archers last night, just painting the kilts. But that did enable me to make a quick start this morning. And girl, oh girl, did I get a whole lot done.

I finished that big batch of 48 archers just after lunchtime:

So, after a break for lunch and to browse the interwebs, I started on the next batch of 36 archers. And finished them about 8pm:

Everything painted so far today:

Just leaving this lot to do:

I'll get the first couple of steps done on these tonight, to give me a head-start tomorrow evening. If all goes to plan, I should have all the painting done for this army by the time I go to bed. That will let me get them glued onto bases on Wednesday and maybe add sand/grit mix. They should be all done by the weekend, leaving plenty of time for me to finish off the grav vehicles for the "armour" bonus theme round.

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 13 & Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone - wishing you a safe, successful and enjoyable 2017!

Today marks the 5th birthday of this blog. I will be doing a prize draw to celebrate at some point to mark the blogiversary and passing through the 750k hits mark, but I'm holding off until a third milestone is reached - 1000 posts. Don't worry, it should come around fairly quickly if I'm posting daily.



After posting last night, I cracked on and finished the batch of Nubians that I was working on:

26 clubmen

These chaps will form the bulk of the "elite fanatic warriors" for the army, with a few chaps from the next batch and some command figures.

Today has been very productive and I've motored through the third batch and finished them a short while ago:

46 spearmen/javelinmen

Some of these will go to the "elite fanatic warriors", the rest will be either LMI or LI javelinmen.

Here's a pic of everything that's been painted so far:

And one of everything that's left to paint:

92 down, 132 to go...

This lot will be the next batch to be painted:

48 bowmen

I'll be making a start on them later tonight.


In the meantime, I've almost finished prepping the Sea Peoples figures - just 36 left to do, which I hope to get done this evening while watching TV.


Once again, Happy New Year folks!!

AHPC7 - Challenge Day 12

Despite being out until early afternoon today, I have made excellent progress on the Nubians. I've finished painting the command figures and made a good start on the next batch of figures:

With a bit of luck, I should be able to finish the second batch and also take the third batch (which is slightly larger) through to completion tomorrow, leaving just the three batches of bowmen and the slaves to do. I think I'll be able to get at least two batches of bowmen finished on Monday.

Sadly, I'm back at work on Tuesday which only leaves evenings free for painting. I should be able to manage the rest by Wednesday, then it's onto basing and flocking [reminder to self - need to make up the static grass mix]. And then I can finish up the grav vehicles before moving onto the next batch of figures - maybe something big for the "East" bonus theme round?