Nellie Fever

I'm very frustrated that I have picked up no less than 6 elephants in the last few months, and don't have the time to paint any of them because of my preparations to the Zama game!  To ease the pain, I've treated myself to a couple of nights off Zama to at least stick a few together, even though I know I won't be able to paint them until May.

First (above) is the excellent Aventine Pyrrhic Indian elephant. This is a fine beast; very expressive with his raised trunk.  It went together very cleanly, with just a little greenstuff at the seams.  As with other Aventine minis, there was no flash or mould lines.  I was very impressed with the two part Howdah; so impressed in fact...

                                     

...that I used a spare Aventine howdah on the female Indian elephant from TimeLine, shown above .  I will be using Aventine crewmen, too.  Aventine sell howdahs and crewmen seperately, which is a valuable facility.  I still need to add some ropes in greenstuff to this model.  I wanted at least one female elephant in my elephant "brigade".

        

Finally, above I have a most unusual beast (above).  Mario of Empire Models very kindly sent me one of his African elephants.  I felt it was rather too large a model for an African beast, but couldn't resist the magnificently sculpted armour and so have given it an Indian head donated by Barry at Timeline.  I should say Keith of Aventine also very kindly sent me a spare head (thanks!), but the Timeline head was slightly larger and more closely fitted the large, broader frame of the Empire torso.  I've had to trim the neck of the torso to get the head to look OK; in due course I'll add a crest so that it matches the other Empire elephants I own.  I damaged the crenellations on the howdah, and took them off.  Again, it'll probably have Aventine crewmen.

Other elephants I have not shown here include one each Aventine Sassanind Royal, Pyrrhic and Seleucid.  I'll try to put the Seleucid together next week.

Finally here are the three together; they match surprisingly well in size.  The Empire in the centre is larger, but not unbearably so. 

                

Roll on May...

Successor and Parthian Cavalry Size Comparison Shots

For some time I've been toying with building a successor army.  Recently several manufacturers have very kindly sent me samples of their ranges, and I thought it would be useful to compare the size of the different miniatures.  I'll re-shoot these when Polemarch come out with relevant additions to their range.

The 1stCorps mounts are in the lower row, above.  They are slightly smaller than, say, Foundry Saleh horses (middle of top row), but not unduly; whilst I wouldn't mix within a unit I would within an army.  They are very crisply cast and highly animated.

A&A kindly sent me one of their Parthian cataphract horses.  I've included this as Parthians could be found within a Seleucid army.  The A&A horse is a not dissimilar size to the 1st Corps, but rather more heavily built, with thicker legs, and being rather broader in the body.

The final mount, top right, is from Empire Models.  I hesitated to include it as as far as I'm aware it isn't in production at the moment; but is is a fine, large mount, by far the largest of the horses, a veritable Nisean charger and I couldn't resist!  One of the forelegs seems just a little short to me, but I do love it; I'll be buying some when they come to the market, if only for the splendid transverse plume.

Above is the Empire steed, left, and a 1stCorps mount, right.  They look similar in size above, but that is foreshortening; these two certainly wouldn't work together in the same unit (NB the Empire model isn't yet in production).

Finally, we have the riders.  Please note, the Empire rider has a separate head (not included).  The  A&A and Empire riders are larger than the 1stCorps, but would probably work in different units.  Thanks very much to 1stCorps, A&A and Empire for the sample miniatures. 

Once Zama is out of the way, I'll hopefully be building an Eastern army and I'd be happy to use any of the above miniatures.

Aventine and Empire Models Elephant Size Comparison

Mithridates on TMP was asking how the Aventine http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/ and Empire elephants compare sizewise. 

Accordingly, I've bluetacked the Aventine Royal elephant together, sans trunk and tusks.  It is supposed to be rearing, but I've put all 4 feet on the ground for comparison purposes; it is the unpainted model at the front.

From the above view, you'll see that they are both pretty well the same size to the shoulder; roughly 53mm.

The build of the two elephants torsoes is not dissimilar.  The legs and feet are similar sizes.  The Empire body is rather longer, at 58mm to the Aventine's 49mm.

The big difference between the two is in the heads.  The volume of the Empire head is perhaps twice that of the Aventine, largely because is is very much broader, with a bigger forehead and eyes set wider (perhaps rather too wide) apart.  The elephant has a very large helmet and crest on the beast.  I prefer the smaller Aventine head, but can live with the bigger head on the Empire model because it is such an imposing beast overall, with excellently depicted armour.

Broadly speaking, the two elephants would work well together.  I'll be adding Aventine elephants to my Seleucid elephant corp as soon as they can sculpt them, and I can get around to painting them!

Elephant Size Comparison Shots

I promise that this is the final post featuring elephants for the time being! I'm going to compare the Empire Models (Indian) elephant, on the right in each photo, with three African elephants from other ranges, in part to convey the sheer mass of the former. Indian elephants should be much larger than African forest elephants, and Empire's certainly is!  All photos are clickable.

The African elephants will all feature at the Society of Ancients Zama game, next year.First (above) we have the Gripping Beast Carthaginian elephant http://www.grippingbeast.com/shop.php?CatID=154 . This would convert very well to become a Ptolemaic elephant at Raphia; it is very much smaller than Empire's Indian, but then it should be! The bulk of the Indian elephants at Raphia apparently gave them a considerable advantage.The second elephant (above) is an African from Essex http://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/frames25mmcont.html . I feel this is the least satisfactory of my Africans, and won't be buying more; it doesn't look much like I think an African Forest Elephant should appear. It is very plump and rounded, with 'orrible thickish legs.Finally, we have a heavily converted Renegade elephant http://www.renegademiniatures.com/numidian.htm
. The basic Renegade elephant is an unhappy composite between an Indian and an African elephant, with features of each; however, extensive work with greenstuff makes it into a rather satisfactory African Forest nellie, in my view at least, and it is my favourite African at the moment (not least because it was the cheapest, at £6).

Altogether we will field 11 elephants for the Society of Ancients Zama game next April; my six, another 4 from my mate Dr Simon, and one that still needs to be sourced. In our first game trialling the battle, they managed to inflict a surprising amount of damage against their Roman foes; rather more, in fact, than they should have!

Painting Nellie 1

This series of posts is goint to be a mix of review and painting log for the Empire Models armoured Successor elephant.

The Empire Models Successor Elephant stands a mighty 54mm at the shoulder, is 85mm long from tip of the trunk to hind feet and is 84mm to the top of the howdah. The model comes with 4 crewmen, which I'll deal with in a later posting.

The elephant is very easy to assemble, just requiring the head and metal trunk and tusks to be attached. I have left the tusks off for the time being, because it will be easier to paint with them absent. I had to do a small amount of filling on the join of the head and body, as you'd expect. There were a number of tiny airholes in the casting; less than I would have expected, though, and I easily filled these with greenstuff. One very minor issue with the model is that there are small crevices along the edges of the howdah; I filled these, too. After assembly I primed white.

I wouldn't claim to be expert on elephants, nor Successors, but this is an imposing beast. I estimate that, compared to a Foundry World of the Greeks miniature, it must represent a creature around 10' to 10'6", at the shoulder, not far off the maximum 11' height that Wikipedia suggests Indian elephants grow to.

Paul was asking on TMP about the size of the model. Now I don't have a Newline elephant to compare it with, but I've taken a shot next to a couple of Foundry figures. This is a big bull, and isn't going to be very useful if you have 25mm scale phalangites; it'll dwarf them. I think, though, that a couple of these will make fantastic centrepieces in a bigger 28mm Successor army such as Foundry, Empire or Polemarch.

In general the model is very well cast, and the detail is extremely crisp. The scale armour and the draperies are beautifully depicted. I'm very much looking forward to painting them (I have two)... going to be a big job, though, because they are fantastic pieces that will warrant careful attention!

Another Empire Models Comparison Shot

I thought it would be useful to take a closeup shot of one of the samples Mario kindly sent me (this is clickable), and write a brief review.


The model I'm comparing Mario's figure with, is one of the Foundry Successors, designed, I believe, by Steve Saleh. I'm not an expert on Successor Gear, so won't address this; but from what little I know, both appeared to be realistically dressed.

Mario's models arrived with very little flash on them, and the detail is extremely crisp (just look at the ties on the linothorax!). I received 6 bodies and 8 heads, but have only showed a couple here for reasons of time.

By my (approximate) measurements, Empire's model is 28-29mm from the soles of the feet to the eye, compared to 27mm for the Foundry. You'll see I've used greenstuff to fix the Empire Models head in place; I did this because I felt it needed a bit more neck than if I'd placed the head directly in the socket; without this he'd be slightly shorter. Heightwise, I'd have no hesitation in using both within the same unit.

The main difference between the two ranges is in the legs, and particularly the lower leg, with Empire's perhaps 2.5mm longer than Foundry's. I'm very familiar with the Foundry models, and my first impression was that the Empire looked a little "leggy"; but on reflection, I suspect that the Empire range is closer, than Foundry's, to natural human proportions. The legs and arms of the Empire models are also much more slender and naturalistic. One thing that tends to make the legs on the Empire models look longer, is the shortness of their tunics; the one on the above figure is amongst the longer ones (and looks fine to me), but I did feel a little uneasy about the shortness in one or two of the other poses (see previous post). Another point about the legs on both models, is that they are set quite wide apart; I'd have preferred them to have been nearer to each other at the top. Not all the Empire legs are set this far apart, though.

The Empire model is rather broader in the upper body than the Foundry. Detail (such as the pteurges and folds in the tunic) is crisper and less exaggerated on Empire than on the Foundry model.

The Empire Egyptian Machimoi drummer is really lovely; bags of character!


To sum up, I really like the naturalistic feel of the new Empire Models range. The wide selection of heads and poses will mean that it will be possible to assemble units where all of the miniatures are different from each other. Also the heads could also be used for conversions of other minis, helping me to build, perhaps, the Maccabean army I've long dreamed of. I will put my Empire minis in different units to my Foundry minis (because of the legs), but that's just me, you may be happy to mix them. I will certainly be buying some shortly...

Empire Models Size Comparision Shots

Mario Kkounnous of Empire Models (http://www.empiremodels.co.uk/) has been kind enough to send me some size-comparison shots of his new range of miniatures, and some crisp samples which look really nice and which I intend to pore over, later tonight- I'll post a brief review in due course. The figures on the left in each photo are from the Wargames Foundry World of the Greeks range, and the painted figures on the right from Marios' new range.



I thought it would be useful to post these, as there has some concern has been expressed on TMP that they might be excessively tall; you can see that each is very similar in size to the Foundry World of the Greeks figure next to them. This suggests to me that they will fit heightwise with Foundry, Crusader and probably with the new Gripping Beast Range, which I'd expect to be Foundry-sized.


One comment I'd make, is that in the photos it appears that the hands are quite large; having compared with the samples, this is not the case in reality and it appears to be foreshortening in the photos.


I'd like to thank Mario for being so responsive!