The Kushites are coming Part 3

And the main battle is about to start...

The battle lines are drawn...

In this battle, both sides just want to attack.

I allow archers a 6" firing range, so cavalry need to close quickly.

This is true of the Kushite cavalry as well.

Things aren't going well for the defenders in the fort.

The cavalry attacks didn't go well - the Egyptians ran away and the Kushites were stopped dead in their tracks.

The end is in sight here...

As the main battle develops, the Kushite centre is looking fragile.

The Kushites continue their attacks and some Egyptian right flank infantry turn to block an outflanking move.

Having cleared the fort the Kushite attackers stream out to  join the main battle.

When the Egyptian chariots broke the cavalry they were facing, the surviving element eventually took a Kushite chariot with it - and another one died in combat. The hard battle for the fort obviously left a mark on the Kushite warband from the fort - they broke on contact with the spears.

Feeling a bit lonely, the Kushite general calls it a day... time to regroup and come back later...

A very enjoyable battle. As to rules... a bit of a mish mash of DBA, WRG 4th Edition and RY 'that's seems about right'. I speeded combat up a bit treating them as units if everything the same but separate elements at other times - for example, spears v warband 1 dice roll for the whole unit, chariots separate rolls as the general was present and he gets the plus 1, the others don't - so 3 separate combats instead of 1.

The Kushites are coming - Part 2

So the cavalry are off to get help while the fort gets to see some action.

The fort is under siege whilst the main Kuskite army bypasses it and starts to form up a battle line.

One problem with the fort is that you can't put the bases on the ramparts - they fall off.

This could take a while as the action swings back and forth. Here, some Blemye have broken into the fort but the Kushite warband has been pushed back. Under DBA the garrison should have a plus 4 but I've ony given them a plus 2. My game, my rules.

The Amun Division has (mostly) arrived - some still on garrison duty elsewhere.

The Blemyes are inside and fighting the garrison. Meanwhile some warband are still at the walls, the rest sit out this move having been pushed back (unlike 'standard' DBA where they would be straight back in - I feel that that wouldn't represent the siege nature as well as having a delay). For all, enemy scoring double on dice means a kill, but I've also said 2 pushbacks running will kill a defender.

The defenders win the battle inside the fort and the attackers are pushed back outside.

Meanwhile, in the main battle both sides are advancing towards each other.

Lamming and Minifigs Sea People

Continuing with the old figures, the Lammings will be late 70s, Minifigs probably date from the 80s or 90s.

Minifigs Sherden, separate shields and weapons. Some of the weapons need replacing, but at least I could do decent bases in those days.

Lamming Peleset. Unpainted white bases, but the shields are pretty.

I've still got a few more Sea People figures lying around, including some Minifigs Peleset.

More on Assyrian chariots

Well, my 'S' Range Assyrian chariot force is now pretty much finished.

To recap, when I bought the Assyrians they had three chariots. This seemed a bit short of what was required, so I embarked on a process of re-allocating some other chariots to a new master.

 First, the 'light' 2 horse chariots. I now have a total of  16 in service including the general.

The general is in a repainted chariot using some of my original 45-46 year old figures. The charioteer is the only genuine 'S' Range charioteer in my army, the rest are all conversions of something.

These are the original chariots that came with the army. Everything else  has been painted in an attempt to match their painting style.

This lot have Garrison crews. The charioteers were originally converted from the armoured slinger, the archer is a Roman.

These two units have 'S' Range crews, charioteers are converted spearmen painted by me, other figures have just been retouched a bit, for example shield patterns.

These, looking at the rein dividers, are actually the only genuine Assyrian chariots here - the rest I assume to be Persian imposters. Originally they were going to be an integral part of the chariot force, but have been relegated since I acquired and painted most of the above. Hence I haven't repainted them or anything, just stuck them on new bases and replaced the 'original' Persian crews with Assyrians.

Next, we come to the heavies. These are a right mixture.

The general is a Minifigs 'S' Range, crew are both Garrison - the standard bearer has a standard from a 25mm Garrison cavalry figure.

Horses are 'S' Range cataphract horses. I think that this was the only one Minifigs issued, so you ended up with an Assyrian cataphract horse whatever Nationality your figure was. I 've got enough of these horses and chariots to do 3 more chariots, but I'm in no hurry - 3 is enough for most of my uses plus I've got another 4 with Lamming horses and crews anyway. The charioteer and spearmen are the early 'S' Range spearmen, the archer some of a batch of later EA Range figures.

Finally, and I appreciate they are not chariots, this bunch of light spearmen have been used as bought and just rebased. These figures also provided most of the charioteers of the light chariots. There seems to have been a variation of this figure - one of the charioteers  I used is shieldless.

'S' Range Nubians

I'm willing to admit to a slight mistake here. One of the things I'm doing at the moment is putting together  the 'S' Range Egyptians. This is the army I got from Harry that needs most work. Firstly, I had some of my own. Second, I'm buying some off the Internet. Third, Harry's figures were themselves from several different and not always compatible sources.

Anyway, coming to do the Nubians I was convinced that assorted bows were part of the Hyborian Black Nations army, hence one of the reasons I painted up those Zulus...

The Black Nations army consists of 1 Rider general, 6 Rider cavalry and 5 Warband!

Coming back to the Nubians, several different figure sources and I didn't want to strip and repaint them all. So instead I've simply jumbled them up within the units.  The officer and standard bearer in the 3Bw unit shown in the first photo are later EA figures. They are unmodified Internet additions - all I've done is give them a coat of varnish before basing.

 

I've based 2 units so far, a 24 figure 3Bw unit and a 12 figure 2Ps unit. A DBA Nubian army needs a couple of 3Wb elements, plenty of them lying around when I need them, so Egyptians have some useful allies plus a potential opponent sorted.

Vile Kush

My philosophy has always been to start with a base army then expand it to cover other possible armies or times. The Kushites started as Egyptian Kushites then aquired figures to take it into the Blemye/Nobades areas. The Kushite army as an entity is all Minifigs, both later IR and EA Ranges, and dates (mainly) from the 90s to early 00s. However, quite a few of the archers were earlier IR Range figures.

I did get about 100-150 assorted Zulu figures at a convention bring-and-buy. About 50 of these were roughly painted up as a start towards the levies needed for later armies - don't know where they are now though. The best way I could describe the paintwork on them is 'very minimum wargames standard.'

Possibly because these were the figures he grew up around this army seems to be my son's favourite in my collection. I admit the bases at least are better than anything I do now!

  Still an army with a bit of growing to do...

  Early cavalry, I use these mainly as Kushite Egyptians

 One of the few times when I appreciated separate shields on later Minifigs - though I still added them to one unit.

  These are the cavalry that extend the Range into the 4th/5th Centry AD. Still quite happy to use them with the earlier ones though

 I think these are mostly EA figures. The close fighting infantry component is a bit short on numbers

Mostly early IR and later EA figures?

I think most of these are early PB Blemyes that have been recycled.