A plethora of elephants - Review

 In total, 52 of the things...

I think that's enough on elephants for now. The Garrison herd is now up to size that I am happy to call reasonable!

 (Future thought: the elephants under the SKT label)

Vanha elephants finished

Almost. Just noticed I haven't painted on their beards!

I also keep thinking I should probably paint the inside of the elephant's mouths, but not going to.

So, bar basing and touching up some paintwork, elephants all done.

 Next thing to do - line up all my elephants as a Review.

A fantasy Achaemenid Persian elephant.

 As in, this one never existed in reality but would look better for Gaugamela...

Only did one of these - it's already in the realms of fantasy, no need to go completely OTT. The archers are from the chariot set.

Though to be fair, if I wanted to I could always supplement them with the Sassanid version anyway

A Sassanid elephant Corps

Not really Sassanid... Carthaginian elephant, Vanha mahout, Achaemenid Persian howdah crew... except for Sassanid command groups. With all these Sassanid elephants and only a small Lamming Sassanid army for them to join I suppose I'm going to have to start a 25mm Sassanid army!

Arranged in two squadrons which I will call - the Gold squadron and the Silver squadron.

The Gold squadron is my least favourite, mainly because of the poor covering qualities of the gold paint. Two coats and still not right!

I also prefer how well the motif on the side of the howdah came out!

The original idea was to produce models that would do as both Sassanid or 'fantasy' Achaemenids. The howdah crew look as much like 70s Sassanids figures as Persian. However, for the Persians I had cast an 'extra' elephant which will be given archers from the 25mm Persian chariot and possibly a Macedonian mahout. After that, I've got four elephants to join the Vanha army to complement the mammoths.

Increasing the herd

One of the vagaries of my Ancient armies is that I had a load of Minifigs elephants but only four Garrison. Thought it was time to redress the balance.

So the first part of this was to do a load of straight Carthaginian elephants. I've done them quite simply, no shields on the side or bowcases! At some stage this will allow me to take the howdahs  off my converted  Minifigs Carthaginians elephants so they can join the Indian army.

Plenty more to do - these 12 have been allocated to provide four Vanha elephants to supplement the mammoths plus eight that will be used as Sassanids or fantasy Persians.

Once this lot are sorted, my next lot will hopefully be a dozen to act as Atlanteans. 

Obviously, of course, just because I intend to follow this plan doesn't mean that I actually will...

A couple of Ellies

 These were originally cast to join my Atlantean army using Minifigs S Range crews. However, only one got finished and after a bit of time the crews were given other duties...

So I've decided to recrew them with their original Garrison crews and use them - somewhere...

Went for a plain and simple wargames unit rather than anything fancy.

Did make an attempt at painting the eyes on one of the pikemen... decided not up to it any more...

Meanwhile, working through another full size G3 unit and have cast up enough figures for one each of G3 and late hoplite (becoming a priority: start going through 'mass' produced conversions and start assigning codes to them!)

Some Britain's elephants

A follow on to the Grant elephants.

For most of my wargaming career metal elephants were looked on as being very expensive and not really needed when Britain's baby elephant would do the job, especially as Minifigs were quite happy to sell the elephant riders separately.  Some of those Britain's elephants are long gone, including the pink and white ones, but others are still around.

These four are still nominally available for action.

I did two Seleucid elephants, this one belongs to the general.

Late Alexandrian/early Successor with converted Garrison crew.

Thought I'd do a Carthaginian general in an elephant but then didn't do the Carthaginian army to go with it!

This lot were around four years ago, not sure where they are now.... Minifigs crew, go back a few years. From 14th February 2016.

Some quite ancient ones from an army I made for my son... it won the odd victory against me :(  From 18th February 2015

Charles Grant's elephants

Mostly a quick response to 'please tell me you have the elephants as well'

I've got 3 of them. I did post a couple of pictures of them about 6 years ago, here's those 2 pictures plus a few more...

One of the original pictures posted giving them a bit of context with the book.

As can be seen, one seems to be intact, one has a broken tusk, one has two broken tusks (pieces missing). To make these figures 'work' the ears were 'repositioned'. Looks a bit odd if you look closely - if you don't, it is strangely difficult to notice.

As they stand today. I've done no restoration work apart from regluing the broken tusk.

Crews on these are Garrison conversions, The elephants are Airfix Zoo set rather than Tarzan set - just checked on PSR  to confirm! Personally, I always used the Britains baby elephant. Being a strange kind of person, one of Britain's elephants was painted white, another one was painted pink. Perhaps a good thing that those particular ones are long gone.

I think they could do with a bit of a clean up though.

Never mind the tusks, I think the trunk is also looking a bit iffy!

Indian Army Review 2019

The logical end of the November mass painting spree...

Not as big as some of my other armies but quite reasonable.

Inspecting the first chariot unit...

Second...

And third...

Along the line of javelins.

The archery Corps

And finally the cavalry

The 2 horse chariots came with a 1 man crew - I've replaced them with a 2 man crew.

Medium cavalry units - in blue, so could possibly substitute for Kushites.

The EHC came part painted. 'Actual' EHC in an Indian army should be Kushans, basically a Parthian cataphract figure on a half armoured horse. Not something I'm going to quibble about!

These elephants show the flesh tones issue - figures all came ready painted though I painted the elephants.

If you have a painting block...

... Paint elephants. Or chariots.

So, having started some Sherden, then more of the Langley figures, then some 42mm Russians, all stalled... looked at 4 of the elephants sitting on a shelf and decided 'Why not'.

Went for a slightly different look to the other 6 of these - 6 is enough for an army in most cases so by doing these a bit differently I can use them in two different armies and look as though it's intentional rather than just splitting a unit.

Original intention was to put shields on the side but in the event I didn't.

Comparison between the two sets. The bronze paint I used for the armour is different, the 'new' elephants have uncovered ears and the crews are in red.

So, it means I now have 10 painted 'S' Range armoured elephants with PB Mahout and 'S' Range Late Roman archer crew - every now and then I buy up some Late Romans and they always seem to come with archers so I've got quite a few. In howdahs you can't see their breeches and they fit in well so, why not?

Next, get started on finishing more of the the Assyrian chariots.

Elephants and Chariots

One thing I've got now that I didn't have in the past is space. This means I can put together things that would have been difficult or awkward. So, got a bit silly (quite like getting a bit silly at times).

Starting to move various chariots and elephants around. Which gives me a photo-opportunity...

This is the current Seleucid component - armoured elephants and scythed chariots

The elephants are all Minifigs S Range armoured elephants, Indian mahouts and (I think) S Range Late Roman/Byzantine archer crews.

The scythed chariots are assorted Minifigs with Garrison scythes and converted Garrison hoplite as the charioteer.

The 'Persian'  version - scythed chariots plus the ex-Harry Minifigs Achaemenid chariots.

To be fair, the Persians have a load more chariots such as these ex-Harry ex-Ray McGarry ones.

The chariots component looks pretty good...

This is Ancient Power... I've added the ex-Harry Carthaginian elephants to the mix...

 

The elephants. Front one is an early Minifigs Sassanid elephant with Garrison mahout and Lamming archers. Next, Minifigs S Range elephant, S Range mahout, Garrison howdah and Minifigs crew!. Finally, S Range armoured elephant, Indian mahout and Minifigs S Range archers.

Front, Minifigs chariot, Macedonian and Punic Wars Darius. Followed by Minifigs chariot. Both ex-Harry. Last Minifigs chariot, converted Garrison crew and scythes, ex-me.

Finally, a few on the waiting list. 4 Armoured Minifigs, another Carthaginian ex-Harry (actually got 10 of these), Garrison completed one from Atlantean army plus 2 waiting to join Atlantis.

This lot doesn't include plastic or Indian elephants of course... some day (possibly soon?) might get round to that. Likewise, still a load of other chariots around.

So, basically setting this lot out just a bit of silliness, but fun.