'The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold' - Byron

 Putting down a desert mat with a terrain piece on it takes a lot of time and effort. So much time and effort I thought I'd better get a bit more use out of it. It's been a long time since I've used my Minifigs Egyptians and Minifigs/Lamming Assyrians so I thought - why not?

So I decided that the  Amun Division of my Egyptian army would be one side.

This is my current Egyption army. Four 'historical' Divisions plus some extras forming a non-historical Pharaoh's Division. All these are Minifig's 'S' Range - I also have a Garrison army but it's a lot smaller - development of the Garrison army more or less stopped when I bought Harry's collection. There is also a later Minifigs Egyptian and Kushite army. At some time I must sort out some of that lot for a Review!

This is the Assyrian force. Infantry and cavalry are all ex-Harry Minifigs 'S' Range. The General's chariot in the middle is a more recent attempt of mine and consists of a mixed Garrison/Minifigs crew, Minifigs chariot body and Garrison wheels. The other chariots are from my late 70s Lamming army with Minifigs chariot bodies.

These are pretty much my complete Assyrian forces - mostly Minifigs 'S' Range, back ranks from the rearmost  light archers are Garrison and Garrison conversions, chariots scratch built with card bodies.

The armies in this battle have been set up and started to move towards each other...

The Assyrian right flank. The chariots are splitting up to avoid the rough ground.

One of the advantages of solo gaming is when it comes to applying rules. I switch quite happily from treating elements separately or as individual elements. In this case I considered them to be units and the result was devastation! Of the first eight or so dice rolls I think there were about three 1s and 2 2s!

Leaving big gaps!

A view of the situation at this point. On the Egyptian right, the Egyptian archers are seeing off the left flank Scythian horse archers.

The fleeing Scythians have left the Assyrian left flank a bit open.

The centre, mainly composed of spear units, is developing into a slugfest.

While things are beginning to look very interesting on the Assyrian right.

Sassanid size comparison

 Some time ago I was asked how compatible Garrison Sassanids were with Lamming and Hinchliffe. Well, finally got round to sorting it.

First, though, just to mention I've finished my second Garrison unit. At the moment I'm working on a load of 'S' Range one piece castings.

So this is the comparison. Garrison, then Lamming, then Hinchliffe. As their Konti are not integral I've chopped their tops off. As can be seen they are all compatible though the Lamming rider is a bit shorter.

As I've mentioned before Garrison did produce masters for a 20(ish)mm Sassanid clibinarius. The horse of this is more or less compatible with the final 25mm horse, but the rider is much smaller.

Lamming Egyptians Review

 As well as the Assyrians at the head of this blog I had the beginnings of a Lamming Egyptian army. Although I have posted about them before it was a few years ago and I didn't do them as a Review.

Though one reason for this is that it is quite a small army...

Have to admit I liked the ground effect on the bases of some of these.

This shows the difference between the early Lamming spearman and the later one with separate spears and shields.

Size-wise the army looks a lot bigger if I include a unit of the spearmen that I had designed (these are the ones that were supposed to be compatible with Garrison 20mm!)

Some Lamming Greek cavalry.

Another of the 'odd units'. Couldn't even find any photos of these.  They date back to about 1976-7?

Bill was one of the first (the first?) manufacturers to produce figures with a choice of separate heads. Of course, I gave all mine the same head.

I might have played a small part in that. The first figures with separate heads were in the Medieval Range. When I saw them I mentioned to Bill that the idea should work well with Greeks.... few months later they appeared. I like to think...

Main reason I didn't get a lot more Greek figures is simply because I was building up my Assyrians at the time as well as the Persons. Couldn't do everything!

Some sad 20mm Lamming Napoleonic French Artillery

This for Mathew... RHA I'd already posted but the French foot artillery got neglected a bit - never finished and looked a bit battered. Saw them a while back, forgot where, found them again. In the 42mm artillery box when I was putting the British army troops away!

Certainly haven't shown these figures at their best!

Quite slimline with largish looking heads. On the other hand, they are more or less compatible with these 20mm Garrison Prussians.

Lamming British Horse Artillery

Back in the early 70s my friends at Uni bought me some wargames figures for my birthday, including a couple of Lamming artillery crews. The French foot artillery are... somewhere... and the British crew are here. No idea where the guns are, so the gun here is a Rose offering.

Haven't removed all of the dust off the figures yet!

Untouched figures painted nearly 50 years ago. Well, not the gun of course.

Rose gun, like these because they are a good 'clean' design.

Looking at the Garrison 20mm catalogues I can't find any record of them producing 20mm artillery crews - but the figures exist- I'll post better pictures when these are painted.

Meanwhile, still going through the Garrison 20mm figures - lots of different and easily cast attack march, few other infantry poses but not many officers/standard bearers.

The Saitic/Neo-Assyrian battle

Firstly, apologies for the quality of the pictures - one side of the table faced full length windows and it was a sunny day; looks like some out of focus but it's just strong shadows!

So, the battle...

Rules basically DBA. Being a solo effort I didn't see the need for alternative moves or PIP dice. With combat, I diced to see which side to start each set of combats from - important for push backs and overlaps. All archers (including Ps and LH) were given a 2" range rather than just Bw. Sp count 2 ranks against all opponents. Battlefield no terrain, just set up and advance to contact.

The Saitic lineup. Light troops on the right, Bws on the left, Generals chariot and spears in the centre.

Neo-Assyrian forces. The different colour bases show several decades of changes - this is mainly a 1970s army updated in stages to DBA. The blue chariot was originally the Generals chariot but I swapped it out before the battle. These chariots are a Lamming/Minifigs mix, the Hordes are Minifigs, everything else is Lamming.

When I set up my first thought was that it would be an easy Assyrian victory.

You may notice random palm trees. This is a variation on using numbered cards to mark the moves - 2 trees means move 2. 'Move 1', however, was a bit different - I just lumped the initial 3 moves together on the grounds nothing happened except people moving forward. So Move 2 was really Move 4. Happily, I know what I mean.

So Move 2 was the move into contact/shooting range move...

Move 2 was not good for the Assyrians. Cavalry rolled 2, Bw 4, straight kill. Ax 'Destroyed by Knights in good going' Hordes ' destroyed 'Or if shot at.' First contact and Assyrians already one kill away from the 4 element break point!

Removing casualties shows the the gaps that have appeared in the Assyrian ranks.

Then on Move 3 it was a bit better as the Assyrian general and surviving Cv took out both Saitic Bw elements.

But then on Move 4 the other Assyrian chariot was destroyed taking it down to 4 elements lost. The Egyptians lost an element of Ps archers, but that only took Egyptians losses to 3 elements.

So first battle, Saitic win. I'll often continue beyond this point but couldn't see the Assyrians turning things around - their left flank was doing OK, but those Ax in the centre were about to be swamped and the second rank of Egyptian Sp would be able to turn and face the outflanking Assyrian cavalry. If the Assyrian chariot had rolled the 4 instead of a 1 things could have been a bit different.

Simple battle, nothing complicated, enjoyed it.

Back to basics - Saitic Egyptians v Neo-Assyrians, Saitic v Kushites Part the First.

Haven't played a DBA game in ages and feeling withdrawal symptoms, so got down to getting the figures out. So, decided on a couple of games. Normally I tend to use Minifigs for Egyptian and Assyrian armies, for these I decided to give the others a chance.

Rather than putting this lot in  with the battle descriptions I thought I 'd just put the army descriptions in a separate post with links to the armies/figures from previous posts.

Neo-Assyrian Empire 1/45

So sorted out my (mainly) Lamming Neo-Assyrians - basically the ones that appear at the top of my blog - plus my Garrison Saitic Egyptians and Kushites. However, I also used the tin plate chariot as the general. Likewise, the army itself dates back to the 70s - pre-DBA, pre-Hordes. So for them I used some of the S Range javelin men that I put on Hordes bases.

Saitic Army 1/53

One that was completely off the shelf with no need for substitutions.   One nice thing about this army - from my point of view anyway - is that every figure is one of my conversions. 

Kushite Egyptian 1/46

Another army of conversions (mostly) - though in this case I still haven't sorted the Cv element out yet (?) and had to use one from my Minifigs Kushite army...

Cyrus repaired

Ages ago I posted about dropping my 'original' 1975 Hinchliffe/Lamming 'Cyrus in a chariot.'  Can't find find the post now, or the pictures of the damaged chariot - think they must have been lost back when all my pictures started randomly vanishing from the blog.

However... I have finally gotten round to fixing it...

This is a picture of Cyrus before he was broken. Old and even then showing some signs of wear - the whip held by the charioteer was already broken. Actually Cyrus is virtually out of view behind the charioteer - too busy reviewing troops to be bothered about photos.

Repaired version - new whip, new reins, though vestige of the old reins still there - just looks like extra harness.

Front view shows deliberate armour differences. I've given Cyrus larger, flashy Nouveau-rich armour plates while the Mede charioteer has a more sophisticated armour using smaller plates.

And another view. In deference to the original the base has simply been flocked.

It's one of those times when I've got lots of stuff to post. Just bought some more unpainted figures from Harry, plus some interesting painted chariots - so 2 posts there - plus finished the second Athenian hoplite unit, plus more Garrison Persian cavalry... so hopefully I'll be putting out a post a day for several days! The future is also a bit crowded. I think I'll do a Thermopylae scenario, and I've got 2 firm and 2 ideas for Newhaven. Should be a crowded Spring, especially as I also hope to do more Army Review type pieces.

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.