Sumer or Later...

I've previously mentioned how the illustrations in the book The Soldier by Richard Humble and Richard Scollins has been the inspiration for many of my wargaming interests. My interest in the Risorgimento, Sedgemoor, Flodden and the French Wars of Religion (specifically the battle of Dreux) were all because of seeing pictures on that book. 

Another illustration in that book is that of Sumerian soldiers with their big shields and long spears. Ever since laying eyes upon that picture I've always wanted to game Sumerian city states going to war with each other. Over the years I purchased figures in 10mm (Steve Barber and Magister Militum..not compatible by the way) and 15mm (Chariot I think) but never finished off the project. 

Baccus recently released a Sumerian range and I was tempted but opted not to purchase with all of the tariff craziness going on right now. I remembered that Micro World Games had a Sumerian range (as well as a cool 16th century range with landsknecht, reiters and gendarmes). I decided to place a relatively small order in for their Sumerians and it arrived today (great service and packaging by the way). 

I decided to post some of the MWG Sumerians next to some Baccus 17th century Sun King range pike for a size comparison. 

As you can see, the MWG figures are head and shoulders bigger than the Baccus 6mm. I don't have any of the Baccus Sumerians but I'm not sure they would be able to mix together. 

Anyway, I doubt I will tackle the Sumerian project anytime soon. I've thought about rules and there's the possibility of using Trebian's "To Ur is Human" rules although I might have to change the basing for them to suit my preferences. 

Complete: Pikes and Pachyderms

I have previously posted on the nearing completion of my 10mm Macedonian/Successor army for To The Strongest rules. Today I managed to snap a picture of the army in its entirety. 

And above is an image of all it's glory: 6 pike blocks, 3 units of mercenary hoplites, 2 bases of hypaspists, 2 units of Thessalian cavalry, 2 bases of purple-clad companions, 3 bases of slingers, 2 bases of archers, 6 bases of "elephant screens" and 3 commanders. 

While I had the armies out of their storage trays, I decided to pose a few staged battle scenes featuring Successors versus Romans.

Some Successor elephants with their screen of bow-armed skirmishers face off against pesky Roman velites. 

 

Next up we have some pike-armed phalangites ready to skewer Roman Hastati, Princeps and Triarii. It's been mentioned in the posts covering my Roman army but the red shield reflect Roman legions and yellow shields are their romanized Latin allies. 

Lastly we have a rather gallant charge of Companion cavalry led by their king. Opposing them are Roman cavalry who are led (from behind) by a Consul. 

I want to briefly touch upon the basing approach I use for these armies. There was a time when grass tufts were becoming more available that I was using them... overusing them (see my WW1 armies as an example). My approach to the  armies for TTS was different. I try to cut corners to speed up the painting by priming in black and leaving alot of the black to create depth. Highlights are minimal. Basing is also simplistic. Initially I used a gel paste for texture but I now use a fine sand since it's quicker and less messy. Folkart craft paint is used for the sandy earth (Teddy Bear Tan for these armies) followed by a dry brush of bone white or off white and application of fine grass turf from Woodland Scenics. Not fancy but effective. 

With three TTS armies complete (Macedonian, Roman and Carthaginian), I hope to get in some games with them and also ultimately paint up my Indian and Persian armies. 

Pillow Punching Pachyderms

Another item that had been languishing for quite some time were the final batch of Macedonian/Successor elephants. The three elephants had been painted but the crews had laid in primer only for months. I decided to finish them off once and for all on my day off from work. 

With them complete, it brings my total number of "elephant screen" bases to six. While not quite rated as steamrollers in To The Strongest, perhaps they can anchor a flank or cause some horses to get a bit uneasy. 

As previously mentioned, towers would probably be more accurate than the riders I have crewing these elephants. I would have enjoyed the visual spectacle of the towers but they and their crews would have created headaches for storage. I opted for the riders instead. These little buggers are pinned to their pachyderm mounts and, as you can see, I have some archers, javelin throwers and quite a few sarissa-armed crew. 

With the completion of the elephant screens, I only have two units remaining to paint for my Macedonian/Successor army: mounted bases of Companions and Thessalians. 

Slave to Success(ors)...

Lately, almost all of my hobby time has been devoted towards my 10mm Macedonian Successor army for To The Strongest. 

Having pushed through phalangite, hypaspists, hoplites, skirmishers and command...I only have a few more cavalry and elephant units to finish up. 

Sure there are more hoplites to complete but they are more for mercenaries to be used with the Persian and other armies. 

Having a brief free moment, I snapped some pictures of the progress and now I can share them with you. 

First up, we have the backbone of the army, six bases of phalangites. These fellas were serve as both hammer and anvil for most tabletop battle scenarios. I painted each base in its own scheme and I like the finished look. I won't go into too much detail because I've already spoken on these sculpts here, but I will say this as a tangent....I have a bad habit of butchering the pronunciation of ancient (maybe all) words. For decades, I pronounced these guys as " Fal-anj-ites" and recently I heard someone pronounce them as "Fal-an-geet-eez". I have no doubt I am wrong and they are right.

  

Next up we have two hypaspist units. I know there are different interpretation of this troop type. Old Glory have them sculpted as javelin/spear armed and they will be classified as javelinmen in my TTS armies. I added Macedonian sun burst designs on their shields, these are transfers from Veni Vidi Vici and are rather nice. To ensure I had enough transfers, I cut them in half and only used the half transfer on the portion of the shield that is visible. 

Here are our Greek mercenary hoplites (again I pronounce "hop-lights" and I'm sure it is "Hop-leet-eez"). I enjoyed painting these sculpts even if they are time consuming. I painted them up as individuals instead as uniformed soldiers of the state. No uniformity whatsoever. I used more transfers from VVV and they went on like a charm. I opted for a longer spear but still shorter than a pike.

The army has three sling and two bow armed skirmisher bases. Old Glory sculpt their slingers on 2 figure bases while the bowmen are individual. Painted plain but the bowmen have red headbands. 

And here are two units of cavalry, companions (yellow and purple) and Thessalians (blue and white). Need to paint up a couple more bases of these cavalry types. Like the phalangites and hoplites, the Macedonian cavalry require you to drill holes out of the hands and insert wire for spears. Much easier than it sounds like it would be. 

Nothing says Successors like pike and elephants. You saw the pike already and here are the elephants. Or rather elephant. I have more painted up but this is the only one bases right now. In TTS, these bases will represent "elephant screens" and will be less shock than pachyderms represent in other army lists. I plan to paint up a total of six of these bases. 

And lastly, we have some Macedonian/Successor command. I plan to have a couple mounted sub-commanders, a couple foot sub-commanders and a generic overall leader. 

I should add that almost all of the figures are Old Glory, the bases are Litko and the elephants and riders are 10th Legion (formerly Magister Militum). 

With two bases of cavalry, a few more elephant units and a command base left to paint....I'm not sure what I will to next. Should I paint up 10mm Persians and Indians to face off against Macedonians (and each other)? Should I venture back into my 6mm Tercios late 17th century armies (Jacobites, English, Scanian Wars, etc) or should I finish off my 10mm Fenian project? 

How the Sausage is Made...

I've been meaning to post some updates on the progress of my 10mm Macedonian army for "To The Strongest" rules however I haven't had the time to set up my "photo studio" for pictures (which is a gaming mat on my kitchen counter with some additional lights borrowed from my paint room). I've managed to finish all the phalangite units (six in total), half the hoplite units (3 so far), hypaspists (two units), light infantry (slingers and Cretan archers) and some command stands that will represent Alexander, Seleucus and a host of other Successors and pretenders. This Macedonian collection will end up representing a lot of different armies. 

Since I don't have proper photos ready and I wanted to post an update, I have decided to post some pictures of works in progress so you can see how I go about getting figures table ready. 

I'm currently working on some companion cavalry in a purple, white and yellow scheme and decided to fiddle about with some elephants for Successor armies. Simon Miller has tweaked/updated the rules and attributes for Successor elephants to better represent how they actually fought. No longer mobile battering rams, they are now mobile refuge for skirmishers and called "Elephant Screens". This change will affect how I base: instead of 2-3 elephants on a single deep base, I will have a single elephant and bow-armed archers around them. Indian elephants will remain battering rams and based as such, as will a stand or two for Pyrrhus' army. 

I am using Magister Militum (now Tenth Legion by Peter Berry) elephants for my TTS armies. I like their size and heft but they a bit fiddly to put together. I've decided to use elephants without howdahs for the screen bases since the howdahs are absolutely massive. For the pike-armed crew, I am replacing their cast-on pikes with wire (a bit of a challenge). I also pin the elephants to the base and pin the riders to the elephant so they are a bit secure without having to use heaps of glue. Some liquid green stuff is used to fill gaps.

After I finish the core Macedonian army so it is gameable, I'm not sure if I will move on to my remaining TTS armies of Persians and Classical Indians or I will take a diversion. Some possibilities are to dive back into my 17th century 6mm armies for Tercios (Scanian/Deluge War Swedes and Danes along with Muscovites, Poles and Ottomans) or something else. I'd really like to finish up some more gameable armies for Tercios (I already have armies to refight Killiecrankie as seen here) so I can play more games with my friend Alex.

I recently purchased an old Games Workshop figure from eBay. Specifically it is a House Cawdor heavy armed with a heavy bolter for the game Necromunda. I have old 90s miniatures for gangs to represent House Cawdor and House Delaque. This portly little fella is currently sitting in a bucket of paint stripper. I'm still vacillating on what color palette I will use for these gangs.

To the Strongest!!

Back in 2019/2020, I posted about the To the Strongest project my buddy Rob and I embarked on

 I managed to finish Carthaginian and Polybian Roman armies in the span of a year. They were initially purchased at the Wally's Basement flea market of Cold Wars 2019 and one year later, Rob and I braved the onset of Covid to play a battle of TTS with my freshly painted armies. We had a blast (as we constantly slathered ourselves in hand sanitizer) and later played them at one of the later conventions with our buddies Bill and Matt. 

At some point shortly after these games, I purchased more armies to build Macedonian/Successor, Persian and Indian armies. Time went by, Rob never finished his armies (I think his Romans were partially started), Bill purchased Gauls but these never got off the ground and the impetus for the project stalled. 

Recently Rob decided to try and kickstart his TTS armies and this gave me motivation to start painting my remaining armies. 

I love elephants and the Indians have them and chariots in droves. I love colorful pastels and the Persians offer these in the cacophony of colors their soldiers wear into battle. As much as I wanted to resume the project by tackling one of these armies...I decided the responsible thing to do would be to finish the Macedonians first. This army will do double duty as a generic Successor army with the inclusion of elephants and I can use them against the Romans and Carthaginians. From there I can move on to "guilty pleasure" armies of Darius and Poros. 

I managed to paint up my first Macedonian unit. I went with a unit of phalangite pikemen. These fellas represent a "silver shield" unit of veterans. They have red tunics and pikes since red is the color of war, white linen cuirasses and silver armor. I think they came out spiffy. I already prepped and primed two more like units and started painting one of them. I did some inventory and realized my Persians and Indians needed some additional units so I placed a few orders to Old Glory and Tenth Legion for cavalry/chariots and elephants respectively. 

The armies will compromise almost exclusively of Old Glory 10mm with the exception of the elephants which are mostly Magister Militum (now Tenth Legion) and Pendraken. Hopefully more updates will be consistently posted and this project won't languish again. Wish me luck! 

10mm Romans for TTS!

 As promised in my aforementioned post on the Carthaginians, here are their blood enemy - the Romans. I painted up Roman and Allied Latin legions and differentiated them with red and yellow shields respectively. I believe all of the figures posted here are Old Glory.

The first units up are some allied cavalry, pretty basic fellas. I believe they had a clutch of multiple javelins in their hand but I mistook them as mold lines and filed them down a bit. Yikes.

And here are some proper Roman cavalry. How do I know they are proper? The red shields and cloaks of course.

Here is another shot showing the cloaks. My reading indicated the Romans wore a mustard yellow cloak and I added in some dark madder red to color it up a bit.

Some velites, really neat little sculpts and simple to paint up.

Another view of the velites, showing off their fur wolf cloaks. Mixed in some brown fur to get a little color diversity going.

The hastati, Roman and Allied. I gave them a black plume to differentiate them from the princeps. From the back, you can see the hastati are unarmored save for their helmet and shield. From the front its difficult to tell the difference and I like my opponent to know who he's fighting.

Front view of the hastati. These sculpts are angled forward like they are running to get at the enemy. I guess that's what makes them hastati.

Princeps showing off their lovely chain mail armor and their red plumes. In TTS, the hastati and princeps can form a unit with special abilities. I think it gives a nice field for the Roman system of combat in a simple way.

The veteran triarii. These fellas are nice little sculpts. The long spears were separate and attached by means of drilling holes in a dimple on the sculpt's hand. Much less fidly than you would think.

A rear view of the triarii. These guys can straddle squares in TTS and act as a reserve for different units in front of them.

Lastly we have some generals on foot and mounted. You know the drill, yellow are allied generals and red are proper Roman command. I cut up some of the strips to give them more dynamic looks.

Closeup of the Roman army commander. The one chap even has a nice "caesar" cut. How appropriate!

Closeup of an allied foot general.

I have yet to finish their army camp, its halfway done. I have a feeling it may end up a bit underwhelming...we will see.

10mm Carthaginian Army for TTS!

Back when we had wargaming conventions, I watched my gaming buddies played in a game of To the Strongest! (TTS) at Cold Wars 2019. We were really enthused with the ruleset and as luck would have it, my one buddy Rob found a steal of a deal for unpainted Roman and Carthaginian armies down at Wally's Basement. We bought the lot and split it up. The bulk of the figures were Old Glory 10mm with a smattering of Magister Militum and Pendraken. I subsequently purchased more figures to flesh out the armies. They've been painted for a while (still need to finish the Roman army camp) but I just managed to photograph them. Here is the Punic contingent:

My Carthaginian camp, its kinda sparse but I wanted it that way. We have a pack elephant (Magister Militum), some pack horses (Pendraken), a trumpeter and standard bearer (Old Glory), a general (Magister Militum Vignette) and a tent (Pendraken). One big, mixed, happy family of manufacturers!

Another angle of the army camp, situated near the standard bearer are some loose shields that I snipped from excess Old Glory Romans.

The pride and glory of my Carthaginian army, my elephants! TTS allows two bases of these magnificent beasts If my memory serves me right, the elephants with the draperies are Magister Militum and the bare elephants are Pendraken. I believe all the riders are Magister Militum.

Another angle of these fellas. I kitted them out with some Libyan skirmishers (Old Glory) so they would be considered "escorted" in TTS, giving them a little more staying power.

Here are my Celtic swords (and spears) for hire. The vast bulk of my infantry and cavalry are Old Glory. The majority come in strips with the exception of the skirmishers and cavalry. I wanted these guys in a bright cacophony of colors and stripes. OG provides several different strip variants in their Gallic infantry bags. They wanted these guys chaotic and diverse!

Here's another snap of the Celts with a look at their back sides. Alot of bare flesh here for these proud warriors. The Celts are one of the only groups in this army where you will see blues and greens. I thought it was important to mix in some stripes to give them that Gallic feel. The Celts are considered "deep" units so they have a deeper base and an extra rank of soldiers.

Now my Spaniards. Probably my favorite units because of their shields. I wanted certain uniform but irregular palettes and themes for my different units. The Spanish have a hodgepodge of  red, black, white and yellow. These guys pop with the colors.

Here is another pic showing their back sides. I should mention that the majority of the OG strips are shields in the front and tunics in the back. It makes painting them very quick and easy. The Spanish infantry had a neat little leather helmet with a plume on them. 

Not nearly as sexy but still kinda cool. Here are my Libo-Phoenician veterans. White shields with red and black trim and design work. Palm trees and Tanit designs to give them that punic feel. I used Micron pens to do the design work.

And their backsides showing the plain tunics and helmets.

Here are my Libyan javelin skirmishers. These are grimy little buggers with dark earth tone hues and mohawks.

Carthaginian foot general stands. These are "Greek" command strips from Old Glory, slap some Tyrian purple on them and you have Carthaginians. There you go!

Old Glory army commanders from their "Greek" generals with the obligatory Tyrian purple. Mago, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal? I dunno, whoever you want them to be. The gent on the right is a Spanish general from Pendraken.

And what respectable Carthaginian army would go without Numidians? Not this army! Here are my Old Glory Numidian cavalry. I really like the sculpt of the rider, he just looks so cool and calm and confident in his riding and fighting ability. Unfortunately, its the only sculpt in the bag. I tried to base them like they are wheeling about like Numidians do...

The Numidian rears, I should mention that I littered the bases with an occasional red or white shield. These were clipped from Roman "legionnaires" or something like that from the OG Gallic Wars range.

My Celtic cavalry. Say hello again to stripes, blues and greens and some blonde hair!

The Celts showing off their backsides and striped robes. I believe there are 3 or so different rider sculpts in this bag of Old Glory figures.

Spanish cavalry, more reds, whites, yellows and blacks. An obligatory shield on the ground.

And they wanted to show you their back sides as well!

That's the Carthaginian army. I should add that I only snapped pics of some of the figures from each contingent. I will have to go back and snap an army picture so you can see they are all one big happy family (provided they are getting paid). Its a pretty decent sized army and I am both happy and somewhat surprised to have finished them. It was fun to paint and I went with speed over paint quality. I quickly prepped them with a file and nippers, rinsed the metal dust and finger grease off them and primed black. After that I gave them a drybrush of tan to show off the details and block painted the base colors. They got some very basic and crude hi-lights followed by a light wash and varnish. I will post the Roman army next...