Greeks, part 5

 Finally, a little bit of progress with my classical Greeks:

One stand of 15mm Spartan cavalry from Xyston.  These are on a super-size base - 80mm x 60mm - and are rated as 'Bad Horse' for Triumph.  Triumph has a few extra unit types compared to DBA; this would be Light Cavalry for DBA.  The base is not finished as I have yet to get an appropriate mat for the game, and I want to get some units painted before then.

Next element is some hoplites:

Fourteen hoplites for a Heavy Foot unit in Triumph, on a 80mm x 30mm base.  This element has a pair of the new thermoplastic figures from Plastic Soldier Company along with a dozen metal Xyston originals.

Slowly, but surely!

.

Greeks part 4

 After a confusing week of work, I was not able to get much done.

Here is the mostly finished base of skirmishers for the Spartan army.  You can see the extras in the background; they will make up most of the next unit in time.  Eight is the typical count in a pack of Xyston miniatures and I painted them all, not realizing that only 5 were needed.  Oops.

The base is from Warbases - the order came in, quite quickly I might add - and it is coated with the following:

A thin layer of the Vallejo texture is applied.  After it is dry, 24 hrs or so, a slightly diluted mix of Daler & Rowney Antelope Brown is brushed on.

But now, I am stuck.

The next step would be drybrushing to lighten the top, some flock and tufts added, then done.  But, I am not certain what colors to use as I do not have a suitable table topping to play on.  A good mat is the goal, so I will have to take a look around.  At least the last steps are easy enough, but I want to make sure to match the base to the mat reasonably closely, just for my OCD tendencies!

.

Greeks part 3, and a bit more

 2 posts in the same month - wonders will never end!  To be fair, this is a post for the 'sandwich crowd' 😄 and well as the beginnings of an effort for me to post more often.

Some small progress on the Greeks:

The first unit of skirmishers is painted and ready, except for a minor detail - bases.  So, after a bit of searching an order to Warbases was sent off.  I have a preference for their 2mm MDF bases for 15mm figures, and I intend to continue use of Litko 3mm bases for my 28mm efforts.

Also shown in the pic above is the first attempt at some Theban hoplites.  I will need to make spears (dory) for each hoplite as neither PSC nor Xyston provide them in their packs/boxes.  Another issue, hard to see above is an on-going test of primers.  Eventually, I will settle on one or two brands, but I am still searching for perfection.  Although I leave shields separate during painting for my 28mm figures, I think that it will be best to attach them prior to priming next time!

And, a bit more from the Pile of Possibilities...

One project that is waiting patiently in the background is my 20mm Spanish Civil War set-up.  There has been some work on it during my absence but I will need to do a thoroughly inventory to make a plan.

 I am fairly certain that I have enough (just barely enough 😁) tanks for both Republican and Nationalist forces, although none of them are finished.  Plenty of infantry, but I seem to remember that the Francoist forces were lacking.

And then, of course, terrain will need to be secured!

.

Painting table July 2022, and more

 Hmmm, 3½ months between posts... the interval is dropping so that is good, right?!

Let's start with an old tradition around here, the painting table pic:

The table is filled with the usual medley of stuff.  By my count, there are seven different projects in the picture!  The biggest change from my typical work process is that there is much more organization in everything, from paints to the figures themselves.  I just need to sit there more often and get stuff done.

The 2nd Mantinea Battle Day project has taken a large step forward after languishing for too many months.  I have finally settled on a rules system for all of my Greek/Persian struggles, and that is going to be Triumph.  After reading through several sets, I find that Triumph makes more sense to me than other rules.  Triumph does use the 'standard' DBx basing system for the most part, so I can easily switch to other rules in the future if needed.  I am making one adjustment - the base sizes are going to be much bigger, using a frontage of 80mm.  This will give a figure density that, to me at least, is more pleasing to the eye.

The army lists for the Thebans and the Spartans have been sorted as well.  I used the description of 2nd Mantinea from Lost Battles as a baseline, and worked to adjust the army lists from Triumph (found online here at Meshwesh).  After a bit of translation - Triumph is a bit different in its descriptions of units - two lists were made that seem to be consistent with the battle.  The Thebans come out with a slightly larger force, which is suggested by contemporary writers, Xenophon and Diodorus, and modern historians.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the basic lists from Triumph fit quite well with Prof. Sabin's analysis from Lost Battles.

Now comes the mustering of the units, with the PSC figures pictured above being amongst the first to answer the call.

.

Let's try again

 Yes, it seems that my keyboard does work...

It has been a struggle to keep up with the plethora of social media these days, and blogs can be left behind in the process.  But, there is something enticing about blogs yet, and I am going to try once again to commit to a habit of posting.

I am reasonably certain that my audience here is not very interested in my return to 'the Games Workshop hobby' (sic 😅 ) so I will not clutter this place with that.  I have found an outlet for my GW stuff - Reddit.  Surprising with its callous at best attitude, I have found that many hobby subReddits are remarkably free of drama.  So, those pics will remain there.

Bringing me back to this blog are many other projects, including one that has been in the back of my mind for some time.  With this fine post on his blog, Prufrock outlines his plan for the upcoming Society of Ancients 2023 Battle Day - 2nd Mantinea, fought between Sparta and Thebes.  These fellows have been waiting in my Pile of Possibilities for some time:

Now, the Persians are going to have to watch this battle from the sidelines, but the Greeks and especially the Spartans are right on target.  And Xyston figures are wonderful.

With the issue of figures, scenario, and a deadline solved, the next hurdle is a set of rules.

.

Ships from Valiant

Yet another new arrival:

These miniatures are from the Ramming Speed line from Valiant Enterprises.  At 1/900 scale, they are right between the almost too small (for me!) 1/1200 ships and the oddly shaped 1/600 line from Xyston.  I just can not put my finger on why the Xyston ships look off to me, but I am finding that I really do not want to work on them.



The variety of ships above were selected in order to flesh out my idea of what types of miniatures from Valiant could fill out the roles for Tékumel naval gaming.  Since the Valiant selection is limited, I am being careful about filling those roles in a fashion that is easily identifiable on the table top.  The information on the Valiant website has the triremes at the same length as the quinqueremes, so I am hoping that the wider beam of the quinquereme will make up for that.





Here is a comparison pic:

Each square is ¼".

Lots of good news in this pic.  The triremes are slightly shorter than the quinquereme, which is good.  Also, the triremes have a noticeable difference in beam from the quinquereme, and this will alter even more once the oar banks are attached.



 In my mind, the ships types will correspond in the following fashion:



     The pentekonter from Valiant (not shown above) will represent the Tékumeli séscha;



     Triremes will be the srügánta;



     Quinqueremes will represent the qél;



     Heptares and dekares (not pictured above) will be the Tékumeli zírunel.



The Valiant ships are plain enough that modifications will be easier than on the Xyston models - I intend to try to make some ships that look something akin to the ships illustrated in this wonderful post about Tékumel naval actions.







Although it seems simple, that bit of organization posted above is a weight off my shoulders!

New books

A few new books occupy my shelves, new to me at least:

The newest one of the lot.  I picked this up on the recommendations of a person posting on The Wargames Website, a new forum/news source that started up recently.  There is an article in WS&S 70 about converting these from Dark Ages to Ancients - from there it should not be too hard to slot them into use for Tékumel battles!


An addition to my small set of Meso-American books:

This should be good for some background reading and illustrations.


And, two interesting prospects for new projects:

The first is an overview of the Punic Wars, and the second details the border conflicts of the Scots.  I see both of these eras as potential gaming projects, although the current CFO - my lovely wife - is most interested in the Scots.  It is kind of a win-win situation for me as either one is great!  This will not see much work until the Meso-American project gains more traction...


.

Egyptian ships

After reading the books I received about ancient Egyptian ships, I was able to piece together a list of common building materials for the Pharaoh's navy:



Acacia

Sycamore

Cedar (red and white)



Also used, but much less often:



Cypress

Pine





Cedar, of course, would be imported from the Levant and was often used for funerary barges for the high-ranking citizens and royalty.  I intend to paint up only a few ships in red cedar, and the rest in a more tan color.  Masts, as another nifty detail, were often made of the same material as the hull.

Egyptian ship books...

Hmmm, long time no post!  Hopefully, these will help me get back on track:

I was looking for information on the colors of ancient Egyptian ships, and came across these on Amazon.  The book by Sintich is more about making models, and might not have much information on the colors of actual ships, but is very handy as it has plans for making scale ship models.  Besides, it was only $2.28 with free shipping, so I could not pass on it!  The Vinson books just arrived and I have yet to peruse it in depth.



The plan for my Bronze age ships is still as follows:  paint them up as historically plausible as possible, and use them for both historical battles and in my fantasy Tékumel battles.  No one, except the fine readers of this humble blog, will know the difference...

Langton ancient ships, part 2

Here are some closer looks at the recent purchase:

Egyptian Warship of Queen Hatshepsut

Egyptian Warship of Ramses III

Warship of the Sea Peoples

I am still digging into some research on the fleets, but the fleet lists from Naumachiae list several types of ships for both the Egyptians and Sea Peoples.  It would be interesting to get a mix of ships, especially for the Sea Peoples, as they were a loose confederation of tribes their ships should be different also.  It is interesting to note that this Sea Peoples vessel was modeled without oar banks.  How hard might it be to add some?

A slightly different direction?

I recently became the proud owner of some new ship miniatures:

More Langton ships, all the way from Down Under courtesy of Ian (who has a fine blog at Thomo's Hole!)  The package included ten Bronze Age Egyptian and ten Sea Peoples ships along with bases.  Of course, what to do with them...  The first course will be to integrate them into my Tékumel fantasy naval project, where, due to their older appearance and small size, they will be representing minor powers (the Tsoléi Islands among others) or perhaps pirates.



But, it occurred to me that they could be used for historical purposes also.  I could paint them up in historical schemes, and they would still fit in with the fantasy scheme.  Some sea battles circa 1200 BC might be fun, and it would not be hard to expand the collection, especially if some of the other Langton ships fit in time-wise, maybe the 20-oar galley or pentecontors to represent Mycenaean or Trojan ships  :)

Books to start off 2014

A good way to start off a new year is always with a new book, or maybe even two:

We found these at the local used book store.  The ACW book is a new copy, and the Salamis book is used but in great shape.  For US$20 total, this is not a bad way to get into the upcoming year.



I have read that there is some controversy about this ACW book by Dougherty; I have the similar work by Tony Gibbons and I will try to set up a compare and contrast post in the near future.

Langton ancient naval rules available

It would not surprise me that I am, once again, late to the party on this, but the set of ancient naval rules from Langton Miniatures, Naumachiae, is available as a free set of downloads... at this link.  



It is in PDF format, and fairly large, but worth the download wait!

Langton ancient ships

And now, a closer look at the Langton ships:

Deceres

Octeres

Hepteres

These are among the largest ancient ships that Langton makes.  For Tékumel, they will fill the role of the zírunel,
the largest of the common classes of warships.  I believe that there are
larger warships plying the oceans of Tékumel, but they are rare and I
will not worry about them, for now...

Roman quinquereme

Carthaginian quinquereme

Quadrireme

Trireme

The next step down in size, these are slated to represent the qél for my Tékumeli navies.  I
was pleasantly surprised to see that the relatives sizes of these
miniatures are very close.  This will allow a lot of variety, not only
for different navies but also within a particular empire's navy (Langton
has other miniatures of this size that I have yet to purchase).

Liburnian

Trihemiolia

Hemiolia

These
three miniatures are markedly more narrow than the previous four, as
well as being slightly shorter.  For Tékumel, I think these will work as
the srügánta, although the hemiolia is a bit smaller than the other two and might be better as a séscha.  Out of these, the liburnian is especially appealing with the stern platform.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the appearance of these miniatures.  There is still work to do, as the representation of a séscha is
not fully set yet, and there are a couple of trireme variants I would
like to look at before setting it all in stone (heh) for the building of
some flotillas.

Fantasy naval, part 2

The first flotilla of Langton Miniatures (ordered through Waterloo Minis) has arrived:

They
are looking good so far; I just need to sort them out by size to match
their Tékumel counterparts.  I think that I will need a few more samples
as the smallest ships types might not be covered...

Fantasy naval, part 1

The first set of ships has arrived - from Valiant:

A trio of Heptares.  Although a length for the miniature is given on the Valiant web site, I was still surprised at them.



Here is a closer look:

Looks
like assembly will be straightforward, although I seem to have too many
starboard-side oar banks (see the bottom ship in the above pic).  I
will send off an e-mail about that.



No
matter what scale I finally choose, and I can see using a combo of
1/900 (for larger ships) and 1/1200 (for the rest especially cargo
ships), I intend to use some of the ideas found here.

Something missing?

Over on one of my other blogs, I have been slowly working on a system to create a fantasy naval collection based on Tékumel, which can be seen here.  Unfortunately, I have found that I really do not like the Xyston ships that I had originally purchased, and my source of very inexpensive Xyston ships dried up, so I am investigating a different scale.  And, recently I found these:

No actual ships though, which is a bit disappointing!  (These are bases for Langton ships)







I do have a selection of Langton ancient ships on order, and some Valiant ships as well.  I will be posting pics and info here and the other blog, so apologies in advance if you are one of the few that will getting multiple posts on the same subject matter...

Ancient Naval rules

Lorenzo at Dadi & Piombo has a new set of rules for ancient naval battles - Impetus Navalis - for large scale actions. The PDF download is here. A brief scan of the rules indicates that you might need a copy of Impetus to use them. Some interesting concepts in there!

Another, much older set of ancient naval rules is De Bellis Navalibus - based on DBA they are simple yet subtle. I hope to give them a try sometime, or better yet convert them to a more Renaissance-era style...

Wargames Factory Ancient Germans

Recently, I placed an order with The Warstore for some paints to use with my WW1 naval project (see my other blog), and The Warstore was offering a special - a free set of the brand-new 28mm plastic Ancient Germans from Wargames Factory. It is hard for me to pass up free minis whether they are lead, plastic, or even in the genres I collect - these at least are very close to the Celt/Rome project time and scale-wise, so I asked for a set to be included with my order.

(My order with The Warstore arrived quite quickly, no hassles at all - thanks Neil!)

Here is a pic of one side of the sprues:


I think these look pretty good. I'm not too impressed with the way most of the bodies are leaning heavily to one side, but that is just my observation...

And, the other side of the sprues:


Lots of extra weapons on these sprues - one of the great bonuses of plastics. There are spears and swords for all six 'bodies', shields, bows and quivers, ceremonial dagger, round-headed club, and what appears to be a tree branch!

Some close-ups of the heads:



Eight different heads for the six bodies. It is a bit odd that the faces are not aligned in the same fashion on the sprue; I'm not an expert on injection molding so what do I know?

I rather like these minis. They are the first Wargames Factory minis in my collection - they might not be the last. I have a feeling that they will be used with my wife's Celts, but for now they will go into the unpainted minis pile...


.

Wandering thoughts

As I sit here with some dreaded crud/lurgy/viral invader, I have been mentally reviewing my projects.

I have my first set of bases for Impetus on order from Litko. Unfortunately, the base that I will need the most, 120mm x 40mm, is a custom item which will take longer and cost more. Maybe if I order enough it will become a regular item!

Along with the bases, I am organizing the first units of my Tsolyanu forces. Two of the units, using the leveled spear minis, will be in the 'Blade of the Sword' formation, but I am not sure of the third, which will use my spear-upright minis. 'Teeth of Krá' perhaps? (See this for the formation pics)

The Empire army is slowly receiving paint. I am going to try and finish the Greatswords before the next unit.

I found a new company's web site - Immortal Miniatures. IM specializes in 28mm minis for the Classical period, and are working on plastic hoplites and sparabara. Could be very interesting...


I received some pamphlets for my Reptiliads:


I enjoy browsing through background info, even for obscure fantasy genres. The Reptiliads even has a painting guide and some optional rules, although the rules are based on Rafm's Universal Soldier series they can be 'ported into other systems with ease.


.