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.

Lamming Egyptians

My Lamming Egyptian army is quite small really. I started it late in the 70s, then a succession of moves (an redundancies) kept me away from 'formal' wargaming for several years. When I got back to it in the late 80s I pretty much started with my Minifigs Egyptians.

The chariots have already appeared in the blog.

Two different unarmoured spearmen. The ones with the black and white animal hide pattern on the shield is the earlier version, the other ones with the painted shields had separate spears and shields.

The unarmoured archer was not exactly anatomically accurate, but I have to admit it's one I like.

At time of writing there are a load of Lamming figures on E-Bay. With already owning large Minifigs and Garrison Egyptian armies, I don't really want to buy them, but it's sooooo tempting...

Lamming Sassanids

Plus a Minfigs elephant.

This army was in the process of refurbishment when I moved on to other armies. So, yet another army requiring work...

Quite a compact army - didn't get to finish it. Needs at least a dozen more clibinarii and some infantry. I do have 8 Hinchliffe clibinarii but they don't really match. Haven't tried it yet but I think the Garrisonones should be a reasonable match.

The figures are a lot like Bill Lamming - very solid. One need with these cavalry is to have a kontos replacement day.

These were part way through a repaint. I always liked to spend time on shields.

I did have more of these but they were borrowed by my Achaemenids.

Actually the archers also spent a lot of time with Cyrus. There is a unit of light javelins - they're still serving the earlier Monarchy.

The others either need work  to repair them or complete a repaint. The Minifigs elephants was just abandoned part way through because I don't really like it. Crew are Lamming, not sure where the original crew are.

Irregular Miniatures Midianites

Sometime in the late 70s(?, could have been the 80s, or 90s... - probably was) I decided it would be useful to have a load of cheap levy infantry. At the time Irregular had an offer of 100 of any single figure for £35. So I got some archers and some javelinmen for use as required - mainly as Assyrian/Egyptian light infantry and Hordes. The javelinmen code came with 3 random variations, the archers 2.

The figures were not exactly brilliant sculpts, but they work and some day I might use some for a HoTT Neanderthal army...

 The javelinmen are not very inspiring, but they do the job and provide some nice generic Biblical era figures. As they had separate weapons they could also be used in roles such as civilians, porters, slaves, artillerymen, etc.

Strangely I quite like the archer figures.

Hordes from the days before I added paint to the base filler... and demonstrates one reason why I consider it such a useful idea.

My Assyrian 'To Do' list

Specifically, figures to go with the Minifigs 'S' Range Assyrians.

Actually I seem to have managed to get on quite well with this army. Once they original force was rebased, the main object was to complete the chariots - now pretty much done - and incorporate the few troops I already had. Since then I have been buying a few others on the internet, including a load of early one-piece cavalry castings.

So, still to do:

Lots of one-piece cavalry castings, all stripped and ready for painting. The first lot of armoured cavalry might be painted as a single unit of 20 open order 'light' cavalry, the ones with armoured horses and the horse archers probably as 'mixed' units, spears at front, archers at rear. If so, I'll go old school and treat the horse archers as 3 to a base cavalry rather than 2 to a base lights. I already have enough light horse archers anyway.

These early spearmen I'm not sure about. I bought quite a few of these but most have been used as chariot crew - chances are these  will finish up the same way.

I have an odd 30 figure heavy infantry unit to incorporate - the unbased figures here. I also have 2 20 figure ex-Harry units. Decisions, decisions... do I use 8 of mine to upgrade the ex-Harry units to 24 figures? Mine have bronze armour, do I leave them or do a repaint to match the rest of the army?

Over the years I've picked up a load of 'S' Range figures that I believe were described as 'Carthaginian archers'. Some used to serve in my Macedonian archers a lot of years ago, but these figures have never really found a place in any army. I've decided that, as my 'S' Range Assyrians don't have any light archers, and as they do look vaguely Assyrian, that is where they are going. Undercoated and will be sorted soon.

Mentioned in a previous post that I still have the figures for 3 more 4 horse chariots - well, have made a start on these, but as also stated not in a great hurry with them - they could be a while.

I also have a few 'S' Range 'cataphracts' lying around somewhere, just not sure where, or when I'll get round to them.

And that's basically it. Once this lot are painted and based my Minifigs 'S' Range army will be complete - but that doesn't mean I'll stop buying them if any more come up on E Bay. That's one of the problems with being a bit of a magpie. My excuse is 'need to upgrade 20 figure units to 24 figure units'. Also, the heavy archers and slingers have all been based 4 to a base and I could use  some units with 3 to a base!

Giving the Celts some cavalry

The Minifigs cavalry component being a bit short I painted up a dozen of the unpainted ones lying around. There seemed to be a shortage of suitable Minifigs horses so they're actually mounted on Garrison ones.

Some old Garrison Hoplites

One of my favourite figures was the old Garrison hoplite with Corinthian helmet. It was quite a shock when I ordered some and the figures that arrived were the new, larger 25mm ones. Anyway, the unit of the old style ones formed a mainstay of my Greeks until I bought Garrison.

The original figures were modified a bit - I replaced the short spear with a longer wire one, some lost their crests for the sake of variety... they finally went out of service because they were replaced by unmodified figures.

 These are the originals.

Their eventual replacements are now the Athenian component of my Greek armies.

The front unit is ones I did a few years ago, the rest were part of Harry's collection.

 
However, the Garrison figures were not my first hoplite unit - that honour belongs to this unit of 'S' Range figures.

Some old Persians

My earliest lead armies were Persians and Greeks. The initial Persian forces concentrated on Garrison cavalry and Minifigs infantry. It seems a bit strange to me today that the 64 cavalry were considered to be enough! Hate to think how many Persian cavalry figures I've got now..

At some stage (later 70s?) I added a few standard bearers. This was a period when I liked big standards.

When the PB Range came out my interests went towards Alexandrian Macedonians and Later Persians. As I recall I should have 20 Cardace infantry, so not sure where the rest are. This lot are again in their mid 70s guise.

For some reason I had 60 light archers. Many of these are now in Sparabara units, but some are still serving as light archers.  Probably an 80s or 90s paint scheme, in those days I often repainted figures. Still do.

The slingers are later issue Minifigs as I didn't originally have any.

It was a time of no shading or gloss varnish, but lots of squares and stripes.

Some old Greeks

And Macedonians, Thracians and Successors...

These are some of my (mainly) 1970s figures that have yet to be updated to the element-based system. In fact, although many have been repainted since then, some are still in mid-70s paint schemes.

These figures are Minifigs PB Range late Republican Romans serving as Seleucid 'Imitation Legionaries'. At this moment in time I could do with a load more of them to build up an army to plug a gap in that period...

Over the years I've had a lot of Companion cavalry; these are not the earliest, probably late 70s, the General being earlier. Element based by the simple expedient of gluing 3 individually based figures  to a larger base. No, I can't remember why some have red crests, some black - could be that I simply didn't get round to overpainting the black ones red?

In the late 70s most of my figures were being bought from Bill Lamming. I got an army of Sassanids, liked the cataphract figure, and bought a few extra to replace my Successor EHC figures.

I now have quite a substantial force of Thracians acquired from several sources - and all this Minifigs PB Range figure. These are my original mid-70s from my original Macedonian/Seleucid force. Yes, they are looking a bit the worse for wear, but then they've been campaigning for 40 years.

PB Cretan archers and Greek slingers, again in mid 70s livery. In those days I used to flock bases - the flock has faded quite a bit over the years. I should say, the remaining flock has faded.

The staff slingers are a later addition to the army but I have no idea when I bought them.

Another part of the early army - I didn't like the PB Successor light cavalry so bought these Hinchliffe versions to replace them.