Seleucid/Republican Roman Heavy Cavalry

As I think I've mentioned a few times before my various Macedonian armies were (still are) a mess. This is really, really true of the cavalry... Started with shieldless javelin cavalry, added drawing pin shields, then replaced unit with actual shielded, then went to kontos armed... and that's just my Companion cavalry.

So now I'm doing a resort.

The last version of my Successor cavalry have already made an appearance on this blog. However, the heavies are kontos armed, usually Successor heavies are javelin/shield. They can be seen next to a unit of Lamming cataphracts.

So, time to rebuild the javelin/shield force. The first picture shows the 'original' unit - should be 15 strong, some AWOL - followed by a unit I've just painted. I've enough figures to do another unit but still scraping together the 'right' horses.

The 'new' unit have been given red uniforms and plain red shields so they can double as Romans.

 

These are early PB figures - shorter, thicker spear/javelin, cast on horse furniture (means I should have used 'S' Range horses instead of PB).

The longer, thinner spears on my earlier unit shows that they were a slightly later production figure. Not sure what to do with these - try and find the rest I suppose!

 

So at least one other unit still to come, plus some light cavalry - again, the light cavalry are in a bit of a mess. I'm painting some up now so they should be ready in a few days.

Minifigs Alexandrian Army Review

At the moment I'm actively working on 3 Minifigs armies - Egyptian, Alexandrian and Seleucid. Both the Egyptian and Seleucid armies have quite a few figures either still in Dettol or being painted, but most of the unfinished Alexandrian's only need rebasing.

Being a bit on the impatient side I thought it would be nice to get them all together for a Review...

I set them out in 4 main lines. The first line consists of 'distance' psiloi - archers, slingers and staff slingers. The second line are javelin armed psiloi. Next, assorted Companion cavary - Alexander himself is part of the extreme right flank unit. Finally, the main battle line - Hypaspist units, then phalangites, then mercenary peltasts, finally on the extreme left were all my Thracians.

 On the flanks are the light cavalry...

 Including sarissa armed Thracians.

Most of my close ups of the bulk army didn't come out very well - army's still set up, might try again later.

The majority of these are ex-Harry Pearson collection, some are from my original 1970's army.

Peltasts 2 - the Mercenaries

The standard wargames LTS,J,Sh peltast of the 70s...

This lot started life as 8  psiloi back in the 70's. With a few exceptions, most of my Hellenistic troops wore red tunics.

These ones are ex Harry. Nice shield patterns. I'll probably use these in my Successor armies rather than Alexandrian ones as they carry the thureos. Poor logic as the PB Thracians also carry the thureos.

 

As these ones have pelta rather than thureos, these will find themselves fighting for Alexander.

 

Peltasts 1 - The Thracians

Back in the 70's every Macedonian army had Thracians. These Thracians all had fox skin caps, tartan cloaks, black tunics, white shields and carried a sickle-like weapon called a rhomphaia.

So, naturally, I had a Thracian unit wearing fox skin caps, tartan cloaks...

At some stage I picked a unit that was obviously confused - they had blue cloaks. Probably thought they were Galations in disguise or something. Still had white shields, as did another unit I acquired more recently. Finally, I got some in the armies I bought from Harry that had white shields with colourful designs painted on them... much nicer.

So I left 'my' unit alone, painted up the shields on the other two to blend in with Harry's, then kept my unit separate while the other three just sort of mixed.

As they stand, the Thracians  naturally make four 6 element units.

 These figures are formed from three separate sources.

However, they fit quite well together - main obvious difference is that the 'original' figures with fancy shields have a faint yellowish tinge due to the varnish aging. The figures with blue cloaks have been thoroughly spread out so that they aren't so obvious.

Close up of some of the shield patterns.

This is a view of the back of 'my' unit. Let's face it, the front isn't all that interesting - plain white shields and the ravishes of time mean a couple of figures have lost their rhomphaia and have been reduced to shaking their fists at the enemy. On the other hand, they have colourful cloaks.

Scythed Chariots complete

All six scythed chariots now finished and based. So far I've posted them piecemeal so I thought it might be an idea to put them all together in one post.

 

 

They're based in 3 2 chariot squadrons. The first one has a similar paint scheme and is the squadron I'll use it as the 'Royal' Squadron.

 Second Squadron...

 And now the Third Squadron, previously only seen in unpainted form. Ran out of chariot horses so had to use ordinary cavalry horses.

I think I'll probably stop here...

Sassanid elephant

A while back I mentioned a smallish Lamming Sassanid army I have. This included an unfinished Minifigs Sassanid elephant.

As I seem to be doing lots of elephants and chariots at the moment, seemed reasonable to quickly finish it. The crew in the howdah are Lamming, Mahout Garrison.

Noma Christmas church

Out on a Christmas shopping spree came across this goody:

 

Noma is a company that makes LED lights and Christmas trees. They also seem to have a small but useful and cheap range of buildings. Cheap, as in just under a third the price of my Sarissa church, shown below next to the Noma church for comparison.

And more chariots...

Decided to made it up to 6 straight away so I've sorted and undercoated 2 new ones. I've had to use ordinary cavalry horses though as I've run out of chariot horses.

More scythed chariots

An old army list allows up to 6 Persian horse scythed chariots, so eventually that's what my Late Persian/Seleucid chariots will eventually have...

Not sure when I'll get round to glossing and basing the two new recruits so I thought I'd just post them in the 'raw' state.

I've gone for 20mm Garrison crews again. The front figure is a modified G3 - the original has a smaller spear but I made a variant with a spear to match figures such as the Spartan and Theban hoplites. In the event, I put them on a mould but have not produced a unit of them. The rear figure is a modified Greek cavalry figure - again, mould made but never went into production - although in this case it was due to a sudden influx of hoplites from elsewhere.

 

On these chariots, horses and chariot chassis are Minifigs, wheels are from the Garrison 25mm Persian chariot, scythes are just Khmer swords.