Assyrian army

Assyrian army

Tuesday 29 September 2020

A few of my 'own' Graeco-Macedonian lights

Mostly from my original 1970-1975 period army...

Found most of them. Some paint loss, couple of broken javelins but generally useable.Add caption

Hypaspists from the days when they were LMI - and 3 to a base! As 4Ax, I'm a base short. Note these were the days when I actually shaded some figures and did a bit of black outlining.

I used these as my pre-oval shield peltasts. Can't remember why there are only 8 of them - some other units also bought in 8s so probably a specific army or army list thing. Shield patterns were something I often spent time on.

My original Cretan archer unit. Don't know why I gave them blue tunics, must have just wanted a change.

Later did a second unit in white tunics and gave them an officer and standard bearer. Don't know where the rest of the unit is.

These were originally two units of 10. Quick paint jobs, I didn't spend much time on them.

Another two units joined together - including another of the eight man units. The two different shield patterns go well together.

 
Another eight man unit from my original army. A lot of the other slingers I have are actually Balearic slingers rather than Greek - these are the 'correct' Rhodian (?) slinger figures. The green is Humbrol green leather.

 

The staff slings were a much later addition to the army - possibly the 90s?

 

Saturday 26 September 2020

Slings without the arrows

Already mentioned that I've got a lot of Garrison light infantry, also got quite a few Minifigs! 

32 figures of uncertain origin - I think 12 are exHarry, 20 from  Ebay. Quite a few light infantry figures have been acquired as part of an order including figures I actually wanted.

However, they are of a muchness so quite happy to just use them as required. Must find the other 12 ex Harry...


Slings and Arrows

 The title is (I gather) a quotation from Hamlet, as in 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' 

The 24 figure unit is a DBX type Ps unit based on the August 1981 WRG Army Lists - the Selucids could have up to 40, half armed with Bow, half with Sling. The 1977 version of the lists had an equal mix of javelin and sling, shield.

Although the slingers are figures from the 90s the archers are some of my earliest figures - 1st generation Macedonian and Punic Wars. I had 60 of them and they survived the 80s cull for the simple reason no-one would buy them! They have had a couple of repaints since then and some of their 'friends' are serving in a sparabara unit.


Friday 25 September 2020

The Hypaspists

 Other things seem to have taken over recently so not getting as much sorting/basing done at the moment.

My own 70's army had a unit of Hypaspists in it but they seem to be scattered all over the place. Meanwhile there were three units I got from Harry to rebase.

Three lots of 24 adds up to a reasonable force.

Red is the colour I always use when I'm painting hypaspists or similar, so this is the unit I would use in a battle if I only had to choose one.

The shield patterns are quite simple - I did think about redoing them but decided against.

Must admit I like the blue tunics on these.


Wednesday 23 September 2020

There's something in the woods...

 To be fair we've known for quite a while there was something in the woods, it's just we hadn't seen it ourselves...

So we set up a camera and...

It caught this muntjac.

I should add that at the bottom of our garden we have a plum orchard and an apple orchard - both badly neglected. We set the camera up amongst the plum trees and it took this picture while it was still daylight.


Monday 21 September 2020

Carry on (follow that camel?)

 As in, Minifigs PB range camels...

Ex-Harry - suspect he painted them, they have that look, but not certain

16 Arab camels looks a bit of overkill to me... Well, unless I decide to do a Midianite army or something.

They look good - they're very well painted.

My own 70's army used Hinchliffe - to be honest, think I prefer these.


Sunday 20 September 2020

Successor cataphracts

I've started sorting the Successor cavalry - still working on them plus might be doing a bit of extra painting, basing and finding.

This lot come under the 'finding' heading. The various Minifigs Macedonians are all over the place - though frankly I should have 'found' these by now.

An ex-Harry unit, originally with very long Kontos that sort of bent like pretzels all over the place. I cut the Kontos down, hammered the ends and filed to a spear point and repainted the shafts flat earth rather than the original white. This is one one of the very few of Harry's units I feel I've improved. Technically, kontos is now a bit short but it's a lot more practical.

A figure comparison. In front, cataphract. Next, late PB model Minifigs with wire Kontos, cut down fronm It's original length. Finally, 'standard' early PB Macedonian cavalry - 'kontos' really a bit short, but they look a lot better than figures with the long version!

More later PB figures - these cataphracts I haven't cut down the kontos as it would be difficult to do it and leave it looking good.

The current batch of  heavy cavalry. Various PB figures from the 70's to the 90's.

And the current batch of cataphracts - the ones in the middle with full horse armour aren't technically Macedonian but I've never considered the differences between different super heavy cavalry figures to be worth worrying about - these can be used as anytning from Seleucid to Sassanid and Byzantine. There should be a couple more unpainted units somewhere to be used as either EHC or SHC.

So the heavy cavalry are looking better - thing is, if I do both sides of a Seleucd/Ptolemaic battle I 'might' need to sort out more. Might even use one or two of the javelin/shield armed units.

Thursday 17 September 2020

What next?

 All the Garrison Greeks and Persians are back in their box, so what next?

One possibility would be a Successor battle... so sorting out my Minifigs.

Rebased a few cavalry already. Can't remember where from, general ebay or Harry. Think probably ebay. 
Sprayed a few others that were previouly just matt. Early separate weapons type of cavalry - still slim line - but on 'S' Range horses - painted by me, I assume early 90's?

Some others might need a bit more work - these are ex-Harry  but the long Kontos are very bendy - I've cut them down to match the length of the other heavy cavalry in the hope they'll be more manageable! Thinking about doing the same with those heavy cavalry in the previous picture.






Plataea - After the battle

Thought it was worth a few words to say how I felt things went.

Firstly, everything seemed to work OK - nothing major went wrong and everything went smoothly. Basic movement, combat factors and morale all performed well though a few tweeks possibly needed - in future I think that for combat and morale I'll use average dice rather than D6 for regulars/trained troops - Spartans shouldn't throw as many 1's as they did in this game. 

Who died and how proved interesting. Generally, the Persians died en masse in frontal actions - not many individual elements picked off, when they died it was in numbers. Meanwhile, 1:1 frontally the Persians didn't do well - their kills were in individual elements picked off by swamping the ends of Greek battalions. The performance of the Persian light cavalry - apart from the Thebans - was disappointing. In combat against Ps/light infantry they started on equal factors, if they lost by anything other than double they were simply pushed back. Meanwhile the light infantry would be destroyed simply by rolling less on the dice. Result? The Persians lost every combat (4 or 5 of them?) including 2 that resulted in a squadron and 3 separated elements dying.

One thing did work very well - treating elements as being separate but still having them grouped in definite units. The rules were simple - any unit rolled once per move to decide their random factor and that was used for all combats or morale rolls of the separate elements belonging to that unit. Thus one element might fight with a factor of 4 but the element next to it might be overlapped so fights with a factor of 3 or less. This could be enough for that end element to to be destroyed, either by being pushed back onto  another enemy or unyielding friends facing the other way, or possibly by tripping a factor less than half the enemies. Hence 'deaths' tended to be at the ends of units as that is where overlaps and being hit in the back tended to happen. It also incidentally mapped out slow attrition well as if I was removing individual figures!

Although I was treating the elements as separate units, I was initially unsure how to treat elements being separated from the main unit, either by choice or by the result of combat. As Grant's version of the battle allowed some Spartans to be detached I allowed it within limits. Thus a battalion could be split if combat caused it, or if detachments were needed to split off to protect/guard a flank. However, such detachments must be smaller than and stay close to the main body - close was never defined, one advantage of solo games.

This picture gives examples of two of these points. Looking at the Green Persians, the end element collects a -1 because it is flanked by an extra Spartan element. The element next to it is not flanked by an extra element so does not attract the penalty. Meanwhile, the Spartan battalion has detached four elements as a flank guard to face the threat of the Sakae archers.The Persians on the hill do not detach the end elements to face the light javelins - as yet they are technically in combat by acting as an overlap.
 

Morale worked OK. As all the units consisted of 6 elements it was easy to say 'morale test at 1/3rd and 1/2 losses'. This was based on elements lost, not just separated, and the results of a morale test would then apply to all the elements in the unit, even if they couldn't see the parent unit! However - the early WRG rules I was using as the basis of the morale test required a 3 dice roll - in future I'll change that to only 2 dice once strength has fallen by 1/3rd, then 1 dice when on 1/2.

So that's really about it. Over the next few days I think I'll try and write up the rules I used and put them on Pages.

Tuesday 15 September 2020

Plataea moves 10 to 12

And we have a Winner!! - Just...

At the start of Move 10 the Greeks are being held up on the flanks whilst the centre has been split apart and the Persians are starting to roll the Greeks towards each flank. 

As far a casualties go, the Persians at this stage have lost 2 complete units - one of light cavalry and the Medes of Corps III.

The video shows the position after move 9 movement but before combat.

On the Persian right, the Theban cavalry have now pulled the Corinthians out of position and are remembering Young's First Law in the Use of Light Cavalry. 'The true place for light cavalry to be is at the back of the army. The enemy army.'

The orange Corinthians had a major fightback in move 11.

More nibbling away at the Grant Spartans.

This is actually an end-of-move 11 pictures showing Pausanius and his battalion swinging round on the Persian left flank - but those green Persians of Corps II are still hanging in.

Some comfort for Grant Spartans as some light javelins hit the blue Persians on the flank and take out a double element. Seems that Greeks like a bit of a nibble every now and then as well.

In fact, the Greek light infantry are proving quite deadly as the Athenian archers hit the Persian light cavalry and take half of it out. The rest of the squadron survived a reaction test.

At the end of move 12 I decided to count up. 23 Greek elements lost, 17 Persian elements lost. At this point I was thinking 'night time, mostly a draw, both sides pull back and glower at each other'. Then I counted the remaining elements and found that the Greeks had gone over the third losses by one element! Army reaction test!

Firstly, the Greek light javelind decide to retire for a couple of moves...

Everyone else fine until I reached the Dolphin battalion - they routed!

At which point the surviving Corinthian battalion decided on a more dignified exit..Add caption

I did do the movement only for move 13, not a pretty sight, especially on the other flank...


But if you want to see it, just watch the video...

Although that completes the battle, I'll do another post to expand on the rules as I used them, anticipated changes for future battles and my analysis of how things went.


Monday 14 September 2020

Plataea moves 7 to 9

Things are starting to happen in the centre at least! Flanks not so much...

 The video shows the position during move 8 - main point of interest that big gap in the Greek centre that the Persians are pouring through! As I've mentioned before, in the actual battle the Persians in the centre of the line held back and didn't see any fighting - here, they are making it very difficult for the Greeks to stand a chance of winning.

Setup move 7. Short version: not much happened.

Theban cavalry are tying up one of the Corinthian battalions.

Thebans and Athenian dolphin battalion are just going back and forth.

While on the Greek right the Persian 1st Corps is holding up Pausanius.

However, in the centre.... the Orange battalion is looking a bit stressed...

Needed to take a morale test and managed 'Hold two moves'! Fair to say - if I was in their position I don't think I would be holding for two moves.

While the Grant Spartan battalion is barely holding it's own. I think it's only fair to say that on move 8 BOTH Spartan battalions rolled a 1 on their random factor. Actually, move 9 both the White Birds and Orange battalions also rolled 1. Orange also rolled a 1 in move 8! It has not been the luckiest of days for the Greeks. I'm considering going to the original WRG system of using average dice for regular units - it would stop this kind of result!

Position at the end of move 9. As it stands, the Persians are holding up the Greeks on the flanks but that massive hole in the Greek centre suggests that overall things are not going well for the Greeks. Individually the Persian battalions may be inferior but they have the advantage of quantity...

So at the end of Move 9 I think it's fair to say that the Persians have an advantage. If I work on a 12 period day, the next 3 moves will need to decide things.