My current Assyrian armies...

 

Back in 2017 I posted an Assyrian Review of my then Assyrian army. It has increased since then but the main change from then is my start on a 25mm Garrison army. The ones here are 20mm Garrison, Minifigs 'S' Range and Lamming.

This lot are the Minifigs 'S' Range, though some chariots are a Minifigs/Lamming mix.

These are the Garrison figures. Chariot with card bodies, heavy infantry with HaT shields. At this time I experimented with a wash over the paint - didn't work very well so that an army I like was, in my view, ruined :(

My Lamming force is slightly smaller but nice...

Then their are things like these chariots - tin plate chariots I got from Harry  repainted and given Minifigs crews and horses and Garrison chariot wheels. Archers are 'S' Range Carthagians that I feel are a lot more at home with the Assyrians!

And then there's my 25mm Garrison army... still growing, long way to go, only 5 painted chariots so far, but lots in the pipeline. 

Thoughts on the current project? That Minifigs force includes 24 chariots. Some of these also appear in the Lamming army which also has 3 pure Lamming chariots.. Meanwhile, the 20mm Garrison army has 13 chariots. So these combined armies have 40 chariots. It's a target...

25mm Amazon army

 

Current state of the Amazon army. Not big enough yet for a Review, but seemed they deserved to have some sort of parade.

Right flank guarded by the new conversions. I expect the final army to have another one of these units.

The centre. Pegasus, the general and a chariot in front of a unit of archers. I expect to do a few more chariots plus at least two more infantry units - one of archers, one of spears.

Left flank.  A poorly equipped unit of spears in front of the exotic part of the army. Beastmistress on the right, Sorceress on a tiger in the middle and a bunch of beasts on the end. This part of the army is probably complete unless I add more tigers. 

Zenobia... keep wondering whether I should find a place for her in the army...

A few conversions waiting to be cleaned up and sent away to have a mould made. The ones in the middle with the hoplons would probably make up the spear armed infantry unit, the spearwomen pointing may end up as chariot crew. Haven't checked it yet but the middle spearwomen may be convertible to cavalry as well.

So naturally after writing the above I removed the base from the original conversion and put it on a horse...

No frills on the painting - getting theidea and finishing with this took about  12 hours, though I did do a few other things in that time as well... As a figure, works well and I've also done one for a mould... Quite possible to do a couple of units eventually?

Amazon cavalry

Converted from the foot archer by the simple expedient of cutting off the base then grinding the area between the legs until the figure fits on a horse - I've used Persian horses for these.

I went for a simple paint job. I'll probably do another unit at some stage - easy to do - I won't be putting these on a mould. Must get a mould made for the other Amazon infantry conversions.

Took 7 weeks

For Black Tree Design to deliver these...

After the time taken for the previous ones to arrive, plus the fact that they don't answer emails or anything, I decided that I would only order the minimal amount of figures from them. That meant a few Mechanoids to replace my polystyrene efforts plus a few Robomen. They finally arrived today having been ordered on the 27th April. On the 8th June I asked them if they had a delivery date - don't know whether this reminded them of the order or not, of course they didn't reply...

So at this moment in time that's it from Black Tree. No mass orders, no expansion of the Dr Who races,  none of those nice look artifacts and monsters in their fantasy range... 

Don't know how much their poor service has cost them in future (and past!) sales from me, but that's OK. 

25mm Scythian Horse Archers.

 

They look pretty good. I've put them on the base angled so they don't look as though they are shooting each other!

Back row to the front.

And a back view. It's taking longer to do these because of the patterns I'm putting on the outfits but it does look better than plain.

This is how they fit into the current army. Still a lot more to do but at least it looks like an army now.

So now on to doing those Amazon cavalry...

Busy couple of days.

 This morning visit to hospital for checkup re kidneys. This afternoon Diabetes Review at the Doctor's. Tomorrow dental checkup.

Busy couple of days :(

More playtime things

 

As the current Alice and friends adventure has them going into the church, it seemed reasonable to do an interior for it.

However, doing the interior the same size as the exterior proved impractical...

Common wargames situation - using buildings that are a smaller scale than the figures is more practical for outside scenes, less practical once you cross the threshold.

 

So I've done a second interior more in line with the actual figure scale. I've still kept the square design but have added an extra row of pews and doubled the number of windows on the walls.

Should make life easier!

Playtime

 

Fed up with Post Office so decided to have a play. So I sorted out a unit of Scythian cavalry.

Thought, why not try it with the Amazons? Didn't expect it to work but it did - well, sort of. Not brilliant but does the job.

Refurbished line chariots

 

With paint pens, extra decorations are quite easy. Though I did have to take the wheels off first (only one side at a time!)

Must admit the eagle's head on the  Anzu looks more like a duck's head, but it'll do.

25mm Garrison Assyrian army mini Review

 The army is still building but it's grown large enough to justify a Review...

The King reviewing his forces.

Here passing in front of the Scythian mercenaries.

A quick look at the LMI unit acting as a flank guard.

Driving down between the chariots and the line infantry

Before finally passing in front of the line cavalry

My definition of a force that warrants a review is that it is big enough for the king/general to need to pass between the ranks. Here, a light infantry front rank, chariot second rank and line infantry/cavalry rear rank.

Post office did it again.

 Same letter - surface only, unable to check the density, etc.

Except it was sent by International Economy, which is Surface...

However, this one did have an extra label:

25mm Scythian horse archer

Weirdly, though Garrison originally made a foot archer for the Greek range they never made a horse archer. So thought I'd see how easily the foot archer would convert. Don't look too closely at the foot - pointing sideways, never bothered to make it point forwards. Does make the trouser pattern wrong though.

Simple conversion - Dremel to cut away the base then sand paper attachment to grind away between the legs until the body fitted on a horse. Sounds painful when I say it like that! It makes the legs a bit thin but looks OK.  Now I just need to do 11 more to make up a unit. Could take a while.

25mm Garrison Scythians

Test paintings to give the Assyrians some Scythian mercenaries/allies.

Basically all the decorations put on using paint pens.

Next few pictures are just close ups...

You have to be kidding...

 

Gradually retreating from the plants the party tried shooting at them... never going to work on vegetables. Malice slashed a few tendrils of one of the jellyfish looking things but it didn't slow them. Happily,they were slow to start with anyway so...

The doors opened in all the houses. Alice looking round. 'You've got to be kidding. ZOMBIES!!!'

As the zombies moved forward the plants seemed confused... then the church door opened and a lady in black stepped out. 'C'mon over here kids, it's safer'...

Vicki recognised her... 'Elvira? What are you doing here' 'Long story kid. Save it for next time.'

Meanwhile the zombies were regretting their sojourn. It appeared that carnivorous plants preferred rotting flesh to live flesh..

Leaving Alice and Mindy acting as the rearguard...

Being a few notes on the reasons why this one played out the way it did...

The villagers farmed and controlled carnivorous plants for some reason. When the zombie virus hit it 'split' the villagers, creating zombie bodies and disembodied (but visible) 'ghosts' - their 'souls'.  These souls could control the zombie side to a certain degree and, feeling threatened by Alice and co, fled inside and released the zombies to defend themselves. Meanwhile, the carnivorous plants hadn't been fed for a while and were hungry... Alice and co represented food. However... carnivorous plants usually like decomposed bodies as the nutrients are easier to absorb. Instead of killing Alice and letting her body decompose they were suddenly provided with a source of already decomposing food in the shape of the zombies... much better...

Moral of the story is that we need to start developing motile carnivorous plants as protection for when the zombie holocaust happens.