Thermopylae 2 - the Persians.

One of my 'more than one post a day ' features... never could hold stuff back so everything will be moved/photographed/posted, Thermoppylae 3 will probably appear later today!

If you follow the numbers given by Richard Nelson in the WRG book 'Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars' the Persian army could have been about 149,500 strong rather than the 1,275,000 from the list provided by Herodotus. This would equate to 7,475 figures at a 20:1 scale - not going to happen!

Overall view of the Persian army. I haven't tried an accurate count but it's about 900 infantry and 150 cavalry. Or  a mere 18,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry 20:1 - or about a seventh of the size it needs to be!

Xerxes watching from a hill with his Guard cavalry at his side and Immortals in front. This terrain board had a small stream running through it which I've just ignored!

The vast majority of the figures are Garrison but there are a few others lying around. The middle two units are Minifigs PB my original 70s Persian army. Actually, not sure about that - archers may have originally been from the Minifigs Fantasy range. It was a long time ago. The Persian javelins to their left are ex-Harry, the two bases to their right are Garrison conversions - lots of these on sand coloured bases are in the Egyptian army, these are dedicated Persian army for DBA. There are a lot of conversions in my Garrison Persian army.

This lot are mostly from Asia Minor - Carian hoplites to the front, backed by a 70s unit of Ionians, then a load of Garrison Phrygians. Camels in the army are supposed to be Arabs, this lot will just have to pretend. Keep thinking 'need more camels'. I don't, but not about to let that concern me.

Sakae/Scythians - all conversions though for some at least they are Gallic archers painted as Scythians. The Sparabara unit includes a few of the long gone Warrior Greek and Persian Wars range.

I admit some of these views are a bit random but - well, never mind. A view of the entire Persian army.

Technically the Thebans were still on the Greek side at this time but as I always associate Thebes with the Persians I thought I'd just include them anyway. The unit behind them is an original 70's Egyptian unit. The Egyptian horse archers are more recent conversions.

More conversions. All of these figures are conversions, even the Guard cavalry - I took the original rider and remade and cast it as a one piece casting to make casting easier. At some point I should do a few head swap conversions on this figure...

Another gratuitous 'most of the army' picture.

So that's the setup. Next thing is to start moving them around.

Thermopylae 1 - the Greeks and battlefield setup.

Been doing a lot of painting and casting recently but no battles. In fact, don't think I've done anything along those lines this year! Likewise, I've done virtually nothing with Ancients this year. On that basis I decided to do an Ancients battle, but not as a battle, more as a 'set up and tell the story'. It also gives me the chance to use some of the terrain I got off Robbie.

This picture shows the Spartans and Immortals fighting in the Pass.  The rest of the Greek army is in the background - about 170 figures all together. There are 16 Spartan figures - at 20:1, that represents 320 Spartans, close enough to the 300. The Greek army is probably about half the size of the historical army. All the Spartan hoplite figures are Garrison 20mm G3.

One thing about the terrain is that it was made for 6mm figures so hills are not very high - in this picture it's hard to tell that the Spartans and Immortals are fighting at the narrowest part of the Pass!

It's a bit clearer in this picture.

Again, although there were lots of hills on the board, to make it look impenetrable I added lots of trees. I've just used the smaller trees in my collection - they're already taller than the hills as it stands!

So that's the basic Greek force and terrain.  Later I'll start on the Persian setup.

20mm Napoleonic British Dragoons

Loosely based on the 1st King's Dragoon Guards...

Loosely... this unit, painting isn't right...

For example, saddlecloth on back rider...

Etc... helmets... still, look OK at a distance and fine for wargames purposes!

Some sad 20mm Lamming Napoleonic French Artillery

This for Mathew... RHA I'd already posted but the French foot artillery got neglected a bit - never finished and looked a bit battered. Saw them a while back, forgot where, found them again. In the 42mm artillery box when I was putting the British army troops away!

Certainly haven't shown these figures at their best!

Quite slimline with largish looking heads. On the other hand, they are more or less compatible with these 20mm Garrison Prussians.

42mm British army Review.

Having produced a lot more on this project than I ever expected, it does seem to be a good time to do a Review of the currently biggest army...

In order to get everything in I had to push the army further and further back on the table!

28mm buildings don't look too out of place size wise. Well, the bigger ones anyway!

Looking down the army from the right flank. Got more infantry than I'll ever use in one battle, could do with some field guns... this picture is a slightly different setup to the first two - I hadn't added the lancers at this point and the guns are separated.

If I've got any sense I'll leave the British for now, get the Russians sorted and perhaps a few more French. And Prussians.

Disclaimer:
I don't have any sense.

20mm Napoleonic moulds update - posted...

A long time ago I mentioned I would probably get a couple of moulds made for the 20mm Napoleonic range. I've just taken the Pavlovski guard figures out of the Dettol and they're done so I'm now getting everything together.

I'm looking at two moulds, one cavalry, one infantry. The cavalry moulds include a couple of Persian figures I want more of - these were originally put on a Tiranti mould many years ago and never made it to the bigger moulds. I'm continuing to find and repair a few new cavalry figures so some of these are 'new'. It gives me a pretty extensive range of heavy cavalry compared to the past.

The infantry mould really should be two moulds - it's a cost thing... a couple of these figures are French artillerymen. I already had one figure (wherever it is at the moment...) so have added the 'found' one plus a head swap British artilleryman to this mould. I expect this mould to get a lot of use.

The next stage is to get in touch with Pete Brown and see if he is still in business of course.

Pete contacted, still in business, figures sent off today...

More 42mm Zinnfiguren homecast

This time painted up as British infantry and Dragoons.

A dozen infantry and five cavalry.

I'm trying to cut down as much as possible on detail, but increasing the command group to officer, standard bearer and bugler eliminates any time gains.

Now, the cavalry. Should have been a 4 man squadron one of whom was an officer. Then another officer to act as a general staff or possibly infantry officer. Then I only painted 1 officer... Horses I'm simplifying by not painting on eyes, blazes or stockings. The casting itself is simpler in the sense non of the figures have carbines...

The officer is from one of the artillery moulds. Need to overpaint the red on his bincoculars! Bugler, all-action pose and has a backpack.

So although all these figures are meant to be 1901 Germans they fit really well into the 1897 British army.