Ancients.

 

Well I finally completed some half painted ancient units that had been stood around for quite a while and they're a real eclectic mix of troop types and figure manufacturers..

I bought a few Foundry Cesarean Romans to pad out my small Roman army.They were a pleasure to paint although I now refuse to pay full price for them, these were courtesy of E Bay. I know they are a tad bright, but I must admit I do like the look of them. 

I have had these two resin elephants stood unloved for many months and finally decided to paint them.I only need to paint the rest of the Successor army now. Again they were a pleasure to paint. First Corps I think.

I had mentioned Lamming Miniatures a few weeks ago and was complaining about the scarcity of the range on E Bay. I then discovered the ranges are now available again but only better. The ranges have been redone and are for sale under the Lamming banner from a very enterprising gent called Martin Cameron who is steadily working his way through the ranges bringing them back to life. Recommended.

I picked up some badly painted Garrison Egyptians and have finally renovated them. They're not brilliant but are acceptable and were one of the very first figures I bought, many years ago.

I know they look their age, but I wanted some Egyptian melee troops to add to my Persian army. Not too historical, but look the part.

My 'new' Lamming Egyptian infantry, beautiful sculpts and very clean Great to paint by the way.

                      Finally a new Roman general to add to my many Roman generals. I think he was a freebie.

The Battle of Marathon 490 BC. using Sword and Spear

 Charles Grant Snr. has always been my inspiration regarding wargaming. My well thumbed copy of the magnificent The Wargame is still my go to book whenever I need a wargaming pick me up. However a few years ago I came across a book Grant had written that I hadnt read or owned. Ancient Battles for Wargamers was a great discovery and I still cant understand how I missed it the first time around.

The book contains various ancient battles described and then fought by Charles Grant in his wonderful style, factual, informative and readily usable, something sadly missing from the many so called articles in the wargaming press. Anyway I have never fought the famous Battle of Marathon and thought it would be a great game to fight using the Sword and Spear rules.

 

Marathon isnt a large battle and can be placed on a small wargames table easily.The important thing for me was to stage a battle that would be tense and not the walkover for the Greeks that is sometimes described in modern interpretations, especially the infamous 300 where they slaughter effeminate Persians in ridiculous outfits? One didnt rule a massive empire by possessing an army filled with effete soldiers.

In September 490 BC the Persians landed in mainland Greece at a suitable bay 25miles from Athens, their target for destruction. The Persians contained an Athenian exile called Hippias who was the leader of Athenian dissidents hidden inside Athens and ready to open the city gates for the Persians. The choice of landing was Hippias choice and allowed 600 Persian ships to land in the bay and allow the Persian army of 25,000 to encamp there.

 Marathon bay was perfect for the feared Persian cavalry with long stretches of flat land suitable for the cavalry. Determined to keep the invaders from the city Militades convinced the Athenians to march their entire army to face the Persians at Marathon. 

 The Athenian army encompassed the 10 tribes of citizen hoplites supported by their allies, the small city of Platea who also provided hoplites. Grant argued that this army would be supported by camp followers who could be utilised as light infantry, and who was I to argue with his ideas. He estimated the Athenian army at approximately 11,000 men. 

The Persians originally were estimated at 25,000 but on the day of the battle they were in the process of loading their army back onto the ships with the intention of leaving the Athenians stuck at Marathon whilst they sailed to Athens and victory.

 Realising that the Persians were in the process of leaving, the Athenians decided to attack in the hope of defeating them before they were able to sail to Athens.Grant estimated the strength of the Persian's at 15,000 infantry and allowed them a maximum of 1000 light horse who were in the process of riding back to the ships. The vast majority of the Persian infantry were bow armed soldiers famed for their skill with the bow but lightly armoured.

The Sword and Spear ancient rules are a well thought out set that certainly for me captures the feel of ancient warfare without the need for pages of weapon types and armour.

I opted for the following regarding the respective armies 13 bases of hoplites, to represent the 10 Athenian tribes and their allies. I also allowed them 2 bases of peltasts and the obligatory camp, which in the rules allows the player to provide units with multiple order dice which means they gain bonuses. Thus the Athenians had 16 command dice to place in the order bag.

The Persians were a more varied army and contained a mixture of 9 Sparabara units, that is bowmen with pavisse type protection, 4 allied foot with spear and shield, 4 light infantry bases, 3 Ionian hoplites who were given a poor command rating and 4 light cavalry which were off table to start with. Thus the Persians had 24 dice, but no camp which stopped the Persian player from placing more than one command dice with a unit. 

Both armies were given a command rating of 4, except for the Ionian hoplites who were given a 5 rating.The Athenians however were heavily armoured and able to form shield walls which makes them very effective in a melee.

In the actual battle the Athenians deployed in an unusual formation, thinning their centre whilst reinforcing their flanks but also stretching their line from the sea to difficult ground in an effort to stop any cavalry riding around their flanks. Militades gambled on the Persians placing their best troops in the centre of their line with their unenthusiastic allies on the flanks. He gambled correctly. 

John and I deployed as we wanted, but strangely ended up virtually deploying as in history. It was the most sensible deployment so why change it.

I had to roll for the light cavalry to determine when they would arrive, I managed to roll a four, which was pretty good for me, in reality it was to prove a little to late. In the first tentative moves John struggled to get his hoplites moving in concert, whilst I did manage to throw my lights to the flanks and begin to start peppering the Greeks with arrows and javelins, unfortunately the hoplites are very well protected.   

My luck didnt hold for long and the Greeks began to gather momentum and press towards my centre under a hail of arrows that did minimal damage. By move four my cavalry had appeared in dribs and drabs and I attempted to get around the Greeks right flank as quickly as possible.

By move six my sparabara were fighting for their lives. Unexpectedly I threw some decent melee dice that halted the Greek hoplites from piling through the centre. I also discovered that my medium infantry could do a decent job of halting the armoured clowns.

I knew it couldnt last and after eight moves the Persians began to disappear,like snow in Spring. 

On move ten the Persians had exceeded their demoralisation score and the line collapsed.An Athenian victory. I think John lost one base of hoplites due to a combination of cavalry charging their rear and medium infantry sacrificing themselves. All in all a devastating victory as per history, but I felt the Persians had acquitted themselves well and if I had been able to slow the Greek advance down my Sparabara would have claimed more hoplites. as it was they couldnt. But it was a very enjoyable game and the rules added to the enjoyment. 

                                   My Ionian allies? actually fought well before collapsing.

  

A Trip Down Memory Lane.

Its interesting how as one gets older you regress into a childlike state. Im not talking about dementia but nostalgia, a hankering for some reassuring time from the past. My reassurance or comfort blanket appears to be locating and then buying, old, badly painted figures that I collected when I was young, ie 15ish.  

I was a great lover of Bill Lamming figures. Yes they had stumpy legs and yes the horses could look a tad strange, but imperfections made them interesting. Hence these Republican Romans. I bought these, badly painted and very unloved, on top of that they had no pilum. John rectified that by giving me some of his trusty bendy plastic brush heads. They are very effective and dont ping all over the show.Yes they look basic but they will do for me.  

Warlord Games bought out decent range of Achemenid Persians, but then whilst advertising them simply failed to actually produce any. I located these on E Bay. Id never seen any in the flesh but I am impressed with the life created by the sculptor. Not my best paint job, but still a good addition to my burgeoning Persian horde. 

Again figures kindly provided by Iain Macmillan. Firstly a beautiful Stadden figure for my renaissance armies. I found this figure a pleasure to paint and far better than my original one who poses as Cesare.

Iain also provided this cracking Stadden cavalier. Again a joy to paint and ideal for my nostalgic ECW army.

 

And finally a beautiful Les Higgins figure.I didnt go overboard with the colours and think he looks the better for it.

So will I stop buying and painting newer figure ranges? I doubt it, but I have enjoyed painting some really old ranges and currently sat on my paint table are some vintage Garrison ancient Egyptians. They were advertised as Lamming but I recognised them straight away. In fact I used to have the figure in my original Ancient Persian army from the late 1970's. So totally unhistorical but I like them so my rule applies.

So if anyone wants to offload any old figures, especially ancients or Civil War that they dont want Im your man. Fair prices paid. Well fairly, fair prices.

 

Buggering on.

Just to prove I havent thrown myself off a cliff I picked up a brush and finished off a few part painted figures. In the past Ive found that if one paints something a little different from what you normally paint it seems to help cleanse the palate. Hence the lovely Hinton Hunt figure kindly given to me by Iain Mcmillan.

The organ gun is a 3D one which I bought from E Bay. The company supplies four crew so I was able to use two figures for a couple of commanders albeit in later costume style than the times of the Burgundian Wars.

The cavalry are Perry plastics and have been sat in the queue for weeks now. I had trouble with the reds and have now resorted to Games Workshop ones. God knows what Vallejo are doing? I have only two more gendarme units to glue and paint and that should definitely do for the Burgundian army. I already have too many for a normal sized Billhooks game, but enough to host a decent sized Pike and Shot battle. 

People should recognise the billman. He is available from Wargames Illustrated and is meant to be Andy Callan??? He is a very nice figure and will act as a Yorkist sub commander, not that I need anymore.

 So I am still functioning and getting down to business, well at least lifting a paint brush. My next task is repainting some old Garrison and Lamming ancient Egyptians for my Persian horde.

Ennui.

Five 4.00am starts finally rewarded me with sight of this beautiful Sri Lankan leopard chilling in the bush. No worries about wargaming with this lad. The locals call him Lewis? 

Its been a while since I posted and also the longest lay off from painting since the early 1980's. When I discovered blogging in 2010 my intention was to publish something regularly and at least once every couple of weeks, like all good intentions one loses one's way and forgets. I hit a wall regarding posting a blog which was an issue but the wall I hit regarding figure painting was even more disconcerting.
 I returned from the Featherstone weekend having thoroughly enjoyed myself but somehow lacking in enthusiasm which is unusual for me. I looked at my painting desk and simply couldn't find the drive to sit and paint anything. It happens to most if not all wargamers, some walk away, most overcome the feeling and return to do their best work.

 However my painting ennui wasn't about the relevance of buying and painting toy soldiers but more about what I did with the finished products. Everyone of a certain age assesses their future and what needs to be sorted and placed in order. Usually I am able to compartmentalise things and cope but recently Ive struggled to do that. 

It hasnt just been my wargaming but as this blog is exactly about that then I wont bore people with other so called issues.    

 I have some pretty big armies of 28mm figures, that's not a boasting observation but a reality. I haven't used some of these armies for several years and to be very honest I have considered moving them on because of their lack of use. 

 Luckily due to going on holiday I wasnt able to make any badly thought out decisions about disposing of any of my armies and although I had hoped to clarify what I was going to do whilst away that didn't happen either. Its amazing what very early starts, sleeping in a tent in high humidity, the monsoon, leeches, snakes and of course having a holiday in a country in complete political meltdown can do to intrude upon wargaming.

So I came back with no idea what was going on and what the issue was I was attempting to identify.

 So where does that leave me?

 Well no further forward, so I poured myself some clean water and finished painting a unit of Burgundian gendarmes.

 They are waiting basing and to be very honest they look pretty rough but will have to do. I know I've not resolved what has been bothering me but at least I've picked a brush up and planning which figures to paint next.

 I can only apologise for this self indulgent piece and for the lack of posts and hopefully I'll discover some new period, interest or even just some figure that sparks my enthusiasm.

 Here's hoping anyway.

                 Dutch gun emplacement at Galle Fort, Sri Lanka, a lovely place to explore.