AndrewB- Ancients! Project hoppery for sanity! Wrath, Heresy, Violence! -507pts

My apologies for the delay in posting!  Real life 1:1 scale terrain projects (hooray old house!) have gotten in the way, but I’ve managed to sneak in some additional minis, and possibly completed one of my larger projects builds for a challenge yet!  A whole mess of ancients!  Not a huge amount of time for pictures and posting, as my scant hobby time has been pushed into as much painting for sanity as possible, but here we are!  A top view of a load of ancient figures just itching for the tabletop!  

89 of them, to be precise!

First up, some Egyptians!  These I planned as the Wrath! Entry, as they were built and painted to fight a bunch of Sea People figs a buddy was supposed to be painting(Historically, the Egyptians were the only survivors of the possibly Sea Peoples-induced Bronze Age Collapse, with Ramses II stopping them in the Nile Delta, avenging the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean), but his figures didn’t get done!  That’s alright, especially with the angry bald dude in the front, wrath still sits well.  The Wrath of the Pharaoh, perhaps!

These guys are slightly more interesting, they’re a mix of various peoples of the area of Israel and Judea in the early biblical period, along with a group of six Philistine figures, who can be opponents, or mercenary allies.  Lots of basic spearmen, some slingers, and some really fun command figures!  With no chariots, this should likely be a force from the time of Saul/David, but can also represent the smaller rural forces of the Hebrews all the way through to the Jewish Revolt in the 60s-70s AD, giving an impressive ~1300years of possible play.  In that time, the peoples of this region fought hundreds of opponents, from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Babylonians, to the Romans, with a huge amount of fighting taking place with one another!  They’re the perfect candidate for the ‘Violence’ category!  

Last but not least( I know it’s out of order, but it’s all the same post), my submission for Heresy!  This giant dude is my representation for Goliath, should I ever find a set of rules to game his fight with the ‘A’ portion of Force=Mass X Acceleration. Fighting and even unsuccessfully trying to kill future King David is probably enough to count as Heresy for a lot of folks.  

That’s 88 28mm figures and a 40mm, and three categories!  My math isn’t always the best, but I think it’s 507pts.  My apologies for the poor backdrop and lack of pictures, but I needed to make sure folks knew I hadn’t dropped out, and have been putting in work in my now short amounts of time. I’ll be sure to get more detailed and quality pictures for my wrap-up post.  Not sure the unexpected home repairs are going to let me hit my 1200pt goal, but I’m gonna try!  Thanks for all the help and inspiration!  

PS- if anyone knows of a good skirmish/big skirmish game for pre-ancient by wargaming standards figures like these, please let me know!   Picked up Clash of Spears, but these guys will have chariots soon, and not only is the conflict before the period of the rules’ design, but there’s no rules for them.  

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BOOM goes the Dynamite - a points bomb if ever there was one! Great to see some Bronze Age/Biblical period models hitting the Challenge Andrew.

We all know the pain of the worst of all scales (1:1) so this speaks volumes of your commitment - good luck!

- Paul

AdamC: More Egyptian Archers Gift Shop (100 points)

 

More Egyptians for my friend Arofan's Biblical Age armies.  

A few of them have the blue headdress to complete the last group others have a red brown a fairly common dye color.

Here are some close up of the headdress.

Close up of the two standards one green the other gold. 

There are 16 28 mm figures at 5 points each for 80 points and another 20 for the gift shop for 100 all together.

 

 

Sylvain: There is something old school about the sculpt of these figurines which I find interesting. Your palette sticks to warm colors, which perfectly suits an ancient Egyptian army. Marvelous paint job!

AdamC - Ancient Egyptian Archers (50 points)

These New Kingdom Egyptians from Old Glory are for a project my friend Arofan is working on to do some Biblical era War gaming. By this I mean the kingdom of Israel period.

That technically makes these fellows late period Egyptians the last gasp of native rule before domination by foreign powers (Persians, Greeks Romans and so on until after World War II) Fortunately with Ancient Egyptians what's is new is what is old so reto garb was the way.

They were simple linen kilts and head dresses armed with bows arrows and maybe a knife. The leader has a stone headed mace. There are 10 figures here for 50 points. The base is a temporary one so Arofan can permanently base them as he wishes. This may require a reduction in points.

Sylvain: Very nice Egyptians. I'm enticed to walk like them (cf. Bangles). Their head dress immediately suggest where they are from. I'm not going to reduce the points because I'm sure these miniatures will soon end up on a nice base. Can't wait to see the next submission of this project of biblical proportions.

 

 

From DallasE: Tolkien and Hairy Germans in the Fantasy Stack (45 points)

Hi everyone. Trying to sneak a second submission in today, starting with some command  (C, S, M as we used to say) for my Germanic tribesmen. These are resin models from Warlord Games.

These dudes actually mix quite well with my Foundry models, after I cut off the integral bases. The models' feet are stuck straight down to the bases.

These guys seem to be quite fond of their severed heads, no??

Not to be outdone, the carynx-blower has a head hanging off his belt too. Nice models. 

Over to the Fantasy stack now with a couple of ancient Citadel models from their 1980s Lord of the Rings range. 

This is Boromir, from the ME21 "Boromir of Gondor" blister. Nice model in the old chunky Citadel style.

The other one is Aragorn, from the BME1 "Fellowship of the Ring" boxed set. Also a nice model but slightly gangly compared to Boromir.

Here's the whole crew from Citadel, with Aragorn and Boromir done that completes my old-school Citadel LotR collection. Good to have 'em done.

So on to the scoring:

5x 28mm foot                        25 points

Fantasy Stack                        20 points

Total                                        45 points

Thanks for lookin' and see you next week!

Looking good there. Love the small freehand on the Germanic there. Having painted some of those in previous challenges, I can say I might need to update my painting now after seeing yours :D

45 more points for you here!

Kyle

From DallasE - Hairy Horsemen in the History Stack (140 pts)

Hi all, back again with some more Germanic tribesmen for my new project. The models are again from Wargames Foundry.

There are twelve of these chaps in the unit and they came with command as well! Above we see the leader (in looted Roman kit), standard bearer, and horn blower.

 

The rest of the bunch are in a variety of poses. I hand-painted the shields using ideas found on the Internet. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, there's no real primary sources of shield designs as none have survived in a condition that would indicate how they were painted.

Foundry also supplied a bunch of wicker shields, which are a real cheat because you just paint them... like wicker :-)

Germanic tribesmen apparently wore very little armour and almost none wore helmets. However the cavalry were supposed to be upper-class kind of peasants so may have been a bit better equipped. Their horses were slow and awful though, at least according to Tacitus and Caesar.

A shot just to prove I painted the back ends of the models too.

These were actually a real faff to assemble as the riders really didn't want to stick to the horses' backs. A little JB Weld (two-part epoxy) set that right though.

Points tally:

12x 28mm cavalry        120 pts

History stack bonus        20 pts

Total                            140 pts

Next up I have another unit of Germanic tribesmen infantry (the bases arrived, yay!) or maybe something completely different. I'll get back to you on that.

Dallas
 

Great job Dallas on more Ancients here! And I love seeing the freehand on the shields there. Never easy but always adds so much to the models. 140 PTS for you then!

Kyle

From JezT: Post 5 - Final Successors "White Shields" 28mm and Studio Tour (75 points)

Dear All 

Happy to post the final figures finishing my Successor army reinforcements (based for Basic Impetus rules). For this I pulled out a trusty guidebook that I imagine many of you have. 

First up from Aventine Miniatures I have some Foot Light troops "Mercenary Thureophoros" - so named as they are using the oval "thureos" style shield. The book mentions white shields so painted as such. Plus I have read "White Shields" always roll higher on the dice!

Next I have an interesting Heavy Foot unit of Lykians - I had not come across these before but they are covered in the book being Anatolian Persian style troops. These are in the Basic Impetus Successor Eumenes army list which I especially wanted to play. Figures here are Gripping Beast although with a Aventine standard bearer with head swap. Historically I dont think the foot were particularly strong or great quality. On the base I just have 7 figures but hopefully it still gives the impression of a more close order unit. Again the guide mentions "White Shields" so went with that and just added my own shield pattern.

As I mentioned playing Basic Impetus using the Successor Eumenes option thought I would share a picture of the complete army - as standard there are 8-12 units in a Basic Impetus army. In the photo the new units painted in this Challenge are the General Command base, Elephant, Thracian FL and Lykians. 

11 units in total as pike block has 2 units double deep

Finally I have made a late start on the studio tour beginning with the Historical Drama lot - thinking of the Crusades and the Ridley Scott "Kingdom of Heaven" film here. I have painted a free figure I got from a Footsore Miniatures order and changed the weapon  to a more impressive two handed sword. I was torn between options but finally decider to paint up as in the Order of Knight Hospitallers. 

Must admit the close up focus on an individual figure rather than unit effect is really stretching my painting ability but this gets me on the board at least.

So overall is 11 x 28mm foot (55 points) and a studio tour single figure and bonus (25 points) for a combined 80 points for this week. 

Happy painting ............ 

Cheers Jez

From TeemuL: They do look great, all the white shields especially! The complete army army photo is a nice touch, shows real progress. But what shall you paint next? The crusader looks fine, keep strecthing your painting. :) What is there on the base?

The Studio location bonus is only 20 points, not 25, so 75 in total.

From JezT: Post 4 - More Successors 28mm (37 points)

Dear All

Small post but trying to keep in a flow and now I have started at least post something every week. 

This is a follow on from last week with some more 28mm Successor figures based for use in Basic Impetus. First up I have a new Command base - here the Thracian with falx is from Aventine with the Cavalry commander from Gripping Beast. He is actually a standard bearer figure but obviously been promoted ...

Next up are 4 figures creating a new Foot Light with Javelin base - the 2 figures on the left are from Aventine and the 2 on the right from Wargames Foundry (think there is a head swap there as well). Felt these looked more Thracian so went with the half moon shields and Thracian inspired symbols. 

So in total should be a simple extra 35 points. Happy painting all!

Cheers Jez

From TeemuL: It is good to keep up the pace, I  try to publish something each week. It is a nice positive pressure and keeps the painting engine running. And your engine keeps running nicely, I like the spots on the horse and the nice basing. I'll even give you two extra points for the head-on-a-stick and those hand-painted shields!

From RobH - Numidian Field Force - War Elephants (100 Points)

 I have been ill the last two weeks and haven't done a whole lot other than a lot of napping. This weekend I spent about 4 hours to apply the decals to my Victrix War Elephants. I would have sworn I had ordered two packs of Little Big Man Numidian Elephant transfers, but it looks like I have one Numidian and one Carthaginian. In any case the elephants are ready and the Carthaginian Elephants are obviously plunder.

My first elephant took the longest and I learnt from my errors. Somewhere along the line I lost one of the little corner square decals and caused a dogeared effect on one of the hawdah's side panels. Live and learn. Two much detail for my thick and clumsy fingers, which at times are all thumbs.

Two Victrix War Elephants with crew - Numidian Decals

Two Victrix War Elephants with crew - Carthaginian Decals

Points

12 x 28 mm crewmen @ 5 points each = 60 Points

4 x 28 War Elephants - At the discretion of Minion Miles - I started painting the elephants and the trim on the howdahs pre - AHPC, but hit a brick wall and didn't advance on the project until this weekend when I completed basing and decaling. I hope that the time spent may be worth some points.

Great looking Heffalumps Rob! I really like what I've seen of these Victrix ancient kits.  I flat out do not have the patience for 4 hours torture with transfers however nice the end effect is, and yours look very nice.  Once I figure the SSOD out I'll adjust your score to include the Elephants on the bait of "Miles said it was ok".  

I wasn't sure if Elephants count as a vehicle or a mount.  In the end, I went with 10 points per Pachyderm in the full knowledge that someone will correct me and point out the error of my ways.

From JezT Post 3 - Ancient Successor Reinforcements - 28mm (70 points)

Dear All 

Switch for me this week and pleased to get another squirrel again by expanding on my bases for Basic Impetus rules armies. I already have an Alexandrian Macedonian v Persian classic combination and from this it makes sense to expand into the Successor range of armies by painting up some new options. If you are not aware Basic Impetus have set armies using around 8-12 "bases". From the Successor list I was especially interested to play the "Lysimachos" army list using Thracian options. 

My original figures are all Wargames Foundry but the reinforcements come from Gripping Beast and Aventine Miniatures - here was new to Aventine miniatures but very impressed. 

Anyway first up are just 7 new painted 28mm infantry figures:

2 slinger, 4 falx and 1 javelin new figures 

Next up my first ever Elephant painted - from Gripping Beast. 

In total think it is 70 points - 7 x 5 - 35 for the infantry and then 20 for the Elephant with extra 15 for the 3 crew. Should be some more reinforcements next week, sadly no more elephants planned though.  

Cheers Jez

From TeemuL: I have always liked elephants and here is a nice example, sorry to hear that there no more of them planned. :( But, one is better than none and the browns and yellows work very nicely on this grey behemoth. I'll give you a few extra points, there seems to be hand painted shield and two more on the howdah.