An Elephantine Drop

aka "Eureka, I finished the Punic Wars project!"

Carthaginian Elephants: I painted 5 with Carthaginian motifs and 5 without so they could port to a Pyrrhic army.  The ellies didn't have much in the way of skin folds so I used a triad of greys to paint wrinkles in.  Elephants are the natural centerpiece of the Carthaginian army and I think these can shoulder that burden.

Carthaginian 4 horse chariots:  The chariots are for the option of running an Early Carthaginian army.

Carthaginian Armored African Veterans: A close look shows them kitted out in Roman gear. I painted the black shields with white palm trees, making them the original Afrika Korps.

Carthaginian Heavy Cavalry: They'll lock up the Roman Cavalry to the front while their Numidian allies ride around to the flanks and rear.

Libyan Javelinmen & Balearic Slingers: Few though they are, they'll tie up the enemy skirmishers.

Up next is the Spanish arm of Hannibal's army.  The Spanish are my favorite War & Empire sculpts. As is traditional with the ancient Spanish, you can have a bit of fun with bright colors.

Round Shield Cavalry: The Spanish lights are a colorful bunch.  Even if they don't win in skirmish, they'll look marvelous riding around on dressed up ponies.

Long Shield Cavalry: The heavies are ready to rumble!

Heavy Scutarii: They'll challenge the Roman Legions in the open ground and on a good day,  maybe even push them back.

Spanish Slingers: Because you can never have too many skirmishers.

Medium Scutarii:  The nice thing about basing 3 figures per base to represent medium foot is the lads get to have a bit of elbow room.

I can check "paint a lot of figures in a short period of time" off my bucket list. If you're looking to paint up ancients in 15mm, take a look at the Forged in Battle collection. We lost Covus Belli's ancients months ago so its a relief to see West Wind step into the breach.  Along with a deep bench of armies, they have great color items up on the builds accessories page.  Things like engineers, villages, villagers, temples, ramps, siege towers battering rams and more!  

I'll  be on the road shortly. A little rest for the eyes and then, back to it with SAGA and Bolt Action projects.    

I ride a light horse...

Out of the corral today ride the Numidians.  To pop off of the brown basing and horses, I went with a lighter skin tone that what I suspect the ancient Berbers had.  If I've learned one thing painting 15mm, it's that you can't be subtle.

These West Wind figs get a big thumbs up for the variety of poses.  The hair is nicely modeled with a look that could be described as proto-dreadlock. Big shields are a plus for scratch shieldwork.

I'm reaching into the Way  Back machine for this, all the way back to my very first blog post.  In it, I adapted Woody Guthrie's classic, “I Ride an Old Paint”  to the ancient battlefield.  

I ride a light horse, 

I lead a fast pack, 

I’m heading round the flank,  

I got a camp to sack,

We feed on stragglers,

We water in the draws, 

Our tails are all matted, 

Our opponents are raw,

Old man Giso, 

He had two sons, 

One joined the cavalry,

and the other went wrong, 

his boy, he died on the plains of Cannae, 

but still he keeps singing all of the day

Ride around light horse, 

ride around real fast, 

hold the enemy by the nose and 

kick 'em in the ass

Below are the Numidians  who couldn't afford a pony.  These skirmishers have plenty of variety as well.  Now I'm onto the Spanish and then Carthaginians to finish out the project!

I've had a great run of luck at The Miniatures Page lately. Last week, I scored an unpainted 28mm Gallic army by Foundry.  8 chariots, 150 foot and 30ish cavalry = a BIG fall/winter project. I'd like to paint and base them for Impetus. I'm thrilled that I get to paint Foundry and ancients in 28mm for the first time.  Finally!

This week, I've been painting to the superb audiobook Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth.  As Fortuna would have it, I also found a large unpainted Thematic Byzantine army by Gripping Beast. Even though I don't have a solid plan for them, I couldn't pass up on the opportunity.  With this, I can now muscle up to the painters bar, hold my head up high and brag about my lead hill!  

Bang a Scutum, Celtiberians are done

Up today is a run that finishes out the ancient Spanish army I sold in January. All Xyston figures and once again, Xyston is a joy to paint.

First up are 16 bases of Celtiberian Scutarii heavy foot.  To set them apart from their Iberian breathren, I brought in dull yellow for tunics and bright yellow & runes for shields.  I'm quite pleased with how they look ranked up.  This seals the deal. I must find a partner for painting and playing Iberians and/or Celtiberians in 28mm.

I also painted up a small batch of Scutarii medium foot.  These fellows were painted to match the 42 bases of Iberian Scutarii I painted up previously.

With this, all of my 15mm painting is done and it's back to 28mm.

Stomp, Stomp, Stompies!

Elephants:  4 new stompies for my Carthaginian army.  I put some effort into the blankets since they're going to see battle without war towers. You have to look good to feel good, even if you're a war elephant! I decided I'd made the tusks too large and trimmed them back a bit.  Then again, the North African Forest Elephants used by the Carthaginians are extinct and I could claim some artistic license.

In Field of Glory, the Later Carthaginian list allows 6 elephants BUT if you take a Numidian ally, you can field 8 in total.  Elephants will reportedly get 3 dice per base at impact in FoG 2.  We're ready to bring it, en masse.

 

Thureophoroi:  My Thureophoroi, based as Medium Foot, give the Carthaginians another unit to contest and fight in terrain.  They can be paired with a unit of elephants in a battle line.

Slitherine announced that version 2 will be published in paper and digital format after all. That's excellent news as an iPad/laptop only version would have scotched Field of Glory 2 in our club.  We've been reading the announced list of changes and we're quite anxious to give them a try.  So anxious in fact that a buddy and I printed out the list of changes and put them into a game with my newly painted Carthaginians.  I'll post the AAR next week with a few observations.  The short version is I'll be a Day 1 purchaser when the new rules hit the market.  Two years of tweaking and field testing has paid handsome dividends, in my opinion. 

Rebuilding my Carthaginians

Lately, I've been digging into a pile of Punic era figures to finish a long-stalled Field of Glory project.  I sold my Mid Republican Roman army last winter and in the process, I cannibalized my Carthaginian to build out the Romans.  I planned to paint up replacement battlegroups but then along came a gladiator project, 3 Impetus armies and my Maurice Ottoman army.  After 8 months delay, here are the replacements!  All Old Glory figure.

Numidian Light Horse:  My Carthaginian cavalry is generally outclassed or ignored in my matches so I'm going to try a different approach.  I'll max out on Numidian Light Horse (3 battlegroup) and take a Numidian ally which  allows a 4th BG.  That  should be enough to tie up enemy cavalry while sending one unit after the camp. Colors are variations on a brown theme but I do like the look of these fellows all massed up.  This time through, I deduced that the small blob at the bottom of some shields is a feather!

Cretan Archers:  I trimmed the red tunics with white but it had a Santa's elves meets Candy Stripers vibe.  I switched to sky blue but a darker blue would've worked as well.

Stompies!  The upside to painting figures a second time is the opportunity to change things up. I've been doing a bit of reading (a dangerous thing!) and learned that war towers were not used in the 1st Punic War.  In the 2nd Punic War, war towers were used BUT not on every elephant.  In fact, there is a line of thought that war towers were used infrequently.  This batch will be sans towers.  After filing away the ropes, I decided to use Green Stuff to make large tusks on 2 of the ellies.  You wouldn't think this would be diifficult but in fact, its quite fiddly in 15mm.  Oh, and I added a crash helmet for one of the mahouts.   

Thureophoroi: A unit of Thureophoroi is sitting in the painting pan. These guys will be tough to paint after the Xyston Thureophoroi I painted for my Pontic army. Even by Old Glory standards, these are poor molds.  Which begs the question, when did I cross over and become a painting prima donna?