That strange word again: Thureophoroi.

Yes, I bould another unit of thureophoroi! Build I said, because this time I used a box bag of plastic Victrix miniatures. I've seen boxes of Victrix before, but the newest releases seems to come in bags. Which is a bit harder to stock. Boxes can be stacked, but this is a bit more difficult with bags full of plastic sprues without danger of damaging them if put on a too high mountain of plastic.

For more info on thureophoroi, click here or on "thureophoroi" in the labels list on the right side.

But enough rambling. On to the real thing. I've bought a bag of Victrix Numidians after seeing them on a small local wargaming event a few months ago. I don't need Numidians, or at least not currently, but after a closer second look, I thought, wait a minute. These look usefull as thureophoroi too. In this set are two different sets of heads: One, the typical Numidians, and the other a helmeted version. There are also two different shields sets added. the well known round shield used by the Numidians as we know them, and a second set of larger thureos type shields. As the figures were not expensive at all (thanks to David Thomas!), well, lets give it a try.

The result is very pleasing I think. Especially as sticking the figures together was really easy. Glue on the right side arm, glue on a shield on the left arm, and stick a head on it. I used a very basic painting scheme: prime, basic colour and wash. Even with my extremely slow painting skills, they were build and painted in less then two weeks. I can see myself buying a second set of these in the near future. And probably more Victrix plastic ancients, as they are very close in size to my existing ancient armies (mostly Foundry).
My units of thureophoroi are 18 figs strong, and since there were 24 figs in the bag, I painted the other six as "propper" Numidians.

Thureophoroi, with withe shields, as it are mostly seen or discribed in anciet sources:

The other six miniatures as real Numidians:

Battle beasts!

More then a year ago, I discovered the extensive range of ancient figures from Aventine Figures, with thanks to Mr Simon Miller from the Bigredbatcave and his rules, To the Strongest . See here for the Aventine website.
Well, I could use some more elephants I thought, so I ordered a fully armoured elephant from their range. It is a multipart beast, and I stuck it together that same day. And then it stood there, on a shelf, for many months. And then after all this time, I ordered another one, also armoured, but a different model (they do have a very large range of elephants!). That one was also build rather quickly, but there was no place next to the other on the shelf of unpainted - still to do stuff.
Ah, what the heck, lets paint them both I thought. The result is rather pleasing, I must say.
You can judge them for yourself right here:
All pics are clickable for a higher resolution, if desired.

The Roman, dangling from the grips of one of the elephants was a nice extra, which I "needed" to buy when I ordered one of them. The shield on the ground is actually a left over from a Gallic plastic set, I believe from Wargames Factory. If you watched the pictures on my former blog post, you may have noticed that the elephants were already on the table there, in one of our double Armati battles.

More troops in the picture soon.

That took some time!

I should have done this a lot earlier. I've neglected my blog way to long. Shortly after my former post, some months ago, a few unexpected things happened in my live. At that moment, I stopped having time for wargaming and/or painting. Interest was also (temporary) fading.

When I had more time again for my hobby, we (wife & me) went on a planned vacation, so again no games nor painting. I did read some books while on vacation! One of which is part of the famous "Wargaming in History" range. It was part 8, The Austro-Prussian War. Very interesting, even if not my period. The battles replayed here really got me thinking about the way I play my games, and how to improve them. At that moment I was sorry I didn't have a few miniatures and paints with me...

It was already july when I could finaly pick up a paint brush, and start to play games again.
So the next few blog posts will be about what I did do since that last post in ... april. Not necessarily in chronological order.
Games, yes! That's what it is all about isn't it?
So why not start with a few pictures of recent games?

Recently we fought two different battles, using Armati II as rules. We used the "intro" scheme, because we wanted a game with two armies against two others, and used a 4' x 8' table.
For those who don't know the rules, it is a bit like DBA, in that each base is a unit on its own, but for the rest gameplay is totaly different, and may I say: more interesting. Armies are also slightly larger, around 14 to 20 bases.

A few photo's maybe? They are made with my smart phone, so quality is a bit less. The light is also far from perfect in our local clubhouse.

 Battle line of Pyrrhus with a smaller army of Galatians as allies.

 Battle line of the Late Macedonian army (with the same points value of the other armies together).

 Cavalry action at the flank!

The two phalanxes just before they clash.

The Galatians broke through on several places, taking a flank and and ending the battle.
The counters and minidice in the photo's are used to keep track of hits being taken, fatigue and undressed (loosing discipline) state of units.

A week later, a second battle was fought, this time a slightly more unhistorical battle between a Pyrrhic army with Carthaginian allies against a Antigonid force. At the end, the Antigonids won a very narrow victory. There was lots of action, with four elephant units on the table!
But see for yourself.

Battle lines before the start of the game.

Pyrrhus elite cavalry fight it out against Antigonid cavalry.

Antigonid elephants try to break through on the opposite flank.

Another photo of elephants, both from the excellent Aventine range.

Well, I hope you like the new blogpost. Soon much more!