Thorakitai!

My latest addition to my Successor troops is a unit of Thorakitai.This unit was painted a week or two ago, but I had yet to post them here.
For those not knowing what excactly thorakitai are, see wikipedia for a short explanation.
They are a slighty heavier troop type then Thureophoroi, but probably had the same role in armies of those days. While Thureophoroi were unarmoured, except for a shield, Thorakitai were wearing chainmail on top of the shield.

The models are made by 1st Corps, and look good once painted. I had some doubts about them before I started painting them, but hey, check the pictures above! And they are not expensive at all for metal 28mm figures, at £21.60 for 24 figures. (see here).
I have more 1st Corps figures in the Lead Mountain, but I think for the time being, I'll work a bit on my other projects now. I know, I have way too many interests...

My (first?) Dragon Rampant band is nearly finished also now. I hope to put pictures here before the end of the month. I you don't know what Dragon Rampant is, see Dan Mersey's blog, who is the author of the rules and its medieval historical precursor Lion Rampant. There are more variants in the pipeline also.

The general.

As told before, for some unknown reason I could not add more pictures to the former blog message. So here is the general, promised last time.

The general is wearing most expensive clothing, so I used colours which were expensive to produce in those days: purple and yellow. Armour and helmet are covered in silver and gold.
The high officer, pointing to some interesting feat happening in the far distance, got his armour in brass to distinguish him from other foot troops.
The miniatures are from 1st Corps (general on horse) and Wargames Foundry (foot officer).

We played a game of Basic Impetus last friday, the first miniatures game since a long time. Early Seleucids (me) against Pyrrhus (Peter). As usual, I lost. After being on the win for the largest part of the battle. A few bad dice rolls, and it was all over. I still like the rules though, Iand would like to try the full Impetus rules somewere in the near future.

Well, my backlog is now completely posted on the blog. I'm currently working on some Greek mythology figures, and who knows what will follow next.
It might be more successors (I have a lot unpainted), more mythology or fantasy, or finaly painting those last three battalions for my Napoleonic army.

Return to Ancients.

Ancients is still my prime wargames period. To be more precise, ancient Greece up to the fall of the Hellenistic kingdoms. This still is a fairly wide period, and if you also count in their possible enemies... I don't think I will ever have enough of them.
If I may give you a link to another blog with an excellent battle report and pictures of the battl of Hydaspes, head over to caliban-somewhen
20 Elephants on the Indians' side, truly spectacular!

Last year (2014) I visited Salute and bought some 1st Corps Scythian heavy cavalry. The figures were just new, and since I did not have any heavy Scythians yet, "had to buy them". Here we are, a year later, and finaly half of them actualy got painted!
The horses are a bit on the small side, compared to the Foundry Scythians, but other than that, great sculpts. One thing I didn't know when I bought them is that they come in a few pieces. You have a horse, a rider, a hand with attached weapon, a shield and a quiver with bow. It all had to be glued together, so quite a bit of superglue ended on my hands. Luckely I didn't glue my fingers on one of the miniatures, but I am out of superglue for the moment.

As you can see, nice, well detailed figures.

On top of that, I also got two other figures painted. These two Vikings were drifting along the painting table half painted since, well lets call it a long time. Over 18 months at least.
And now they are completed! Strangely enough, I don't have any other Vikings. I don't even know why I bought them. (Is that reason enough to start a new army?) It is a Viking king from Crusader Miniatures and a character from Gripping Beast. I can't find the king on the website anymore, so it could be I'm wrong on that one.

All pictures are still made on my painting table. I will try to have a proper "photo studio" ready net time.

Gaming-wise it has been a bit less recently. Only a few board games. The closest to wargaming we played was Command and Colors ancients. After several years of owning the basic box and three supplements, we are coming close to playing the last scenario of the basic box...