Pezhetairoi, or the Foot Companions.

AKA Macedonian pikemen.

I promised it wouldn't take very long before I posted pictures of my new Macedonians. I expanded two smaller 32 figure units to my new standard of 48 figure units. These two units are build with Old Glory miniatures. I also have units made of Wargames Foundry, among others.

I now have five of these larger units, and my army is becoming an impressive force! Pictures might appear in the near future, a game with them in action is planned in the near future.

Alexander's Macedonian army is almost ready, I have all the figures and only a few more units need to be painted. A sixt unit is planned early next year. But the next blog will be about another subject. Some more (very) old fantasy figures maybe?

May I whish you all a happy and healthy new year with lots of great games!

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!

This time it is all about new units for my Hellenistic armies. The Thureophoroi were painted last year, while the pikemen and general got their paint this year.

Thureoporoi are named after the shield they use: thureos. Most of the times these shield were painted white. But don't confuse them with leukaspides, which translates to white shields and were heavy pikemen.
 It is a troop type which became very popular in the third Century BC till the fall of the Hellenistic empires.

I'm not 100% shure if they were uniformed, but there is some proof for it.
Anyway, I picked inspiration for this unit from the cover of a recent issue of Ancient Warfare. Which is an excellent magazine for any ancient wargamer by the way. More info here .

The second unit of thureophoroi got a slightly different uniform, but still kept the white thureos.

The uniforms of these are based on a picture in "The Seleucid army", written by Nick Secunda.

It is the image on the right.
The commander of this unit got a bit of a differnt uniform. I imagine one of his forefathers was a Greek hoplite in service of Alexander the Great. Who knows!

This book, originaly published by Montvert Publ. in 1994 is now much sought after. If you find one for a reasonable price, do buy it! (I bought my copy in 1994...)
ISBN 1-874101-02-7.

Then there are the 16 new rercuits for my Argyraspides (silver shields), an elite unit of heavy pikemen. I had a unit of 32 of them, but now expanded to 48.

The complete expanded unit.

My other 32 men units of pikemen will also be expanded to 48.
Miniatures of the thureophoroi are from Old Glory.
The pikemen are from the Foundry range World of the Greeks. Still a favorite of me.

For some reason, I cannot add more pictures here. So the new general will get his own update.

Chaeronea 2013 - Battle.

Sorry, there is no excuse for not updating my blog earlier.
It's not that I've not done anything wargames- related, just, well maybe blog-tired. (did I just invent a new word???)

Anyway, here is a short report on what happened that friday evening, at the end of 2013. Or at least, what I remember of it...

Both armies started a bit cautious. the Greeks tried to get through the hills/mountains on their left with some skirmishers, where no formed units could pass. When the Macedonians tried to stop them with the Thracian peltasts, the Greeks charged them with their cavalry!

Bad luck for the Greeks, though. The dice were against them, and they only inflicted one casualty! The Thracians got better luck, and got the cavalry running away from them, killing several mounted Greeks.

In the mean time, skirmishers were exchanging missiles all over the table Not a lot of victims, but most skirmish units are very brittle, and don't need a lot of casualties to run strait of table. Not this time.

(This picture is actualy taken before the one above, hence the cavalry is yet to make contact)

it is now time for the Macedonians to advance . They try to attack on their left, Greeks right, where the heroic Theban Sacred Band is positioned. They don't wait for the Macedonians, and urge forward themselves, while the other Hoplites keep the line unbroken and also advance.

One of the Macedonians phalanx doesn't make the test after combat, and breaks!

Alas, no luck for the Greeks. In another combat, that same bound, the Greek generals gets killed, and the whole army must test. Most of the unit make the test, but in combat most of them have to test again, due to receiving more casualties then the Macedonians. In this second test many units take the battle for lost and start running away. With no general to boost moral, this is a disaster for the Greeks. The Macedonian Companions then surge forward, and, after only 5 turns battle is over.

Many thanks to Peter and Johan - the Greek generals, and Chris and Bert the Macedonian generals. They all told me the battle was great fun to play. 

As said before, we used Clash of Empires, and armies were around 4000 point a side, with +/- 700 miniatures on the table. Playing time was just over 3 hours.

Tomorrow I make a little trip, together with Peter and Johan to London. We booked a hotel there. The day after, it's Salute time!

For those who never heard of this (no, impossible!) that is the biggest one day wargames event in Europe.

I hope to meet some fellow-bloggers there. I will go search if I can find Simon (Bigredbat) who's figures will be used by the WSS team for their show game.

See you there! 

Or not...

Off to War (Part II).

After a few pictures of the "rebel" army, here are a the pictures of the Macedonians.

Some lighter troops, as the Agrianians and the Thracian peltasts have crossed the river to protect the left flank of the column.

The Thracian commander has sought higher ground, to check if he can see any enemy troops.

On the right flank, Alexander with a few of the Companions is doing the same.

First troops in the column of heavy infantry are the Hypaspists, followed closely by Philip, the commander of the army, with his elite phalanx unit.

After them are 5 more phalanx units, making them look like a moving wood of pikes.

For those interested, the miniatures are mostly Wargames Foundry, with some Old Glory, a unit of Gripping Beast (Polemos) and a few A&A Miniatures as Hypaspists.

The scene is set, battle is upon us.
We don't have a date yet, it is not easy to get a date we (the friends and me) can come together to play the battle.
Who will win???

Last unit for the Macedonian army.

Hello again!
My last unit from my Macedonian army is now ready. The figures come from the Gripping Beast "Polemos" range.
(it is actually a Seleucid guard phalanx unit, but it was the only phalanx I had for the moment)

I used the famous LBMS shield transfers for the first time. The first transfers took a lot of time to apply, but a few shields further in the line, I got it under hand. It still took me a whole evening to apply the transfers.
I had then to paint the edges of the shield, first in black (the transfers are to be used on a white primed surface) and then with gold, as this unit was called the Chrysaspides. Which is classical Greek for Golden shields.
I don't know if I did something wrong, I don't think it looks perfect. But it is certainly good enough to play our games. No one will notice when there are a few hunderds of toys on a gaming table!

Do check them yourself.

It is the last unit I had to paint for a soon to be played historical scenario. More on that will follow as soon as we (me and the wargaming friends) have a date when we can play the game. Rules will be "Clash of Empires".

Unfortunately, I forgot to take some close-ups of the unit.
Maybe in the next update. If I don't forget...

A look in the cabinet.

I made a few pictures of the miniatures who are now in my cabinet. All of my Greek and Spartan hoplites are there, as are my Macedonian/successor phalangites and some cavalry.
Everything is 28mm, as are most of my miniatures.

There are 3 blocks of 48 Greek hoplites made up of Foundry miniatures, and 1 of 48 Vendel miniatures.
Under them are my Spartan hoplites. 2 Blocks of 36 and 1 of 27, also mostly Foundry, with a few Gorgon and Vendel. Hidden in the left corner are my Theban Sacred Band of 18, all Foundry.

In the other cabinet are the Macedonian/successor phalanxes. A unit of 48 unarmoured Foundry on the right, followed by the famous Argyraspides. Currently consisting of 32 Foundry's but there are 16 more coming some day. In the middle are two big Vendel elephants, followed by two more units of 32 phalagites, made up of Old Glory. Underneat them are a unit of 12 cataphacts (old Newline), a command stand (Newline) and finaly 12 light Skythian horse archers.

Of course I also have Greek skirmishers, peltasts and a few horsemen. But as I see it, my Greek armies are big enough. For the moment.
The Macedonians/Successors are something else. I plan to build up the phalanxes to 48 figs each, and expand to at least 6 of them. Then I need more cavalry and light troops as there are thureophoros, thorakites and Thracians. And did I mention more elephants yet? The plan is to play all those big Successor battles, Raphia for example. And you can't play these with 100 figs a side, do you?

Any comments always welcome! (thanks Rudy)