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.

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.

Barbarians! Celts! Gauls!

Here is the next part of my painting backlog. This time about the Celtic/Galatian/Barbarians.
not a lot of figures painted for these, only a few small skirmish units. But they are needed just as much as any other part of the army!

These braves are armed with slings. Miniatures are from a few manufacturers, I think Wargames Foundry (old Perry range) and the ex-Newline range (now SHQ).

The second unit is armed with javelins and have a small shield. Miniatures are a mix of Wargames Foundry and Old Glory. Some of them have there hair dyed with white chalk to scare the enemy.

They were a quick paint job, using washes to get some depth in the colours.

There is also a fantasy part in my barbarian army. So here is the heavy siege artillery!

I bought this model a very long time ago (10 years ago?) in a sale. I believe it is made by Scotia Grendel. The crew are plastic left-overs from Wargames Factory Gallic chariots.

Next time the blog will report on new recruits for my hellenistic armies. It might be better to work on one project at a time, but that is so difficult for me. I recently bought Dan Mersey's Dragon Rampant fantasy rulesset, and now I want to have at least one army (well, max 60 figs) painted as soon as possible. I have loads of suitable unpainted figures, and finaly I might even start working on my non-GW Lord of the Rings figures. But I also have Greek mythology figures, and the rules are also usable for this setting.
Some hard decisions to make. If I only had the time to paint (and game) them all...

PAINTED Napoleonic (Dutch) Belgian cavalry.

These were painted a few months ago, but had yet to appear in full colour on the blog.
So here are the 5th Dutch-Belgian Dragoons for my growing allied army for the Waterloo campaign 1815.

There is also the obligatory "wounded" marker base, which from now on is a bit different then before.

As you can see, there is a small square at one corner of the base. That is not a waterwell, but...

A "dice square"! I don't know how to call it otherwise. I discovered these little helpsome things at the site of Warbases . 

All miniatures are Perry Miniatures.

Together with the already painted 6th Hussars, they form the 2nd light brigade. I only have to paint there famous commander, Major-general Jean-Baptiste Van Merlen. Who died at Waterloo.

PS In the title, (Dutch) is in parentheses, because this unit consisted completely out of Belgians.

Next time - soon - it will be ancients again. Gauls/Celts/Galatians to be a bit more precise.

Being away for a while.

Sorry about that. It's been a bit hectic for some time. Having to follow several courses for my work took lots of free time. So much that I was thinking of giving up my blog completely.
In december I had some time to start painting again, but since the new year, I had lots to do for work, again. I'm almost done now, and the deadline is only end of january, so, time for the hobby again!
I have not been playing a lot of games lately. Some card games (Lord of the Rings CCG) have been played. We (our small gaming group) still have lots of cards from the game.
In between things I did paint a bit, but being the butterfly I am, it is a bit af everything.
I will split up between different things painted in separate messages.

In the last week of december 2015 I painted for the first time in my life World War 2 figures. I got a sprue of Warlords Japanese from a friend in our local club. Since my brother (who even got less time then my) is interested in WW2 Japanese, I painted them up for him. I more or less used the "painting clinic" on the Warlord site (See here), but used slightly different paints (the ones I had available).
The pictures are not that wel made. I quikly sook some snaps, half an hour before he came visiting me.

I think they are not bad for a first try.

Next time - soon, I promise: Napoleonic Dutch Belgians. Yes, that cavalry unit I cleaned up and primed on vacation did got painted!

I'm on vacation, and what better to do than clean up a few figures and put them in black primer.

Reading a book maybe?

Lots of reading, in this book( second part of a biography in Dutch), almost 800 pages long. But by far the best read I yet had in 2015.

My vacation is almost over, so I'll soon start painting those Dutch-Belgian dragoons!