Round-Up 2024.1

 Just some notes and pointers:

(a)  6.3.24 - found on Facebook today.  Only a small amount of text:

Donn Cooks HAMAA:
Historical African Martial Arts Association
Mohsen Mahfouz - Chariots made for a film.

13 pics - don't know how to access the originals!  Really useful guide for scratch-building.

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                                            (b)  Tues 5.3.24 - some painted Haitian peasants:

https://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/2024/03/ahpc14-haitian-revolution-haitian.html

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(c)  DBA - Gt.Houghton - Sat 2.3.24

1.3  Nubian  v  1.2b  Early Egyptian -   4:1 win - quite uncharacteristically I shot the enemy to pieces
2.68a  Pictish  v  3.52 West Frankish -  4:1 loss - cannot handle fast pikes
2.43  Maccabean Jewish  v  2.19a  Seleucid -  4:2 win - managed to kill the elephant early on
2.11  Gallic v  2.10  Camillan Roman - 4:1 win - got the warband working plus lucky dice

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(d)  Painting/modelling progress

I now have enough figures to re-constitute my Bedouin army.  What I am still short of is 60mm x 80mm chariot bases.  Looks like a serious order has to be made considering just how many of my plastic armies are chariot-rich.

Sorting out my Libyans/Kushites but stuck on the later spearmen.  A suitable box of Carthaginians will have to be found.

Sadly nothing completed as my freezing garret does not encourage loitering.  

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Unexpected Item in the Painting Area

 

                                                       Bedouin army by Alan Ferrency

I needed to take a quick break from working on my Bedouins so I placed my paint tray in, what I thought was, an out of the way place.  Soon after I heard a crash whilst I unable to do anything about it.  When I returned to my painting set-up I found a white monstrosity sitting in the middle of all the chaos - quite unconcerned. My almost completed Bedouins had been scattered to the four winds.  

After searching as best I could, and consulting my army lists, I realised that only a few figures were lost - 3 x camels, 3 x camel riders and 1 x chariot wheel.  Having just purchased a box of Bedouins to get a miserly 2 camels I was not best pleased.  

Guess that I will just have to 'bite the bullet' and order yet another box!  Still one man's misfortune is another man's profit!  

Later - with a new surplus of Bedouin foot - I re-arranged the deck chairs.  The camels I could now manage but all the riders not so.  Time to rummage around in PSR.  The Zvezda Carthaginian box ZVE8031 has 12 Numidian riders (6 without shields) so I looked carefully at them.

 

Not ideal but acceptable.

In the meantime I sorted out the Nubians and made some progress on the Libyans.  With 2 x 20mm armies ready to photograph I looked for my camera.  All seemed well with the world until I actually tried to take a photograph.  I hadn't realised just how long the camera had been snoozing in the cupboard.  Little or no charge in the thing.  It is also stuck in video mode.  Next job - try to find the manual in order to restore all my settings.  Never rains but it pours!

Too Many Irons in the Fire

 

Being a wargaming butterfly means seeing shiny things and being unable to resist buying them. The result is a ton of unfinished projects that, realistically, may never reach fruition.  With no loft access at the moment I am working on a sub-set that consists mainly of 15/20mm 'ancients.

(1) 15mm DBA armies - added a few more this year - Kushites, Germans & Huns.

(2) 20mm DBM armies - only 2 of these extant - Egyptians and Trojans.  The former have been tidyed up with unwanted Armati figures going to the 'spares box'.  Some of these have formed the basis of DBA armies (see below).  The Trojans still need to be split into 2 armies - Trojans and Achaians.

(3)  20mm Chinese and Arab figures will be moved to the Renaissance box to provide more DBA-RRR armies.    

(4)  20mm Book 1: In the process of forming DBA armies - part painted and assembled armies (including scratch-built chariots) for Nubians, Early Bedouin, Early Libyans, Kushites, Medes,  Etruscan, Greeks, etc

(5)  20mm HotT armies - only a little paint on them - Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, Ratmen, Lizardmen.

(6)  20mm Jacobites - plenty of figures - unpainted

(7)  Spaceships - have converted some 40k bits into federation-ish craft (and painted them).  Trouble is that I need some stands - maybe Litko - but where can I buy them?  Ed - found a source and put in an order.

(8)  Sailing Ships (ex-Risk) - have quite a number of these - few painted and never tried out the rules.  Seen some clear plastic bases on some blogs and would love to know where to get them.  More research needed.

There are plenty more figures and models sitting around needing my attention.  Far too many in fact.  Given my painting rate I will need to be a centenarian before they are finished.  I Don't recommend being a wargaming butterfly.

End of the Year Report

 

I have done my best to survive another 'festive season'.  Not buying overpriced tat or larding myself with sugary goodies has helped. Ignoring blatant christian propaganda has been harder this year - I'm looking at you BBC. 

Of course most of us know that back in the day the 'powers that be' shifted xmas into December so that it would coincide with an existing pagan festival. An early example of how slimy politicians manipulate the truth to suit their own ends.

Speaking of ends - I am really hoping that the Tories get the whipping they so richly deserve in 2024.  Trouble is the dog's breakfast that they will have left behind for anyone else to follow.  Maybe some enterprising journalist could do a virtual audit so that we can see the real state of the UK at changeover!

On another matter - my health has been deteriorating over the past few years.  So much so that I cannot now risk climbing the loft ladder to access all my wargaming figures, models, etc.  There is also the small matter of finding enough space on the lower levels in order to sort out what has come down.  There will be a follow-up posting on this subject.

In the meantime - I wish you all a Happy New Year and for better times in 2024.

DBA Clustering - the 'Germans'

 

                                                             GC9 Goth EHC Command

Unable to photograph my new recruits as Storm Babet requires house lights to be on.  Maybe at sometime in the future?

One of the main reasons that Ian and I have accumulated so many DBA armies over the past few years is the phenomenum I shall call 'clustering'.  My first German army was the 2.47e Marcomanni - so a solid base of 4Wb plus Cv.

Even more Wb were sitting on my painting tray so expanding into the rest of 2.47 seemed possible (even likely).  Given that 6 elements of the Wb are actually Visigoths I looked at possible morphs.  

For the later armies I needed Knights rather than Cv. So I put in an order with Alternative Armies (ex-TTG figures).

So that was that huh!  Well....not quite.  I realised that my top-up order wasn't very big so the p&p would be a disproportinate element [another slippery slope].  Then I thought about a Hun army.

List 2.80 (a-d): my stocks can provide the Lh (from my Tatars/Tartars) and the 4Bw. Somehow I added in a Hun command element and an artillery piece to my order. (I severely lack non-Chinese artillery).

Nevertheless I can now field the following (later) DBA forces:

2.65a - Gothic Army at Adrianople 378
2.65b - Tervingi or Early Visigothic 200-407
2.65c - Alaric & successors 408-419
2.66 -  Early Vandal
2.67a - Radagaisus 401-406
2.67b - Other Steppe armies
2.70a - Burgundi 250-534
2.70b - Limigantes 334-359
2.71  - Gepid
2.72a - Quadi 250-406
2.72b - Alamanni 250-506
2.72c - Suevi 250-584
2.72d - Other Early Framkish, Rugian or Turcillingi
2.80a - Attila 433-453
2.80b - Sabir Hunnic 515-558
2.80c - Chionite or Hepthalite Hunnic in Bactria & India [can find a suitable 'eastern' Kn but not the El]
2.80d - Other Hunnic 374-558

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DBA @ Gt.Houghton - Sat 14th October 2023

(a) 2.65c Alaric          v 2.81c British                 4:2 win
(b) 2.80b Sabir Hunnic    v 2.83b Later Visigothic        4:3 win
(c) 2.47e Marcomanni      v 2.64a Western Roman           0:5 loss
(d) 1.24b Later Hittite   v 1.22a New Kingdom Egyptian    4:6 loss*

* using my 20mm plastics v 25mm metals.  A crazy game with a whole picnic of sandwiches.
  On 3:3 for ages then a sudden and spectacular failure on my part.

Chariots - Progress Report 1

 

The 4h, 2c Roman chariot found in the Airfix box has the smallest wheels of any set.  My usual method is to substitute 25mm Egyptian wheels courtesy of Irregular Miniatures but when I did so it didn't look right.  I scouted around in my spares box and found the Atlantic Egyptian chariot wheels that I removed when making that particular army.  This time it looked OK.

So with the chariots painted I had to find some crew.  That was not as straightforward as it should have been.  The infantry had to be shifted around - some re-based as closer or looser order; some moved to grant greater uniformity and yet more decisions to be made.  After doing that I had a rump of figures that included far too many archers.  Luckily my research suggested that the closely allied Syrian chariots may have had bowmen.  Given that I also needed to differentiate between 2c (Lch) & 3c (Hch) I made the 3 crew non-archers.

Once photographed I realised that 'Honest Al' had sold one vehicle with a very dodgy axle (must repair and/or replace) plus the chariot bases are far too thin and need MDF support.  Oh well!  Have to wait for my warbases order to do that.

Next on my list - Early Libyans. The pair of 2h chariots can be made in the same fashion as for the Hittites.  The 4h are a different matter entirely.  Above is the (cropped) PSR pic of the ridiculously Hollywood 'Roman' chariot from Atlantic.  This will need some work.

 

Honest Al's Chariot Emporium (Pt.1)

 

"What can I do for you squire?", asked Honest Al
"I am in need of some replacement chariots.", replied Raschid
"I offer the best prices in all the city."quoth Al,"but there is a small problem when supplying to our neighbours".  
"There is a supplement?", enquired Raschid, already knowing the answer.
"Well...we are not supposed to sell to non-residents", stated Al, "It's the inspectors you see. The odd one can escape their attention but...".  
"And I want more like six", sighed Raschid.
Al just rubbed his hands.

I have plenty of pieces lying about in my 20mm spares box and a need to give most of my 'biblical' armies a mounted arm.  The supply of chariots is pretty limited if you consult the PSR site (when it's active of course.

(a)  Dedicated
     (expensive - 2 to a box on average)

     Caesar (CAEH011) - Assyrian 4h
     Caesar (CAEH012) - Hittite 2h
     Caesar (CAEH015) - Mitanni 2h
     Caesar (CAEH021) - Mycenaean 2h
     Caesar (CAEH024) - Egyptian 2h
     Caesar (CAEH042) - Egyptian Pharoah 2h
     HaT    (HAT8124) - Assyrian 4h
     HaT    (HAT8130) - Sumerian 4h
     

(b)  Incidental  (normally only 1 to a box)

     Airfix   (AIR01734) - Ancient British
     Airfix   (AIR01730) - Roman 2h
     Atlantic (ATL1503)  - Egyptian
     Atlantic (ATL15120) - Greek 4h
     Atlantic (ATL1516)  - Roman 4h
     Zvezda   (ZVE8008)  - Persian 4h

My Egyptian and Trojan armies already have a full mounted army - all converted from Atlantic figures.

No other army could be put into use without raising a new chariot squad. So I have Hittites, Early Libyans, etc languishing in their storage boxes.

I found 8 x Hittite (painted) foot elements plus a lot of loose (unpainted) ones.  This seemed like a good starting point so I checked the DBA army lists.   To do all options would mean 29 elements but I could exclude the 1 x 3h, 3c chariot (as I cannot find any information on it).

Coming Soon - Pt.2 Convertion of 6 x 2h chariots