Thorakitai Rebased

One of a few of the units Martin gave me that were fully painted from the whole Seleucid army. These needed a bit of touching up and a wash in Sepia Shade from Vallejo. So not a lot of work from me and I get yet another medium foot unit. These will also be able to be used for other armies though in fairness I have quite a few of this type of unit, though you can never have enough. I will also be painting up a bunch as the heavy option as well, though I am not sure these will get much use when I can spend the points on Pike armed rather than Offencive Spear. Maybe with a few more plays of the rules a reason to go down this route will become apparent.

I rather like the Later Seleucid list and think it could be rather strong. It has a high level of missile troops including Skythian horse archers that can be Cavalry or Light Horse and I have enough figures to base them up as both options. If that was not interesting enough I can also have up to 16 bases of medium archers, that's 48 figures and guess what? I have them! In fact I can have a total of 30 bases of light and medium bases of foot bow and 8 bases of mounted bow (equal split of medium (or light) horse and medium camels) which makes them rather dangerous from a distance. I have all the figures (except those two camels LOL) and so will have them in the mix at least a few times.

They will have to wait though just as those poor Companions are having to as I have moved onto working on the new houses, all I can say so far is that they paint up quickly and effectively.  The only thing that slowed me down yesterday was waiting for bits to dry. More work on them tonight and pics in a few days I hope.

Two Wheels On My Wagon and I'm Just........

Anyone else hate that song? One of two things I remember from music lessons at school is THAT song and holding books with outstretched arms at shoulder height. Yep my singing IS that bad.

Three of the Four

Any hoots, that's not why we are here. In the continuing mission to get my Persians re-based to FoG I have also rebased the Scythed Chariots, well 4 of them anyway as FoG only allow me 4 and I own 6 so I am thinking two may get rebased and sent to E-Bay along with the extra Kardrakes. I painted these guys years ago and in a couple of cases the superglue holding the chariots together had aged and some repair work was required.

Close up of the Blue Chariot, these are all Museum Miniature's and at the time was the best scythed chariots out there. Has that changed in the last 30 years? They are a little big for the base size allowed so they hang a little over the back of the base but I can live with that.

As per my Smiley Hoplite I could not resist the opportunity for some fun. One of my riders really needs someone sitting next to him.

Well he seems to be doing better than this guy. The idea to crash a chariot was due to part of the model being broken on receipt. So I used the knife to break a few more bits, buckle the wheels and snap the odd spoke. The real challenge was re-doing the smash for the new base. Several parts had come away in storage and it was difficult to get it all back together.

You don't see as well as I would like but the Persian under the wheels is not doing a service and has one arm almost snapped off. I was a nasty boy.

I like what FoG have done with Scythed Chariots, the idea of them being removed if they don;t break through seems a good balance between what came before (stay till die) and reality (the rider jumped before it hit it's first target so would never get more than one charge). Yet to see how they play out in battle. I have now got a fair few options with this army making it hard for Lee to select the right army to face it. So Lee when next?

Talking of Battles, I have another Impetus Battle with Barry booked for Thursday. Celts V Dacian so I am not sure why we are bothering sticking around after setting the loonies up. AAR and pics to follow as usual.

It's Not A Flag It's A Bloody Standard!

Just started to re-base my old ECW figures for FoG:R to give them a try and see what they look like. Jury is still out. I can live with how they look as Regiments of foote. It is leaving me with left over figures as I have to alter the composition but this will allow the making up of Commanded Musket. Not that I really feel this is correct but you take these things with Army Lists etc. One thing though is that FoG:R is not ECW, it will not give a true representation of the war, maybe it's fine for TYW but I don't know a great deal about the period outside of the UK.

I have been able with the repainting of a few uniforms and total painting of seven spares been able to generate another Regiment (it will be one of the Whitecoat regiments of Newcastle's) so this will give me 6 Regiments already based for FoG:R and I have another 8 to do as well as all the horse and dragoons. I needed to go digging in the box for a couple of missing pikes and a Standard that had been displaced in storage. I pulled out the pike but found two loose Standards, both have the same error. Can you spot it?

The only Regiments allowed to have a full length Jack are Royal Bodyguard Regiments, such as the Kings Lifeguard and of course the Queens. All other Regiments must halt the progress of the Jack at the halfway point down the Standard. Neither of these two Standards belong to a Royal Lifeguard so will require re-painting. I already have the Kings Lifeguard. Another fault is the lack of any devices to represent company or motto's etc. This will be done in the next few days or weekish depending how the mood takes me. The new Whitecoats will be varnished and based before the weekend and again I need to paint up a Standard for them as well so it's off to do a bit of research.

Kardrakes Are Go!!!

Kardrakes Looking For Trouble

WRG 6th gave me 100 Kardrakes, that is 100 JLS/Bow armed troops that really rocked. 4 Units (2 x 24 and 2 x 26) and it was rare that I did not field them when I played. But under FoG these are replaced by a far more sedate Crescent Shielded Medium Infantry armed just with a spear. Now looking at the army list it's fair to bemoan the general loss of missile troops. I mean this is a Persian army it's supposed to be stuffed with bow armed troops but in reality you really don't get much and I think the main reason the Kardrakes became bowless was that they would be so very tough. I kept the odd bow firing troop in the mix to keep the original look even though the new army only allows 72 figures so I plan to rebase the rest and off to E-Bay they will go.



What An Ugly Lot

Originally painted in the late 80's I think. A mix of Essex, Museum Miniatures and Chariot. I really like the mixed look of the whole unit. I still have some more to rebase for this army and the ones I will sell. I also gave them a quick wash in Devlan Mud whilst I have some left. Again Cath took the photo and she has done well including the vines in the background.



Ready For Battle

Not as well painted as I would do in this day and age but if I remember rightly I was rushing them to get them ready for a game in the hope that the extra firepower would give me an edge. Looking now and seeing the bow cases straps unpainted I blush with embarrassment.



Lost in the Grapes.

Rather than wait for the next battle I thought I would take the opportunity to show off the vineyard in this photo shoot. Not sure if these guys are waiting in ambush or waiting for a tipple. Lee popped over last week and said rather nice things about the vineyards so once I have eaten more grapes I will be back into production.

Bring Out Your Dead

These figures are just the start of a group of casualty markers that will be used in both FoG and Impetus. I probably have as many as I need for Impetus as I have 13 but for FoG you need up to 2 per unit so I plan to double the number at least but possibly triple. All are 15mm and whilst I will be also using them as markers on 20mm I think it will still work. If not then I guess it's back to dice or card markers but I think these look much better.

Being hexagonal bases, these lend themselves to the 1-6 strength levels really well. I have a fair mix of troop types and they do even more. Next convention I go to I hope the supplier is there (I have forgot the name!!). They also were fun to paint so it's an all round win I guess.

All 13 as seen from above. I wonder if anyone will be offended? I know a small storm was kicked up last year but that also included a scene of a civilian being hung, but this has animal death as well, much frowned upon. Me, well I really don't mind, anything goes really. I have a hangman's base for my ECW that I bought and painted years ago but I am fairly sure it did not come with a figure to hang from it. Now I need to crack on with painting some of the living.

15mm Keeps Marching On

I am still fired up by the painting competition and two lots have been sent off to Curt, the first of which are shown here. These are old Essex figures that may well still be available. It is also quite possible they are on the wrong horses as these are the first figures I have painted that my friend Martin gave to me a few weeks before Christmas. I was lacking any command figures for my Macedonian army which became clear when I played that test game. So I was happy to pull these out of the box and make up three command stands. These are really for the Seleucid army but I am fairly confident that at least two of them are fine for the other Successor and prior armies and the third really is OK.

This is the Seleucid stand. I really like the General figure and how his horse is ducking it's head. As he stands out the most I will use him as the C-in-C. My daughter likes him as he is on a white horse!!! I have added rock chips to these bases, in reality they are out of the chicken grit we feed the chucks in lue of food. (Not true they have food and the grit LOL)

The second stand, I really like how the wash brought out the engraved lines on the armour plates on the horses. The figures all painted up fairly quickly but were heavy on the flash, especially the horses. Each command base has a basic colour theme in their tunics, Red White and Blue, how patriotic. You don't have to pay much attention to see the damage to one of the lances! That's one of the cat's! Since the pic was taken this has been repaired and all good to go. As Curt on the painting contest said, it must have been a Persian!!!!! No just a moggy working through it's 9.

This stand is the one I am least pleased with. I am not a fan of two part castings, even basic gluing of horse to rider, just adds extra time to the job. Worse still I botched the gluing of the commander to his base. It did not look to bad so I left it. Only on basing the finished model and finding the horse seems to have a slight angle to the right s well really shows off the poor original setting of the rider. So sometime in the near future the rider will have to be removed and repositioned and possibly touched up to repair what ever I bugger up taking him off.

One final moan on the subject of the figures. The bases of the horses, these are really thin so come gluing in place you have all sorts of wobble going on. Yes it saves the supplier on material costs but just adds that extra bit of pain at the finishing stage.

So great timing of Martin to supply the figures and it will be great to get them used. Not that this will be straight away as my First proper game using FoG will be my Persians against a new Macedonian Army that Lee bought ready to play just a week ago. We are looking at next week with any luck and we look to go for about 800 points each. But before that Barry and myself will finally get that Naps game played out, more virgin regiments fighting their first battle, got to love that.

15mm Macedonian Pike 2nd Unit

Well this painting competition is sure got me inspired to get the lead out. Having fairly recently finished off a 48 figure block I was eyeing up the three 32 man blocks a man with a heavy load looks at a steep hill. A little unfair as I enjoyed painting them but man 96!!! Since then I have received a further 96 but that's another story. But 32 figures is a fair amount of points so after doing the Cretans I wanted to get stuck in.

I obviously want each block to stand out from the others and had already selected the Blue shield finish before even cleaning the figures up. The shield is Prussian Blue by Valero but in a moment of madness I also decided to have a go at painting faces on the shields as per the FoG army list illustration. I was more than happy with the result, though like most painted items they look better from a distance. This is the only block that I will add this touch to with though I think, two reasons. 1. One stands out and as such best leave it at that. 2. The effect of massed Macedonian Stars is lost a little with a front rank of different shields.

I really like this shot Cath took, shame I did not have the patience to set it up on a cloth as it clearly was taken on my painting table. I mixed in a few blue helmets in an attempt to give it that campaign look. The front rank are a slightly different figure to the rear ranks. The helmet lacks cheek guards and the men all have bushy beards. The shield is positioned slightly further to the right and lacks the extra leather strap for the shield. Whilst this makes painting easier I liked the added detail.

The last block I painted the shield strap and sword strap in different colours but decided to go with the same colour. Not sure how I will do the two following blocks as I don't see that much of a bonus for the two colours and doing it this way is far quicker but it feels like I cheated!

So 20 bases of pike would allow me two BG's and a reasonable start. I need to get the Command stands painted, these are now cleaned and primed but waiting behind 4 German WWII figures I am working on for a project idea for ASL. Then I need to get the Agema and more Companion Cavalry done. I'd say a further 24 mounted after the command has been done and I am ready to try out the rules with a fair army. Though I still have the camp to paint and build which I have the components just need to get it started. But before that I am taking a little break. No not in painting!! I am going back to 6mm for a couple of Regiments.

Cretan Archers and Prodromoi Are Go.

I have been rather fired up this past week or so with my Macedonian army. What with a possible game on the horizon and the painting competition I really wanted to get going. The rules of the contest were quite clear, to count the figures could not be painted before the 20th but could be cleaned and undercoated. Well I cleaned and sprayed 8 Prodromoi (LC with Lance) and 16 Cretans but I also cleaned up 32 Pike as well. I had already planned to paint the LC next but the ease and speed of the Cretans made me choose them as the second unit. I did feel that would be in with a good chance of leading the way with such a bunch, well dream on Ian as I was quickly enlightened by some truly good and fast painting. I think I am in 7th place and the leaders are so far ahead I don't think they need worry for a few weeks even if they stop painting!

Oh well, good job it still serves as a great vehicle to drive me on, like I really needed it.

I was expecting the Prodromoi to paint really quickly as they only have a helmet and tunics and cloaks are not the slowest items to paint. Well tunics with four colours on the chest and another colour on the sleeves are not the fastest either! I am not sure the final result was worth the effort though as it neither stands out nor really looks that great when you look for it.

What I did like though was the leopard skin on the horse, it was fun and fairly quick to do and for the most part looks effective. The pink helmets and lighter pink cloak and tunic are correct and I await Matt taking revenge on my calling his Companion Phalanx, 'Smurfs' all those years ago. Especially as they are on the painting table right now waiting for Farther Abraham to turn up.

The whole unit ready for action. The unit is a mix of two poses that are almost the same and work well together. I was intrigued by this unit as the idea of mixing LC and Lances was very interesting. It seems to only be used in one of all the Macedonian lists I have so will only get action when playing the Alexandrian Macedonian army. My daughter loves them as they are pink and keeps asking me if I like pink, oh the shame.

I struggled with what colour to paint the tunic's, white seems the new Vogue but I remember Matt's red ones with a very keen memory. I knew the red would stand out so went with the original plan. I painted them scarlet and when I added the wash this really came to light. You get 8 figures per pack and I really only needed 12 figures but painted up the whole lot as other lists may use them all and besides I needed the points.As a unit they look rather pleasing to my eye and I am 100% happy with the colour choice.

I used two different colours for the leather belts but they ended up looking fairly close to each other. If you look close you can tell but rather disappointing. More than making up for that though is the leather hats, these I mixed up the colour and they turned out exactly as I saw in my head, how often can you say that?

Now I have stated work on my second Phalanx which at 32 figures is much smaller than the 48 figure block but I already have the colours fixed in my head and I hope to get it finished in the next two weeks. Within that time frame I want to get the casualty markers I am also working on finished and based as well as the sniper markers for ASL. After that it will be more Sniper Markers, some Macedonian Command bases and more Lance armed Cavalry, this time a little heavier.

Christmas Spirit

Well I hope you all had a great Christmas Day and gave and received presents that went down well. I tend to supply a list of what I want, or as often is the case I order the stuff myself as it's so specialised and as you will know it does matter if it's not quite the right item, be it figures or other games stock.

Well this year it was all about the kids as I lost my job in July then found out two months later it had literally saved my life as I have a genetics issue that was going to kill me and work nicely masked it. The only problem with this is it meant no work for me for 6-12 months due to the advanced state of the ISSUE. This means money is on the tight side so no presents for us. As the big day got closer and we worked out the kids were sorted and we had a little left over we decided to splash each other. Well to late to get my normal candy (ASL stuff) and really not much I needed in the way of hobby stuff this became the first Christmas in years that I did not get anything remotely war related on the day. I did get some rather nice Precision dice for ASL from a good friend Olli who sent them through early in the month which was a real treat. This got me thinking just how great this hobby of ours is. At this point I am talking of the wider hobby, I think when the chips are down for one guy others pick up the slack but when you go deep, in this case Olli and the ASL community which is a sub group it goes even deeper. When I mentioned I could not get to a four day games convention next year (I have gone for the last three years) Olli quickly got enough guys together to pay for the hotel, entry and food for the full weekend and a lift to and from Blackpool (I live in the Midlands), hell he was fairly confident they could have payed for me to get to ASLOK (In the US), very heart warming, though in this case I can't accept as it is doubtful I would be fit to make much of it, but hell that was nice!

So when an old friend contacted me having heard I was ill and we got chatting I mentioned that about the only thing I can do without falling asleep or making myself very tired was painting figures he did no more than search out his old and long given up on project, that is a rather large Seleucid army and brought it over last weekend.

Given that at the rate I have been painting I should run out of figures sometime around March, this is just plain fantastic. Well the main objective is to improve me waking day (painting also makes me more alert and if I feel really busted if I can get myself to paint it brings me back into reasonable shape. My consultant (an ex-roleplayer/painter) recons it's because your brain uses various areas of the brain. If I sit and read I am asleep in 15 minutes and wake up wicked. Anyways I thought great I can paint them for him and he can have them back to sell or whatever.

Well Martin really is not interested, just happy for me to have them and when I have painted them I could sell or keep. Well in all honesty it would allow me a massive force choice. I already have 2/3rd of the pike I needed for the current project. Well I have more than enough but I have 2/3rd's of the MAXIMUM is what I have! But other armies allow even more so now I will have enough Pike to do anything. The extra Companion Cav will bring me up to speed and this box is packed with Cataphracts, a mix of painted and unpainted. In fact most of the stuff is unpainted and some will

need to be cleaned and started again as they are part painted and it would be hard to d in my style. Others just need finishing off or re-basing.
It's a big army, the pics don't really do justice but for instance it has 6 Indian Elephants and 10 camels. I think I counted 96 pike. Looking at the FoG list which are not known for frugal figure counts I would not need to buy many figures to max out this army. I guess when Triples comes round it will be all terrain and 6mm Naps

So a big thank you to Martin and watch this space for seeing these guys started. I don't plan to touch them until I have a playable Macedonian

army done. But the other surprise was another 15mm army in the bottom of the box, this one is a Orc and Goblin army!!! well I counted about 400 15mm Ancients and the Fantasy army must ring in about 300 so that is a lot of lead and enough to keep me going to way past Derby. All in all a good catch. I also have a few other projects I have promised to do so no worries.

Crash Bang Whallop

I painted these figures over twenty years ago and I am still rather proud of them. (That is apart from the one on the right as this was painted two weeks ago). I wanted to add an extra twist to the bases so did a number of casualties. The left most is starting to fall whilst the guy next to him I simply cut the bow from his hand and bent it up to his head. The third conversion also needed a little more work. Folding the front legs back and leaning the horse forwards made the rider seem to pitch forward so I cut the axe out of his hand and again mover the arm forwards towards the reins s it looks like he is trying to grab for them whilst his axe is hanging in the air behind him in it's fall to the floor. I was very happy with that.

Close up of the action. As I was rebasing I took the opportunity to gather these figures together in two bases and used some of the tuft's again. Now these figures are veterans that have seen many a game. It's been a lot of fun pulling them out, touching them up and rebasing them. I just hope they can be as annoying under FoG as they were under 6th.

Close up final shot. I even remember painting these guys, at the time it seemed like I spent forever on them and as each figure was painted separately it took much longer than a series of the same figures. Been great to share these with you, new stuff will follow just as soon as they are based and the 24 hour delay is up. Look for sometime soon after Christmas Day.

Armies on the March

These are the last figures I painted before the Challenge began on the 20th. I just did not get the chance to set them up for Cath to do her stuff. First up are the Macedonian Companion Cavalry. I had a total of twelve of these fellows when I started painting them and now have another twelve that I will try to match up some time after painting up the figures I have lined up already. I have also started to try out the Tufts, these are The Army Painter Swamp Tuft and whist £4 a pack seems expensive you can get a lot out of a pack.

The figures are Chariot, supplied by Magister Militum in 15mm, this has always been my favorite supplier as by and large they are well detailed and fairly free from flash. Some of the more recent though have not been as fresh but still good. The problem with zooming in like this is that they look like they are holding telegraph poles.

All twelve with slimmer looking lances and with the flash the colours come out more true. These as before are based to Field of Glory so are 3 figures to a base. I have 4 bases out of a possible 6 in the standard army but the rest will come into use in the other Successor armies. I also have waiting their turn the Agema and have finished waiting final touches the Prodromoi light cavalry with lance that I really want to get on to the table top.
So what could possibly stand up against these? Well when I paint something new I have been rebasing something old, so here is the Persian HC.

These will sit along side about the same again so it's fair to say that at this point the Companions are a little outnumbered.
Anyone having read other recent posts will also be aware that I was painting up some new Saka and Skythian light cavalry. These were shown off unbased recently but have been also based up. Seems they know a good thing when they see it and have joined the Persians.

Not to bad, the twelve new Saka have been added to the previous figures and the whole lot had a bit of a spruce up. I now have more Skythian bow armed cavalry than I will be able to use in any list except the Parthian which is already taken. Maybe I will sell off the extra once I am all sorted for what I will need, especially as well errrrr, you see............ I have been given yet more of them! More on that in a later post but lets just say I have enough Pike for any Macedonian army.

Saka Horse Archers

I wanted to show off the 12 Saka 15mm horse archers that I finished painting last night. I could not wait till after they have been based as they are being mixed in with 22 other mixed horse archers which gives the battle groups a more irregular feel. Once based I will throw some more pics on as well as pics of the Persian HC that I have rebased and the Agema HC that I finished painting last week. No more painting for me till the 20th though, no Sir, until then it will be clean and spray, clean and spray.

I really like the pose and I think these are Museum Miniatures but in honesty I am not sure as I picked them up off e-bay a couple of weeks ago as I was short by two figures for the maximum. A few casting issues between them though. About half of them are missing the end of their feet (one and sometimes both) whilst two figures have a gap in the bow, a real shame when the figures overall are really good, maybe this was the reason for selling them.

Each figure is painted different which added a little to the time but not as much as expected. One thing I missed until half way through painting is the lack of reins which was a surprise. Still it was one less bit to paint right at the end. I blue tack my figures to bottle tops to aid painting, some 6mm go on lolly sticks. The kids step up to the challenge when ever I need either.

Another close shot and to be honest they do look better a little further away, but not to shoddy. These are now glued to their bases and awaiting the first stage of flocking.

Last close up, this time the other side of the figure, no side arm on these guys and the main difference between them and the others is the rug rather than cloth to sit on. These really add to the mix I have and are in the top three of 6 or more poses I have within the group. Looking forward to finishing them and getting them all snapped. I still plan to continue rebasing the Persians each time I come to base up a Macedonian unit as I have loads yet to do but already I have way more than the basic army done. Over the next week I hope to get a practice game in, my game with Barry has been postponed and Christmas will get in the way of some opportunities but at some point I will get these and others on a table. I have a game with Matt over the holiday period booked, just need a day but not what we will play as yet. Watch out for the next lot of pics!

Hypaspists ready to go.

Originally I bought enough Hypaspists for a different set of rules but under FoG I am at least one base short (well technically I am 2 figures short). Fortunately Reading is this weekend and I have the figures ordered through a mate who will be there. Other than the shield I have used base colours so it will not be difficult to get the same results on the rest of the unit. I had enough figures for 5 bases of 3, this will go up to 12 bases of 3 figures. I had the choice of Heavy or Medium (3 or 4 figures a base) I went with three as I have plenty of Heavy options and felt the extra movement gained by being Medium was well worth the trade off. If I am wrong I will convert to Heavy.

Figures are Magister Militum (ALM7) 15mm and are the first figures I have had from these guys that I am not 100% happy with. A fairly heavy mold line runs down the face, from a distance this is OK but a lot of Macro shots could not be used as the faces of all the figures are disfigured. Worse though is the shields they have what can only be called a rough patch that makes painting an emblem on them a little tricky and whilst I hope it was just this batch I expect to find the next lot looking the same. Other than that they are very nice figures and once I have full battle groups I think they will be a presence on the battlefield.

A little thin on the table right now but it's another unit off the list. Till next week I now just have 12 Companion Cav and 24 Thracian Peltasts to paint. Still I need to get some kind of command figures for my Macedonian army, any suggestions?

Egyptian Hoplites Rebased.

One of three command bases of this group of warbands.

Continuing with the project of changing over from WRG 6th to Field of Glory I de-based not only my Egyptian Hoplites but also the rest of my Persian Heavy Cav as well as the Saka Horse Archers. However running out of heavy duty glue as I finished off the Hops meant that further rebasing will have to wait till after getting more glue tomorrow. However I of course could finish off the basing of the Hops as the flock and basing compound use watered down PVA. As per other re-basing efforts it was linked with having other figures to base but more on them in the next post. FoG allow me just 6 bases of these guys so once I am set for rules I can see the rest being up for sale. I remember them being a joy to paint but then again it was not that long after I had painted up plenty of Greek Hops so maybe that was an influence.



Two more stands had been re-based to stand in for Greek Hop's under this list. I will need about double the number I own of Greeks to make max out on FoG. Under 6th these would either fight as two or three units, of course I could use them as a base for yet another army but I think not.

Same unit but from behind, I really like the skin tone and will look out for the paint colour at Tripples next year as it was one of the paints that did not survive the hiatus. I am fairly sure these figures are Chariot Miniatures, long time has passed so not 100% sure. Colour Party was the paints of choice for me way back then and I still have a few left in good enough order to still use.

Persian Starter Army

I have a few hundred Persians to re-base and decided to start off with the Starter Army from Field of Glory army list. I gave myself 10 days to do this but managed to get it done in under 7. I will crack on with the rest but will have plenty of other projects to do in between. These figures are a mix of Chariot, Museum, Essex and possibly a couple of others, it's been a long time. All 15mm and until recently based for 6th Edition. My first look at the starter army led me to think this is NOT playing to the Persian strengths and I still feel that way, though maybe the rules will prove otherwise. Not enough bow armed troops and given it will be fighting a Macedonian army too many Hoplites when these are outmatched by the Pike. But on looking at the Macedonian starter army I'm not so sure it's doomed, still it feels wrong to have so little bow and I hate the decision to remove the bow from the Kardrakes and make them Hoplites. Time will tell if I try and get that reversed in our group. If not then I have 100 Kardrakes for sale!

Backbone of any Persian Army is it's Heavy Cavalry. This is one of two Battle groups of 4 bases that the starter army (SA) has and I have plenty more to base up. Originally in units of 10 single colour they are now in units of 12 figures and mixed. Originally of single colour to help work out which unit was which for keeping track of casualties. To the left is one of the three commander bases which long term I will be replacing with a better mix and more of a diorama than just a figure base.

First of two very different Cavalry units, this one is supposed to have bow and does not so will be replaced next year. I would have done it sooner but it is easy to remember they should have bow. The photo shows them in column and nerves gets the better of the lead troops as two horses fall and the other rears. Not sure what the fate of this unit is, possibly e-bay.

The other 12 figure Cav unit, these at least do have bow and whilst right by 6th edition list I feel these are over armoured for FoG, may well change these at the same time as the other unit but I like them so may well keep them.

I had these guys at light infantry under 6th but here they are medium and really I need to get more of them next year as I can have plenty more and this will allow me to swap out the back rank that has some fill in figures. The mixed poses really worked for lights and works for undisciplined mediums though I plan to add other manufacturers figures in as well to make it even more varied.


Both the bow (pictured) and the slingers are facing replacement next year as I am not happy with how I painted them at the time. I will see this as a back end project as they will do but I know long term it will irritate. The SA just has 12 mounted Cav with bow x2, 12 slingers and 12 bow. Really not enough to weaken the enemy before going in for the kill.


The only Light Cav I get is one unit of these guys. Fortunately the army list has plenty more spear armed LC as well as bow armed so not only will all my other figures have an option but my army will have lots of flexibility.

One of the two units of Hoplites. It was a shock that I needed so many under the list but given that the Kardrakes are now seen as Hoplites it should not surprise. I think the mix of other options will mean that the further increasing of the Hoplites will wait some time and will only happen if I find through play that I need more.

Close up of the same block, guy on the left just could not take the pace of rebasing.

I had to laugh when I painted this guy, been years since I did it and he still makes me smile.

Lots more to do but at least now I have what it takes to try out the rules. I hope they will work out fine as I want to go forward and the idea of keeping track of single casualties etc. really no longer appeals.