28mm Numidian Light Cavalry (2)

This is my second unit of Numidian Cavalry for our upcoming First Punic War campaign. These figures are the balance of two packs of Old Glory figures. When I was planning on painting up these figures I saw that they came ten figures to a bag. Ten figures makes five bases. Since Field of Glory allows either 4-base or 6-base units a second bag to make one unit of each size seemed the most efficient way to go.

These are painted similar to the first unit I painted so I wouldn't have to worry about mixing and matching particular bases with each other. I also opted to add a little more color to the tunics in these stands so when all of the bases are mixed there is plenty of variety. I chose to decorate the shields on these with red markings in contrast to the black markings on the shields of the first unit.

Here are all ten stands mixed together. They're quite a horde of light cavalry - ready to do battle.

Cretan Archers

This is the next 28mm unit for our upcoming First Punic Wars campaign. A lot of the people involved have many units of Hoplites but we were desperately short on skirmish type troops. This unit could easily be incorporated into just about any of the armies in the campaign. These are Old Glory figures. They're block painted and 'dipped' using Army Painter quick shade. I've again diluted the Army Painter product. This time possibly a little too much.  Still it's another unit on the table.

I know I promised more Numidians as my next unit. I had forgotten these were in a more complete state. Next up, the Numidians as promised.

Balearic Slingers

This is a unit of Balearic slingers that I've painted up for our next ancients campaign using Field of Glory. They are Old Glory 28mm figures which came in three poses. The throwing figures are all the same pose. I chose to modify them by cutting the slings off the heads of four of the figures and articulating it for a more realistic look.

Since these represent the cream of the crop when it comes to mercenary missile troops I opted to paint them in uniform white tunics. My thoughts are a group such as this strolling into town after a long campaign was just as likely to buy up their tunics in a lot, or fabric and hire a tailor to make them as they would be to spend their time sourcing such things separately. Plus it makes the unit look smart and more regular.

These are the first figures I've painted in 2013. I'm somewhat ashamed of this fact, but recovery from surgery made sitting at the painting table in January and February not very enjoyable. Now that I've returned to painting expect things to settle back to normal for a while. Next up a small unit of 28mm Numidian cavalry to go with the ones I painted last November.

Battle of Thevestis

We got together last Saturday for another battle in our ongoing 2nd Punic War campaign. This was the battle of Thevestis in north western Africa. In the campaign Rome has brought the battle onto Carthaginian soil which forced Hannibal to be recalled to Africa deal with the threat. In this battle a slightly depleted Roman army calls upon masses of conscripted Numidian allies to bolster its ranks against a complete Carthaginian army that has less, but still significant local Numidian support. 

Pictured in these photos are Phil (striped shirt), Charlie (Hannibal) and Michael (black shirt), the Carthaginian generals of the day. My portion of the Roman army primarily faced Michael's Carthaginian cavalry and Gaul infantry on our right flank. The other Roman generals were Ralph as the center commander (not pictured) and Greg as the left wing commander.

 Here in this photo to the left, Carthaginian Phil presses the cavalry attack on the Carthaginian right flank (Roman left) pushing the Roman's nearly to their camp. In the background our campaign GM Mike (in the tan shirt) and Roman left wing commander Greg (smiling with crossed arms) observe.

Our strategy was fairly simple. With less troops and no obligation to attack we anchored our left flank on our camp which was on a steep hill. That flank's line extended to a vineyard in the center of the table. Our right legion would form a battle line between that vineyard and impassable terrain on the right of the battlefield (aka the edge of the table). Our considerable Velite forces and local numidian skirmishers would sally out forward of the vineyard to harass and slow down the Carthaginian forces while our right legion and Numidian cavalry fought and hopefully beat the unimpeded Gaul infantry and Carthaginian cavalry.

The plan worked well, thanks as much to a day of good dice as it did to good execution. Our skirmishers were able to for the most part stay out of trouble, and caused significant enough havoc and harassment to allow the plan to work. In the end the Romans lost one unit of Velites and a local Numidian infantry skirmish unit while the Carthaginians lost Two units of Gauls, a unit of Elephants and a large unit of Campainian Hoplites.  When we called the game the Carthaginians were in significant danger of losing two of their veteran spear units and their cavalry on one flank was also significantly worn.

In a week or two Charlie, Mike and I will get together and execute the next moves in the campaign and generate another battle. In the meantime I'll continue painting 28mm ancient figures for our future 1st Punic War campaign. There will be an update later this week with another of those completed units.

Between playing DBA the night before and FOG all day for this game it was a weekend of Ancients goodness. Good fun both days thanks to good friends to play them with.

March 2013 Game Night

Last Friday night our club got together for our monthly game night. The photo to the left is my friend Dave (aka Olaf in the DBA community) during our game. Dave is a very funny guy and photo bombed himself when I clicked the shutter on my camera.

The tournament is an annual event held in the "ides of Mach" each year by my friend and club mate Mike. It's a raucous, fun non-serious round of four games at the end of which we crown a winner or two depending on the format. This year the theme was the enemies of Rome. We all played historical enemies of Rome fighting against each other. I used a DBA-sized portion of the later Carthaginian FOG army I'm working on. My opponents through the night were Phil, Michael, Bob and Olaf (shown above). I went 2-2 for the night but had great fun in all four games, which is why Mike brings back the tournament each year. The winner this year was Bob, sown below being presented the trophy by host Mike. The trophy is awarded annually and returns each year to be passed on to the next winner.

The other two games were a nice looking 15mm Napoleonic game which used the Lasalle rules hosted by Paul and a ACW naval game hosted by George using his homebrew fast play rules.

On a more personal note, it has been noticed by my friends and some readers that the blog updates here have slowed down. OK stopped would be more descriptive. I was on vacation last week and the week before I was getting ready for vacation. Also work has been putting a lot of extra demands on my free time as of late. Hopefully things will slowly return to normal here at AJ's Wargaming Blog over the next few weeks/months.