Field of Glory Round Robin Games (2)

Tonight the "Field of Glory Four" got together for another evening of round robin games using our 'Rise of Rome' armies. Tonight's match ups were my Mid-Republican Romans vs Phil's Seleucids (using my Seleucid army) and Charlies Late Republican Romans vs Mike's Carthaginians. In the photos below Phil and my games will be the left photos and Mike and Charlie's games with be the right photos.

Setup - Although I tried to clog the middle of the table with as much terrain as possible, Phil was able to move most of it harmlessly to the sides with the exception of one steep hill. In Charlie and Mike's game their terrain left for a good open center section.

The approaches - Phil and I pressed our battle lines forward with each of us pressing harder on our right flank. My Numidian cavalry engaged early to try to secure some fields with closed borders. On Charlie and Mike's table each of them were happy to press forward on the same flank with masses of cavalry. Charlie aggressively pushed the center with his Numidian skirmish infantry.

Mid-game - Roman vs Seleucid game ended up being a grind between Phil's imitation legions and my real legions. The only main difference was mine had some Triarii providing rear support. On Charlie and Mike's table the cavalry battle raged with both sides having some successes and Mike engaging his elephants with Charlie's cavalry. Charlie's skirmish infantry got broken, but did recover them and re-engaged them late in the game.

End game - I was able to break both of Phil's imitation legions and a cataphract cavalry unit. I lost a legion of my own and my Numidian cavalry. On my right I was able to press the flank and in the center the void caused by the legions allowed me to turn Phil's pike block. We called the game at 6-4 in points. Close game for sure. On Mike and Charlie's table Charlie had good success in the cavalry scrum pulling out to a 12-4 lead when we called it.

This was a great night of gaming. We hope to schedule another one in February where we'll go through our final matches in round one: Mike's Carthaginians vs My Romans and Charlie's Romans vs Phil's Seleucids.

Seleucid Cataphracts

These are two battle groups of Seleucid cataphracts for my  Field of Glory Seleucid army. The figures are Old Glory 15s. I painted these up with iron armor on the horses and bronze armor on the riders after consulting with several friends from my wargaming club. The popular wisdom is that the less expensive and more durable iron would be used on the chain mail and the bronze would be used on the more detailed plate and scale armor that the riders would wear.

I've painted one unit with red horse blankets and one with a more 'royal' looking rose color. This will help me identify each unit. These were surprisingly quick to paint as most of the detail work was done with an initial set of dry-brush passes over black primer for the iron and bronze armor. Detail work was added after those initial passes.

These two battle groups finish everything I need to field an 800+ point Seleucid army in Field of Glory with all of the options I might want to put into an army for either historical or 'tournament' play. Additionally I have enough extra battle groups that I can field a much larger Seleucid army to oppose my Roman army to recreate the battle of Magnesia. Finishing this army also knocks off another of my goals for the year - finishing my Roman and Seleucid FOG armies. December 11th - talk about coming in right under the wire!

Macedonia Prodromoi Cavalry

This is a unit of light cavalry armed with sword and light spear (or could be lance if you like) that I purchased off of Ebay from Dynasty Group Miniatures. You can probably find this unit for sale by them by searching Ebay for the keyword 'AHe11' which is their stock number for this unit. Like the unit I posted yesterday, I would give the painting a solid 7 on the GAJO rating scale. Also like the Thessalian unit I posted earlier this unit came with lead spears that were bent and a couple were knocked out of the hands in shipping.

All of the light spears were replaced with homemade piano-wire replacements that were glued in and painted. The hands were touched up but this was considerably easier on this unit as there is a considerable amount less exposed skin on these figures. These figures are definitely Macedonian Successor with the characteristic headgear. For light cavalry I am slightly put off that they wear a 'royal' violet cloak, but not so put off that I'm willing to re-paint them! I'll be using these as citizen cavalry in my Seleucid army.

Thessalian Cavalry

This is a unit of light cavalry armed with light spear (or could be lance if you like) that I purchased off of Ebay from Dynasty Group Miniatures. You can probably find this unit for sale by them by searching Ebay for the keyword 'AHe14' which is their stock number for this unit. I'll give the painting a solid 7 on the GAJO rating scale.

I do have one gripe, the spears that were included were spindly lead cast weapons. Several of them had already fallen off and one had broken in shipping. The rest were all bent up and pathetic looking. Luckily they all came out of the hands, which were drilled to accept them and were easily replaced with piano wire spears that I made myself. I had to paint the spears and touch up the hands which ended up requiring some touch up the arms and legs to match the hands. I was unable to mix a matching color that I was happy with so in the end a re-paint of parts of the exposed skin was the easiest solution. Even considering the problem with the lead weapons I think this unit was a good value considering the quality of the painting and basing.

Field of Glory Round Robin Games (1)

Tonight my friends Mike, Charlie and Phil came over to play a couple games of Field of Glory Ancients. All four of us made up armies from the Rise of Rome army list book and we're going to play a bunch of games 1 vs 1 with each other in a round robin format, hopefully getting in two games versus each of the other three players. I'm not sure there will be any high competition, but we'll keep track of wins and losses and maybe the winner can pick which historical battle we play once we all are more familiar with the rules. Field of Glory is definitely one of those rule sets that if you don't play it very often you can forget a lot of the details on how to play it.

We diced to pick partners for the first game. Mike's Carthaginian army drew Phil's Seleucid army, using my figures. Their game was a close-fought battle with Mike edging out Phil for a narrow victory. The photo above and the two below are of their game.

The other game pitted my Mid-Republican Romans vs. Charlie's Late Republican Romans. Mine featured a core of Superior legions with Atillid Pergamene allies and Charlie's army featured a core of Elite legions backed up by some superior legions and some Spanish, Gaul and Numidian cavalry. Early on Charlie's superior troops tore me up with their copious re-rolls causing many extra casualties. During the mid game I was able to bring my extra numbers to bear turning a gap in the line into a flanking opportunity which allowed me to beat a couple of his Elite battle groups. Our game was a close one until that time. I was able to secure a narrow victory. The 10-5 final score doesn't accurately reflect how close things really were. Most of the game I felt like Charlie was really beating me fairly handily. Photos of our game are below.

This was a great night of gaming. We're hoping to get together every 3-4 weeks to play another two games.

Recent Purchases

15mm Paint Shack Commission (3)

I received my figures back from Kent at the 15mm Paint Shack almost two weeks ago, but I've been busy finishing up a bunch of other hobby projects so it took me a little while to get them all based up. Here they are in all their glory. The commission consisted of two Seleucid pike blocks and an Atillid Pergamene cavalry unit. Not pictured was a sample 28mm AWI officer Kent painted up which is simply stunning. You can see photos of it on Kent's blog.

The figures looked great on Kent's blog, and in person they look even better. Kent packaged them very well and with only a few minor exceptions everything arrived safe and sound. I requested that the figures be sent un-based so I could base them up myself so they matched my other figures. Each of these units were painted exactly to my specifications right down to the shield patterns and color selection for uniforms and armor. I can't say enough good things about the quality of service and communication provided by Kent. Below you can see some detailed photos of each of the units.

I promised Ken I'd compare his painting service to the other widely available services. Here's my take on that using a 1-10 rating scale:

Company	Quality	Price	Selection	Service
15mm Paint Shack	9	6	10*	10
Gajo Miniatures	8	9	8	9
Dragon Painting Service (DPS)	9	8	7	5
Miss Painting Group (MPG)	8	8	5	4
DJD Miniatures	6	9	4	5

* - Because 15mm Paint Shack is the only painting service that does commission work it has unlimited selection based on your needs. The others sell pre-painted miniatures with more limited selection.

So if GAJO, DPS or MPG offer a unit that's exactly what you want, you can save some money going with them and you'll be quite happy with the figures. If you want anything custom, Kent's painting service is a superior choice. He costs a little more but you get EXACTLY what you want, right down to the color selection and Kent provides you with excellent communication. You get what you pay for.

Miss Painting Group Purchase #2

This is the second order I've received from Miss Painting Group (MPG). I'm continuing to have mixed results with MPG. In some ways they're hitting home runs and in some ways they're striking out badly. These two groups of figures are their Seleucid Companion Cavalry (4 stands) and Seleucid Command group (3 stands).  On the good side the figures arrived within 3 weeks of ordering them and this time they were packaged in a way that was much better than my first order. I only had one rider knocked off a horse and no paint damage due to shipping. The quality of the paint jobs was quite good with shading and good accuracy of detail. Finally the quality of the basing has improved significantly since my first order. These bases arrived in a table-ready condition and required no additional work on my part. I have to give MPG points for fixing that previous shortcoming.

On the bad side, the lances for all the figures were not glued into the figures, which would be a good thing except for two HUGE problems: first the lances provided were awful lead squiggles (which I replaced with my own piano wire), and even worse than that, all of the hands were drilled for the weapons AFTER the figures were painted. There were drill filings on all the hands that needed to be cleaned and thee of the figures had damage to the cloaks where the drill bit ground off part of the paint and figure. I had to clean all the hands, re-paint all of the hands and touch up the damaged cloaks. All of this would have been unnecessary if they had only drilled the hands out before painting.  Clearly MPG is still learning their trade.

15mm Paint Shack Commission (2)

Kent over at the 15mm Paint Shack has posted another update on the commission job he's doing for me with photos of second completed pike block. I asked Kent for this block to look like less affluent working men with unbleached linen armor and plain colored tunics. I also asked for white shield foregrounds with red Macedonian stars. He's matched my request to the letter and done a fantastic job with the figures. I'm very excited to get these on the table. For more photos see Kent's blog using either of the links above.

Overnight Kent posted the last unit of my commission to his blog: a unit of 12 Xystophoroi cavalry. They're for my Attilid Pergamene alllies for my Roman army, but may also serve in a pinch in other roles. With their smart purple tunics they can easily pose as other companion type heavy lancers.

I've been very impressed at the quality of Kent's painting, the high level of communication and the attention to detail he's put into this job in regards to following my requests for uniform colors, etc. Money very well spent in my opinion. My current WIP is a unit of 28mm AWI figures. I've been working 10-12 hour days at work lately, including weekends, so I haven't had much time to work on them, but I hope that will change soon.

15mm Paint Shack Commission

I had been corresponding with Kent over at the 15mm Paint Shack blog about doing some painting for me. After saving up some of my pin money I finally was able to send him a couple of pike blocks for my Seleucid FOG army and a unit of Xystophoroi cavalry for my Atillid Pergamene allies for my Roman army. Today when I logged in I noticed a new update on his blog with photos of the first completed pike block. To say I'm happy with the work would be a total understatement. These figures look FANTASTIC! No only are they exceptionally painted, but Kent has been fantastic in his communication and has fulfilled all of my requests and succeeded my expectations as far as the quality of his work is concerned. Well done Kent! I can't wait to see the second pike unit.

I've also been discussing having Kent paint up some 28mm AWI figures for me as a future commission. Kent offered to paint up a sample figure since I was already shipping figures to him. The figure I sent him is a 28mm British officer from Old Glory. Kent's blog entry included photos of the completed sample figure, one of which I've shown here. As you can see the "15mm Paint Shack" definitely isn't limited to 15mm painting. This figure is stunning. If you were considering sending your figures to China for painting, you might benefit from sending your figures to Kent in New Zealand instead.

Seleucid Elephants (2)

This is the second battle group of elephants I've painted for my Seleucid army. The first was posted in my first seleucid battle groups post. Since the first battle group was made from Essex figures, I thought it was a good idea to stick with fine Essex lead for this second battle group. Elephant models vary widely in size between manufacturers and I feared switching to another manufacturer would cause me problems with this.

This battle group has blue blankets on the elephants instead of the brick read blankets that the first group has. Other than that I attempted to keep the crew fairly similar on the off chance that I might want to field them as a group of four some time. This probably isn't advisable in Field of Glory, but could be desirable in other rule sets in the future.

I was suffering a touch of burn out when it comes to figure painting. Between my WWII Finnish project and getting ready for the huge Magnesia game, I put a lot more time in at the painting table this spring than I normally do. I've spent some time since then working on other aspects of this and my other hobbies to help cure that. Starting back at the painting table with this small battle group is my way of easing back into things. Next up on the painting table I think I'll do something else to spice things up. I'm not sure what quite yet. Possible some 28mm AWI, or WWI.

Custom Laser Job and More Seleucids

This is a photo of some custom order markers I made for a customer. There are ten (10) of each of the numbered markers and fifteen (15) of the red markers. I'm not quite sure what rule system he's going to use them for, but he was very specific about what he wanted. Hopefully he'll be happy with them. They are made from 1/8" thick acrylic. The yellow markers I'm guessing will be some form of damage or casualty marker. They have laser-engraved numbers with black fill for high contrast per the customer's specifications. The yellow markers are 1/2"x1/2" with .02" chamfers on the corners to make them easy to handle.

This is the second pike block that I've purchased from Dragon Painting Service off of Ebay. Like the first one I purchased the figures were well painted but had terrible pikes made from rolled wire that was obviously straightened by the painters. Some of my pikes fell off in shipping, but that was more of a blessing than a curse since I removed the rest anyways to replace them with proper straight pikes made from 1/32" steel 'piano wire'. To go with these two blocks, I'm sending two more blocks worth of Xyston figures off to Kent at the 15mm Paint Shack  soon. Right now I'm cleaning the figures and making up another 64 pikes for them. I've been envying the wonderful job Kent has been doing for his other customers and I decided I'd stop living vicariously through them and get some of my own. There's another photo of these figures below.

Seleucid Scythed Chariots

This is the first new battle group for my Seleucid FOG army that I've painted. It will be another of the battle groups used for my upcoming Magnesia game. These scythed chariots are more 'Fine Essex Lead'. I chose Essex as their smaller size makes fitting the chariot model with scythes onto the base easier. Even with the smaller model the scythes had to be heavily modified to fit on the base without the scythes hanging over the edge. The Essex chariot I painted for my Seleucid DBA army was based un-modified and the scythes are always catching on adjacent elements. I chose a plain wooden chariot figuring that there wouldn't be a lot of sense in elaborately adorning them knowing they'd likely be destroyed on their first use. The figures are black primed and the bronze armor on the drivers and iron armor on the horses was dry-brushed over the black which gives it a nice effect. I didn't give the figures a wash, but I think I might go back and do a little more highlighting on the horse blankets.  

I've counted this unit as 14 'figures' in my painting totals: 8 horses, 2 riders and 2 chariots counted as 2 figures each. Next up is a unit of armored Gaul heavy cavalry for my Attalid Pergamene Roman allies. I made slow progress on this unit the past week as a fall had put my back out and as that was getting better I came down with the stomach flu. I'm on the mend now and hopefully I'll get some productive time the rest of the week at the painting table.

First Seleucid Battle Groups

These are the first two battle groups for my Field of Glory Seleucid army. This one is a pike block painted by Dragon Painting Service (DPS). If you've ever looked for painted miniatures on Ebay, you've seen DPS's work listed there. I've purchased quite a few figures from DPS, and their quality is quite good, and if you're patient you can usually get a better price then their 'Buy it Now' price. This unit was the first I've purchased from them which I wasn't completely satisfied. The Xyston figures are painted quite nicely, but the auction's photos pictured the figures with Xyston's excellent pikes with formed spear points on them. When the figures arrived, not only did they not have the Xyston pikes, the pikes were obviously made from spring steel pulled off a roll. The pikes on the figures I received were wavy like gravy. Of the 46 figures with pikes I was only able to use 3 of them. The other 43 I had to remove and replace.  Now that the pikes have been replaced, I'm quite happy with the unit.

I don't usually post figures here on the blog that I've purchased painted, but since I replaced the pikes on this unit, and had to paint them and touch up the hands, etc. I thought I'd go ahead and show the unit here. Also it let me give everyone else who's considering purchasing pike-armed figures from DPS the heads up that they might received wavy pikes as well.

This battle group I painted over a decade ago when DBA 1.0 was first released. Back then the Seleucid DBA army list allowed you to have two elephants, one of which was the general's unit. In the next edition of the rules Phil Barker adjusted all of the army lists so that none of the armies could only have more than one elephant element, so the second one has been collecting dust until now. These are 'Fine Essex Lead'. We still call any Essex figures 'Fine Essex Lead' in deference to the fact that for quite a while Essex was the cream of the crop for 15mm figures. Honestly, they're still the best 'TRUE' 15mm figures. Everything newer that's been released that's generally considered better is larger than 15mm. Of course the larger the figure, the more detail you can put into it.  I've purchased an additional two Essex elephants to add to this to create another two-stand element of elephants for my Seleucid army. The Essex elephants, like the figures are true 15s and I thought it would probably not be a wise choice to mix them with another brand of elephants.

Seleucid Shield Patterns

My second Field of Glory army will most likely be a Seleucid army. I'm going to be running a Magnesia game this summer with some friends, and in preparation for that I'm going to be painting up several Selucid battle groups. With these, and a few of the optional battle groups I've already painted I'll be a good way towards a full army, so I might as well finish the job. I'm still waiting for my pike figures to arrive, but while I wait I decided I could start working on making up the graphics for my shield decals. There are several good brands of decals available, but I like making my own when I can. This picture shows several variations of the classic Macedonian star shield decoration that I created myself. I'm thinking I will most likely use the top center red pattern on a white shield background for one of my units, and one of the black patterns on silver shields for my Argyraspides. My friend Mike, who always gives me great advice when it comes to ancients, tells me that "Argyraspides" means "Silver Shields" in Greek. That makes picking shields for my Argyraspides unit a foregone conclusion as far as I'm concerned.

This is another design I'm considering using. I got this image from the Internet and cropped it and cleaned it up. I think if I reduce it to the correct size it might make a decal that gives the shield the look of a real embossed bronze shield. This trick will help compensate for the fact that most 15mm figures come with smooth shields, not the fancy embossed shields that some 28mm figures have.  While I'm waiting for my pike figures to arrive I'll be working on a battle group of Scythed chariots after I finish up the second unit of Thureophoroi that I have on the painting table.