Wednesday 17 August 2016

A Successor-ful Summer ... so far

My latest workbench picture shows what I've been up to the past few weeks...
Fancied doing something Ancient, and decided on a Macedonian Successor army.

Units at various stages of completion...


Not a bad output so far:
2 x 24 figure phalanxes
8 skirmish archers
8 skirmish javelinmen
and some command figures.
 
That's in just 4 weeks of very painless painting.
Next - a sort of elite-peltast/ thorakites type unit - is undercoated.
 
Figures will be based when I pick up the bases at Partizan this coming weekend. And I'll be further inspired when I see Simon Miller's Raphia game, I'm sure.

This is the 4th time I've "done" Successors/ Macedonians. I had a 15mm Seleucid army way back when my brother and I played WRG 5th edition. That army subsequently got sold off when I got out of 15s. I then had a couple of attempts (un-successor-ful attempts!) at building Macedonian armies for WAB a few years back.

This time, I'll be using War & Conquest (the successor to WAB, written and produced by Rob Broom, formerly of Wahammer Historical). There appears to be a good community of players, and the odd weekend to attend for some games, so that will be fun.


Having expressed this new interest to a fellow wargamer who I hadn't seen for a while, Steve Gill, he too decided to pick up the reins and dabble with some Parthian type chaps. We got together, over a very nice lunch at a convenient midpoint in The Cotswolds, and shared many ideas and plans. No promises, no great pressure - just for the fun of it.

That's all for now. For those who are taking the trip to Newark this coming weekend, see you at Partizan...




8 comments:

  1. Very nice Phil. Almost makes me regret selling off my Persian army. The issue I had was finding a set of rules that I liked and my fellow wargamers would use other than the pavlovian addiction they seem to have to Hail Caeser. good luck and looking forward to watching progress.

    ReplyDelete
  2. These look scrumptous, Phil! Can we even say that about wargame figures? Kidding aside, they call to mind a couple of Time-Life books my parents had around the house on the ancient world (Greece and Rome) when I was a small child way back in the early 70s. Both featured photo spreads of museum dioramas that featured a phalanx battling Persians on the one hand, and a legion laying siege to a Gallic fortress on the other. Fantastic stuff for a five or six year old boy to gaze at for hours on end. And dare I say? Your own figures are even more marvelous. Enjoy them!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Phil, Paul and Stokes.
    It's been enjoyable to have a fresh army to work on, as well as having my colonial and 18th century stuff bubbling away in the background.
    Your comments are appreciated.
    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  4. These figures are looking good, Phil.

    Ah, 5th edition & Seleucids...I enjoyed those days too.... my Seleucids were 25mm Minifigs! Then the games became increasingly stylised & too nit-picking & competitive, so I lost interest.

    I am tempted back to dabble in Ancients again by "War & Conquest", which seems to offer the style of game for me for this period. The second incentive is the brilliant plastics coming out from Victrix & others allowing reasonable sized armies at a reasonable price, and topping it all, the wonderful transfers from LBM.

    Enjoy your new project.

    Cheers, Rohan.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Phil! I'd got you down as a very focused, disciplined, project-planning type wargamer. Now you are turning into a butterfly and proving you are human after all! Good luck with this new army.
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looking very good indeed Phil and I hear good things about the rules. We have been putting our toes into To The Strongest Ancient rules ourselves and enjoying it immensely. Good luck against those nasty Parthians!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for all th comments. There has been lots more progress on these ancients since the post.
    Basing is well underway, and that unit of elite peltasts/ hypaspists is finished.
    Next up, some Companion cavalry.
    Phil

    ReplyDelete