Another unit of Peltasts

 

Mercenary Peltasts the old Minifigs way

A week or two ago I took command of my 1970s Minifigs Persians and learned - well you always learn something - I learned that I didn't have enough infantry skirmishers. Plenty of slingers - both Persians and mercenary Greeks - slingers in abundance. By only a single unit of proper 'lights' and those Agrianian's more appropriate to the armies of Alexander than Darius. 

To rectify this I broke into my stash and uncovered a batch of unpainted PB 9 Mercenary Peltast with Pelta. Which is to say javelin armed skirmishers with the small shield, generally known as a 'pelta', that gives 'peltasts' their name. As luck would have it, at some time the past I'd already cleaned these castings up and replaced all the javelins with brass rod. So, there wasn't much to do apart from give them a blast of primer and paint them up. 

I thought I'd have a go at photographing these with the mobile, rather than crank up the steam engine on the old Nikon. As you can see, we have mixed results. The tabletop photo works nicely but the individual close ups are a bit off. I might have to investigate the inner gubbins of the beast to figure out how to get clearer close-ups. 

Spot the odd base colour! 

Along the way I experimented with a different mix for my base colour, trying to get as good a match as I could for my old mix. Unfortunately, Warlord stopped selling their paint when The Army Painter changed their paint range (AP were the suppliers), which meant the green I was using was no longer available. Since then, I've been sampling endless pots of green paint to try and get a match. One of the bases in the new unit is a different mix, but I thought it was close enough, so I didn't bother repainting it. Depending on the light it looks a little different or not. These things are sent to try us. 

These are the close-ups I took using my phone and the light box I normally use for these photos. Something not quite working here, but you get the idea I'm sure. Classic Minifigs pose for this figure from the original PB Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars range circa 1972. Based on illustration number 9 in the Phil Barker book of the same name. 

Two Battles - Part One

My re-booted 1970s Carthaginians and Persians have seen tabletop action for the first time this year, and not  just once but twice so far! I thought I'd take the opportunity to share the in-game pictures and offer a few observations on how things worked out.

The two armies are not exact historical contemporaries, of course, but they are close in terms of an 'ancient' wargame. They would certainly have been matched against each other when these figures were first marketted in the early 1970s. Anyone old enough will know that anything 1000BC to 1000AD was considered fair game back then. No-one blinked an eye to see Assyrians taking on Byzantines, or Vikings giving Classical Greeks a sound beating. In my case, the Carthaginians may be assumed to represent an army of the Second Punic War (218-204 BC) whilst the Persians are contemporary opponents of Alexander the Great (334-331 BC). 

The Persian army - how can Darius possibly lose! 

The Carthaginians - what no elephants! Hannibal is disappointed.

For our first outing I got together with Jervis Johnson. Nostaligic memories of fighting games using the old Wargames Research Group (WRG) rules swayed us to attempt a game using a version  contemporary with the actual models. And here are the rules we settled upon - the Wargamers Research Group Ancient rules 1000 BC to 1000AD, 3rd edition but updated and clarified as per the 4th edition. WRG rules were frequently amended between editions. This was achieved by sending a self-addressed envelope and receiving an update sheet, which you either cut and pasted in place or you wrote in the changes by hand. Hence, the half-way house between editions, and this is how you usually find second-hand copies. It was the way. The rules, and various others, can be freely downloaded from the WRG website. http://www.wrg.me.uk/WRG.net/History/wrg.html

WRG 3rd edition with play sheet

I worked out the opposing armies to more-or-less equal points values with the help of the 5th edition army lists. The total for both armies came out at about 2000 points excluding generals. This is somewhat larger than an average game would have been as I recall. We tended to play to 1000 points or up to 1200 if I remember correctly. I'm sure we played some much bigger games on occasion though. Jervis and I roped in Alessio Cavatore to share in the joy, and I put together a typical 1970s tabletop, i.e largely barren of terrain with a big open centre. I also prepared unit stat lists for each army with room for writing orders and recording casualties. Oh - and maps for indicating deployment. How we did love paperwork in our youth! 

Given the size of my table (8ft wide 6ft deep) and the modest rate of knots achieved by a typical unit (they are over 50 years old so allowances must be made) we decided to deploy further into the table than we otherwise might. Splendiferous they look too! The first thing to notice is just how long the units are, with just a few skirmishers covering quite a large footprint, and even the fighting units having a relatively large frontage. 

We are a turn in at this point with both armies advancing.

Jervis, taking the Carthaginians, opted for a steady advance behind an extended skirmish line, with the cream of his fighting troops, namely his infantry spearmen, in the centre. The Persians, with myself and Alessio at the helm, made a geneal advance with a mass of infantry archers left of centre and cavalry right of centre. With our obvious advantage of firepower, we wanted to get within range as soon as possible. 

Persian cavalry left of the line.

Persians closing in on the Carthaginian lines. 

Both armies soon found themselves exchanging missiles, with the Persians having the advantage of longer range thanks to their massed 'medium' infantry archers. This gave us the opportunity to work out some shooting with the resultant 'reaction tests'. Modest casualties were inflicted upon the Carthaginian skirmishers sending some into retreat. 

Cavalry go into action against those pesky skirmishers.

The Persian cavalry advanced rapidly and managed to engage and largely upset the opposing skirmishers, routing several units and having a high old time of it. The Scythians were now busy entertaining some skirmishing infantry on the Persian right. 

Scythians and skirmishers exchange missiles before the cavalry drive off the opposing infantry. 

On the Persian left the Carthaginian skirmishers enjoyed brief brief success, at first driving back the Persian cavalry thanks to a poor reaction test. Things soon sorted themselves out, however, with the skirmishers once more driven off or routed. 

You're going the wrong way! Persian light cavalry forced into retreat by men with pointy sticks. 

The field looking twoards the Carthaginian right

With the Persian infantry left facing the Carthaginian skirmish line, and the main Carthaginian lines somewhat lagging behind, the fighting was all on the Persian right. At this point we hit a bit of a brick wall with the rules. Although, the armies had barely clashed, it had taken most of the day to get thus far, and we felt we had had quite enough for our first session. 

Now, you'd have thought with three professional games designers and getting on for 100 years of collective game design work behind us, we'd have coped easily enough with the rules. Boy, did we struggle. Even Jervis and I, who had played these very rules as lads, and later versions as young men, couldn't always figure it out. We were minded to think that the 'game' we played years ago was to a large extent governed by convention and mutual understanding. The rulebook certainly provides very little comfort when it comes to explaining how to go about things. Overall, the game felt slow and fiddly, with endless factors giving an impression of calculation and profundity, but results  determined by dice throws in a fairly random manner. We had some very entertaining reaction test results, with three dice rolled being no respecters of averages, and even combats prone to luck in a manner that rather surprised us. 

Both Jervis and I remarked upon how the simultaneous moves to orders, and seemingly non-existent turn sequencing, made the whole thing feel like a slow-motion computer simulation, with everything happening at the same time. Given when the game was devised, in a pre-computer age, that is perhaps understandable. Back then, a detail driven simulation - a ground up approach if you like - would have had a lot of appeal in terms of appearing to be 'worked out' from first principles. And, it cannot be denied that the game did look like an actual battle. However, the result is a very slow affair compared to modern rule sets, with complication at every level of play, and interactions often triggering further actions and yet more complication. 

It was an interesting exercise, although not one either of us was especially keen to repeat anytime soon. I must admit, my overwhelming urge as I sat with the rulebook trying to relearn the rules before we played, was to re-write it! Unfortunately, I think there are some fundamentals that don't work terribly well, and which are mechanically very 'fragile'. The main issue is the order system with simultaneous actions. In successive editions of the rules, you can see the author (Phil Barker) struggling to re-define and formalise the whole order-writing process. The result is to pile on yet more regulation and complexity. Eventually, the affair would be abandoned in favour of the more structured DBA rules, which have enjoyed an even longer life than the original set remaining popular today.

The most serious casualty of the experience was poor Alessio, lacking both the cushioning effect of nostalgia and the certainty that the game had definately 'worked' in the past, he proved tragically susceptible to the ensuing horror. I won't say he began to shake and weep, but it was a close thing for sure. 

For our second battle I resorted to a ruleset with which we are a bit more familiar - Hail Caesar - and a two-a side game with Dr Simon Elliott and Alan and Michael Perry. Next time I'll explain how we got on in Two Battles - part two. 

Persians and Carthaginians - finishing touches

 

Hinchliffe Persian Chariot

Well, a game looms, and it looks like we're going to be dusting off the old WRG Ancients rules, which means I need to make sure we have a 'general' for each side. The Minifigs 'Darius' is a curious figure that looks nothing like the King depicted on the famous Alesander mosaic, but has been duely painted up and will serve. 

Darius

Here he is, waving a spear around for no good reason, and resplendent in armour and carrying a shield. Quite what he has on his head I don't know. 

I sense that our Persian general really aught to be mounted in a chariot: that being the fashion of the time. Sadly, I've never been able to get hold of an 'S range' Persian chariot for him to ride in. 

For reasons that escape me, all of my original 70s armies that might otherwise feature Minifigs chariots or elephants have either Hinchliffe or Garrison versions. 

I dug out a pristine unmade Hincliffe Persion chariot and painted it up to serve as a general should the need arise. The Persian army already includes a unit of Garrison infantry, so it's a slightly heterogenous affair. 

While we're talking chariots, these venerable charioteers belong to my original Seleucid army. The two on the left are Garrison, the rest Hinchliffe. 

These are the untouched Humbrol paint jobs from forty years ago. 

Would you believe it? The Hinchliffe chariot (EG03) is still available, along with the rest of the Ancient range, from Lancashire Games

Meanwhile, having forgotten that I'd already painted up a Hannibal to lead the Carthaginians, I painted up another one. Still, always nice to have a choice... of Hannibals. 

I also managed to add a cavalry unit to my Gallic contingent. Surprisingly hard work as it turned out. The riders had a bit of 'slippage' and hence vicious moldlines, as well as some tearing and fill-in around the cloaks, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with. 

The horse though! Having worked my way through the 'good' stock of this particular horse, I was left with a pretty rough batch. Lots of fill-in between the front legs and around the tail. A lot of time-consuming cleaning up and recarving to do, but they turned out alright in the end. 

After which I discover what a terrible fit the riders are to the horses! This is a version of the horse sold at the time - there was an earlier version too. Liberal application of greenstuff sorted that out. 

I was pleased to get enough figures for a unit of these chaps, as it's not an especially easy one to find on the second-hand market. 

Indians and Scythians

Minifigs PBC7 Dahae Horse Archers 

Some recent additions to my Minifigs Persian army include an Indian contingent and some Scythian cavalry. All the figures are from the Miniature Figurines 1972/73 catalogue. Most are from the, then brand new, 'PB' range 'The Macedonian and Punic Wars'. A few are taken from the older 'S' Range Ancients, which were in the process of being phased out at the time. All are what was commonly called '25mm' figures. They are considerably smaller than modern wargames figures as well as somewhat slighter.

I've painted up twelve of the PBC7 Dahae Horse Archers (Scythians to thee and me). Half are on these light coloured horses and half on greys. They can either be fielded as two distinct units or mixed to make a larger formation. 

The horses are the PBH65, which is the generic cavalry horse of 'other nations'. It's quite an attractive beast, although prone to filling in between the legs and reins. Quite a bit of carving required to remove chunks of metal and reshaping, Like all the PBH horses, this one has a saddle cloth, as does the rider, and the fit is a little off. Disguised with greenstuff to some extent. 

I suspect this figure was originally intended to fit either the older 'Ancient S Range' cavalry horses or the generic 'Light Cavalry Horses'. Both are slightly smaller and - more importantly - not burdened with saddlecloths. Despite this, the same rather small rider soldiered on with the even larger later-style horses introduced around 1975. Truly massive beasts in comparision!

The figure itself is in that typical Minifigs horse archer pose, shooting off to the side. It does look rather odd when the figures are lined up in a straight line. They do look good in a looser formation though.

As always, I've based these guys on plain green rectangles cut to the sizes stipulated by the contemporary WRG Ancients rules: 30mm frontage by 40mm depth. 

I've tried to give them a varied paint job whilst keeping an overall 'look'. So, all the horse furniture is the same colour throughout, as are the quiver, weapons and so on. 

I've also tried to keep the colours 'bright' without being 'too bright', as it were, and it seems to have worked reasonably well. 

Once again as always, all these chaps have been given a coat of gloss varnish, with a second coat over vulnerable spots likely to be handled. 

Minifigs Indian Elephants and PBC29 Indian Cavalryman 

A unit of cavalry and three elephants have joined the Indian contingent. Together with a couple of units of infantry, they will form part of one wing of my Persian army. Purists may well point out that Darius' Indian contingent fought in a single battle (Gaugamela). I, however, shall take liberties. Frankly, I couldn't resist the elephants. They are so cute. 

I'm not entirely sure whether the elephant and its crew were part of the 'S Range' rather than newly minted to go with the PB range. I suspect the former. The 72/73 catalogue shows the model with a quiver of javelins, which I have not got, and these three crewmen.

Minifigs elephants were never the most exciting of models. I do have a herd of Hinchliffe elephants, which are far larger and more dramatic. I saw these critters on ebay and bought them together with a batch of chariots. 

These models have been repainted using the original paint as an undercoat. The saves stripping the pieces but you do lose a little of the detail. Not that there was much to start with. 

Minifigs Inidan Elephants

The Indian cavalry figure is a typical Minifigs affair. It's a neat little figure taken from the Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars by Phil Barker. 

The horse is the Minifigs PBC Indian cavalry horse. It has this rather splendid and distinctive plume. It also has a rather less distinctive chamfron or something going on, which I've interpreted as metal. Who knows!

All the Indians stick to the same colour scheme based on red and white with some bronze detailing. 

I've based these as close-fighting cavalry - technically medium cavalry in terms of the old WRG rules. Sadly, there is but the single figure in the range and no specific light or heavy cavalry variants. The same rider mounted onto a smaller 'S Range' horse would make a passable light cavalryman.

Minifigs Indian Cavalry 

A Few Gauls

 

Minifigs PB57 South Gaulish Javelinman 

A modest contingent of Gauls has been added to my old-style Minifigs Carthaginian army. Nothing to trouble the Romans as yet, but a decent start none-the-less.

The figures are from the original PB Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars range, harking back to the early 70s. These examples first appeared in the 1972 catalogue with 'S' sppended to the serial numbers indicated they were conceived of as part of the 'S range', i.e. 25mm 'specials'. In point of fact, they were the same size as the original 'S range' Ancients, and in some cases even the same models or updated versions. As time went on the new releases would creep up a bit in size, until the original line was replaced by bigger and chunkier versions in the late 70s.

The South Gaulish Javelinman is a simple figure in a standard pose for javelin-armed models. As I've covered on many occasions, there was an early release with very thick spear and javelins (telegraph poles as they have been dubbed) and a later release with spears and javelins that were much thinner but very fragile. These come from the later batch, and - true to form - the javelins were either partially or entirely missing. All have received new weapons made form brass rod, which should last them out.  

Gallic Warband in determined mode. PB57 with PB56 and PB153 in attendance. 

The skirmishes join my Gallic warband of PB56 South Gaulish Swordsman. I've been on the look-out for these for quite a while. They don't seem to come up very often on the second-hand market, and I suspect were not a great 'troop choice' when these figures were new. I managed to get enough to field a modest unit of 16 models. They came in two separate batches, one of which has been quite vigorously animated by a previous owner. Hence, some of the chaps of waving their weapons about in an irregular fashion. Rather than trying to neaten everything up, I've just gone with the slightly irregular appearance, and it doesn't look too bad overall. 

Rather than attempt the usual highly decorated shields, not to mention stripy rugby shirts and pyjama bottoms beloved of gamers half a century ago, I've stuck to my usual plain colour palette for these chaps and given them solid red shields. As ever. I've stuck to old-fashioned WRG base sizes and mounted the models without base decor to emphasise a clean 'toy soldier' aesthetic. I was tempted into using mdf bases for the skirmishers, and the result is a little thicker than I ideally like, but does save messing around with card. 

That standard bearer lurking in the background is from the Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome range, PB153 Gallic Chieftain with Standard. He arrived with a broken standard, so I've replaced the pole with brass rod and re-affixed the boar standard, which led naturally enough into painting him up. 

These were definately not the best or cleanest of castings, with quite a bit of clag to carve out around the sword arm and behind the shield. Overall - rather hard work for such a modest result - but made up for by the rather nice hairstyles, which rather put in mind of 'Revolver' period Beatles. Tomorrow Never Knows!