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. 

Dave's Persians

 

Dave's Persians... not quite all but enough for now! 

A while back... well it must have been twenty years ago or more... I was given this Persian army by Dave Gallagher. Dave worked with me at Games Workshop and he drew a lot of the artwork for Warhammer Ancient Battles including the cover. Like me, Dave was an ancient wargamer who could trace his collecting days back to the 1970's: unlike me, Dave's artistic talents were in evidence from an early age!

Not quite so long ago... about two months ago in fact... I found the army sitting unused and abandoned in a couple of large really 'useful' boxes. It struck me that it would make a nice side-project, a quick re-base and a little tidying up and bingo. 

Minifigs 78'ers and Garrison Immortals

Once I got started I quickly realized this was going to take a bit more work than I'd bargained for. Spears to replace as usual and quite a bit of worn paint that would need to be touched in or over-painted. So, it's taken me a bit longer than I expected, which is why I've not posted for a while.

The army is a mix of Minfigs, Garrison, the odd Hinchliffe and a few I can't identify. Quite an eclectic bunch in fact. The Minifigs are the more recent ranges as shown in the 1978 and subsequent catalogues - not the models I'm more familiar with. 

Hoplites - nicely painted shields on these.

As well as the Pesians themselves the army includes Hoplites, which I assume have been enrolled as mercenaries or come from Ionian allies. I've tried to preserve as much of Dave's original paint as possible on all the army, and with the Hoplite shields I just tidied up where I felt it was needed. 

It was interesting working with these later Minifigs. They are much more detailed than their predecessors, but I do feel that they lack some of the charm of the earlier models. Still, they don't look at all bad, and it's a decent sized unit too.

Chariots! Four of these. 

The chariots are a mix of Minifigs, Garrison and Hinchliffe, with some converted crewmen and all the reins nicely represented with wire or thread. These took the most work to rebuild because most of the glue attaching the reins, wheels and crews had long-since given out. 

I also ended up repainting the horses on three out of four of the chariots. I think they'd been painted with a wash technique that had worn through to the metal in places and which was impossibly to patch up.

Cavalry - the later PB range I think. 

In fact, most of the mounts for the cavalry needed to be repainted, except for the rather nice dappled horses, which benefitted from their more substantial paint job and yielded to a light tarting up.

The main cavalry unit looks like its from the updated 'PB' Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars range. These all have saddlecloths added from paper, which is a nice touch, and I've carefully preserved these and recoloured where it was required. All on individual bases for some reason!

Cardaces back left and archer back right,

Also from the same range as the cavalry is a largish unit of Cardaces, which had been based as 'Light Medium' types on the intermediate 20mm frontage rather than the close fighting 15mm. Some of these look to have been painted by a different hand, and I undertook a bit of repainting to bring them together.

Except for a few otherwise unbased figures, I retained the original basing, which is either Tetrion type filler over card or what looks like Milliput over card. The base sizes are all consistent with the contemporary Wargames Research Group Ancients rules. I've repainted the bases and applied flock to bring the whole lot together.

A lone Garrison Cameleer.

There's still a good few models to go, but I'm calling it a day so I can get on with my other restoration projects. There's a nice-sized unit of Garrison Phrygians that I might have a go at, but they are in a fairly poor state compared to the whole and might need a complete repaint. 

Interestingly, although what we have is definitely a Persian army it's not entirely clear whether its early Achaemenid - i.e. invasion of Greece - or later i.e. Alexander the Great - and plainly it includes models unique to both! 

Almost forgot - I repainted all the metallics and revarnished selectively in gloss, then varnished or the not metallic elements in the original matt. I think these Minifigs look right in matt - the old school gloss doesn't really look correct with the more modern figures. I followed suit with the Garrison figures just to be consistent. Hopefully this will preserve them for many years to come. 

There you go - thanks to Dave Gallagher for his generosity all those years ago - now to get on with something else! 

 

Excess Baggage - Ox Carts from Hinchliffe

 

I've just added a Hinchliffe ox cart to the baggage train and here it is together with one I did earlier - one of the tumbril carts. Hinchliffe always made nice equipment pieces and artillery and these are EG 12 Ox cart, 2 oxen and driver on foot (suitable for all periods) and EG 16 Medieval Tumbril with 2 oxen. I picked the ox cart up second hand with a ACW period driver and this stack of corn sheaths, which I don't think came with the original model. 

The baggage train gets used alongside my more modern armies so its been given a coat of matt varnish and mounted onto a textured mdf base. 

Not sure when these models were made, but they appear in The Hinchliffe Handbook published 1976. 

The little house and terrain features in the background were made for me by Matt Fletcher of Emperor Toads Emporium. 

Sturdy brutes these oxen! There were only the two designs but they have a rugged charm. Here's a couple of spares going about their business. 

The tumbril cart. The yoke comes complete with cast-on strapwork - two long lengths of metal strap that you have to arrange to make the chest strap and then tie round the prongs on the top of the yoke. 

Or... cut them off and use greenstuff to make straps like I've done here. It's a lot easier! 

No such thing as greenstuff  in the 1970's of course - it was common to make straps from paper, old metal paint tubes, strips of linen and such-like.

Ox cart. Strange wheel design of a kind I've not seen before - looks the part though. 

I've only just noticed how the oxen's horns are bent forward on these and upwards on the others. Hinchliffe used a very soft - rather leady - metal which bends easily. This does allow for a certain amount of animation - as well as bending those metal straps into place as I've done here.  

Hinchliffe also made donkeys with an assortment of loads and here's a couple of them from a selection I've painted at different times over the years. 

Not sure when these appeared but they are not in The Hinchliffe Handbook so terminus post quem 1976 I suppose. I acquired these in the late 70s. 

This one must have been painted forty years ago - I recognise the shade of  yellow-ochre Pelikan Plaka I've used to paint the saddle bags! I didn't think they made PP anymore but I see it's still available, now in 50ml pots. I wonder if anybody still uses it. 

As you can see this beast is mounted onto a GW base - and I still have a bunch of pack horses and mules on trad green basses like this. I suppose they 'go with' my old green based goblin and elf armies. Maybe I'll re-base the lot one day just to have them the same. 

A Few More Hoplites

 

I didn't set out to build a couple of units of Hinchliffe Hoplites - but you know how it is - they came along in dribs and drabs with other purchases and suddenly you have a new addition. 

These have all been painted from scratch and I was pleased with the way they turned out. I've given them new spears and I managed to find officers and standards to lead them. The shields are done with the excellent Little Big Men transfers, which finishes them off rather nicely I think. 

Yes you have probably spotted that the basing is to Wargames Research Group 3rd and subsequent editions, i.e.a 15mm frontage in multiples to facilitate casualty removal. A pdf can be found on the WRG site here. I will probably be giving them a spin with Hail Caesar at some point though. 

These figures are available from Lancashire Games along with the rest of the pre-gunpowder Hinchliffe range.