Ancients part deux

A second attempt at posting. Just as I was finishing an unwary key hit seems to have deleted the entire post with photos! This post may not be as comprehensive as the previous attempt....

As a few people have expressed an interest in seeing the remaining armies, here follows the other DBA forces, including the elusive Celts.

The armies were created with the idea of covering the known Roman world from around 100-30BC so covering from Marius to the Principate. They were also designed to cover all available options or armies in a given list so have more elements than a standard DBA army.

Romans - from the Freikorps 15 range designed by Dave Allsop - no longer available as they have been redesigned. Roughly 3x DBA armies - veterans of many battles and a couple of campaigns they are showing some wear and tear due to the brittle metal - lots of pilum need repair or replacement and the Pompeians have lost their eagle. The range included some excellent personality figures of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.

The Barbarians - early Germans

The Spanish

Numidians - including King Juba who started life as a Mongol from Tabletop Miniatures and the elephant which was lurking in the Celt box...

In the same box were the Seleucid and Pontic scythed chariots.

The Celtic host - covering options and variants for Gallic, Galatian and Ancient British armies

Cavalry - some may be Germans

4WB - Gaestati, Solduri or Galatians - with or without clothes

3WB warriors - Gallic or British

Chariots, British LC and skirmishers

The Germans have yet to see a game IIRC and the Celts masquerading as Ancient British beat a Mongol army by maximising terrain. I'm now wondering if a Marian "Known World" campaign is an easier option....

Looking back....and looking forwards

It's around this time of year a bit of introspection takes place, looking back at the previous year. I think I'll save that post for New Year....

I have however had a quick look at this time last year. Aside from illness, I was very preoccupied with Pavia and the renaissance flats. Well oddly, I've just finished two more books on Pavia but those zinnfiguren are still staring at me in nothing but primer.....

As I alluded to last post, I was very taken by a post on Martin Rapier's The Games We Play blog on the SOA conference and a sprawling map game set in around 246BC:

https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/2025/11/queen-laodika-s-war.html

I have been thinking recently that it's about time I did some gaming; sadly opportunities are non-existent due to work and lack of space. As I sat at my small desk, my eye was drawn to the plywood sheet covered in model railway grass paper that had been done for DBA games. I used to play DBA a lot. I was attracted by the small number of figures needed for an army which allowed a slow painter like me to see results. At one stage I was alternating painting Soldier King plastics with 15mm SCW battalions and 15mm DBA armies.

Time moves on, as does enthusiasm. Although I have kept up with successive editions, DBA has lapsed as has the painting of 15mm ancients. I also succumbed to the draw of more and more figures which sit unpainted. Some are now out of production sadly. I cannot bring myself to sell them just yet.

And so I found my musings drawing together these various strands - how about some sort of mini-campaign, using DBA and utilising the 15mm figures I have, set around 246BC involving Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms with conflict between them as part of a Seleucid succession crises? Jury is out on involving the Antigonid kingdom. What is needed is lots of core Successor elements + various mercenary types, Greek, Thracian, Galatian, Arab and Jewish.

Sadly, I cannot put it aside, so have found myself digging out figures and cleaning them up before priming. I was unsure whether to go for the black undercoat used previously or go white and used Contrast paint and AP ink washes. So I decided to experiment with both.

A few more awaiting a bit more work

I thought I'd posted picture of my DBA armies but clearly haven't! As it's Xmas, some 15mm ancient eye candy.

This is what I'm hoping to match - existing Seleucid and Ptolemaic armies - the Seleucid is a later one so needs different cavalry.

There are other armies which can contribute useful elements - Mithridatic Pontic and Hellenistic Greek:

Most of the armies were for a Marian Roman era campaign, but even these have some useful figures:

Sadly the big box of Celts is buried somewhere so they are camera shy at present.

If there is interest, I can post photos of the other armies, Roman, Numidian and Spanish.

In case I don't get to post before the big day, wishing all my blog readers and visitors the compliments of the season, whatever your beliefs. May you have a peaceful and pleasant day and receive at least something from under the tree (even if you have had to buy it yourself!). 

Muddling along...200th post

Sadly not a lot to report for the 200th post. It has been a case of cat-like herding of various projects into productive activity at weekends recently...

Enthusiasm and mojo has flitted between various things to do, and heavily influenced by lack of energy and poor weather. I have variously fiddled with WW2, Arab-Israeli but eventually managed to get another Soldier King contingent cleaned up, washed, converted and primed and managed to dodge showers enough to get them spray undercoated black.

This is for Estavia; another infantry brigade of 4 regiments + combined Grenadiers, a Dragoon Brigade and a regiment of Grenzer LI.

After this, there are some additions to the Electoral forces and some rebels / civilian militia. There are also a handful of Fimo personality figures, mostly female. I have acquired some more Rospak horses which I used for my original personality figures, so may add more.

Reading has seen me finish the two volumes of Robert Forczyk's desert war books:

Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa: Beda Fomm to Operation Crusader, 1940–41

Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa: Gazala to Tunisia, 1942–43

This covers from 1940 v Italians through to the end in Tunisia. Forcyzk is a US ex-armour (armor) officer and is extremely critical of just about everybody! He starts with known doctrine and works chronologically through the campaigns, providing lots of detail and first hand accounts as well as technological information.

My only criticism is that he (IMHO) contradicts himself somewhat by his criticism of "aggressive" generals such as O'Connor and Rommel, while simultaneously being critical of passive or defensive minded commanders; he is correct that both O'Connor and Rommel neglected supply considerations in favour of keeping the pressure on the enemy, but seems less impressed with the significant psychological advantages that the aggressive approach  gained. I suspect this is the orthodox armor commander in him with all that training on supply.....

Definitely recommended for anyone interested in WW2 in the desert.  

Other reading has been two new books on Pavia 1525 in the hope it will inspire me to finish off the flats that are sitting there undercoated.

The books are The Battle of Pavia 24 February 1525 by Luigi Casali and Marco Galandra a slim 112 paperback in the Italian Battlefield series no 31. This is the English translation and is very expensive for what you get. However it is packed with information - sadly not always referenced, but the extensive bibliography is impressive and pictures. It does suffer from some errors where clearly they mean one side but refer to the other - it's not clear if this is due to translation.

The other is The Battle of Pavia by Massimo Predonzani from Helion. This is his second book on the battle and somewhat confusingly has changed his mind on where the Imperialists broke into the park. He now favours the northern entrance but TBH so far has provided very little evidence for why. He has failed to explain how they accessed the inner dividing wall without first breaking into the surrounding wall. So far he has only mentioned lots of modern authors favouring this approach and that it was more convenient to reach Mirabello. He does however provide various contemporary accounts of various events leading up to the battle and the divergent numbers of troops and casualties. I am only about to read his account of the battle, so will look forward to see if he can provide an more convincing interpretation. The northern gate entry creates a very different battle.  One downside is that the narrative frequently makes references to places which don't appear on the maps provided which makes it difficult to follow sometimes. Again lots of illustrations.

The first book favours the entry via the Due Porte gate and even refers to the same Italian book I have with it's contemporary chronicler.  Having tried to reconcile the various contemporary accounts, It's my view the eastern approach to the park is the only one which makes sense of the various conflicting accounts. However, I will see if Predonzani can persuade me but from his narrative so far I'm far from convinced as he relies on secondary sources such as Jean Giorno who it appears accepted modern names of places at face value without any examination of historical information - the Pescarina Gate for example being derived from reasons other than the marquis de Pescara.

Martin Rapier's report of the SOA conference and in particular the military / political campaign on the internal struggles of the Seleucids within the context of wider Hellenistic struggles between Ptolemies, Seleucids and Antigonids has got me looking at ancients again.....

With leave coming up shortly, I;m hoping to get a lot more painted, so watch this space!