Oh Mr Postman, have you a parcel for me?

Well in fact he had two. In an attempt to work some magic on my version of wargame neutral I had the idea that if I bought unpainted figures, painted them and then sold them on, the profit I made would allow me to buy yet more figures or other wargaming related merch and not count against my spend limit. At the moment I am waiting for Lee to order the mini's for our Ancients and whilst I have a few units left to paint already waiting and lets not mention the whole 6mm Baccus starter army (with extras) that I want to flesh out my French Naps with etc etc. I really felt the need to move into this idea. I really wanted something within my comfort zone (15mm) but the price on some 25mm slingers and a rather large Nap infantry pile just got me going. I got them for a low price and the slingers once painted I hope to get back what I paid for both sets so long term I should come out on a profit but still I am looking forward to painting the lot. The slingers arrived first so they are next on my table. Given the current unit just requires helmets finishing then it's onto basing and varnishing this will not be far off. As for the Napoleonic's well that all depends on a few other projects I have possibly in the wings for other people.

Persian Starter Army

I have a few hundred Persians to re-base and decided to start off with the Starter Army from Field of Glory army list. I gave myself 10 days to do this but managed to get it done in under 7. I will crack on with the rest but will have plenty of other projects to do in between. These figures are a mix of Chariot, Museum, Essex and possibly a couple of others, it's been a long time. All 15mm and until recently based for 6th Edition. My first look at the starter army led me to think this is NOT playing to the Persian strengths and I still feel that way, though maybe the rules will prove otherwise. Not enough bow armed troops and given it will be fighting a Macedonian army too many Hoplites when these are outmatched by the Pike. But on looking at the Macedonian starter army I'm not so sure it's doomed, still it feels wrong to have so little bow and I hate the decision to remove the bow from the Kardrakes and make them Hoplites. Time will tell if I try and get that reversed in our group. If not then I have 100 Kardrakes for sale!

Backbone of any Persian Army is it's Heavy Cavalry. This is one of two Battle groups of 4 bases that the starter army (SA) has and I have plenty more to base up. Originally in units of 10 single colour they are now in units of 12 figures and mixed. Originally of single colour to help work out which unit was which for keeping track of casualties. To the left is one of the three commander bases which long term I will be replacing with a better mix and more of a diorama than just a figure base.

First of two very different Cavalry units, this one is supposed to have bow and does not so will be replaced next year. I would have done it sooner but it is easy to remember they should have bow. The photo shows them in column and nerves gets the better of the lead troops as two horses fall and the other rears. Not sure what the fate of this unit is, possibly e-bay.

The other 12 figure Cav unit, these at least do have bow and whilst right by 6th edition list I feel these are over armoured for FoG, may well change these at the same time as the other unit but I like them so may well keep them.

I had these guys at light infantry under 6th but here they are medium and really I need to get more of them next year as I can have plenty more and this will allow me to swap out the back rank that has some fill in figures. The mixed poses really worked for lights and works for undisciplined mediums though I plan to add other manufacturers figures in as well to make it even more varied.


Both the bow (pictured) and the slingers are facing replacement next year as I am not happy with how I painted them at the time. I will see this as a back end project as they will do but I know long term it will irritate. The SA just has 12 mounted Cav with bow x2, 12 slingers and 12 bow. Really not enough to weaken the enemy before going in for the kill.


The only Light Cav I get is one unit of these guys. Fortunately the army list has plenty more spear armed LC as well as bow armed so not only will all my other figures have an option but my army will have lots of flexibility.

One of the two units of Hoplites. It was a shock that I needed so many under the list but given that the Kardrakes are now seen as Hoplites it should not surprise. I think the mix of other options will mean that the further increasing of the Hoplites will wait some time and will only happen if I find through play that I need more.

Close up of the same block, guy on the left just could not take the pace of rebasing.

I had to laugh when I painted this guy, been years since I did it and he still makes me smile.

Lots more to do but at least now I have what it takes to try out the rules. I hope they will work out fine as I want to go forward and the idea of keeping track of single casualties etc. really no longer appeals.

Diplomacy and having the last stab (I mean word)

It's been so very long since I last played a game of Diplomacy but when I received Issue 3 of Fury of the Northmen as a sample issue about 6 weeks ago I was tempted to put my name down for the next game. Well a few e-mails later and there I am on the back cover of issue 4 with two other guys waiting for another 4 to sign up. This is a postal game in a real postal zine and we should have a turnround of 5-6 weeks or so. I will report on the game as it goes along right here but if anyone else is tempted to play drop me a line and I will supply the contact details of the editor Colin.

The zine itself is picking up momentum with more games now in play. We have the interesting looking Britannia which I am following from the point of view of seeing how it holds up as the game progresses. The first Diplomacy game is now just underway and the first two moves will be in the next issue. Being a double move you have to wonder how much the temptation to stab another player at the get go is? Chess is also played which will be fun to watch crawl along and again how well will this hold up?

Three games are listed waiting for players, these being Chess (needs 2) Diplomacy (needs 4 more) and Risk (needing 5 more to fill it up).

Anyone who has fond memories of the old Dip zines and wants to rekindle that era just needs to tag along for the ride.

Good Job They Are Immortal

I bought these Immortals when I first started to build my Persian Army 25 years ago but never got round to painting them as I knew I would not use them. Unfortunately I could have just ten figures (they also come in packs of 8!) and whilst they were fairly good the cost of the troops, the command points and the low number you could have always meant better options were available. So I always had something better to paint. That is till recently, still not sure I will get to use them but at least I had the time to paint them.

I can't be 100% sure but I think they are Chariot Miniatures. Fairly nice detailed 15mm figures that look to stay at the bottom of my storage as the Field of Glory army list does not give Immortals to the Late Achaemenid only the early and at this point I do not see myself doing this army. If anyone out there wants them you can have them for a couple of unpainted Magister packs for the Late period or any that will go with any Macedonian based list. Or drop me an offer for other figures you don't want.

Polemos General de Division out for a test drive.

Having bought the rules and painted up enough French units to give my Prussians a game all progress with the Naps seemed to grind to a halt as I shifted focus to painting the 15mm. But with Barry building his Brits up it gave us enough of a push to get round to getting a game in. In fairness both of us have wanted to play but with both of us busy this last three weeks we have not had the chance.

At last we now had time, figures and rules, so what about venue? As we were both free in the day we decided to use one of the tables at a local shop. More on this in a future post once I get their permission to advertise the fact. What I will say though is that the tables are all set up and you have free use of any terrain you could wish for (though they have little in the way of 6mm they have plenty for 15+mm) this was not a problem as I had took plenty with me. All this for no charge, what a great service.

I had already had a short few turn primer play with both forces and this put me at a rather large advantage for the day. I had set the minimum number of units at 24 which I hit on the nail for the French and went over by about 6 for the Prussians. This just tells part of the story though as troop type, quality and number of formations can make the smaller force more powerful. I as the French had just three commands to the Prussian 4 which in real terms means the Prussian has a 1 pip advantage pre-roll (1D6) each Tempo round. Something that came into play later. Rather than plan out battle lines we each just placed as we felt fit and then looked at what the other guy was doing. After all this is supposed to be all about learning the rules as both of us had reservations regarding parts of the rules and another rather more experienced Naps player had played them once and threw his copy away, though he is prepared to try again.

Ready to go, Prussians to the left are spread in an almost single line along the whole frontage whilst I was using the two woods at each end of the battlefield as flank protection and had units in reserve to counter any move around them. The rules will reward a reserve as they should and Barry did start to generate one as the game progressed.

The tricky bit (and bit I liked before the game and loved after) is the Tempo Points. Nothing moves without Tempo and you get a single point per sub-general + 1D6. Given that I had three and Barry four sub-generals this meant that D6 could really swing it and indeed it did. But it is how you deal with the swing that makes the difference. Once you have your Tempo you then bid some of them for the honour of moving first. Early rounds mean nothing but later on you may really want to go first, especially if you went last on the previous turn. Who ever had the first move the previous turn wins a tie so once Barry had the initiative he sat effectively on a two point cushion. But on the other hand Barry had spread so wide that he was forced to pay double Tempo to order his flanks. Not an issue early on but as the battle developed he had to choose which flank to leave hanging. The great thing is early on you seem to have plenty to go round but once the battle fragments suddenly you just never have enough. This will reward the player who keeps a reserve of fully formed units and the player who will take the time to re-form groups of units back into linked units (groups of three are most economical). So with all set up in we dived.

Due to setting up to far apart the early turns zipped by in a series of moves, this was good for two reasons, first it got us used to Tempo and the bidding (not to mention how each of us bid) but also allowed for us to make changes to plans etc. I was expecting the Prussians to come out and fight to use their greater numbers and when they were slow to do this I moved my left flank infantry off the hill to try and temp the Prussians down off theirs whilst moving my 4 regiments of Hussars from my right, across the front of my whole army to join the forces on my left. Meanwhile the extreme flank force was moved behind the wood to attack the Prussian right flank which was now using the same woods as myself to pin a flank.
The idea really was just to get Barry to weaken his forward force by forcing him to react to this force as all I had up front was a couple of raw Battalions. Due to the slow running of the game to this point though I decided it was worth closing especially as I had two more fresh units to take over once the fight had started and Barry just had these two units in position. On the other flank I had offered up a lone Battalion to the Prussian Ulans but Barry was at first refusing to engage then as the opposite flank was under attack he just did not have the Tempo to react.
Mixed results on the first engagement. Barry closed to firing range as the second player then won Tempo and blastered off with his muskets. I had really made a mess trying to get Tempo and did not have the two required to attack anyway (I was out of command radius) so not only was I shaken by his first volley but unable to fire back!! Barry gets Initiative again and blasts away again but by now he no longer has the first shot bonus but scrapes a second shaken. I drop back and have his commander join them to steady them. Meanwhile I had failed to have any effect with musket fire back and so threw in a charge at my next opportunity routing his raw regiment and setting off in hot pursuit which had the effect of getting a very lonely Batt behind the Prussian line but not half as lonely as the now surrounded French Batt that had been successful to this point, now Barry was falling back with these guys as fast as possible, his flank was now turned.

The price of failure, a Prussian Batt is routing away, routers never come back in these rules and with only two levels of shaken you need to consider pulling back units with one level if it's likely they will receive more levels in the coming rounds.
By this point I had by Cav in the middle and charged just one regiment, the idea being once it had been repulsed I could charge the same Batt with a fresh regiment breaking the first line up and follow up with the Infantry and by then recovered Cav. Well it did not go that way, the Infantry rolled badly in reaction to the charge becoming shaken. The shaken level made their fire ineffective (by the one pip for being shaken!!) allowing the charge to go in. The Inf Batt broke, routing through another Regiment causing this to become shaken but somehow my Cav did not pursue (rolled a 1). I still lost Inactive the following turn but with nothing but the shaken infantry able to fire Barry was not able to harm my Cav who then charged the shaken Inf Batt.

The Inf on the left turned to be able to fire on my Cav but my charge went home before they could fire hitting the shaken Batt and putting this unit to rout. I caught up with them and dispersed them on the field. The centre right of the Prussians was now looking a little ragered as I was still poised for more attacks.

By no means was the game over, Barry had plenty of troops to plug the gap but he was outflanked on his right and his lack of a real reserve would effectively have caused him a few problems which was compounded by my being behind his right flank and able to reduce his ability for that wind to withdraw. In the picture above the one Regiment behind the long line is French, as is the units in small clusters. The long line is Prussian and is likely to be very badly mauled. We called it at that point as we had got what we needed from the game.

The rules seem to work right and gave a flavour of the game. I would say 24 units is about right for this part of the rule book but jumping to the larger battle rules seems to triple the required figures which is a big jump. I still have issues with the fact that units are on the rectangular strips and long to see French columns and would be happy to rebase all to the larger square bases and just allow lines on some columns on others, but that is for another day I guess. The rule concerns were for the most part smoothed out with play and we will certainly give them more goes and I think stick with them unless someone shows us something better. On the flip side of the coin the figures I have yet to paint most of the infantry will go on double bases as I feel I have enough infantry to fight under these rules but given Lee has a massive Allied Army I can see the need for some double bases added to the collection.

Next up Barry and I plan to try out his 20mm Roman V Dacian or Gaul using Impetus Light, stay tuned.

Macedonian Phalanx Arrives.

I have been working on a block of 48 Magister Pike for the last three weeks which I picked up at the Derby World Championships a few months back. Whilst there I decided I would also buy shield transfers for the first time ever. To put it bluntly I was not sure I was up to painting the shields. I had in the past painted another 48 man block and had done a fairly good job then, but that was long long ago and I was a far more confident painter. The problem is that as the weeks passed since Derby I have looked at these transfers more and more as a sign of defeat and worse giving up without even trying. So in the end I decided to give it a go and the transfers went from a sign of failure to insurance.

The image of what could be described as my lack of confidence but I prefer to see it as a moment of weakness. These look rather nice and for sure are better than my own efforts but as they are in fact smaller than the shield space itself I think the overall result would not have looked as good and to be honest would have anoyed the hell out of me everytime I dug them out to play.

So with this fact in mind I paintd the rest of the figures less Pike and then finally grappled with the shield.

This is a close up of one of the finished models (15mm) complete with basing. Apart from not straightening the pike for the picture I am rather prowd of my effort. Of couse I have a further 196 to do but I am trying to ignore this fact at the moment. Whilst it's not perfect and it is also one of the nicer finishes I am rather fond of the result. I can't wait to get him and his pals on the table.

Heres a shot of the whole block. Whilst I was painting them they took up rather a lot of room on their bottle tops but as a block whilst looking imposing they just seem a little tiny. I love the shear size of the Magister pikes, care needs to be taken with the pikes to stop them being snapped but the metal is soft enough that they bend more than break. They also straighten with ease. I also like the pike extensions, in fact I think these figures are the best 15mm Phalanx available.
Another shot of the block. I can't wait to get to play with these, though I expect the first outing I will be seeing the fronts rather than the backs as they get used in suport of Lee's new army andmy next project is the re-basing of the Persins to face them. That starts straight away and I will take the oppertunity for some clean up work as they have been played well and hard in the past. As for these figures they have been painted exclusivly with Vallejo paints.

Rebasing and New Painting

Finally got round to getting a few shots of figures that have been finished in the last 6 weeks. If you saw earlier posts I had based my first back to painting figures on cardboard. The bases looked great as long as you ignored the warp! So wanting to do it right I bought and rebased all of the just pained figures. All figures shown are what used to be Chariot Minatures but are now Magister Militum and can be ordered from HERE.

The above picture shows some of the skirmish troops I did first. The bases are great, nice and flat and I still find the end result fine, though some future bases will get the extra treatment of added furniture such as casualties or lost equipment etc. Just have to get past that need to rush to the end feeling. I will also repaint the Thracian shields as they suffered the get to the end itch as well.

The slingers in the foreground are rebased as well, whilst the archers are newly painted and based. Now the slingers one of the cats made off with a half painted figure. I contacted Magister Militum requesting a missing Pikeman and mentioned I had lost the slinger some time ago that was originally bought from Chariot and could he supply both figures and let me know the cost. The nice gent supplied both figures at no cost. He now has received an order for £75. OK so he would have anyway but still it was nice to hit him with that after his great service. Net result is that I will have another base of slingers done as soon as my Phalanx is finished and ready to base.

These guys are a little bit of a mystery. Old Chariot figures that I have not tracked down on the website. I only had the one pack of them and it looks like I will have to wait till next year to see if I can ID them, unless anyone here can point me in the right direction?

Well that's the lot regarding 15mm. I have been working on 48 Macedonian Pike that should be finished over the weekend which I have enjoyed doing but have taken longer than expected. I have a further 96 on the way and could still paint up a further 48 for the lists we are using so I could have quite a project ahead of me. I will have to update my wargames neutral but am pleased to report that the £75 purchase was based on selling stuff and I am well under my expenditure limits. I will start gaining extra credits from painting other peoples figures starting with some 6mm (expected to be Russian 6mm) and rather off at a tangent, rather a lot of Warhammer 40K (expecting Orc's). More on this at a later date.