I know it's been rather quiet on here, at least in
wargaming terms, but hopefully this will go some way towards restoring normal service.
My focus in recent months has been almost exclusively on the Persians with the aim to use them for the revitalised Ancient period thanks to "Hail
Ceaser".
This has meant expanding the Greek
hoplite contingent. I now have three of the planned four units completed. Each of twenty four figures and all from the excellent Immortal Miniatures plastic (I've actually mixed three boxes of the Greek
Hoplites with one of the Spartans to get a little more variety - although not really necessary because there is just so much choice in the box already).
My only criticism would be the fragility of some of the helmet crests. High thin stalks will not last long I fear.
At the same time I've now managed to complete three of the four
Sparabara units. The most recent two are featured below.
Again they are from
Wargames Factory. My opinion of these hasn't changed and my experience of them is very different from the review in the last issue of
Wargames Soldiers & Strategy (so much so that I wrote to Guy expressing my concerns that the review was, in my opinion, misleading). However, with too many cheap options I
persevere. (In this case cheap meant getting eight boxes of
Wargames Factory figures for the price of five from Dave Thomas at
Partizan,
unfortunately that was before I saw the advert at
Northstar where they were offering eighty figures for £25!).
The Persian army now
also has its first units of skirmishers. Three units of javelins from Old Glory UK.
For these skirmishers, which I see as being in distinct units like all the other Persian troops, I've kept to a simple colour scheme. Each of the three units has a grey coat (
GW Fortress Grey,
GW Shadow Grey & Miniature Paints Blue Grey), although the all sport a yellow headband to show that they are Persian and not a subject nation.
I picked these up second hand at Partizan and quite like them. Clean and without much flash they paint up very nicely. They could have benefited from more detail in the sculpting, the belt gets lost in places and the daggers are sometime ill defined. But the biggest criticism would be the orientation of the hands which are throwing javelins at some odd angles (having had experience of Old Glory in the past I was not about to attempt bending them into another position.
I've ordered some more Old Glory to swell the ranks of both foot and horse.
There are more Persian horse as well.
Now
up to three units. The last unit has a large proportion armed with the long spear, extra spears being saved from the previous box (as posted previously there are only three spears in a box).
Two more of these plastic
Wargames Factory units to go before I get back to the metals.
Finally there is a command stand for the horse.
These figures are from First Corps and are part of the Persian Command pack (PER19 I think on their list).
Command figures are
important in Hail
Ceaser and I need one per "brigade" of four units or something like that. My problem is that there just doesn't
appear to be the variety of figures out there to make them unique. As such I can see the mounted figure appearing several times but with
different foot figures associated with it.
For the first one, as overall general of horse, I used the standard bearer that came with the pack.
I really liked the two foot figures (more of the second in a later post) and the horse was very nice too. The mounted figure was
a little more vague in some of the sculpting, especially with the folds of the cloak, but was still a good little piece.
So I make it that I'm about a third of the way through the planned army with lots more horse to do but only a few units of foot.
Everyone seems to be having a good time and whilst not of the highest quality acting it is a real romp from start to finish.
Al Davis was largely responsible for the NFL coming into being with the merger of his American Football League with the National. As owner/coach/manager/offensive coordinator (okay let's face it he ran the team no matter what the title on the door - as many head coaches found out) of the Raiders he created a team that dominated before falling into mediocrity.
This has meant expanding the Greek hoplite contingent. I now have three of the planned four units completed. Each of twenty four figures and all from the excellent Immortal Miniatures plastic (I've actually mixed three boxes of the Greek Hoplites with one of the Spartans to get a little more variety - although not really necessary because there is just so much choice in the box already).
My only criticism would be the fragility of some of the helmet crests. High thin stalks will not last long I fear.
At the same time I've now managed to complete three of the four Sparabara units. The most recent two are featured below.
Again they are from Wargames Factory. My opinion of these hasn't changed and my experience of them is very different from the review in the last issue of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy (so much so that I wrote to Guy expressing my concerns that the review was, in my opinion, misleading). However, with too many cheap options I persevere. (In this case cheap meant getting eight boxes of Wargames Factory figures for the price of five from Dave Thomas at Partizan, unfortunately that was before I saw the advert at Northstar where they were offering eighty figures for £25!).
The Persian army now also has its first units of skirmishers. Three units of javelins from Old Glory UK.
For these skirmishers, which I see as being in distinct units like all the other Persian troops, I've kept to a simple colour scheme. Each of the three units has a grey coat (GW Fortress Grey, GW Shadow Grey & Miniature Paints Blue Grey), although the all sport a yellow headband to show that they are Persian and not a subject nation.
Now up to three units. The last unit has a large proportion armed with the long spear, extra spears being saved from the previous box (as posted previously there are only three spears in a box). 
Two more of these plastic Wargames Factory units to go before I get back to the metals.
These figures are from First Corps and are part of the Persian Command pack (PER19 I think on their list).
Command figures are important in Hail Ceaser and I need one per "brigade" of four units or something like that. My problem is that there just doesn't appear to be the variety of figures out there to make them unique. As such I can see the mounted figure appearing several times but with different foot figures associated with it.
I really liked the two foot figures (more of the second in a later post) and the horse was very nice too. The mounted figure was a little more vague in some of the sculpting, especially with the folds of the cloak, but was still a good little piece.
