Here We Go Again.... Part 2!

 Sean here :) (uploaded by Martin in case of confusion)

So any of you who know Ben and Martin (aka Dumb and Dumberer!) know they love to drag their friends into their latest game they're playing. In their defence I did drag them back into MTG (sorry!) and Flames of War, and maybe one or two others actually come to think about it....

Anyway, they were extolling the virtues of Hail, Caeser, so I thought 'oh why not'. Now the key thing in any new game is read the rules, get a demo/test game then choose an army. Well I skim read parts of the rules and jumped straight to choosing an army from the Biblical and Ancients army book, who to choose?

Well an army that was around during the Roman and Ptolomeic empires would be ideal, but not essential. Key considerations for me are,
1) ALL models must be available in plastic.  I love plastic and hate metal, I am willing to use metal and resin (which I am quite fond of) for some models,
2) It must be an interesting army. No not exotic, full of elephants and warmachines or super soldiers, it just have to have that certain something about it.

So lets have a look,
Chinese and Indians, awesome, getting models... less awesome!
Romans, heavy infantry, war machines, massive troop choice. BUT Ben is already doing them and they're a bit too popular.
Carthage, again similar pros and cons to Romans.
Maccabees, now here's something interesting, troop choices, well infantry wise not much, cavalry wise lots, but you can't take much cavalry. The interesting bit is in the blurb. For those who don't know about 170 BC the Jews rose against their Persian masters and fought a mainly guerilla war to obtain independence for Judea (in essence the forerunners to the Judean Peoples Front, the Peoples Front to Judea and the oft forgotten Judean Popular Front). As a rebel force they had no uniform or standard equipment, just what they could get their hands on. They'll do nicely.

So what models to use? Metal Maccabean models are available, but only in small packs, so that's expensive and I don't like metal. Plus I think if I did use the metal models there aren't many poses and the force would look quite uniform, which doesn't seem right. Maccabean Judah existed from 170 BC to 37 BC, so armies they could come across, Selucids (Greeks, one of the divisions of Alexanders the Greats empire), Ptolemians (Greeks in Egypt, again deacended from Alexander), Parthians (Persians), Romans and briefly Armenians.
I need to make medium spearmen (actually equipped with, spears or javelins or both) , medium spearmen with long spears (that's a spear that's longer than a normal spear but shorter than a pike, apparently there's a difference!), archers, skirmishers with bows/javelins/slings depending on my fancy and light, medium and heavy cavalry with javelins, spears, bows, kontos (pretty much combine as you wish, 7 Cavalry choices!)
Most of the armour has spears regular or super-sized, which is handy because that is what everyone in the Mediterranean used at the time, so I'm thinking get some Hoplites (long spears), early Roman allied troops and Carthagian soldiers, gives me spears, javelins, various armour, helmet and shield types. Bowmen and slinger sprues and chop and change the bits together. Should be fun.  Cavalry, well probably Greek and Roman models will be best I think.

So the models should look cool, but how to give them a united look? Well I'm thinking use of Tyrion Purple for cloth on at least one model per stand (4 models per stand for infantry). Tyrion Purple was an important colour in ancient Israel, though I will substitute this colour for a shade of blue that will identify more easily with Israel, then some hand painted banners and shield designs. Now my painting skills are not up to much, so simple designs, Menorah (Jewish lamp that holds 7 candles, you'll recognise it when you see it) and some Hebrew script, there were certain phrases popularly painted on their shields so I'll go with a simplified version. Maybe the phrase painted across a units shield, 1 character per model. We'll see how it goes....

Here We Go....Again

It began, as it so often does, with a visit from a friend. In this case the friend in question was Dan, a long-time nemesis of both Ben and I (only when across the gaming table), who had returned to the green and fertile lands that is the north-east of Scotland. Dan has always been a big fan of historical wargaming and has, over the years, made a few overtures to get us into one of the many systems. The time has never been right sadly, and poor Dan was forced to find other friends to scratch that itch...

However, thanks to NASA and the changing of my star sign, I was no longer the reliable, grounded Cancarian that I once had been, and was now an impulsive. risk-taking Gemini. And so, after hearing Dan extol the virtues of 28mm Romans and Celts I spent a restless night wondering if I was missing something in life.

Naturally the next few days were spent gazing at Warlord Games and Victrix's websites, poring over images of men in short skirts, and re-familiarising myself with the history of the Mediterranean area. I already knew which army I was interested, that was easy, as I've always loved Carthage, so it was just a matter of trying to persuade Ben to be interested and wait for him to change his mind a dozen or so times. This took so long that I was a year older by the time he did (ok, so my birthday was two or three days after I'd made my decision, but the point stands), but we were just about set. But, it's not like my brother to throw a spanner in the works, is it....? He didn't like the models available for the enemies of Carthage, and this led to me changing my army to one that would face later Romans so that he could use them. I wanted to stay in North Africa (basically I wanted elephants), so I went for the Ptolemaic empire, whom I knew nothing about other than that they were the best faction to start playing as in Rome: Total War 2 due to the heady combination of pikemen, chariots and elephants. This suited me, now all I needed was Ben to stick to his army.

 We played a game with Dan, I used Celts and Ben gave the Romans a test-drive. I was sure this was a safe bet: Dan's Romans are stunningly painted, he has elephants, and I did so badly with the Celts that I was sure there was no way he'd want to use them. The game was a blast, with carnage and failed Order tests galore and we were hooked. I went straight to eBay and ordered the Warlord Games Successor Army box from the Trolltrader: 100 Phalangites (pikemen), 8 Companion Cavalry, and an armoured Elephant. I also ordered Gripping Beast's Arab Spearmen and Archers, Essex Miniatures Camel Archers, and a box of 4-horse chariots. This was topped off with Footsore's Egyptian Domina and Wargames Foundry's Egyptian Noble Household and Soldiers in Training which will make up some of my Commander models stands.  Ben finally settled on Late-Republic Romans (Caesarian Romans), after being unable to find a Celt/Gaul force that he liked and was affordable, and we were good to go.

 The models turned up and I discovered a few issues. The Essex Miniatures Camel riders require you to buy the camels separately. I had not done so. Their website does state this very clearly but I'd missed it. This meant that 5 light cavalry cost me £29, which I feel is excessive. Camels are essentially light cavalry with feigned flight included in their cost, I do not feel they merit that sort of outlay. The chariots I had ordered were 1/72 Scale, or between 18-20mm. They haven't come out of the box since then. The Warlord Phalangites have no command models included in their boxes, these are a separate purchase. Nonetheless I was very happy with what I had.

I have done an unboxing video of the army: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g3OWeeeSew

I then set about building the army and (more excitingly) ordering the rest of it. I'd worked the force out to 400pts, despite having not played a game as yet.... It consists of: 5 Pikemen units, 2 Pikemen Levy units, 1 Peltast unit, 2 skirmishing archer units, 1 Ageman heavy cavalry unit, 1 medium cavalry unit, 1 light cavalry unit, 1 Camel unit, 1 light chariot unit, 1 elephant, plus 3 commander stands. I ordered some Phalangite command models to give the units standards/musicians/leaders and give them some life. These came from Aventine miniatures and 1st Corps, whom I also ordered the Ageman heavy cavalry. The chariots are from Newline Miniatures and are the Indian 4-horse chariots as the only other 4-horse chariots available are the Seleucid Scythed chariots, which are too heavy-looking, and also fielded by the Ptolemaic's mortal(ish) enemies, so they were a no-go. The light cavalry are the Victrix Numidians, which look stunning, and one hindsight would have been a more sensible purchase than the camels I reckon.

The queen on the throne is the Sultana from John Popson/Effincool Minis Kickstarter The Court of the Sultana. I've had her for a wee while and never had a use for her until now. Whilst she is not at all the most historically accurate model, she does give me a cool, unique centre-piece to the force.

Hopefully another video and blog post will follow once the rest of the stuff gets here. Until next time, take care and happy gaming.