Later Achamenid Persian 25mm BBDBA army

Like most of my early armies, the Achamenid Persians are a mish mash of different manufacturers and painting styles, as I was figuring out what worked and what didn't. I have included an Indian elephant element as well, as it was well documented that they were present in Darius' army, but not engaged.

Essex Indian elephant

The heavy cavalry command
Old Glory figures

Old glory heavy and medium cavalry
Javelins were replaced with piano wire javelins

A small contingent of Indian cavalry

Foundry Skythian nobles heavy cavalry

The heavies

The light cavalry:
Foundry, and Essex Skthians, Numidians, and Persians

Sythed Chariots from left to right: Navigator, 1st Corp, Essex

Foundry Greek Mercenaries

More Foundry Greeks

The Greeks that fought for Darius were slaughtered by
Alexander after Darius fled the field.

Persian Auxilia - There is some debate as to the form of Persian heavy infantry.
I opted to show it as more of a levy than formed infantry

The auxilia or kardakes:
1st corp, Black Tree design and Essex. The Black Tree Design were my favorites, but they are a little large.

The entertainment: The dancer is a huge reaper figure, on which I sculpted pants to appease my wife. The audience is seated on raised ground to minimize the height differential and consists of a modified 1st Corp Persian and Essex Indian cavalrymen, both with epoxy putty drinking flasks

Alexandrian Macedonian 25mm BBDBA army

The Alexandrian Macedonians were my first Big Battle De Bellis Antiquitatis (BBDBA) army. It all started when my local hobby shop decided to not carry Foundry miniatures and put their remaining stock on clearance. Over the course of the next year I kept buying all the "World of the Greeks" range that I could, supplementing with Old Glory, Essex and Navigator when I couldn't get the Foundry equivalent at an affordable price. The results are shown below.

The pikes advance. Eastern Phalanx and old veterans take to the front

Lots of pointing things on which to impale yourself

Navigator (I think) later Thracians w/ spear or rhomphia

Old Glory peltasts - Normally I like Old Glory, but these were some of the ugliest figures I have ever purchased. By doing a lot of transplant surgery, hacking off limbs and heads, I was able to assemble about half a bag of what I thought were acceptable figures.

Nicely painted shields though!

The Peltasts

The Hypaspysts - probably they didn't have uniform shield designs, but this helps to distinguish them on the miniature field of battle from the pikes

The Greek and Macedonian Cavalry

The knight generals and companions

The artillery and camp followers

Note the unlucky fellow with the arrow in his chest.

The light horse

Celts - the Beginning

These Celts are the beginnings of two separate armies: The Gauls, and the Celtic contingent of a later Carthaginian army. I will be able to utilize the elephant elements of my Pyrhic army, along with the Gauls to form the core of that army. The Libyan spearmen are still in their bags, but should make an appearance in the next year or so. The Celts below are a mixture of Foundry (the command stand) and Gripping Beast miniatures.

Camillan Roman army

The Old Glory Camillan Roman's are quite a bargain. I found the figures to be quite well sculpted, especially in comparison to their Greek and Italians. I will eventually have a BBDBA army of these guys, and the number of figures you get with each bag lends itself nicely to a triple strength army. I got these on sale, but was unable to find a bag of psiloi, so I purchased the psiloi from Crusader. Can't say enough about the quality of the figures and the service I received from Crusader in the UK.

The army arrayed

Cavalry and Cavalry command

A view of the Romans that only the general should ever see.

The Principes - spear

The Hastati - blade

The psiloi

DBA Pyrhic army

With the addition of the following elements, I can easily morph my triple BBDBA Alexandrian Macedonian army into a Pyrhic army. The figures are mostly Old Glory and are meant to represent the Italian allies of Pyrhus, such as the Samnites, some helenized coastal cities (Foundry Miniatures - Greeks), Tarantine light cavalry, and shielded heavier cavalry. There is of course the addition of three jumbos as well, two of which are Old Glory castings, and one a converted Dacian elephant from Gripping Beast Miniatures.

Jumbo Jumbo Jumbo

The army arrayed

Italian Samnite Auxilia

Italian ally spearmen

Helenized Italian ally spearmen

Tarantine light Cavalry

Shielded heavy cavalry

Here are some more

Portuguese and Spanish Front Rank figures with British heavy Dragoons above.

Expandable photos

Here is an expandable image of the Brunswickers for a good close look. I must have messed up the formatting in the previous post, so I'll try and repost those pictures that won't expand.

I found a couple more photos that I wanted to share. You can't help but love a guy comfortable enough to take the field in yellow boots.

I believe this is the Front Rank figure for Uxbridge, but I'm not sure of that. At any rate I painted him as a commander of Hussars from an Illustration In Phillip Haythornthwaite's book on Waterloo or the Peninsular War. Below are some British heavy dragoons. My standard line is that they are from 1812 and the officers were still sticking to their traditional bicornes during the year that they received their new helmets. The truth is that I had two figures with helmets and two without. I like my story though and I'm sticking to it.

If anyone out there in blog world can tell me why some of my photographs will enlarge when clicked and some won't, I'd love to know the secret. I hope these will enlarge so you can get a good look.

25mm Napoleonic Sampler for DBN

My Napoleonic miniatures languished for many years inside the dark recesses of their cardboard coffins, but my discovery of DBN, a rules set for napoleonics based on the DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) principles has breathed new life into that era for me. I have chosen to double base the troops using bases twice the size of the 15mm bases. This makes for elements of eight infantry (for Line), while I have stuck to the cavalry recomendations of 3 or 4 figures per element. An element represents about 2000 infantry. Thus I have been frantically rebasing my old figures for DBN, while adding new units as well.

First - the old, good, bad and ugly: These are really old minifigs that I tried to spruce up a bit when I rebased them. Lord only knows how many coats of paint they have.

Below are a few samples of Hinchliffe French units that I have been trying to make presentable while not completely stripping off all the old paint. These were originally painted when I was about 14 years old...a mere thirty years ago.

Now for the good stuff: A mix of Perry, Foundry and Front Rank:

Of course no army would be complete without the big cheses, so here they are in all their glory, including his highness, the biggest cheese: