15mm Gallic Chariots

The DBMM army lists allow for up to eighteen chariots, but I thought a dozen would be sufficient for my needs. I was however not entirely happy with the chariot riders as initially supplied as they were all gaesatae figures, whereas I thought the Xyston soldurii would be more appropriate and especially because I wanted to base a few as generals:

I ordered two packs of soldurii and ended up with seventeen figures, using a dozen as chariot riders and putting four aside for an additional solurii element, while the spare figure and a gaesatae warrior found their way on to the chieftain's base as an additional bodyguard:

The sub-generals are likewise differentiated with one additional chariot runner each, while the remaining gaesatae were put to use in the recently completed gaesatae contingent:

The chariot models themselves came in seven parts which needed to be glued together. Not overly difficult, but they probably won't stand up to much rough handling:

The fiddliest bit was sticking some fuse wire on the models for reigns. I nearly gave up, but am glad I persevered as I think the models look better with the drivers holding something other than thin air. I did have a chuckle to myself when, just I had used up my last piece of fuse wire, the pool filter circuit board tripped about three hours later. I am sure some water got in there with rain we have had overnight, and I don't believe that modern circuits require fuse wire anyway, but I enjoyed the irony of the moment nonetheless:

The only other thing I wrestled with was cutting the riders and standing driver figures from their bases, but thought I'd end up making too much of a mess of the figures themselves. Besides which, it is really only noticeable if viewed from the rear:

That's all the units for this project completed. I still have the one element of soldurii and four more cavalry elements to finish, all recent additions, and I am hopeful I'll be able to finalise everything within the next couple of weeks.

15mm Spanish Scutarii

While waiting for the arrival of some chariot riders to complete my Gallic army, I thought I'd embark upon another project in the queue and make a start on a 15mm ancient Spanish army. The first unit completed is comprised of ten elements of Spanish scutarii:

The figures are again Xyston miniatures, and are based in elements of three figures each:

The Xyston packs are of eight figures each, normally four with swords and another four with javelins, so I decided to keep the blades together and will base the javelin-armed figures on separate bases. I am hoping this will give me more flexibility between the DBMM Iberian and Celtiberian Spanish army lists:

The shield designs are again by Little Big Men studios, and I think they have quite a nice Spanish look to them:

I have mainly used different browns for these figures, with the occasional white and off-white tunic thrown in, to give them a more subdued look:

I was also intending to do the bases with more of an arid theme, along the lines of the Ottoman Turks completed last year, but remembered that some of these units will be fighting alongside the Gauls in several army lists and thought that different base styles in the same army may end up looking a bit odd on the table:

The unit also contains the first of six command stands, and I should be able to field around sixty elements of scutarii when completed:

We actually managed a dry-run of DBMM 3.1 today with a throw-away game pitting Babylonians against Macedonians. This was my first Ancients game since WRG Version 6, but luckily the guys I am playing with are all conversant with earlier versions of DBMM.

It still took four of us to get our heads around the rules but I found them quite enjoyable, although my hope is that we will also be able to give 'To The Strongest' a run-through in the near future.

I am hoping to complete the chariots over the following week, followed by four additional elements of Gallic cavalry which will then see the end of that project. I'll probably then try to do another couple of units of Spanish, although there are some Napoleonic French cuirassiers that have been patiently sitting atop the work desk for a year now and which I really should complete before I start losing figures.