15mm Tibetan Garrison Troops

There is not a lot of infantry in the Tibetan army list, and only two units of actual Tibetans comprised of garrison bowmen and spearmen which i have managed to complete over the past couple of weeks:

Upon reading this the first question that came to my mind was where were they actually garrisoned? The capital Lhasa was the obvious answer, but I was quite interested to find that the capital was only shifted there by the first great Tibetan emperor Songsten Gampo in the 7th Century. Previously the capital was Taktse Castle, a formidable-looking place high in the mountains with, to my eye at least, a far more mystical quality, but probably not conducive to trade and the protection thereof, which is why the I surmise the emperor must have chosen to shift the capital. Whatever the reason, it provided the spark for Tibetan expansion and the beginning of a 250-year empire. The six elements of spearmen are rated as inferior, but don't cost a lot of points and may still come in handy:

The figures are again Khurasan Miniatures:

The six elements of bowmen are slightly better trained and rated as ordinary:

Again they should come in useful and, in the absence of any other choices, suspect they will be making a few appearances.

That's the infantry done. Now back to some cavalry in the form of some bow-armed light horse.

15mm Tibetan Armoured Cavalry

My gaming group is planning a game for four weeks' time in which I aim to field as much of my Tibetan project as I am able to muster, giving me the motivation to get stuck into some armoured cavalry which form the backbone of the Tibetan army list. To this end I managed to complete eighteen elements over the past couple of weeks, including a general and sub-general:

The figures are again from Khurasan Miniatures and I was very pleased with the way they painted up. They were also a welcome change from having to glue on spears and shields:

The King is the mounted figure to the left forefront, with the sword-armed sub-general on the element to the right:

Tibetan cataphracts were recorded by the Chinese historian Du You as being completely armoured "leaving openings only for the two eyes", and that "strong bows and sharp swords cannot injure them", which I think is depicted well by these figures:

In DBMM they are rated as Knights(X) for eXception, which means they fight some troop types as Superior and others as Inferior, which presumably is intended to reflect the relative agility of the opponent:

DBMM also calls for three to four figures per base, with four being the traditional convention. Even though they are closer to a true 15mm figure however, there was no way I felt I could comfortably squeeze four of them on to a 40mm x 30mm base:

Besides which I intend to use the same army for renaissance gaming, and most rule sets there call for only three figures per base anyway:

While the bulk of the figure has been done using GW Ironbreaker for the armour, I tried to make use of a bit of colour on the non-armoured parts to make them interesting without (hopefully) turning them into a riot of gaudy colours:

I have another fifteen elements of these to complete but need to get some Tibetan garrison archers and spearmen finished first, which I hope to have completed within the next couple of weeks.

15mm Republican Roman Hastati and Roman Villa

While commencing the Tibetan army project I thought I'd also make a start on a 15mm Republican Roman army, The idea here is to have enough options to span the DBMM lists from the earlier Camillan Romans through the Polybian list, to the reformed Marian army.

They will be organised into the four core urban legions of the earlier Republican era, starting with twenty-five elements of sword-armed hastati:

The figures are Xyston and are large even for 18mm figures, but I think they look the part when assembled together in bulk and it is still quite easy to fit the required four figures on each base:

While many prefer to field their legions with plain shields, I like the Little Big Man Studios shield transfers and believe they provide the figures with an additional level of interest:

Even though they are simply-attired the figures are nicely sculpted with quite sharply-defined detail, making painting them very enjoyable:

I have also recently completed the last of my Forged in Battle 15mm buildings, this time a Roman villa:

This is a two-part model, with a main building and a separate courtyard:

That gives me fifteen Roman buildings in total, and I am currently debating whether to affix them to a terrain board or keep them detached so they can be placed on top of one of several cobblestone squares I have. The latter obviously has the advantage of being able to remove buildings or move them around as required, but I am still leaning toward the idea of putting them into some form of permanent arrangement.

It's back to some more Tibetans over the coming weeks. We have a game planned for them in six weeks' time so I want to give that project a bit of a push and see how many I can complete before then.

15mm Himalayan Tribesmen

I have been wanting to sample Khurasan Miniature's figures for some time and decided to take the plunge with a DBMM Tibetan army, mainly because it is something a little different but also because they are quite a decent army to field under those rules.

I thought I'd start off with some Himalayan tribesmen, bow-armed for skirmishing:

There are a choice of two poses, which is fine by me as there are two figures on each base:

Khurasan appear to contract to a number of different sculptors so I can't attest to the consistency between ranges but the Tibetans appear to be consistent within themselves and are true 15mm, therefore much smaller in stature than the Xyston Ancients I spent most of last year working on:

The figures are quite detailed, but I found that I had to work harder than what I was used to in order to pick out some of it, only realising that it was there when I had completed a few of the figures as opposed to Xyston sculpts where some of the detail is almost exaggerated in size and relief, and therefore much easier to paint. I would probably describe the detail on these figures as subtle, but comprehensive:

That's the first unit of this army completed, with some Tibetan cataphracts to hopefully join them before too long:

Next up however will be some Republican Roman legionaries for another army I am hoping to complete concurrently with the Tibetans.

15mm Numidian Army

Following the completion of the Numidan project I got all the figures together for a group shot. I actually completed this two weeks ago, but seem to have had a busy start to the year so have not had a chance to sort through these until now:

The army actually only took me six weeks in total to complete, including a dozen elements of light horse I finished in October, although the extra time at home over Christmas and New Year certainly helped.

I am quite glad however it didn't take me any longer than that because my motivation on this one seriously waned toward the end. Nothing to do with the quality of the figures as the Xyston sculpt are up to their usual high standard, but more as a result of the lack of diversity in troop type and the rather mundane attire:

I suppose the other thing is the realisation that they are unlikely to take the field that often as they are an army lacking any real strength, composed as they are mainly of light cavalry and infantry. They will however make a useful allied contingent for other armies and, who knows, if I can convince the others in the group to put up a similar army in opposition they may yet get a run or two.

The actual army is comprised of the following:

3 General/command elements
34 Light horse elements
35 Javelin-armed elements
23 Auxiliary infantry elements
8 Sling-armed elements
8 Bow-armed elements
3 Elephants

This gives a total of 250 foot and cavalry figures, 76 horses and 3 elephants.

Next, on to some 15mm Ancient/Renaissance Tibetans, and some Republican Romans. I plan to do both at the same time, so hopefully there will be enough variety in these two projects to keep me motivated for the next few months at least.

Last of the Numidians

I managed to complete the balance of my 15mm Numidian project over the Christmas/New Year break, and based them the following week. This was comprised of twenty-three bases of Numidian auxiliary infantry, and three elephants:

The auxiliary infantry can be rated either as inferior, or upgraded to ordinary if representing Roman-trained auxiliaries:

There was the usual mix of four poses among the infantry packs:

And the same number in the command packs:

I purchased three elephants, the maximum allowed in the DBMM army list, but just the basic Xyston model with a mahout on board thinking this was possibly more likely to have been utilised in battle by the Numidians:

Unfortunately the elephants look a bit shinier and darker here than they do in the flesh in spite of the usual Testor's Dullcote, but these are the first photos taken with a new iPhone, the one with three cameras on it (which still seems like overkill in spite of having the supposed benefits explained to me), so it will no doubt take me a while to adjust to the different resolution and lighting requirements.

That's this army completed. I'll hopefully have another post up with the final group shot within the next few days.

2019 Final Tally

I only record broad figures, but 2019 was my most productive year so far with the completion of three armies in 15mm, and getting to within seventeen figures of a fourth. The three completed were Gauls, Spanish and Carthaginians, although the Gallic project also consumed the last four months of 2018, and the fourth is a Numidian contingent of around three hundred figures with the last handful being based at the moment.

The final tally was as follows:

Foot and mounted figures               1191
Horses (including 13 elephants)     278
Wagons and chariots                       28
15mm buildings                              29

Buildings and wagons aside, this represents a grand total of 1469 15mm figures completed, which exceeded my original goal of 1200.

Looking back, I was happiest with my efforts on the 15mm Gallic and Carthaginian chariots:

The Carthaginian elephants:

Xyston Spanish light cavalry:

The Hovels Gallic village buildings:

And the 15mm Baueda bridge model:

The most satisfying aspect of 2019 was that most of the painted figures saw at least one game, with around a dozen or so DBMM battles throughout the year as well as two Napoleonic 15mm games, one of which went for several months over a series of successive Monday evenings.

I also managed to restrain expenditure to a reasonable amount (at least when compared to other years), although 2019 did include the addition of 28mm Renaissance TAG Polish and Muscovite armies and a 15mm Khurasan Tibetan army to the pile as well as approximately 50 of the Cruel Seas German and British boats.

As for 2020, I have targeted a 15mm Xyston Republican Romans and Tibetans for completion as they should get some game time, as well as working on some 28mm Foundry French and Front Rank Russians. While 2019 was very productive I found my interest levels flagging a little in completing the Numidians, so I am also hoping to dip into some stockpiled Ancient, Napoleonic and WWII naval projects along the way, to mix things up a little and hopefully provide a little more variety to the painting side of the hobby.