Slings and Arrows

Unlike Hamlet, I thoroughly enjoyed working through these slings and arrows, although I appeared to have purchased far more than I require in that the DBMM army lists which I am using as a guide allow for six elements of either, and I appear to have purchased the equivalent of twenty-four.

It wasn't a big task though, and they may come in handy at some point in the future. First up are thirty-two slingers:

There is a choice of four figures in the Xyston range, so a variety of possible combinations when arranged on bases of two figures each:

A few of the bases have pebbles scattered on them, which is ready ammunition for sling-armed troops:

I often wondered how much of an injury a slinger would do to a heavily-armoured opponent. I had no doubt that a skilled slinger could seriously injure the enemy with a well-directed missile which would undoubtedly be travelling at a substantial velocity, but when I saw these ancient Greek lead pellets fashioned as bullets in the New York Met it gave me a whole new appreciation as to how deadly a weapon it could be, in the right hands.

I can also vaguely recall having read somewhere that it generally wasn't just a case of picking up the nearest pebble, and that there was a much greater level of discernment in the choice of missile:

The Gallic archers were also fun to paint, with a choice of four quite dynamic-looking poses:

There is quite bit of detail on these for 15mm figures, including the fletching on the arrows:

There is some nice definition on the faces and torsos of the figures, and I was happy with the way it was possible to build up some depth to the skin tones:

I was hoping to get this project completed by Christmas but realise I still have close to a couple of hundred figures and a few long lunches to get through before then, so it will be more likely January before it is finalised. My gaming group normally takes a break until mid to late January anyway, so it will give me a bit of time to finish ploughing my way through DBMM version 2.1 in preparation for a few ancients games we have planned for the New Year.