Sunday 13 October 2019

15mm Carthaginian Elephants

When I think of Carthaginians I automatically think of elephants, even though Hannibal only managed to get a handful across the Alps; according to some sources such as Goldsworthy, just one.

The DBMM army list allow up to nine but I ended up purchasing an even ten, again from Xyston miniatures:


















There are two body poses with a choice of two different heads, one with armoured tusks, so it is possible to make up four different elephant combinations:


















They are each supplied with two crew from a choice of three figures, plus two different mahouts:


















The elephant figures themselves were supplied in two halves with, as mentioned, a separate head, and the figures fitted together very nicely with the mahout conveniently sitting on top of the exposed join between the head and two halves:


















and the tail blending in with the rear join very nicely:


















The only downsides are that the tower comes in four bits so took a bit of lining up, one of the crew figures had a massive arm which made him look a little as though he was suffering from elephantiasis and was difficult to file down, and the extended trunk meant I had to line them up diagonally on the base to allow them to be positioned line astern if required. Minor quibbles about what are otherwise excellent models:



The tower comes with cast-on shields, so I used some of the Little Big Men Studios decals to again give them a bit of variety:




































I now only have a few stands of character figures and eight early Carthaginian chariots left to go, which means the end of this particular project is now very much in sight.

20 comments:

  1. Ten elephants? Wow! That is a parade. They all look fab. After this fine project ends, what will be next?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jonathan. It will be on to some more Numidians next, which I hope won't take me too long, and then perhaps a Tibetan army for something a little different.

      Delete
  2. Your collection of elephants is most impressive and gorgeous!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Phil. I'm hoping a few of them at least will get a game in a couple of weeks' time.

      Delete
  3. This is a Circus Maximus!
    Great collection, now to War!
    Best wishes,
    Jeremy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jeremy, all ready for their first outing a week on Saturday (at least for some of them).

      Delete
  4. Lovely looking elephants! They look ace!
    Best Iain

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Iain, I just hope they live up to expectations.

      Delete
  5. I really like the edging details on the blankets. Will you try and field them all at once in some sort of horrible army list that will either obliterate the enemy or die rapidly?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Dave. We did try a game where we used seven elephants to try to counter some Ptolemaic Xystophoroi cavalry, but our opponents very quickly marched them to the other side of the table even after we had used a "brilliant stroke" to switch deployment. By the time the elephants had plodded across to meet them the game was over, so it was an expensive way to tie up a quarter of our army's points. In retrospect we should have split the elephants across two commands, but it may be a while before we try it again with so many!

      Delete
  6. Awesome! that is really one can only say - Awesome! :o)
    cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Phil, very much appreciated. I hope to get to some Xyston Greeks myself within the next few months.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
    3. Thanks Phil - I have contacted you offline as suggested.

      Delete
  7. That is a superb herd of pachyderms, Lawrence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Mark, I have always like fielding an elephant or ten when I can.

      Delete
  8. Whoa, Nellies! A very fine herd there! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Peter. Three of them had their first game last weekend and managed to get into action, performing quite creditably against some Lydian light cavalry. Unfortunately it was their heavy cavalry we were after, and they managed to easily avoid our slow-moving Nellies.

      Delete