Ghaznavid Army Completed

After having completed the Ghaznavids a couple of weeks ago I thought it time to take a few pictures of the assembled army:

As DBMM armies go, it packs quite a punch. Even though it is ostensibly cavalry-based, the limited infantry options are quite effective and the ability to field up to eight elephants can be very handy, albeit expensive:

Some of these figures, such as the horse archers, Daylami infantry and four elements of  allied Arab cavalry will find their way into other armies now that I have decided to press on with Daylami dynasty and Arab Conquest projects:

This is my first complete Forged in Battle army. I have done a few of their lovely buildings in the past and various camp and baggage figures, but never a whole army. They have a great range and the figures are well-proportioned with a nice amount of detail:

A couple of minor quibbles in that some of the mounted figures don't have a large contact point to affix them to horses and the sculpts require a little but of cleanup, although nothing too onerous:

The army consists of 283 foot and cavalry figures, 110 horses and eight elephants, making 401 figures completed in total, and took just over two months:

They have already lost their first outing against some Nikephorean Byzantines, primarily due to an appalling run of bad dice throwing rather than anything I would have done differently. When you field a line of six elephants against skutatoi and essentially all you have to do is beat them on a D6 to kill them, but fail to do any damage for two rounds of combat, you know it's not going to be your day. Hopefully that means I have got all the bad luck for them out of the way in a single game though.

I'm nearly halfway through the Daylami so will probably save any posts on them until they are completed. In the meantime I'll try to post a quick AAR of a recent Napoleonic battle, if I can remember what actually happened.

Last of the Ghaznavids and First of the Daylami

The last two weeks have been spent tying up the loose ends for my 15mm Ghaznavid army. This has seen a variety of troops completed and first up were three elements of artillery. The DBMM Army list only calls for one, but the Forged in Battle pack allows for three and they will no doubt come in useful at some stage:

Nice figures, although to my eye the bolt shooter itself is on the smaller end of the scale:

In the same pack there were enough figures to complete three elements of Naffatun, naptha-throwing infantry:

These are nice little figures carrying bags full of incendiary weapons:

The army list also allows a variety of pike, sword and bow-armed Afghan and Muslim infantry, although not a large amount as the Ghaznavids were primarily a cavalry-based army:

I also found that I had a couple of horse archers and six command figures left over, so I asked Forged in Battle if they would include a few extra horses in a recent order as it seemed a pity to waste them, and they obliged with a dozen free of charge:

Most DBMM armies allow the inclusion of a camp which strengthens the army, unless one's opponents manages to sack it. Baueda have some nice Arabic tents so I ordered a handful. In spite of three coats of Testors Dullcote the blue on the command tent is still reflecting under a harsh direct light, although less so to the naked eye:

Painting in the creases on the command tent was a pain, but I was generally happy with the result:

I was also pleased with the two smaller tents, although the brown one looks a bit like a chocolate in an assortment box:

Finally, the Ghaznavid army list also allows for up to nine elements in total of Daylami allies, a people from the mountainous area in northern Iran. 

There is a separate DBMM Daylami list which includes Ghanznavid allies so I decided to purchase enough to provide for a Daylami army in its own right. I have also purchased options for Arab Conquest and Seljuk Turkish armies and, given it is not yet summer, this is turning into a bit of an Arab spring for me. Here are the nine elements' worth of Daylami that can ally with the Ghaznavids:

And the completed Daylami contingent thus far, with a lot more of the same to come over the following weeks:

The Ghaznavid army is therefore now completed and I believe it has taken me around ten to eleven weeks, which I am quite pleased with. I'll try to haul them all out for a group photo over the coming week.

Ghaznavid Infantry and Elephants

Being primarily a cavalry army there is not a lot of foot in a Ghaznavid army. What little infantry exists is made up of a few Arab and Daylami allies, and a handful of Ghaznavid spear, bow and skirmishers. The DBMM army list allows only four elements of Ghaznavid spear and two each of bow and skirmishers, but given the Forged in Battle packs are comprised of 24 figures I decided to paint the whole lot on the basis that they may come in useful for other rule sets or as stand-ins:

The spear are nice little figures and are quite heavily armoured:

The pack also includes a couple of command figures:

The bowmen are similarly heavily armoured and sculpted in a straightforward firing pose:

In spite of the fact that Forged in Battle's infantry packs are sold as 24 figure bags I have noticed that most actually contain 26 figures. Given that they don't make any specific Ghaznavid skirmishers and only four figures are required, I used some of the leftover figures from the spear bow packs:

I still have the Arab and Daylami infantry to go, but that is the Ghaznavid foot now completed:

One of the nice variations in a Ghaznavid army is the use of elephants. The DBMM list allows for up to five but also has an option to remount up to three generals on elephants, so a potential eight in total:

Given that most of these are rated as superior and cost 20 points, or 36 points if a general (and a whopping 51 if rated as 'brilliant'), fielding all eight would soak up just over half of the 400 point games we usually play, but they would pack quite a punch. 

The only minor quibble with these models is that the Ghaznavids, being based primarily in Afghanistan and modern-day Iran, acquired elephants from their campaigns in India and these elephants look slightly more African than Indian to me. I would also have thought that they could have benefitted from the troops being in some form of howdah or castle rather than simply astride the elephant, but they are still nice little models:

I normally mount my generals on white horses so they stand out to me and my opponents in a game, but didn't want to have white elephants running around so painted the riders' helmets in bronze:

That's another seventy-eight figures completed toward the project:

Next up and as mentioned above, the Arab foot.

Last of the Ghaznavid Cavalry

These two groups of cavalry are not strictly Ghavnavid cavalry but represent Turkish light horse and Arab or Kurdish auxiliary cavalry:

The four elements of Arab cavalry can be rated either as superior cavalry or fast (ie lighter) knights in DBMM and these Forged in Battle Arab armoured cavalry bridge the two classes of troops quite nicely:

There were enough poses in the pack of twelve cavalry figures to provide a fair bit of variety, so they were quite fun to paint:

As noted above, the light cavalry represent predominantly Turkish horse archers which, due to their prowess, are rated as superior light horse:

Again there were a number of poses to choose from and I elected to put the shooting figure on the right of each base so that he didn't look as though he was about to fire an arrow into his compatriot:

Again, lovely figures to paint although I had a bit of difficulty in seating some of them on their mounts and the contact points on a few are not that large. When I reinspected them several were leaning back in a rather precarious position so it took a couple more attempts and touch-ups before I was completely happy with them:

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That is now all the cavalry for the project completed in just over a month, totaling 183 riders and horses and including three spare figures which were helpfully provided in some of the packs and which Ihave put to one side, just in case:

I'm now about to make a start on the foot, with some Ghaznavid bow and spearmen to be first in the queue.