15mm Numidian Light Horse and Generals, and Roman Bath House

With the recent finalisation of my Carthaginian army I wanted to return to complete my remaining Numidian cavalry, having painted twelve elements in October. That left me with another twenty-two elements and three generals, or twenty-five elements in total:

The figures are again Xyston, with the usual mix of four rider poses among the light horses and another four poses in the general packs:

As with the earlier batch, I have tried to keep the tunic colours fairly tame, and kept to a few basic shield designs:

Apart from the generals where I incorporated a bit of colour:

That's thirty-seven elements now completed, with some Numidian skirmishers next in the queue:

I also managed to complete another Roman building in the form of a 15mm Forged in Battle Roman bath-house:

This is a solid resin building so no interior, but it is nicely proportioned:

I have one Roman villa left to complete, my intention being to then combine them all into two large terrain pieces for use in DBMM.

15mm Carthaginian Army

The completion of the eight Carthaginian heavy chariots means that I have now finished the ancient Carthaginian project, so I thought I'd haul them all out for a few group photographs.

The project gives me enough options for the DBMM early and late Carthaginian lists, spanning just over four hundred years of history, so there are figures here that will never actually be deployed on the table together. The term "army" is therefore probably a bit of a misnomer, but nevertheless I thought I'd assemble them for the sake of posterity.

Here are some early citizen militia based as auxilia, with the Poeni cavalry and Libyan heavy chariots immediately behind:

A close-up of the Sacred Band on the opposite flank:

With Carthaginian generals and chariots behind them:

A closer view of some of the elephants, which I thoroughly enjoyed putting together:

Some Libyan skirmishers:

With early Libyan spearmen behind them, followed by the veteran Libyan spearmen and city militia:

An overview of the entire assemblage:

The project took around three and a half months, and was comprised of the following:

         12 Libyan javelinmen skirmish stands

         18 Libyan spearmen elements

         18 veteran Libyan spearmen elements

         7 cavalry elements (including 3 generals)

         8 Sacred Band elements

         12 city militia spearmen elements

         8 city militia auxilia elements

         5 command personality stands

         10 elephants

         8 heavy chariots

         2 bolt-shooter artillery pieces

All up that is 363 foot and cavalry figures, 53 horses, 10 elephants, 8 chariots and 2 artillery pieces.

Next up I have a few 15mm wagons to complete, and then I'm hoping to get stuck into some more 15mm Numidians I have prepared and which are next in line in the queue.

15mm Carthaginian Chariots

This is the last of the Carthaginians, which presented a bit of an obstacle to overcome. Given that eight heavy chariots means having to paint thirty-two horses and affix thirty-two pieces of fuse-wire for reigns, I knew that this would take some time.

The chariots themselves come in six parts and required gluing together, which is quite fiddly in 15mm, but I am quite pleased with the results:

The Carthaginians had phased out chariots by the Second Punic war, although they did use them for chariot racing. They featured at the battle of the Crimissus River where the Sacred Band were also wiped out.

The crew figures are Libyan rather than Carthaginian, which fits in with the theory that the chariots were actually supplied and crewed by Libyan mercenaries:

The DBMM Early Carthaginian lists lack a but of punch, so the chariots appear to me to be an essential addition to give them a chance against other armies of the period:

That's it for the Carthaginians. Quite pleasing in that I managed to get them finalised in just over three months:

I'll assemble them all and do a final headcount over the coming week, and try to post a group shot or two of the completed project.

15mm Carthaginian Personalities and Artillery

It has been a little while since the last post, due mainly to work and study commitments. At least the latter is now over for the year, so I can finalise the Carthaginian project. As part of this I had purchased many years ago the Carthaginian personality pack and, since I had over-ordered on command figures as well, decided to base these as separate elements. First up, another Hannibal figure:

And another, depicting the great man crossing the Apls (the others look less-ravaged, but unfortunately I didn't have any other Alp-crossing figures):

Including a mounted Hannibal, three so far with a fourth seated counting coins which I am going to use for a camp setting.

The set also comes with a Mago figure, one of Hannibal's brothers who fought alongside him throughout the Second Punic War and appears to have met his end at sea:

And Hasdrubal, Hannibal's other brother who died at the battle of the Metauro river while trying to lead reinforcements for Hannibal through Italy:

And a figure of Maharbal, a Numidian cavalry commander who was one of Hannibal's closest friends and confidants:

I also purchased a 28mm Xyston Hannibal just for good measure:

Also completed are two Carthaginian bolt-shooters:

I am just putting the reigns on a few Carthaginian chariots and hope to have some pictures of these up before the end of the week, whereupon the project will be completed.

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.

15mm Numidian Cavalry

I had originally hoped to complete these prior to a game we had last Saturday, but they didn't make it on to the table in time. I managed to put the finishing touches on them this week, before starting on some Carthaginian elephants:

As with the Carthaginians I have continued to use the Foundry North African skin triad on these figures, and selected a variety of horse colours and experimented with a few shield designs to try to mix things up a little:

The figures are as usual Xyston, with four different poses in each pack:

I have another sixty or so of these figures to complete, but for now it was nice to be able to paint something different before returning to complete the Carthaginian army, for which they will form a useful ally:

We lost the game on Saturday and it would be nice to think things may have turned out differently if these guys had been available, but Hannibal being killed played a larger part in our defeat. That's two generals in the last two games I have now lost so I am probably being a little careless with them, although we did manage to scrape through with a win in the previous game regardless.