General Wargaming

Battle of Plataea (updated 29/4/2013)

Posted by Tantallon2 on 07 Feb 2013, 20:01

No pictures just text at the moment but I thought putting my thoughts down will make it easier for me to actually try and reach my goals! Hopefully those of you interested in the project will nag me from time to time as to how things are going.

I have been painting up a number of ancient armies (ostensibly for FoG) but in a rather haphazard fashion (EIR; Parthian, Successor, Claasical Greek etc). I've decided to try and accelerate completing some of the armies by just focusing on a couple and by looking at the forces necessary to fight a actual conflict. Inspired by Newline's Spartans I decided to "do" Plataea - "The most glorious victory ever seen". Plataea is arguably the most interesting battle of the early Persian wars.

So I need a Greek army consisting of hoplites and some archers and light troops. Although the Greeks on the day didn't have any cavalry I'll add a unit for variety. My intention is to have the following:

Spartan Hoplites (armoured) 3 battle groups of 24 figures each (24 painted already)
Athenian Hoplites (armoured) 3 battle groups of 24 figures each (48 painted already)
Other Hoplites (protected) 3 battle groups 24 figures each
Helot light infantry 2 battle groups of 12 figures each (24 painted already)
Athenian archers 1 battle group of 16 figures (16 already painted)
Athenian light cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures

So I'm pretty well advanced with the Greeks already.

For the Persians I'm being pretty ambitious but a lot of the Persians can be morphed into other armies right up to the Sassanids so they are worth persevering with. I am dividing my Persian forces into three satrapal forces and a national force. Each satrapal force consists of 1 Sparabara of Median/Persian troops, 1 unit of "Companion" heavy cavalry then various units representing the native troops of the satrapal area. The national force consists of Immortals and Guard cavalry.

Persian National Guard (Maradonius)
Immortal Sparabara 2 battle groups of 27 figures each
Guard heavy cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures

Eastern Satrapal force
Satrapal Sparabara 1 battle group 27 figures (27 figures painted)
Iranian Levy 1 battle group (shielded medium infantry with bows) 36 figures
Iranian Light infantry 1 battle group (bows and light spear) 24 figures (24 painted)
Indian bowmen 1 battle group 24 figures (24 painted)
Arachosian light cavalry 1 battle group 12 figures
Companion cavalry 1 battle group heavy cavalry 12 figures
Iranian light cavalry 2 battle groups of 18 light cavalry (36 painted)

Median/Persian Satrapal Force
Satrapal Sparabara 2 battle groups each 27 figures
Median light cavalry 2 battle groups of 12 each (12 painted)
Companion heavy cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures
Median slingers 2 battle groups of 20 figures (16 painted)

Asia Minor Satrapal Force
Satrapal Sparabara 1 battle group of 27 figures
Kappadocian light archers 1 battle group of 12 figures
Kappadocian light spears 1 battle group of 12 figures
Asian Greek city archers (light) 1 battle group of 16 figures (16 painted)
Companion cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures (12 painted)
Kappadocian Noble cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures (6 painted)
Light cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures

Mediazing Greek
Heavy peltasts 1 battle group of 24 figures (24 painted)
Heavy greek cavalry 1 battle group of 12 figures

Should look pretty impressive when I've finished (which will hopefully before I die!).
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by ToneTW on 25 Feb 2013, 21:04

I'm looking forward to seeing more of these units Dougie. You seem also to have quite a few Persian units done.

You are doing the right thing by setting out a project and focusing on it. I've done the same by focusing on Carthage then will focus on Rep Rome otherwise I would paint on a whim and not have any completed armies and no cavalry (which I always put off doing).

I'm working on some Iberian Light Cavalry at the moment once that's done I need to do Iberian Infantry then I should be able to field a decent 2nd Punic war Carthaginan force for Impetus.
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Posted by dykio on 26 Feb 2013, 08:59

Wauw, this is imho a very big task (and a great subject for one of my favorite periodes) . Would take me 2 lifetimes to get only the half finished !. So al the luck and please show some pictures of youre progress !! :thumbup: :thumbup:
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dykio  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Peter on 27 Feb 2013, 12:27

Sounds great, this big project :thumbup:
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by Ochoin on 01 Mar 2013, 07:56

FoG armies (even the Starter ones) require quite a lot of figures.
However, even by this standard, this will a large army: 1400pts?

I look forward to seeing photos, many photos.

donald
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Ochoin  Scotland
 
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Posted by Tantallon2 on 01 Mar 2013, 08:27

Donald: Yes, it will be a big army *as will be their Greek opposition). The aim is, however, to have armies large enough to split so they can be used each other for civil war battles such as Cunaxa and of course you need large armies for the Alexandrian battles. Also, many of the components can be used in other armies so the end result is not just a single large army but the nuclei of a number of "asian" armies.

Photos: very soon! I was very inspired by the Sassanid arr Phil Hendry http://www.philhendry.me.uk/Phil_Wargam ... ersls.html

Bigger scale of course but I really liked the units photographed with the white background so I bought a couple of white shelves yesterday and made a suitable white support. So, I'll post pictures of the individual units in this thread (first ones this weekend) then when I have all my units I'll do a big cinematic version of Plataea with full scenery.

A man has to have a hobby!
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by Tantallon2 on 02 Mar 2013, 21:12

A couple of pictures of the first of my satrapal Sparabara units:

Image

The whole unit with the spearmen in front and the archers firing from behind. All my satrapal forces will have white (or off white) caps while the Immortals and other Guard troops will have yellow.

Image
view of a hoplite advancing towards the sparabara

Image
Command stand.

Image
Command stand from behind. Quite pleased with the officer's leopard skin cloak and natty hat.

More soon!
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by Peter on 02 Mar 2013, 22:22

Wonderfull painted figures and basing :thumbup:
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by Konrad on 03 Mar 2013, 10:07

GREAT!GREAT!GREAT! :thumbup: :thumbup:
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Konrad  Germany
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Posted by Tantallon2 on 06 Mar 2013, 23:09

Next unit: Median Light cavalry (first unit).
Image

whole unit - figures all Newline, shield transfers by LBM, shields by Xyston.

Image

Close up of command base:
Image

Quite pleased with the leopard skin again.

Image

I have also done a Satrap command base. Mounted standard bearer is Newline but the two Persian figures are OOP from Tom. Banner is LBM but the eagle standard is actually a 28mm one from Aventine.

Image
Image

More leopard skin!
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by Ochoin on 07 Mar 2013, 03:45

Gob-smacked!


donald
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Ochoin  Scotland
 
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Posted by ToneTW on 07 Mar 2013, 16:00

:love: Lovely stuff again Dougie. Colours are great and the leopard skins are spot on ;-)

What colours did you use for the leopard skins I'll eventually have to paint mine and not sure where to start with them?
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ToneTW  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Tantallon2 on 07 Mar 2013, 18:41

Hi Tone, The leopard skins were done a variety of ways but the one I found works best was to paint the whole skin white then paint everything except the edges with GW Averland sunset. Wash with GW Agrax Earthshade. If you are painting one of the Newline horses that has a skin on it the wash will make a pretty good job on its own and you might be tempted to leave it at that but what I did next was paint some GW mournfang brown on the spots on the yellow part of the skin and then apply three small lines of black around each brown blob. On the white bits paint black blobs only.

It doesn't take as long as it probably sound and the effect is pretty good for this scale (IMHO!).
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by KenzoSato on 07 Mar 2013, 20:34

:drool:
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Posted by Peter on 08 Mar 2013, 17:34

Such nice colourfull painted figures! I love them :love: :thumbup:
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Posted by MABO on 08 Mar 2013, 23:12

I am deeply impressed! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
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Posted by Tantallon2 on 29 Apr 2013, 23:48

Not been able to do much on this project because we were having some building work done and the wife insisted I do another sort of painting! However, back now and here is my latest unit: slingers for my Persian/Median satrap:
Image[/URL]

Although these are satrapal forces rather than levy I wanted them to look a bit rough (slingers were at teh bottom of the heap) so they are uniformed but very dowdy.

Image[/URL]

I have another 24 slingers to paint :(

Image[/URL]

Close up - great faces as ever. There are just two poses but the sling and arm on the "firing" slinger can be bent to give some variety.

Since slingers are a bit boring here is another unit I had already completed: Kappadocian Noble Cavalry:
Image[/URL]

Glorious in purple

Image[/URL]

Nice cloaks too.

Image[/URL]

This is a very versatile unit that can be used for a large range of different armies. I have another six to add to the unit so I can either have it as one large unit (8 bases) or two small units (4 + 4)

Not useful for Plataea but on the early Achaemenid list: scythed chariots:
Image[/URL]

These are all Newline chariots but with a Zvezda charioteer for variety but who is that in the middle chariot?
Image[/URL]

This is what you get if you buy the character figure "Darius" from Newline: basically their scythed chariot with the Darius figure (later Achaemenid I know but he could double for one of the earlier King of Kings and indeed Xerxes travelled by chariot quite a bit). The shield is an extra.

Image[/URL]
Close up.
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Tantallon2  Scotland
 
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Posted by Paul on 30 Apr 2013, 09:04

:love: :love: :love: :love: Eyecandy!!!!!!!:headbang:
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Posted by Peter on 01 May 2013, 10:58

Paul wrote: :love: :love: :love: :love: Eyecandy!!!!!!! :headbang:

I can only agree with these words :love: :thumbup:
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Posted by Konrad on 01 May 2013, 11:46

Wonderful colorful pics! :love:
Great painted figs! :thumbup:
What a great work! :shock:
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