I/51 later Sargonid Assyrians

I look at this project with very mixed feelings. The Assyrians as described in one of Donald Featherstone's books (maybe wargames through the ages?) gave me the same sort of oooo! feeling that most young teens get wargaming nazi German armies. These green-sawdust based elements must date back to among the very first DBA sides I converted (circa 2010) and are directly inspired by a photo of Airfix Waterloo Cuirassiers converted to Assyrian cavalry. 

The 3.0 list later Sargonids are essentially a whole new project, barring the one element of Hd that I converted for 2.0 using Atlantic Indians. I conclude I should have bought the infantry as well, many years back when I bought the allied infantry.

bench update 14 July 2024

The bastille may be stormed but who is in charge? Happy Bastille Day!

No real update, I'm trying to recover from rhomboid muscle strain from too much typing and painting. My current WIP are 28mm fantasy minis for RPGs.

I've reboxed a couple armies into foolscap size file boxes, and taken a few boxes off the shelves to decide which rebasing comes next. I'm leaning towards Scots Common but it's a huge job with repainting involved. I think all the final four or five left to rebase are in need of stripping and repainting, if I can motivate myself.

Mini review: El Cid Spanish command, HaT #8248

Plasticsoldierreview.com should be your go-to for this set, but I will add my 2 cents worth here.

Working on these minis swept me back 5 decades to the early 70s Airfix minis like British Paratroopers! The plastic in my set had the same consistency to Airfix. Judging from the official review this differs across batches, your set may be more akin to the rubbery composite HaT used for all my other El Cid period sets.

Detail is good but not as excellent as on the softer plastic: again this may be the plastic, or the mould may have been a little past its use-by date. Chainmail armor ending and cloth beginning are not entirely clear. The minis definitely have that "scaled down" detail that Nicholas Kove pioneered for Airfix.

As long as your craft knife is very sharp, and you are patient, you should have little trouble with mould lines. There are few areas where you wish the moukd designer had opted for a different division. 

Separating the shields from the sprue is tricky, two of mine ended up sliced. Err on the sprue side and trim off later.

The version of plastic I had takes varnish/stain base very well, with the exception of the shields. That means you can suit yourself as to paint technique thereafter.

Those shields, hoo boy. I would prefer silly pin-and-hole to nothing. They are sculpted so that the round ones have to be "at the ready" although two of the four minis clearly show the shield-strap slung for a shield on back. I used superglue for a very tenuous tack, then fortified that by dribbling PVA into the join.

The final product looks great, I'll just have to handle them very gently.

bench update 07 July 2024

Woo-hoo! These El Cid command pieces are very close to completion! Yesterday was shields and standards day, plus a few very minor tidyups on the knights.

Today, the banners/gonfalons went on the staves and those are now glued in place:

Bench update 01 July 2024

I'm catching up with the mini-project, set aside while I refit the Mycenaean elements. This is Hat's El Cid command, using four foot and three mounted, which is roughly half what the box offers you. It took me quite a long time to (a) decide which army to paint these for (b) find a colour scheme and (c) decide to stick to standard 3.0 bases. So the delay was a win.

For these command pieces I'm using layers of color over the initial seal. Patiently working up through white, moon yellow, deep yellow then red or green allows thin paint that naturally highlights.

Mycenaean refit complete!

With all the reshuffling I now end up with seven, not six, 4Sp or 4Pk elements. One of them is the full armor lads, so if it doesn't feel appropriate to have what we are led to believe was out of service by the time of the last siege of Troy. Or I can lend a 4Sp element out: but I think once all the morphs and (guilty shrug) new purchases are in, I'll have plenty of Trojan spears. The issue will be finding 4Bd elite/hero elements. But I'll save those thoughts for a later post.

Mycenaean refit 22 June 2024

I owe Caesar Miniatures an apology for saying they designed their sprue count around an older edition. My mistake was to build the two boxes of chariots first, and only then proceed to the foot. As long as the armored archers are used creatively and the spears/pikes from the chariots are repurposed as foot, the numbers are right. My only remaining gripe is that there aren't any obvious Myrmidon warrior minis.

The rebuilt crew for chariots. Two kneeling archers used as General's flankers.

Where the two spare dendra-armored spears were yoinked from, plug in two alternate heavy spears/pikes from the chariots. They stand proud so probably not the best choice.

The other swap-arounds and conversions including "Lykian" 3Bd on left, from the Philistine/Sea Peoples by HaT.