A few extra pics

At rear, the 12 x 4Sp elements of the Early Hoplites and to the fore, various light options from the Thracians to mix with them!

These are the Thracians, barring the Thessalian-style CvGen option which is still housed with Later Greek Hoplites. The column to right appears above.

Another view of the Thracians, looking particularly at the 3Ax elements. It also shows how re-grouting over the previous basing came out. 

bench update 17 September 2023

Great, the 12 element early Greek Hoplites army is based up. Just need a nice day to spray anti-shine, and it's finished. 

For earlier and possibly Etruscan armies I'm floppily experimenting with the remaining Atlantic Greeks minis and Caesar Miniatures Mycaenaean vs Trojan minis. By good fortune, Caesar used various bronze age equipment to sub in for their fantasy minis. (I'm referring to the Mycaenaean etc minis of course.) 

Many of the bits are from the dark age or what DBA3.0 lists have as "Villanovan" which - being simply the name of the archeological dig - shows how little is known about the army or armies involved. So I hope to be able to cover at least two armies lists from the mishmash!

Greek/related project iv

Work on the book ii armies finished today as I put the final decals on the pretty - and based - Atlantic 4Sp elements. See the front rank of the previous blog update. These are aimed at morphing with book I Greek hoplites. 

The use of 15mm decals isn't my idea, I got it from wonderful minis by an Italian chap whose site I can't find now. But they really do make the minis. So I've ordered another such pack from Little Big Men Studios. 

I've also been cleaning up the heavier versions of the same Atlantic Greeks, ready to use in Geometric Greeks and morph with book I hoplites. 

Greek/related project iii

Now with all of the book ii Greeks as built as they are going to be, book i is the main focus. Atlantic Greeks, come back, all is forgiven!

These were among the earlier "actually trying" DBA builds I did about 20 years ago, changing spears to long spears to portray what was said to be the Theban style. Then plastic soldier review lambasted the Atlantic designs and I lost interest in them. 

But the sculptor was using a reasonable mix of ancient statuary and old-fashioned art to work from. Even those "we like short shorts" with the cheeky slice of butt-cheek showing, are consistent with an Etruscan bronze!

Anyway here's progress to date, I'm aiming for 12 4Sp elements that can be used for Early Hoplite phalanx, clad in muscle thorax or bronze scale.

Greek/related project ii

It's been a brutal 36 hours of adding sandstone grout, dabbing in pools of watered down PVA, flocking in the same rubber flock mix as the Thebans, more PVA soaked onto the green bush and finally, beige gamers grass!

Let's see what all this has netted:

The general look is consistent across HaT Thracian, HaT Theban, and (IIRC) Zvezda hoplites. Extra minis from Atlantic Greeks and Egyptians and HaT Alexander's Lights and the odd few from Orion Scythians and even Orion Slavs and Esci barbarians!

I believe I can field almost any two II/5 armies except Sparta, so long as they are asymmetrical, meaning that if one has plenty of mounted, the other must have pretty much all Spear and Psiloi. And, I can put a variety of Thracian options onto the board, again with dependence on what the other army/armies have.

So next, doing the same for

Phokian Artillery. That is, next on this wing of the project. At the same time, it's clarifying what I am doing with the Book I Greeks.

Greek/Related project

This begins with the realization that I screwed up on the Thracians. I'd misplaced my Thebans - one of the II/5 options and already on DBA3.0 basing and options - and then I found them, opened the box, and my heart sank. The base flocking is designed to blend with both Italian and Anatolian terrain, and does not use the deep terracotta/green flocking. 

The next stage was assessing the Greek army I had to rebase. It's on card not plywood base but with two exceptions,  the elements are suited to 3.0. The base finish is what put me wrong with the Thracians, that stone/terracotta/green finish.

This picture is day 2 of applying pale sandstone colored grouting latex over the green flocking. 

All going well, I can add the correct flocking and count this as a win.

Dark age or just imagination?

I've been reviewing various images of supposed dark age Grecian warriors. It strikes me that we have a reasonable model for the supposed dark age, in the supposed dark ages of Western Europe. 

Imagine that there were no Christian clerics to record proceedings in that period, or that what writings there were, got destroyed. Then imagine that instead of the many accounts more or less contemporary with that "long fallow night" we have only a series of secondary accounts, all based on Danish, Swedish and Norse skaldic traditions and not committed to writing for hundreds of years.

I hope I don't need to keep drawing out this mental exercise? With what has been more and more revealed about the supposed dark ages, it is hard to maintain that there was such a thing. I believe exactly the same will eventually be admitted about that much earlier break in a sequence.

I/48 Thracians complete!

The shields and standards carefully added and reinforced with glue, it's a finale day. Dry-brushing the grey stone, then carefully adding shallow lakes of diluted PVA and then the green flocking. At this stage, the elements match the basing on the Greek army the optional CvGen comes from.

These are the Thracian components:

Top left, CvGen or 4AxGen options.

Rear middle, 3xLH option, and in front of them, 3x4Ax option.

Foreground, 2xPs(bow). I don't plan to add naked stone-chuckers, because I have no spare Picts/Caledones, and though I have a couple of potential slingers, that looked like being a mini-project in its own right.

Next up the (almost certainly not going to be used) 6xPs to left, and the much-more-likely 6+1x 3Ax to right.

The Ps are really there to feed into other morphs like the Geometric Greeks. Or in case I want the 7x3Ax for Geometric Greeks and want a wheelbarrow army here.

Finally, the heavy core option, 6x4Ax, many with rhomphaia. Perfect for doing adequately against anything except knights in open country.

Those with sharp eyes will have spotted a few ringer minis so far. These include Esci barbarians given javelins that I originally converted for the Geometric Greeks but have added the shield for this project. 

It's a nice thought that some of my earlier conversions, Atlantic Roman mounted, have reunited with some Atlantic Roman chariot drivers who are the CvGen option. 

bench update 02 September 2023

Now the first question on seeing this is, do you actually plan to use all those options? And the answer is no, not for Thracians alone. This is where the partial morph with Geometric Greeks comes in. I am pretty sure I can use 7x3Ax and 3xPs (javelin) for the b option of the Greek side.

There was some second thoughts and lots of test basing, and I ended up with several Scythian spare, back in recycling.

Tomorrow I'll add the last few shields: