Ebay find: 6mm Baccus Achaemenid Persian army

I've been meaning to get around to do Persians to oppose my Hoplite Greek army for a couple of years now, but have been kept busy by other projects. Then I noticed a Hungarian guy using the name klviktor2012 selling a fully painted Early Achaemenid Persian army that was based for Warmaster like my Greeks as well! Obviously I bid for the army and got it for a very nice price indeed. Everything went smoothly with klviktor2012 and I received the carefully packed army today. I'm really happy with these models! I now have about 1000 Warmaster points or 3-4 Hail Caesar divisions worth of troops for each army, plenty to get me some Greek & Persian Wars action!

The whole army

Closeup.

And my Greeks for comparison. The base colours differ somewhat but it only serves to distinguish between the sides.

6mm ACW cavalry and US sharpshooters

I finally painted my dismounted cavalry models! These are the last troops that were totally missing from my ACW collection, and I can now say that I have a bit of everything and mostly enough of it for a sizeable game. I am actually close to declaring my ACW project "complete"! I have some unpainted stuff left, but nothing I sorely need. I've found that a collection of 900 something infantry models plus artillery, cavalry, generals and such per side is quite enough for a medium sized game.

Union dismounted cavalry

Union mounted cavalry. I've painted these maybe three years ago but I've never photographed them for the blog so here you go.

Confederate mounted and dismounted cavalry. There aren't as many models as I have for the union as I needed more of Union cavalry when playing GB day 1 in Fire and Fury. The mounted cavalry hasn't been treated with anti-shine and the difference is telling when you see them in nature.

As a bonus, here's some skirmishers I painted as US sharpshooters in 2013. Also, never before featured.

Greek cavalry, archers and a couple of generals done

These featured in last post's battle already, but I hadn't added tufts and bushes to them yet. Here you go:

A Spartan general with a few of his closest friends looking to prove themselves to the gods

Greek archers. Archery was not valued in Greece and archers were not used that much. I based these semi-loose so that they can play the part of both skirmishers and light infantry.

A Syracusan tyrant with his orderlies. Not so keen to look for trouble as the Spartans.

Greek medium cavalry. The models were really static, but I managed to spice things up by adding some command models from the Greek generals pack.

Also, I visited London a couple of weeks back and went to British Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at Greek pottery and took some shots of hoplites and persians. I'll share a couple here:

Corinthian helmet

Persian archer

Greeks fighting Amazons

War propaganda. The Persian is shown riding a mule and is pictured as being a bit simple and buffoonish.

A scene from Illiad, I think.

Some fanservice to those people who came to this blog using the keywords "naked greek guys". I can see what people are looking for when they Google here and aim to serve the public!

6mm Hail Caesar: Syracuse versus early Carthage

I've been busy painting my Hoplite army and I'm now able to field a fully painted 300 point army of two divisions. I took them out to face my friends' early Carthaginians. I used the Syracusan list as they were the Hoplite army most often facing the boys from North Africa. I've embedded commentary on the game in the images in an attempt to make the action more clear. I think I should start using arrows and such more to make movement clearer..

It was a close victory for Syracuse. It's not clear if Carthage would not have won of the game would have progressed further but it seemed a bit unlikely that they would break both of the Syracusan divisions. It feels like games of Hail Caesar seem to drag on a bit after the main clash. Maybe a mod to make armies break more easily once the line is fouled up or reduce the number of divisions needed broken for the army to quit the field? The rules state that you have to have more than half of the divisions broken for the army to quit the field, but it really doesn't work with two divisions. Maybe settle for one broken division for two division games and it might look more what it's supposed to.


In other news, I got Phantom Leader, a solitaire wargame of air missions over Vietnam. It's pretty fun and definitely a challenge.

The game doesn't need a lot of space and you can put everything away between campaign missions

Here's where the magic happens. You have to choose your avenues of approach to the target and decide how to engage the enemy in the area. There's also a ground target to destroy.

New units for my Greek project

We've all been there. Starting a project and then losing motivation to take it forward. I had that with my Ancient Greek army after finishing the first Hail Caesar division last year. I had a fresh batch of 96 hoplites halfway painted and suddenly I felt like painting something else. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get myself to doing more of those shield designs. I painted a whole Epic Armageddon army and a variety of other things just to avoid doing them.

Well, I regained my motivation a while back and finished 200-ish new hoplites in quickly. It's a small number for 6mm, I know, but they seem pretty time consuming to do. I spend two or three evenings completing each batch of 100. Here's the latest:

Some "regular" hoplites with varied colours

Another angle

Here's some of Baccus' "unarmored hoplites". I gave each of them red clothing and limited the palette on the shields so I can use them as Spartans or other elite hoplite formations. I didn't want to give all of them the lambda shield emblem as the Spartans adopted it in the later Peloponnesian war period and I want to do the earlier periods too.

Another shot.

Some psiloi I finished last year, but haven't photographed yet.

I have a hundred more hoplites to do, but I'll have a break from doing them now. I have some cavalry and archers as well so those will give me some variety. I still need to order some light cavalry, peltasts and slingers before I can call this one done..

A Hail Caesar division worth of Hoplite Greek done.

Here you go:

The back row hoplites are the same I showed you earlier but the "attacking" hoplites, the psiloi and the general are new. I actually did four additional stands of psiloi at the same time but it's just more of the same and they'll get their chance to have their photo taken after I finish the next batch.

For Hail Caesar, this set is enough for four standard units of hoplites, two small skirmisher units and a commander to lead them. Once I triple this I'll have quite a nice army to fight with. For Warmaster Ancients the situation is a bit worse as this is enough for just two and a half units of Hoplites and one of Skirmishers and I think I'd need 8-10 units of Hoplites at least. Anyway, it's a start.

Athens refuses to yield earth and water

After getting those oo shiny Baccus Greeks last year it took only this long for me to get started with them. The first batch of hoplites is now ready. I wanted to make the models as flexible as possible in terms of compatibility, and by adopting the Warmaster Ancients basing I can play WMA, Hail Caesar and Impetus at least. I didn't consider the DBx games as their basing is the strictest of them all. 

The period I'm aiming for is the time of the greco-persian wars and the peloponnesian war and I drew my visual inspiration for the period from various Osprey titles. During the period (as far as I know) each hoplite supplied his own equipment and was free to choose the shield design he wanted. This made hoplites a colourful sight. Even Spartans had different shield designs and the uniform look with everyone having the Lakonian symbol came at some point during the Peloponnesian wars, so these models can be used to represent pretty much every Greek state without diverging too much from history.

At first I thought about saving some models and basing only two ranks on one 4cm*2cm stand, and I think I would've gotten away with it:

This way I think you get to appreciate the shields more than with three ranks. With three ranks the shields in the back rows are lost in the unit and difficult to spot. However, hoplite formations were sometimes as much as 16 men deep, so two ranks doesnt really convey that idea. I consulted my wife on the matter and she favoured three ranks as looking better. She also said it "would be just a small effort for me to paint a few hundred extra models". Oh, well.

Anyway, let me know what you think! I've already basecoated a code of the attacking hoplites which look more dynamic. I'll post pics of them too once I'm finished.

Gettysburg 150th anniversary game using Volley & Bayonet and Baccus 6mm

I cannot give you a thorough writeup now as I'm away on a working trip in Sardinia, but I wanted to do a post on the anniversary anyway.

We played the game on Saturday and it was a great evening of gaming, drinking and sauna. Volley and Bayonet proved to be a competent ruleset for this scale of gaming. It feels lightweight and is easy to teach, but still offers players plenty of tactical options and problems. Still, playing the game took longer than I anticipated and after 12 hours we had to stop. We played until turn five on the second day and even though neither army had not yet been beaten, it felt clear that the Confederates would run out of steam even though they dominated the field on the first day. The Union players just keep getting those fresh corps all the time on day 2. I'm not sure if we messed up the scenario by shifting the Union reinforcement road from Baltimore Pike to Taneytown Road after the Confederates took Culps hill. We reasoned the Union forces would not enter the field so close to the front line and would reroute their forces for Day 2.

The table was the biggest I've built at about 280 cm * 180 cm. Even with simple modular terrain and painters tape for roads and streams it took about 5 hours just to assemble on the night before the game. Still, I'm happy I have the space to accommodate a game like this in my house now (as long as my wife and child evacuate before the fighting starts ;)

A.P.Hill's Corps has taken McPherson's ridge and prepares to assault the seminary ridge. To the left, Ewell's Corps is pushing towards Gettysburg.

The situation at the start of the second day. Ewell managed to push the Union off Culps hill and Cemetery hill and has built works during the night along the line. Longstreet has arrived on the field and has marched on the Confederate right flank. Gettysburg lies in ruins after catching fire on Day 1.

As more and more Union forces stream to the battlefield the Confederates realize it's now or never. The Union line is strongest on the flanks but weaker in the center so the assault is targeted there. The fighting starts at 6 AM and the Confederate forces enjoy initial success. However, the Union center has defensive depth and the attack loses momentum. At 10 AM on day 2 we decide to stop playing.

The road to Gettysburg

Like everybody else, I will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg with a game. Initially I thought I'd host a Fire & Fury game focusing on the Longstreet vs. Sickles fight in the Peach orchard / Wheatfield / Devil's Den / Round tops area but I got a bit greedy. I want to play the whole three days of the entire battle!

With the Fire and Fury rules, this would be simply impossible given the number of models needed as well as take too long to play. Fire & Fury shines when you have a Corps at most per side but starts to slow down after that. I need a faster, lighter set of rules and I think I've found what I'm looking for in Volley & Bayonet.

A quick comparison of brigade level Fire and Fury versus Volley and Bayonet:

Base unit:
    F&F: 1 infantry stand = 150/200 men. About 10 stands to a brigade.
    VnB: 1 infantry stand = 1000 - 2000 men. One stand to a brigade.
Groundscale:
    F&F: 1" = 45/60 yds
    VnB: 1" = 100 yds
Timescale:
    F&F: One turn = 30 minutes.
    VnB: One turn = 60 minutes.


So, Volley and Bayonet is more geared towards bigger battles and drops a lot of micromanagement in favor of faster flow. The rationale is that when you play the role of army commander, you focus on massing your forces in the right location and send them in at the right time instead of worrying whether a singular brigade is in single or double line. That's why the only brigade formations available are close order battle lines, march column and open order skirmishing. It makes sense for the scale.


The ACW supplement for VnB is getting difficult to find without paying an exorbitant amount, but I got mine from Old Glory 25's for the original price. Their shipping calculations are crazy for overseas orders but I managed to haggle it down to standard USPS fees by just asking them about it in e-mail. The booklet might run out any time as it's a 1995 print so be quick if you want yours! The supplement is for the first edition of the game whilst I have the second edition rulebook, but there isn't a lot you need to change.

I played a test game with my friend yesterday with a Corps of troops per side and played to a satisfactory ending (all enemy divisions exhausted) in three hours on a 6x4 foot table so its not bad at all considering it was our first game. My camera ran out of battery so no pictures for you unfortunately.


Modeling-wise, I changed the sabot basing scheme I introduced in an earlier post a bit. I opted not to have a white line at the bottom and instead of blu-tack I use painters tape to fix the models and the labels in place. Painters tape doesn't leave the stands ugly and is easy to remove.

The visual impact I'm going for is fairly obvious. There is one F&F sized stand of infantry per one strength point (500 men) of infantry and it should look a bit like a brigade in double line. The unit labels are from the Volley and Bayonet yahoo groups user gbitters, who has shared these fantastic labels in the files section. I think this is his blog. Give him a visit, he has some great 3mm VnB games there using half the recommended sizes.

As for figures, I don't have the complete OOB's worth of figures. I'll combine my models with a couple of friends' and for infantry we'll be 19 F&F stands of Union infantry short. These will all be with a Corps arriving on the field on the night of the second day so I'm sure there'll be enough volunteers in the dead pile. For artillery the situation is a bit more worrisome as we're 9 union artillery stands short. I'll have to make blue chits with an artillery symbol on them to compensate if it goes to that. Good players don't lose their artillery :)

I still need to make sabot bases for cavalry, artillery and leaders and paint a whole lot of mounted officers to get all the Union division commanders represented on the field but I think I'll manage. For terrain I'm pretty much set and all I'll have to do is make some optional eye candy to sweeten up the landscape. I already have all the hills, woods and such.

So, who else is doing an anniversary game?