Working up to Thymbra

Well, here I am, starting out on the 2nd year of the Median Revival.  I didn't get as many figures painted as I would have liked and didn't really get the campaign humming along properly but I did played more Mede/Persian  games than I expected even if they were all solo. I'm not ready to take another stab at the campaign, it didn't work well to drive painting and I need more stuff table-ready before I try again. So, what am I going to do?

Well, 2 of the games last year were refights of Greco-Persian battles, Marathon and Platea. Now its time to push the Lydians a bit so I am setting my sights on Thymbra. Evidence is shaky at best as usual but there is enough floating around  to make a workable game around what figures I have. The odds of me finding a few thousand allied Egyptian "hoplites" anytime this year is pretty remote so I suspect that there will be substitutions and concessions as usual.  I also want to fit the game on a 5'x6' playing area and play the game in 3 hours. This implies some serious compression, something on the order of 1-3,000 men per "element".

I should have a rough OB, a painting schedule. and a planned play date later this month. June would be the earliest date and I'm now thinking September or October as a more likely date and I might push it to the end of the year.  There will be other games in the meantime. New troops and rules will have to be tested if nothing else. I may stick with Gathering of Hosts but am tempted to try adapting Legio and may also give Basic Impetus a try.

and now, a gratuitous and completely  irrelevant shot of my 1/72nd plastic barbarian horde fighting amongst itself. (standing in as DBA Early Visigoths vs Late Germans)

(and yes they owe their existence to the inclusion of scaled down copies of Marx's 25mm "Vikings")