Pass in Review

 Since my decision to drop first Warhammer Ancient Battles and then the Mede-Lydian campaign, my poor battered collection of ancients has again been tossed on stormy seas. I have a plan in mind but it doesn't exactly have places for all of the existing figures. So I am left again to sort through seeing what should be saved, what should be scrapped or re-homed. The goal as always is that the available display area must not be exceeded and that figures should get to be played with often enough to be worth keeping.

I had been starting to think about making room by disbanding and disbursing my Greek and Persian troops since they don't fit into current plans  and if all are fixed up, there are too many for my current table space. Unfortunately I hauled them out for a game last week and it occurred to me that I've finally painted up enough to play a game and with just a little work I can put aside a Greek & Persian Wars "game in a box". Questions remain. How big a box? Who gets to be re-based? Who has to go?

For now the remaining hoplites can serve on their 20mm frontage per figure bases but I intend to cram them back into 8 figures per 60mm wide element, 12 such elements to make the core of a Greek alliance army supported by some skirmishers and cavalry. The Persians will stay on the looser frontage but 3 deep for 9 figure elements. Perhaps 20 all told. That leaves a few stray Greeks, especially lighter troops, not to mention that I really should add some Spartans which would mean bumping yet more existing Hoplites. Some of the excess Persians are easily co-opted into the later 5 Kingdoms fictional setting but others, I'm just not  sure about. Then there are some stray Italians left over from a foray into Carthage and there is the small band of Hellenistic pikes and peltasts who were to form part of the 5 Kingdoms but who just look too Hellenistic.

So, nothing decided but here are some of the troops whose fate is being pondered.

 The miscellaneous Hoplite regiment composed of largely RAFM & Ral Partha figures and including a number of later hoplites, a mix of figures I like and others that I don't really..

Rospak Hoplites, in service since 1982. Veterans but getting a bit tired, they drop their shields and spears a lot.

More Rospaks, also veterans, these never got new spears, they still have the 6 foot long ones, about 1/2 of which are broken as happened in real life apparently but distressing when you start a battle that way.

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A "new" unit, only 4 years old. RAFM Seleucid  Arab levies recruited into my Persian army. Nothing wrong with them, I actually quite like them but which levies to keep? and is there a plausible place for them in the 5 Kingdoms where almost everyone else has pants and a tunic?

Another new unit, Rose Prestige Ethipeons. Lovely figures  and nothing says Persian levy like Ethiopeans with fire hardened sticks, so maybe.

 Thracians from Rospak, Ral Partha, RAFM and Corvus. One can always find a place for a few Thracian mercenaries. the question is how many and do I want/need a whole Thracian army as opposed to one unit of mercenaries. There's another score or more that need some sort of repair or just aren't based at the moment as well as archers, slingers and cavalry.

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RAFM multi-part Thureophorai. Too late for Graeco-Persian Wars so how Hellenistic do I want my forgotten outpost city? Or, do I want to add a few more Garrison S&S figures instead......?

 RAFM & Ral Partha pikes. I'm really not big on pike phalanxes, I just happened to have had them from an abandoned earlier project.

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and the real strays, cobbled together Italians and some late Greek cavalry.

Sorting the Subjects - Thracians

When I hauled my Thracians put last week, I was reminded that the units were looking a little battered. This seemed as good a time as any to sort them. 

First order of business was to remove the figures from their various basing systems. About 1/2 were on 60mm x 60mm 6 man elements, 1/4 individually based on 20mm x 20mm bases and the rest on old WRG 3rd-6th ed bases with a mix of 1, 2 or 3 figures per base, 20mm wide per figure but 30mm deep. 

Once that was done, I stripped out figures with helmets or thureos. That left me with about 72 figures. Subtracting broken figures brought that down to about 60.  I considered a unit of javelin armed skirmishers but the need there is for Greeks not Thracians. Since these are RAFM multi-part figures, I decided to haul out the most suitable figures and re-head them with bare heads or petasos. That left me with 2 24 man units. For the last 25 or so years, my Rospak Thracians have been mixed in with my Ral Partha, RAFM and Corvus figures. I decided that it was time to separate them into two distinct units, 24 figures each. The remaining 24 figures, including a number of broken spear Rospak plastics, have been put aside as spare parts.   

Mixed Corvus, Ral Partha & RAFM Thracians

  Rospak hard plastic Thracians.

While I was at in, I sorted out and based up 2 4 man stands of archers and 1 of slingers. The rest, mostly RAFM multi-part figures have gone into the spares box.

Various RAFM figures with Thracian caps.

Preparing for Platea - A Puzzling Question

The rules have been updated and are now available here: (Aug 27 post game)

The Athenians (Benassi) as seen from behind the Phrygian (Garrison) and Theban position. (The poor Thebans were left with the stragglers when I ran short on hoplites. At some point I need to finish refurbishing the last 48 RAFM hoplite types)

As I look at the table laid out for the refight, a puzzling question comes to mind:

The Pseudo-Spartans (mixed RAFM, Ral Partha, Garrison & Minifig)
from behind the (largely Garrison) Persian center. 

Why didn't the Persians outflank and surround the Greeks? 




The flanks don't appear to be resting on terrain, there are huge gaps in the middle of the line and lots of cavalry to ride around. The Thessalian cavalry seems to have given a deal of trouble to the Corinthinians and others  marching up from the rear so were presumably ordered to ride past them but surely some of the cavalry could have been spared to attack the Athenians and/or Spartans from the rear?


Now I can see in the Dover refight that the lads were probably "in the spirit" and might not have considered such a move to be "on" but what about in the day?  There are 3 possible answers that occur to me:
a) Heavily armed hoplites are dangerous to light troops and cavalry even if attacked in rear
b) There were command and control issues at work
c) Some of the Greek light armed troops who appear in the OB but not the battle narrative or the Grant scenario, were employed on rear security.
d) In the Grant scenario, Artabazos's troops start the game with the rest of the army  rather than only coming up after the battle was essentially lost. That might substantially affect things.


Well, for the 1st run through, I am going to follow the battle plans in Grant's book as closely as possible so it shouldn't be an issue. I may try alternate versions later.

 The Corinthians in position at the foot of the mountain, a lonnnng way from the action. 

Rospak hoplites obviously painted while my 1st canine buddy, Yoda the Black Lab was still alive and providing inspiration. 

Please click on the pictures to see the full thing if you are only catching the corner.

Hordes of poor quality infantry

A commonly held view of the army that conquered most of the known world.


Rospak 25mm hard plastic Thracian peltasts and mercenary Scythian archers,
hurriedly paint-converted to late Persians during the 80's.




Well, 120 figures isn't really much of a horde and I don't consider the figures to be poor quality either though, the Thracian peltast pose is classic "early 25mm ancient" and I will admit to a certain vagueness of details, but they have a certain charm and the Rospak 25mm plastics were a god-send to me 30 years ago during tough economic times. The hoplites, were especially valuable and for years King Rosius depended on them to hold off the Spartans.


No, the problem is that unit of "Persian" peltast/archers I hurriedly paint-converted 1 night 25 years ago for a game. No time for proper conversions and or shading or considering colours and patterns, I just slapped some paint on some leftover Thracian peltasts and Scythian archers and the little blighters have been serving ever since. Now I'm not big on repainting and refitting so do I let them serve on in shame? repaint? or callously discard them after such stout service?

They are "Ros" packs, and they are here and they are a near perfect match for the Rose miniatures in terms of size and bulk if not in detail, but they don't look much like early Persians. Actually they don't look much like modern intrepretations of Thracians or Scythians either but then neither do the Garrison and Benassi figures. What they do look alot like, are some old Greek vase paintings, but those were probably based on Phyrgians....uhhh wait a minute, like those allied or subject to the Lydians? ...ok maybe a repaint is in order, I have a few more Rose archers without a home so perhaps a nice colourful unit of Phrygian archers?

After all, at the end of the day, a unit of colourful archers in pointy hats is a unit of colourful archers in pointy hats, Phrygians, Scythians, Saka, Bactrians?

Two units of Scythian foot archers, a mix of Garrison, Benassi, Rose and Rospak miniatures.