15mm Ancient Greek Cavalry

Classical Greek armies didn't make much use of cavalry on the battlefield, using them to harass light troops on the flanks and to mop up broken phalanxes.  It would take Philip II of Macedon to introduce actual shock cavalry to the battlefield.

These figures are all Old Glory.  The command stands are mounted generals, but as Greek generals fought in the front line of the phalanx, I used these to eke out a couple more stands of cavalry.

Men of Bronze

This was a pretty big project, not so much in number of figures (there are 352 painted figures here), but in detail on each.  I wanted my Greek hoplites to look the part, so I painted the alternating bands of colors on helmet crests, hand painted designs on each shield, and painted patters on shield rims.  I'm happy with the result.

All figures are Old Glory 15mm.  The bases are Litko.  I based the shield designs on Little Big Men Studios' excellent transfers.  If I were doing this project all over again, I would just buy the transfers!

Pipers

Generals

Hoplites

I have 24 cavalrymen based and should have pictures on the blog in the next few days.  Then I have about 100 light troops to paint.  I am waiting on some Spartan hoplites from Xyston to come in the mail.  Once they are done, this army will be finished!

2014 Retrospective

It was a quiet year on the blog, but a productive year at the painting desk.  I had a busy year away from the hobby, with a change in career and a new baby.

Although I managed only 20 posts this year, I did finish an impressive amount of figures.

28mm Foot: 91
28mm Mounted: 34
15mm Foot: 1089
15mm Mounted: 194
15mm Limbers: 24
15mm Wagons: 3
15mm Guns: 48
15mm Damaged Gun Markers: 12
15mm Horses: 88

15mm Ancient Greeks, 72 hoplites (with a few hundred more getting close to the finish line).

15mm Napoleonic British, 40 highland infantry, 80 line infantry.
15mm Napoleonic French, 4 infantry.
15mm Napoleonic Spanish, 7 mounted generals.

15mm ACW Union, 140 infantrymen, 84 gunners, 12 limbers, 16 limber riders, 23 limber horses w/o riders, 25 limber horses w/ riders, 24 guns.
15mm ACW Confederates, 466 infantrymen, 72 gunners, 15 hospital staff, 84 dismounted cavalry, 108 mounted cavalry, 41 horses without riders, 30 mounted officers, 12 limbers, 16 limber riders, 24 limber horses w/ riders, 24 limber horses w/o riders, 2 wagons, 1 ambulance, 24 guns, 12 damaged gun markers.

28mm ACW Confederates, 32 mounted cavalrymen
28mm ACW Union, 2 mounted generals, 1 casualty marker

28mm WWII Americans, 46 infantrymen
28mm WWII Germans, 44 infantrymen

Almost all of my painting time was taken up with my 15mm ACW project.  I cranked out my entire Confederate army and made good progress on my Union troops.

I am surprised that I broke 100 28mm figures this year.  It seemed like I was only painting 15mm, but a few side projects in the larger scale helped break the monotony.  My total Analogue Hoobies Scoring System point for the year were only 4,327, a drop from last year, but the quality of my painting was very high.  I enjoyed my hobby more this year than I have for quite a while.

In 2015 I hope to finish my Greek hoplite army then finish a Persian army for them to fight.  I also plan to finish my ACW Union army.  After that, I may return to Napoleonics for a while.

Happy new year!

More 15mm Hoplites

I finished these 48 hoplites earlier this week.  Once all 400 are done, I will start basing.  If the shield patterns look familiar, it's because I copied some of LBMS's excellent transfers, painting them freehand.

First 15mm Hoplite Unit

I bought TWO Old Glory Greek starter armies for Field of Glory a few years back.  After playing the rules a few times, I found they were not to my taste.  These hoplites have been sitting in their boxes ever since.

Still, I love the look of Greek hoplites, so I decided to paint these up in hopes that they may see the gaming table some day.

These are the "early" Greek hoplites from Old Glory's catalog.  Their later hoplites have piano wire spears, and I did not want to use my Dremel to drill out 400 spear hands, so I went with these figures and their cast spears.  All the hoplites wear a bronze muscle cuirass, so they must be very early indeed, probably pre-Persian Wars.  Some of the figures wear pturges.

Since these were cheap figures, I did not want to spring for LMBS transfers, so I hand painted the shields.  It takes more time, but they look nearly as good.

I used Litko bases with 40mm frontage and 15mm depth, the DBx standard for heavy infantry bases.  The four figures fit comfortably on these bases,

So now that my first unit is done, what is next?  Why 380 more hoplites!  I am painting them all in one go.  So far I have painted their helmet crests, armor, spear tips, and flesh base.

Now knowing my luck, Blue Moon will start making much better sculpts for even less money, so I will have to start all over again.

A Few 15mm Hoplites

Just for fun this week I painted up a few Old Glory Greek hoplites I had lying around.  I was able to finish a unit of 24.  I tried a raw umber oil wash on the helmet crests, and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

This was to be just a palate cleanser between batches of ACW cavalry, but I enjoyed painting these fellows so much that I have prepped about 400 of them, waiting on good priming weather.