15mm Hellenistic - Finishing a 20 year old pile of lead

Got the fever leading up to the holiday break and smashed out a mass of 15mm bags of ancients, in a box of 'To Do' that's been there for well over 20 years.

Mostly Frei Korps like the thureophoroi and thorakitai above, trying my hand at some more interesting and colourful shield patterns.

By the looks of it there's some Thracian thureophoroi mixed in with the regulars and yet another unit (4 DBx/ADLG) stands of Thrcians with rhomphaia.

Also some late Roman republic legionnaires, labelled Frei Korps on QRF's site but clearly a different style to the old 'bobble heads'

Some great detail on these 15mm figures and I think there's still six bags of these guys to go.

Also finishing off some cavalry to make up units for Hail Caesar, with some cataphracts finally making an appearance.

Which brings us to some rebased command and a raft of various psiloi.

Another 8 Cretan archers (above) because you can't have too many... and finally some slingers.

And including some Roman archers... to go with the legionnaires?

Then on to some Essex Miniatures 15mm in the shape of some javelinmen and hoplites.

I think these are several different baggies of Essex's hoplites, including mercenary and Thebans.

Where not molded on, the spears are all piano wire.

So having finished off another small hump from the mountain of shame, the only thing left to do is finish off the newer 15mm hump of Romans... and order some more 😆 

 

Seleucid: The Last Pikemen

A bit of time for painting recently after finally receiving several contract offers (yes - hopefully I won't have to sell myself for medical experiments!) and I I know I should have cracked on with the AWI stuff, but after the recent Seleucid Showcase I came over all nostalgic.

I went trolling through the box of remaining 15mm ancients and realised I had two pike blocks prepped and ready to go, and a handful of others left. Given TTS/QRF don't have listings for these guys in their Frei Korps range any longer and that these are probably the last Frei Korps pikemen left unpainted on the planet... ney, in the universe, I just had to finish them.

Original paint scheme from 20 years ago - 'red' team.

I decided to do at least one unit that was different from the others so chose the Antigonid/Later Macedonian Leukaspides (white shields) and some Chalkaspides (brazen shields - not bronze of course, as the Greek word for bronze meant blue - QI).

Leukaspides (white shields) and Chalkaspides (brazen shields), configured for WAB/FoG.

Realising that the total number of elements in my existing phalanx was already divisible/set for DBA (2 ranks deep), L'Art De La Guerre (3 ranks deep), and WAB/FoG (4 ranks deep), and that this was the end, my beautiful friend, for new phalanx elements, I decided to do a pike command element for WAB/ADLG/FoG as well as 9 pike elements.

3 rank configuration for the likelihood of playing L'Art De La Guerre (ADLG).

Pike Command 

A command element for ADLG, FoG, or WAB.

Never actually made a command element with FK standards before. I sliced the bendy lead poles off of the standards and replaced it with piano wire. The Macedonian star ain't the best but the sheaf of wheat came out well.

Leukaspides 



As I have a 20mm Carthegenian army with all spearmen having white shields, I avoided doing the Lukaspides, but glad I finally caved as makes for another easily identifiable unit on the field.

Chalkaspides 



Had a wonderfully nestolgic time mixing up the rose, lavender, and yellows.

All the pikemen have been done in five lots: first back in the 90s, then a repaint in 2000(ish) for DBM, more circa 2006 for WAB, again in 2013 for FoG, and now finishing off in 2017 for the sake of nostalgia itself.

I remember each block took me ages back in 2000, now with improvement to paints and more techniques and experience, all these guys only took about 6 hours.

Facing Off
Also I decided to prep the figures as they would be 'out of the bag' and was warmed and heartened to realise that, if you model the pikes as per the angle of the figures themselves, they are at such an angle so as to not interfere with opposition forces on the table - well done Frei Korps sculptors!

Facing off against light troops with no problems.


Facing off against other pike/spearmen, still with no problems but some jostling to get the pikes to interpenetrate.


Facing off against cavalry, still no problem.


Facing off against Xystophoroi, still no problems on the table.

Well that's it for my 15mm Macedonian/Successor pikemen, finally after 20 years and 136 figures later - done.

Seleucid Army Showcase

Seleucid war elephants, supported by light troops, flank the Phalanx.

Many, many... many years ago, before reading first year military history at university, before the Internet, before fame and fortune, there was a local bike and hobby shop which sold little bags of metal figures for $5.85.

Its long gone now and I can't even remember its name. I know I bought my first GW Epic figures from it back in '92 and tens of those little bags, 1 or 2 a week, until the turn of the century when the shop moved and stopped stocking miniatures.

The mighty Seleucid Phalanx.

I remember spending hours painting the figures up, I had no idea what they were and just block painted a 'blue' and 'red' army.

Turns out those figures were Frei Korps 15mm Macedonians and Seleucids, and come the turn of the century and a long foray into wargaming, they finally came out of the bag I'd stuffed them in.

Tarantine, Xystophoroi and Greek Cavalry take the right flank.

Even Frei Korps has disappeared now, being handed on to various miniatures producers until ending up with Total System Scenic/QRF, but at least most of the range is still on the market.

So influenced by local players I started a massive repaint and also commissioned out a good portion of the light troops and medium cavalry to le Chasseur... we were young and foolish, drunk on the ides of life.. maybe not...

The phalanx stretches out to the elephants and cavalry on the left flank.

I used Osprey's Men-At-Arms 148 the Army of Alexander the Great as a theme for the army, spending many hours mixing rose, yellows, crimsons, oranges and lavenders.

In its present form the army is nearly 20 years old... and still not really finished.

It's been through DBA and DBM iterations, been expanded into a WAB (Warmaster Ancient Battles) army, and ended its last life as a FoG army.

Seleucid elephants - can't have too many elephants! Moo!

It's come last at both DBM and FoG tournaments but met with great and continued success with WAB. Perhaps to make another appearance using DBA 3.0, Hail Caesar or L’Art de la Guerre.

But its sat in its box long enough and I realised that I don't have any pics of it up on this blog, so hence this showcase.

The Tarantine light horse rush forward on the flank to pelt the enemy cavalry before the Xyston armed lancers behind them get stuck in.

So this is the 'army' showcase and the links below are to posts which showcase particular units and types within the army.

I hope you enjoy, its one of my favourite armies and although many players don't like the 'oversized heads' of the FK figures, they lend themselves well to detailed painting for 15mm troops.

Another unit of Xystophoroi, led by Seleucus himself.

Army Units
Command and Heavy Cavalry
Elephants
The Phalanx
Asiatic Auxiliary Foot
Greek Auxiliary Foot


Artillery and camp.


Think these are actually Essex minis.


Made from cardboard and Das, these tents have stood the test of time.


The Phalanx was often screened by light troops, here Cretan and Asiatic archers fulfill that role.

The bendy lead spears have long gone and were replaced early on by piano wire - this has lead to many a bloody finger. The Sarisa (phalanx spears) are not to scale but long enough.

Another shot of the phalanx, think I've still got one or two more 'blocks' of four to do!


Camels protect the camp... yea right...


Seleucid elephants - flanked by more Asiatic bow (right) and Thureophoroi and Thorakitai (left).


Scythian horse archers lead the Xystophoroi on the left flank - still got some of these to do too!


Birds eye of the entire army... it just doesn't look big enough from this angle!

Seleucid Showcase: Cavalry

Xystophoroi - lance armed Seleucid cavalry.

For nearly 300 hundred years the Seleucid army was one of the best in the ancient world.

The core Seleucid troops were armed with a lance called the Xyston and were collectively known as Xystophoroi.

It's cavalry increasingly became more armoured over time until horse and rider were completely encased in metal armour - long before the knights of the medieval period. These knights were called Cataphracts and employed successful shock tactics.

Unfortunately, after nearly 20 years using this army, I have yet to paint up any cataphracts and have concentrated on the lesser armoured Xystophoroi.

Core of the Seleucid cavalry were armed with the long Xyston.

Once again the Frei Korps bags of figures allow for significant variation at 15mm and their Greek, Macedonian, and Seleucid cavalry bags were used for this army.

As with foot troops, the Seleucids and Successor armies also employed a raft of lighter, auxiliary cavalry from their allied or conquered Greek and Asiatic states.

Generals

Seleucus himself, one of the generals available from the 'personality' bags available in the FK Successor range.

Philip V, also from one of the 'personalities' bags.

Companions

The Companions were the best cavalry of the army.

(Macedonian) Companions

Anachronistic but couldn't resist fielding Alexander and his companions, painted by Le Chasseur.

Agema

Actually from the Greek Xystophoroi bag, not sure why I didn't use the Seleucid Agema available in the FK range.

Line Cavalry

From the Greek Heavy Cavalry bag.


Greek Cavalry

The FK Macedonian Companion cavalry bag provides for Greek Cavalry - based on the uniforms from the Osprey book used as a reference. Think Le Chasseur painted the stand on the far left, the ones on the right are painted as Thessalonians.

Tarantine Cavalry

Tarantine mercenary cavalry were considered to be some of the best light horse available early on in the period.

Scythian Cavalry

Scythian horse archers were used throughout the period, some of these were also painted by  Le Chasseur.

Camelry

Not the best of troops but good for guarding the camp... or leaving in the box...