More Scythian Nobles & a moan about the weather.

Another quiet week on the painting front, but these miniatures are quite time consuming to paint.

Here on the Welsh border there is nearly 12" of snow lying, which for the first days of what is supposed to be spring is a bit of a disaster. This time last year it was close to 70 degrees F & a drought was forecast. This is what you get for living in a country with weather instead of a climate.

Should be out at work today but the prospect of handling wet, cold steel gates is less than appealing so despite my usual dislike of office work it is proving the lesser of two evils.

Scythian Noble Cavalry.

Some more progress has been made with these today:

Still not happy with the horses but I'll live with them. Also re-thought the basing scheme, 40mm round bases allow for a reasonable wedge formation to be assembled but with the advantage of deploying in skirmish order as well.

More Eastern Types.

Its been a slow couple of weeks on the painting front, due mainly to the horrible weather. Coming in wet and cold makes sitting in front of the fire with a glass of scotch & a decent book more appealing than painting figures in a draughty kitchen.

One bright spot was a visit to our "local" wargames show in Wolverhampton last Sunday. Not a bad show at all and seemed a bit more lively than last year, plenty of nice demo games to look at with AWI being strongly represented again but only one Ancients game showcasing Scarab Miniatures War & Conquest rule set.
Purchases were limited this year to two packs of Crusader Miniatures Thracian Cavalry ( now using Ebob horses I think, which is a vast improvement ) and a unit set of Scythian Noble Cavalry from First Corps, the first of which is below:

Overall these are nice figures & come with separate scabbards, bow cases & shields. The riders are amongst the best figures that First Corps have produced to date but the horses a couple of the four horse variants supplied are off anatomically & poorly posed. This is something I may have to rectify in future but given that things are tight financially at the moment I can learn to live with them.
On the plus side, at least First Corps do complete their ranges.

Nothing else very exciting to report from WMMS this year though it is interesting to note the number of laser cut MDF buildings & accessories now available. Whilst lacking the character of their resin counterparts they make up for it in spades by being a lot cheaper & not so vulnerable to being on hard surfaces. A sector of the market to keep an eye on, I think the creative surface has only just been scratched.

To finish off this week a few more Crusader Persian infantry & their Vendel officer.

'Asian' Cavalry for the Lamian War.

Progress has slowed a little on the Lamian War project mainly due to an increased work load cutting into painting time, so whilst toiling away I have been considering how to fill in the holes in the Macedonian Army for this campaign without spending any money.
The latter stages of the Lamian War featured not only Antipater's army based on home territory but also a further two forces from Asia Minor led respectively by Leonnatos & Krateros whose armies mustered between them around 3,000 cavalry including 'some Macedonians' ( AMPW pg.15). This comment has led to a lot of thinking on my part as to what the other contingents of cavalry were and the only conclusion I can come to is that they were former subjects of the Persian Empire serving under their new masters.
In pursuance of this train of thought the following are going to be pressed into service:

These are Vendel Miniatures armoured & fully armoured cavalry which have previously been used to represent Eumenes' Agema at Gabiene. I regret not buying more of this range whilst they were still available as many of them would have proved useful as auxiliaries in the successor armies.

Peltasts.

The first unit of re-purposed hoplites & thureophoroi is now complete:

The next unit of twelve is lined up ready for painting on the workbench & then its on to some asiatic light infantry for the Macedonian Army, here is a taster:

Lamian War Peltasts.

Following on from the recently completed Hoplite phalanx I've started to tackle some of the lighter troops for the Greek army. I've been struggling a bit to find suitable figures to augment the Foundry peltasts I already own, up to now I've been able to find most of the Hellenistic troop types from Polemarch, Crusader Miniatures & the ubiquitous Foundry but suitable peltasts seem a little scarce. So a quick trawl through the spares box & various other dusty caches of miniatures turned up this lot:

Foundry World of the Greeks un-armoured Hoplites.

And some of these:

Polemarch Thureophoroi.

There are also a dozen or so Crusader Thureophoroi lurking around somewhere. The upshot of this trawl round and a little work adding some spare peltas & voila some fairly tidy peltasts, albeit with fancier than normal headgear.

Another Phalanx Completed.

Well not quite, I've missed to paint a few rear rank spears which will be rectified later on. I was fairly ripping along with this phalanx when I started but have lost momentum in the last week or so as things have finally begun to pick up at work.

As previously noted these are Victrix plastics which at £22 for 48 figures are good value for money, despite the somewhat odd mix of headgear in the Mercenary boxed set.
Only another 30 to go & thats the heavy infantry done for the Lamian War game planned for later this spring.