Covenanter Flags 1

I've been painting a few more ECW flags, and today it's the turn of the Scots Covenanters. All these flags are infantry ensigns.

'Reviresco' means 'I Flourish Again'. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out except for the gold Covenanter motto. I haven't found a solution for writing in gold yet, and any suggestions are welcome. This ensign was carried by a Captain Aikman, who served in Colonel John Lindsay of Edzell's Regiment, raised in Forfarshire in 1650. Alternatively, it may have been a Captain's colour from the Earl of Nithsdale's Regiment of Foot. The flag was captured by Cromwell's troops at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650.

This one was captured at Preston in 1648. It probably belonged to a Catptain Erskine, from Colonel George Keith's regiment, raised in Aberdeenshire in 1648.

This one is probably a Colonel's colour, and possibly from the Master of Caithness' Regiment of Foot. It was also captured at Dunbar in 1650.

III/65 Fatimid Egyptian DBA Army

OK, so I'm feeling a bit pleased with myself. I've finished my DBA Fatimid Army, that has been on the go since July. They aren't the best painted figures ever, but they are the first project I've finished since the twins were born in August, so hence the feeling of satisfaction.

The army contains 4 Elements of Cavalry, one of which is the General's element. That's him on the left with a mace. These figures are all from one box of Strelets Arab Cavalry.

The mobile part of the army is completed with an element of Light Horse. These figures are from Italeri, and one of them is a conversion, being made with the torso of a kneeling foot archer.

The main foot component is made up of 3 Elements of 8Bw. These are annoying elements to paint, being double-based elements of spearmen and archers, but behaving no differently in DBA than any other Bows. All the infantry are from HaT. Mainly their Almoravid infantry set, but with some Andalusians as well.

The army is completed with 2 Elements of 3 Bw, an element of Auxilia and one of Psiloi. All the foot apart from the 3 Bw are painted as Sudanese mercenaries, whereas the cavalry and 3 Bw are North African (and thus have lighter skin).

These Fatimids are the second in a series of 11th Century armies I want to paint (after my Normans). Next up may be Andalusians, but I think I'll be doing some work on my English Civil War armies first.

II/33 Polybian Roman DBA Army

Today for your delectation I offer a Polybian Roman army for DBA that I finished earlier this year. All the figures are from Zvezda. Here is the army arrayed:

The army is made up of a 3Cv General's element:

Another 3Cv element. I'm pretty proud of the shield with the horse on it. But here's a thing - horses' eyes. Being an urban person I rarely see horses, and I've been merrily painting them with white irises like human eyes. But now I think that is probably wrong, and the whole eye should be a dark browny black. Has anyone got an opinion on this?

Here is the core of the Polybian army - 6 elements of 4 Bd (blades). I love the detail of these Zvezda figures, but these Hastati/Principes figures aren't very realistic. Far too many have full muscled cuirasses. I've given them a quite uniform appearance as these are troops from late in the 2nd Punic War, when equipment was being increasingly supplied by the state.

The DBA army list calls for 2 elements of 4Sp (Spears), representing the Triarii of the Republican Roman legion. I painted 4 elements because I liked the figures so much.

And finally, 2 elements of Velites (2Ps in DBA terms).

I look forward to painting a Carthaginian army at some stage. And a later Macedonian army... so many armies, so little time.

Valete!

Tommies and Tanks 1944

When I first got back into wargaming and modelling around 2002 my main interest was WWII, so here are some of the things I was making around that time. I had grand plans to make up some units of the British 7th Armoured Division and German 116th Panzer Division to wargame with, using the 'Panzermarsch!' rules put out by the Hull Wargames Society. This never really happened, but I've been reading Anthony Beevor's latest book on D-Day, and thinking that I might dust off the tanks and try to have a game of something. I've just ordered a copy of the 'Disposable Heroes' WWII skirmish rules to try out.

The tanks are Revell Cromwells. Lovely kits, but a real pain putting together all the individual links in the tracks. I wish HaT had put out their Armourfast Cromwells at the time I was making these.

The lead tank is a Centaur, made with a resin conversion kit from Leva Productions on a Revell hull. All the crew figures are from AB Figures.

As is my wont, I became obsessive about giving all the tanks the correct names and numbers that were carried by a squadron of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment (from 7th Armoured Division) in Normandy. I found a website that listed all these, but I can't find it any more. But I did find this site -

http://www.armouredacorn.com/

It has some big differences from the list I used, so there you go.

The supporting infantry are from AB Figures, painted up as the Rifle Brigade. If you look closely you may see the green shoulder tallies of and the black and red desert rat shoulder patch of the 7th Armoured Division. I love these AB Figures - incredibly lifelike poses that really look like the photos of British Tommies from 1944-5.

The camo netting was made from gauze bandage, airbrushed olive green. I then draped it around the tanks with liberal amounts of PVA glue. British camo netting had strips of hessian added to it, so I cut thin strips of paper and randomly glued them into the netting, finally painting them either black, dark green or olive.

Tank troops in the 1st RTR were made up of 3 Cromwells with a Sherman Firefly. I left the Fireflies out of these pictures, but will add them at some stage. My favourite Firefly rejoices in the name 'Wherezatiger'.

I don't know what it is about Cromwells, but I think they're great. Boxy. The Volvos of armoured warfare. Of course I never had to face Tigers and Panthers in one, thank god. I'm fascinated by the controversy over British tank design that broke out in Britain after D-Day - David Fletcher's 'Great Tank Scandal" is a good read about why their tanks were so inferior to most German designs. Anyway, I did enjoy meeting a Cromwell in the flesh, as it were, at Bovington Tank Museum.

The houses in the background are scratchbuilt from foamcore, but unfinished (especially the awful shutters). I was inspired to make these after coming across the great website belonging to one Nikolas Lloyd (http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/). He has some brilliant tips about making wargaming terrain and buildings.

Erica's Egyptians

My magnificent 11 year old daughter Erica has started painting a New Kingdom Egyptian army for DBA. This makes her old dad very happy and proud. Here are some photos of the progress so far.

First up - she has finished 4 elements of Bows (apart from the bases). All the figures are from the great Egyptian sets by Caesar Miniatures.

The next ones on the production line are 4 elements of Blades. Here's how they are going so far.

Pretty good, eh?

I/52(e)/(f) Early Hoplite Greek DBA Army

I'm gradually putting up images of armies I've painted on this Blog, and this time it's the turn of the Early Hoplite Greeks. I painted these about 3 years ago. The figures are Zvezda, which are really nice although they insist on moulding designs on the shields. So I carved them all off (adding a few more scars to my thumb in the process) and painted on my own designs. This is an Athenian phalanx, so I added a scattering of alphas and triskeles (the triple running leg design) on the shields to give a sense of this. The DBA list for I/52(f) gives options for LH, Cv, Ax and Bw, so I plan to get around to adding these eventually. I also want to make a camp perhaps depicting Miltiades arguing with his fellow strategoi prior to the Battle of Marathon. For now however I present the unwieldly beast of a phalanx with a couple of elements of Psiloi in support.

Here they all are:

The general's element is on the right. Most of the shield designs were sourced from Athenian red and black-figure pottery, and I'm particularly pleased with the hydra and pegasus here.

The thetes (poorest citizen class in Athens) run out in front of the phalanx to harass the enemy.

I don't have a historical opponent for this army, but Early Achaemenid Persians and Corinthians are on my list...

II/52 Dacian DBA Army

This is an army I finished painting about two years ago, but only just got around to painting the bases. This one was heavily inspired by a Dacian army painted by Reinhard Sabel that features on the Fanaticus website. All figures are 1/72 scale plastics.

Here is the command element. All the figures are made by HaT Industrie, with the general actually coming from their Carthaginian Command set.

Six elements of Warband. Most

are HaT Dacians, although there are a couple of clubmen lurking in the back row from their Roman Auxiliaries set.

The Dacians who scared the Roman most. Two elements of Blades, wielding the fearsome falx, supported by Two elements of Psiloi.

Sarmatian allied cavalry on the left (Knights), from the HaT set of Roman Clibanarii. From memory one of the horses is actually Carthaginian, although with a different head. The Light Horse are HaT Gothic cavalry.