ProjectSeleukid - 28mm Essex Elephant

This week saw the completion of the second-to-last unit on my Magnesia roster for ProjectSeleukid. I needed an elephant - the iconic peice of Seleukid wargear. 

After my previous work on an Aventine beastie, I would have loved another. However, storage-box-height concerns meant that I needed to make certain compromises. After a bit of a search, I figured that scalecreep might be my friend for a change, and ordered an elephant from Essex.

What can I say? The inside of the elephant is marked Essex 1984 - the sculpt is 40 years old. While it's showing it's age - especially the crew which have the same proportions of Essex 15mm ranges - the elephant itself isn't bad. It is roughly the same height as the Aventine one, it is significantly narrower, and the head is smaller. The howdah was equally tall and skinny, so I cut it down by about 10mm to allow it to fit in the storage box. 

Just a couple more commanders and a three-comapny unit of cataphaacts to go!

ProjectSeleukid - Scythed Chariots

Attempting to keep up some momentum - although I'll admit these were a struggle - this week we add two companies of scythed chariots to my 28mm late Seleukid army. The models are from 1st Corp. They were fiddly to build, but look decent painted up and, most importantly, just about fit on a 60x60mm base!

Scythed chariots are an enigmatic legacy of the Acheamenid army, absorbed into the Seleukid military machine. While we know almost nothing about their exact look and fit out, they were seemingly employed by the Seleukids from the 4th to at least the mid-2nd centuies BC, present also at Ipsos (301 BC), against Demetrios Poliorketes in Kyrrhestis (285 BC), on the left flank at Magnesia (190 BC), 140 were paraded at Daphne (166 BC), and were perhaps also used by Lysias in Judaea (162 BC).

In Fantastic Battles, I plan to use these as fantastic beasts with the expendible, furious charge and reckless traits to represent their battlefield role as one-shot disruptive terror weapons. 

ProjectSeleukid- 28mm Galatian cavalry

Taking advantage of having a day off work, I forged on and painted up another unit for my 28mm Seleukids, this time its the mercenary Galatian cavalry. These'uns are from Crusader Miniatures Celtic range and they are pretty nice La Tène mounted nobles.

I wanted an irregular feel, but always prefer to stick with a limited palette (so they don't look too much like a rainbow), so stuck with a green theme with a bit of red, but multiple different horse colours.

The army is now coming together nicely and the last units needed for Magnesia have been ordered... more to come.