Irregular Wars Wargaming

Over the August long weekend I was able to get a couple of bits and pieced finished up for my Fantastic Battles Bacchic army. First up we have the first company of maenads again (but this tile flocked), and the last of the project's planned characters, Papposilenos. Papposilenos was an aged silenos - (similar too, and in some cases indistinguishable from satyrs) who was something of a tutor to the infant Dionysos. As the god matured, Papposilenos's role transitioned to as Dionysos' majordomo. 4th century BC Apulian bell krater showing the bust of Dionysos beside a wee Papposilenos. 4th century BC Apulian lekythos showing Papposilenos playing the aulos and seated on a wine skin. Iconographically, Papposilenos appears short, greying, often balding, and always fat. I started with an old 1986 Talisman satyr picked up for far too much on eBay. I sliced him across the stomach, cutting about 4/5 the way through and then bent his back to tilt his head up. I then greenstuffed him ...

Matt and Paul from Hobby Knockout have reviewed Fantastic Battles in their latest podcast. And very kind they are about it too! Do pop over and check out their regular show for hobby news, thoughts and other reviews.

This week's l'Art de la Guerre outing saw Andrew (Imperator Lucullus) and I (Legate Onerous) embark on a 6mm Roman Triumviral civil war battle.  Lucullus's army consisted of six elite legionary units, and six regular units, supported by a single unit of equites, an elephant, some Thracians, two skirmishing archers, and a couple of Numidian horse units. Onerous commanded a scant four elite Roman legionary units, but his engineers provided two heavy artillery as support. He also personally commanded some Cretan archers and Thracians of his own; his tribune commanded two units of heavy cavalry equites. The smaller Roman army was supported by an Armenian prince, Tirdat, and his entourage of archers, horse archers and elite cataphracts. Wanting to do something a bit different, we decided to play in a wooded area and Andrew helpfully chose an impassable water feature which was placed on my side of the table. After the re-jigging of terrain, it ended up in the centre of the battl...

I've just completed my first company of maenads for my Fantastic Battles Bacchic force; the plan is to field a large unit of four companies as the heart of the army. The figures are 28mm Shadowforge - available through Eureka. They are quite lovely sculpts, even if some of the faces are a little hard. The one thing I would have liked would have been more variation in the build of the different women. However, my gripe is that they are made for slotta bases. I also have Shadowforge Dryads which had flat bases and work perfectly stuck to whichever type of base you care to use. Sculpts for slotta bases are a real bugger when you don't want to use slottas! This is the reason I started with just a single company - to find the best approach to make my unit. These were tacked into the plastic slotta with a tiny drop of super glue for painting. Then the slotta base was snapped off and the metal tab trimmed down to only a few mm, before being glued to the mdf. I then used greenstuff t...

This week Lee cross the Foyle to lead a Spartan expeditionary force against my Macedonians for a game of Fantastic Battles . Both armies included priests to read the omens (magic-users with level 3 prophesy). As the sun rose over the plain, a heron was sighted flying east with a frog in its beak. The frog escaped, fell to earth, but then hopped away. Clearly the gods meant the message to be understood as a disastrous omen. But for which side? After deployment and mishaps, the Spartan invaders looked a lot more... cohesive. From left to right at the top of the photo above, Leeonidas' army consisted of a unit of Thessalian light commanded by a bit of a rogue, a unit of cattle (undoubtably rustled) that were likely to stampede, a large block of allied hoplites commanded by the strategos himself and supported by some skirmishing slingers, a smaller unit of true Spartiate elite hoplites led by the expedition's priest and supported by skirmishing archers, and finally two units of pel...

I realise that I can be a bit special (sure, aren't we all in a way?), and I like to do things a little bit different, but this time I may have got a little carried away!  In Hellenistic and Roman art, chariot races between erotes (the pluralised form of Eros) is a relatively common theme. Generally they occur in dining/symposium contexts, and in that way, are associated with Dionysos and other Dionysiac themes. They also appear in burial contexts which can, again, have Dionysiac associations, either overtly, or more subtly. Thrice-born Dionysos was, afterall, a god of death and resurection as well as out-of-body experiences. Anyway, my point is that in the Greco-Roman world, winged children driving chariots pulled by animals was a 'thing'. Goat-drawn chariots from a fresco in the House of the Chaste Lovers, Pompeii. Goat-drawn chariots from a fragmentary fresco from Seleukid Jebel Khalid on the Euphrates. Deer-drawn chariots from a fresco in the House of the Vettii, Pompe...

Last week's outing saw my Wyld Elves invading Jim's human empire of Byzernia. Jim set up the terrain with three large woods, a couple of fields and a swamp - pretty good for my elves, and not so good for his artillery, shieldwalls and heavy horse. The battle was documented in full, but my camera was on the wrong setting, and the lighting at Jim's is designed for dancin' and romancin' rather than photography of 10mm toy soldiers, so apologies for the quality!😁 The Byzernians heavily outnumbered the elves, but the elves were all elite and pretty tricksy. The Byzernians (top of the shot) deployed irregular units of axe-wielding bonnachts, skirmishing kern and a rogue in the swamp on their right. The centre consisted of the Byzernian emperor himself, leading a unit of heavy horse, flame-throwing artillery and some formed shield-bearers. The Byzernian angel stood in the middle of the central field beside two small units of mixed shielded spearmen and archers and a capta...