Irregular Wars Wargaming

When Andrew came to me and suggested a joint project building a 28mm Seleukid army, I admit I was seriously tempted. Then he went on to say that he'd like to do it properly. How could I say no to that!? Now I suspect that he might regret the proposition, because he's unleased the monster I like to keep inside me! I have done Seleukid armies in the past - first in 15mm for DBA (sadly that army was among the fallen after the big move), and then to a massive extent in 6mm. This will be my first foray into 28mm for the period. In my other life, both my honour thesis and PhD focused on the Seleukids, and I have worked on Hellenistic sites in the Middle East and Central Asia. Oh my, oh my, but this will be a project to get my teeth into! Thirteen years ago now I posted a few passages I was working on for my PhD on this blog looking at the  ethnic break down of the Seleukid army . The gist of it still stands up to scrutiny and remains a useful resource. The summary strongly indicates

With the completion of two small jäger battalions, and almost a year after starting, I have finally completed the Württemberg Light Infantry (3rd) Brigade, part of the 25th Division in Marshal Ney's III Corps from the 1812 campaign. The brigade has built as part of an ambitious group project themed around the battle of Borodino. During the 1812 campaign the Württembergers were very active participants - that was enough to justify my decision to field the 1st and 2nd jäger battalions as small units according to the Black Powder rules. I was torn as to whether I should break my heart doing the white piping around the collar, cuffs and tails etc as I have done with the light infantry battalions. The piping is shown on the Knötel plate above and generally paited on other minis I've seen online. However, on the photo below (showing an 1814 jäger uniform appropriated from Miniatures.de ), the piping is so very narrow that it shouldn't really be visible on a 28mm miniature. That&

This week saw another 2000-point battle of Fantastic Battles. This time, it was wood elves (Roger) against a joint host of undead (Neil) and Night Stalkers (me). Despite better lighting than I’ve had of late, I was too preoccupied (spoiler alert) to take enough photos for a detailed write-up! Roger’s elvish array included a vast number of characters but only a couple of units of archers and rangers, relying mainly on pointy-stabby units like war dancers, spearmen and stag-knights. My Night Stalkers deployed with a narrow, advanced line and a fast-moving reserve of vampire knights, bats and succubi. To my right, Neil’s undead were likewise in two lines, but somewhat less fast. Given how small my force was, and how many expendable units he was running, our combined break point was only 14! The undead had terrain to negotiate before engaging with the enemy. The unit of banshees and the dragon on the right of this picture had no problem getting through the woods, but would continually suff

This wee chap brings us  (again)  to the end of Beerenburg's recruitment process (for now). A fourth captain for the army, he brings the Fantastic Battles halfling burgher army up to 1185 points, leaving 15 points to play around with different strategies and relics. The intrepid miniature is sold by Grimforge and scales perfectly with GW and TAG halflings. And here is the full army on paper (above), and in their box (below), ready for their next outing!

I've now completed two more bases to support the halflings of Beerenburg. They still need to be varnished, but the weather is humid for the forseeable and I'm not willing to risk spraying them at the moment, so please forgive their shine! The first is this pustulent chap - a second mercenary giant to strong-arm the opposition. He is a 3d sculpt from Dark Realms, sold as an ogre executioner. I have him printed oversize - as big as possible to fit in my army box. Here he is with my existing giant for scale. I think they work fairly well together. I've also prepared a second company of mounted burghers to stiffen the resolve and double the punch of the exisiting company. These are, of course, from The Assault Group. Here they are banding together with their fellow burghers.

Andrew, Jim and I met up this week for a large game of Fantastic Battles pitting Andrew's Verminkin and Jim's human Byzernians against my Night Stalkers (vampires etc) and Goblins. Above you can see initial deployments on a table taped off to be 180x80cm. Both the ratmen and the vampires used the Night March strategy meaning their forward lines were started only 4bw apart! Rolling for objectives, both sides received the dragon-slayer mission meaning if we dispatched all opposing dragons and fantastic beasts, we'd get a Resolve boon across the table. That mean killing the goblin-king's wyvern mount for them, or killing a rat-god and an archangel for me... After rolling for mishaps, the Night Stalkers were completely unscathed (but for an overly enthusiastic Death Coach), while the goblins were ravaged by disease, desertion and general slovenly lateness. The opposition had a couple of late units, but was otherwise not too bothered.   The opening phase of the battle saw

Following their recent defeat by an army of landsknechts, and the subisquent unchecked inflation in the pike-staff market , the halfling burgers of Beerenburg took to the field of battle again to try to moderate the market more in their favour. The Landsknecht army (top) was unchanged; from left to right: two two-company units of handgunners, two company unit of ogres, three-company unit of knights, three three-company units of drilled pikemen, giant, and steamtank.  The burgers (bottom) altered their order of battle slightly, running from left to right: four-company unit of archers, single company of mounted burgers, three-company unit of dismounted burghers, three-company unit of archers, two-company battery of hackbuts, two-company unit of slingers, giant, and a two-company unit of fast swordsmen. Thanks to their quartermaster, the burghers suffered no mishaps ahead of the fight. Among the landsknechts, both units of handgunners were enthusiastic and one unit of pikemen were late. O