Irregular Wars Wargaming

This week I was able to get down to Lisburn Gaming Club for a 2000 point game of Fantastic Battles, leading my Ziggurat Dwarves (lower left) in an alliance with Chris' Dark Elves (lower right) against Roger's Wood Elves (top). I had plans to use the river to our advantage, to sit back and bombard the pesky Wood Elves until they advanced, and thein counter their heavy infantry with our own. But as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy - especially when it hasn't been shared with your ally. The pre-battle mishaps saw multiple units on the allied side deploy enthusiastically forward. I think Chris was perfectly happy with that because while I dithered about trying to Blink my own enthusiastic units back into line (and failing turn after turn), the Dark Elves advanced. Half the dwarvern army wheeled to face the on-table sweeping flank advance on the allied left. While on the allied right, an off-table flank march caught some Dark Elf dino riders in a pickle, forcing...

This weekend I have been able to finish off a couple more units for Project Seleukid. First up is a small two-company unit of Phrygians. At Magnesia, these are brigaded on the left with Taurus highlanders from southern Anatolia - Lykians, Pisidians, Pamphylians - and other unnamed tribes numbering 6,700 in total (according to Livy). There is no indication how they were equipped, but I have supposed them to be thureophoroi. This unit, which could also serve as Phoenician thureophoroi at a push, is made up of 28mm Victrix Achaemenid spearmen with spare Macedonian phalangite heads and thureos shields from Aventine. I admit they were a bit of a slog to get through. Maybe that was just all the interruptions in the painting programme, but I'll say that I'm also not overly keen on the dynamic poses for massed troops... The dolphin transfers are from Veni Vidi Vici, intended for 10mm hoplites. Also freshly completed are two companies of Kyrtian slingers. The Kyrtians were Zagros highla...

After a few weeks where I was unable to paint due to the house being painted and being away for with family and work, I've managed to grab a few hours this weekend to finish off some stuff that has been sitting half done, eyeing me impatiently. First up, to support characters for my  Érineach Preservers . Asset F is a more lightly armoured preserver with sniper rifle, ready to provide some long-range precision to the unit. He is a 40K 2nd edition Space Marine scout (c.1998?) that I picked up cheaply on eBay. I have another clutch of scouts of the same generation on standby in case I ever need more  non-power armoured characters in the force. And a wee cyborg gruagach providing tech-support. I love this little chap from CP models! I tried to weather and scratch up his power-clamp-fist to make it look like he's been doing a whole lot of clamping. Hopefully it will still work when needed!