First go at painting flat cavalry figures.

Having finished painting a load of figures for a wargaming colleague I thought I should have a go at painting some of the 'lead mountain' of flat figures I have waiting to get done . Here are a couple of cavalrymen who I think will be members of the Fort Ghori Horse . They need a coat of varnish to bring the colours out , I painted them a basic dark shade then used a couple of highlights to pick up the raised areas . I'm enjoying the challenge as I've not done anything like this before and hope to post more pictures soon .

The Battle of the Akrim Valley (part 2)

The third move finds the Hyperborian Guard Cavalry crash into the rear of the retreating archers who are all cut down .

In the centre the infantry clash in melee and the Hyrkanian light horse try to get on the flank of the Hyperborean cavalry

The victorious Guard cavalry continue their rampage in the rear of the Hyrkanian army by destroying the War Engine .

The 1st Imperial Infantry clash with the 2nd Gwalur infantry and force them to retire again .

The Hyrkania Light Horse attack the flank of the Guard Cavalry but being fewer in number are driven off .

The battle was to last for 6 moves and here is the situation at the end. The Hyrkanian infantry hold the centre in some disarray with the Hyperborian infantry facing them in even greater disarray . The Hyperborian Archers and Cavalry threaten the Hyrkanian left and rear . 

The 2nd Gwalur Infantry rout and refuse to be rallied by the mounted Staff Officer .

The Thurn Infantry rallied by General Myopia .

The 2nd Imperial Infantry are rallied by General Paxo who decided it was time to retire from the field as darkness fell having lost his Regiment of Archers and the War Engine . A great game! - am busy 'tweaking' the rules slightly and the forces of Hyperborea and Hrykania will meet of the table again soon . 

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The Battle of the Akrim Valley (part 1)

This is move one, the Hyperborean army on the left , the Hyrkanian on the right . The Hykanians move first pushing their archers forward and trying to bring up their heavy infantry to support them . The Hyperborians march forward (double move) and their heavy cavalry are in the distance attempting a flank march .

The green markers show if a unit marches (this can been done every other turn) The Hyrkanian Archers shoot at the heavy infantry in front of them .

The 2nd Gwalur infantry take enough casualties to test their morale and fail their test and retire 2 moves - not a good start ! .

On the other flank the Imperial Horse make a split move to attack with javelins the Hyperborian archers then retire . The War Engine moves onto the table from reserve into the centre of the table .

On the second move Hykrania moved first , the archers having routed their opponent quickly swing around to meet the Hyperborian Heavy cavalry who are  bearing down on the right flank . The 1st and 2nd Imperial Infantry move forward to engage the remaining Hyperborian Thurn Infantry who had had to halt due to failing their morale test because the flanking unit had run .

The Hyperborian Guard Cavalry crash into the Hyrkanian Archers who because they marched to get into position can't shoot - The are cut to pieces by the cavalry and flee 2 moves .

The end of the second move the fleeing archers are hopefully being rallied by a staff officer, whilst the Hyperborian Guard Cavalry is poised ominously to the rear of the Hyrkanian army .

The battle as it would have been seen in the 1960's as in the Featherstone book . Part two to follow …..

Battle of the Akrim Valley (prelude).

Been playing through several small games using Featherstone's Ancient rules and doing a bit of tinkering with the hand to hand and morale rules . Here we see the Hyperborian army on the left of the photo Hyrkanian army on the far right .

The Hyperborian army , nearest the camera the Thurn Archers , next the Thurn Infantry then the 2nd Gwalur . The Guard Cavalry is in the top corner . I diced for the positions of units using the old Featherstone method - 1 = left flank, 2 = left centre , 3 = centre , 4= right centre , 5= right flank , 6 reserve .

The Hyrkanian force the 2nd Imperial Archers in front with the 1st and 2nd Imperial Infantry behind . The 2nd Imperial Light Horse are on the left flank out of camera and a Light War Engine in reserve . Apologies for the poor photos I'm using my phone's camera and the weather outside the window is dark and less than seasonal.

Something I've decided to add is an idea I thought up some time ago - 'The Favours Of The Gods' , each side rolls a dice before the game and the resulting pips can be spent on re-rolling dice during the game . I found these figures on eBay and the statue from Berlin Zinnfiguren . Hmm ! the gods are not smiling on Hyrkania - only a 2 ! .

Hyperborea is even more out of favour with only a 1 to spend on re-rolls ! . With the battle set up I'll report back as it progresses .

Flat figures for Hyboria .

Been very busy getting my flats based and the paintwork re-touched ready to play a game using Featherstone's Ancient rules . Here are the 1st Imperial Infantry Regt .of Hyrkania.

A detachment of the Hyrkanian Imperial Archers . Hyrkania has a strong Greco/Roman theme when it comes to figures .

Hyrkanian Light Horse , I've had to touch up the paint on most of the above figures and added a bit of shading to the flesh colour to make it stand out more .

The Hyperborian Thurn Infantry, I've had to paint extra figures to bring this up to strength - an Officer and Standard Bearer .

The 2nd Gwalur Infantry of Hyperboria , I have re-painted these to give a uniform appearance and added the two Officer figures . I'm using the organisation from the Featherstone book which gives 20 infantry and 2 Officers, the cavalry  are  15 and 2 Officers . I've got enough  for a small game which I will be posting soon .

Running repairs .

A number of the figures I bought in have damage to them mainly in the form of missing spears and swords , I read somewhere about repairing flats using old flattened out toothpaste tubes - it was when these tubes were made of thin metal - unfortunately they are plastic now . Then the cats came to my rescue or rather in the form of their cat food containers which are made from a thin metal sheeting . 

I cut up the containers with a pair of scissors and trimmed them to form a sword blade (upper right figure) , a spear butt (upper left) and a sort of 'draco' cavalry standard (bottom) and glued them to the figure with super glue .

The finished refurbished figures awaiting their bases painting . I will see how resilient these repairs are , an after thought was that thick plastic card might work just as well ? . There are several figures in the unpainted purchase that have been snapped off their bases and have damaged horse tails, I'm thinking of trying to solder these back in place - Hmm !? we will see . 

First fruit of the Motherlode .

I thought I'd better have a go at painting some flats as I've not done a lot of them before and one of the first things that came out of the box of flats I got of eBay was a Roman catapult . So I based it up gave it a black undercoat and had a go at painting it . Above and below is the finished article , varnished and the base given a simple sand and paint job . I'm pleased with it as a first effort, I added a bit of shading but kept it to a quick wargaming paint job . It will be recruited into the Hyrkanian army as a heavy war engine . Revamping and rebasing of the painted figures is going on apace and photos will appear soon .

The Lead Motherlode .

I realised I was going to need extra figures for my two Ancient flats armies so when I saw on eBay a huge box of assorted figures I bid on it and nobody else seemed interested - so today the Postman dropped this box off ! 

350 assorted flats at less than 20p a figure ! . There is a good mix of infantry, cavalry and even some camels ! - this is going to take quite a while to sort out ! .

Just some of the figures from the top layer . I'm going to start sorting them into different piles to try and get my head around what is what . I've started basing the other figures I got and will post some pictures soon .

An Ancient dream realised .

The first exposure to wargaming was when I was about 14 and finding Donald Featherstones book 'Wargames' in the school library . It was a revelation , I had lots of unpainted plastic Airfix figures and the cheap Hong Kong knock offs and my first game was played on an old piece of hard board which had been the door of my fathers greenhouse and was painted green and badly flaking and a bit warped . I used Airfix Romans , Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood figures to try and recreate the Ancient battle from this book called 'The Battle Of Trimsos' . I can't remember the actual game but I played many battles using this book .

I always wanted to copy the actual battle from the book using German flats - but they were expensive and almost impossible to get in 1970's Britain . Recently I received an email from a bookseller who I have frequently dealt with saying he had a collection of German flats going on sale on EBay - was I interested ? - of course I was !  and so I invested the money I got from selling my 28mm Ancients in a collection of 30mm Ancients flats - such are the peculiarities of wargamers ! . Here is Paxo the Great of Hyrkania  glued onto a chunky base as will all the figures when I get them sorted .

His rival Myopia of Hyperborea . The figures are a mixture of Roman, Biblical and Greek just what the doctor ordered for the mythical world of Hyboria . They are mostly painted using what I think may be a type of water colour (?) defiantly pre Acrylic and not enamels , some have been given a coat of varnish .

A camel riding archer , the painting varies from so-so to very good and quite a few of the models have chipped paint as you might expect . I will do my best to renovate this damage and  when I paint more figures will try to replicate the style of painting to match .

Assyrian archer and slinger note the paint missing from the legs, these have a varnished finish .

The Roman contingent , some of the better painted figures these will be the starting point for Hyrkanian Imperial Archers and Foot Guards . My long term plan is to build up two armies using the organisation used by Don Featherstone in 'Wargames' .

A unit of the more exotic Philistines, all with Goliath stamped on the base ! , these will be Hyperborian Guard Regiment .

A Greek light cavalryman rather nicely painted but needs some TLC in the paint department and a unpainted elephant - this will be a challenge to paint ! as I've not painted many flats and matching the style of the existing figures will be a challenge , but I'm looking forward to it . I've started casting my eyes over eBay for more unpainted figures to build up the units . When I get the figures based up I will post more photos .