Wednesday 3 July 2019

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 .







18 comments:

  1. Hi Tony- you started Gaming early at 14...I think I was in my late 20s when I was introduced to Wargaming- though I'd collected Arfix OO/HO Soldiers for years beforehand. Glad you've managed snapping up the Flats which interest you greatly to add to your vast collections. Cheers. KEV.

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  2. Yes I have been gaming about 50 years now and am regressing to my youth when I seemed to have so much fun with simple sets of rules.

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  3. It's great to be able to revisit and fulfill a core experience like this. Looking forward to seeing the entire collection on parade (and even better, in a game report)!

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    1. Busy sorting it out into units and going to glue them to bases , photos soon .

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  4. I really look forward to seeing this project progress and the games played.

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    1. Looking forward to getting on with this , awaiting more bases .

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  5. Lovely figures Tony, particularly the elephant. I'm also looking forward to seeing more of these!

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    1. They are rather nice , I'm looking forward to painting the elephant .

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  6. This will be interesting to watch. About how many did you end up with? I had a look at The War Game and saw they were working with units of 20 foot or 15 horse...

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    1. And of course I mean War Games, not The War Game...more coffee indicated...

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    2. About a 120 foot and 50 cavalry , I have managed to obtain a big box of unpainted off eBay so when all sorted out should have enough I think .

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  7. A marvelous find and project! 'd be envious if I wasn't already doing my equivalent.

    (Are you sure they are pre-acryllic? The first ones hit the market in the 1950's.)

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    1. Not sure on the paint it looks very 'pastelie'(is that a word ?) in both texture and colour range . I must admit I didn't come across acrylic till the 1980s and didn't know they went back that far , I'm going to varnish them to protect whilst handling .

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    2. Some of my old toy soldier books talk about painting with gouache so they could well be water colours of some sort.

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  8. Lovely toys...
    I am certainly looking forward to seeing more of these...
    All the best. Aly

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  9. Replies
    1. Hope to use him as an inspiration for this project .

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