DBA/Hordes of the Things - Mummies and Undead

I've been on a bit of a DBA kick for the past three years or so, but before that I used to play a lot more of the related fantasy rules, Hordes of the Things. With Dark Alliance having put out a set of Mummies a few years ago, it had always been at the back of my mind to pick some up and fit them in as a fantasy complement or opponent for my historical Egyptians. However, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to build the whole army out of mummies, and my first thought was to fill them out with some of the Caesar Undead. Sadly, these are long out of production and I have been unable to turn up any at a reasonable price. 

However, earlier this summer, I had a little brainstorm while looking through my collection of unpainted figures. I have a large stash of Atlantic Egyptians that was gifted to me some years ago; I haven't painted many of them because they're a little tall and thin compared to the Caesar figures that make up most of my armies. However, looking at their thin, almost gaunt features and slightly odd postures, I wondered: could I just paint them as zombies of some kind? Turns out, yes, I could.

The next issue was army composition. I decided that I wanted to base it on a DBA army so that I could use it for either set of rules. The question was, who is:

1. An enemy of the ancient Egyptians
2. Not an army I already have available
3. Matches the available figures as far as troop types and weapons

In the end I settled on the I/17a Early Hyksos list as the best fit for my criteria. Their army has a core of fast Blades and a Light Chariot general, with some lighter supporting infantry.

The LCh general. In Hordes of the Things, he might be a Rider or Knight, but likely a Hero General. The chariot and horses are from the venerable Atlantic Egyptian Cavalry set; lacking mummified or skeletal horses of the proper size I attempted to paint these as recently reanimated. The charioteer and his two followers are Dark Alliance figures; one has been converted into a standard bearer.

Four units of mummy warriors as 3Bd (probably still Blades in the HotT version).

Three units of Dark Alliance Anubis Army warriors as 3Ax. These end up being rather imposing; about 7 feet tall compared to regular humans, so to class them as mere Auxilia seems perhaps a little dismissive. In HotT they'll probably be Warbands instead.

Two stands of bow-armed mummies as Psiloi - probably Lurkers rather than Shooters in HotT.

One stand of zombie infantry as 4Ax. In HotT they might get played as Spears instead.

A solid Horde (7Hd) or another psiloi (Ps) round out the army. In HotT these will be a Horde and another Lurker respectively. 

I had originally hoped to have these done by Halloween (for which they might seem a more appropriate subject than Christmas) but better late than never! There still might be a few more HotT unit options waiting in the wings, but at least the DBA version of the army is ready to take the field - perhaps in the new year once my usual opponents return from the holidays!

Bronze Age DBA Part 8 - Mountain Men

Happy New Year, everyone!

I closed out 2021 with the last (really!) of my planned Bronze Age DBA armies - the Kaska. These perennial foes of the Hittites (whose name also gets transliterated as Gasgans or Kashkans) lived in the mountainous north of Anatolia, and are covered in DBA under the I/4 Zagros & Anatolian Highland list. Unfortunately, information on them is pretty scant - there are few, if any, Kaskan archeological sites, and they don't seem to have left written records of their own, so we have to rely on Hittite sources. These don't include any visual depictions that I was able to find, so I was left largely to my own devices in deciding what the Kaska should look like. The result is a mélange of scraps and leftover figures from a number of sets:

• Caesar Hittite Warriors
• Caesar Hittite Chariots
• Caesar Mitannian Maryannu Chariots
• Caesar Trojan Army
• HaT Assyrian Allied Infantry
• HaT Sumerians

In many cases, the figures themselves are little Frankenstein's Monsters, with heads, torsos, arms, or even feet swapped around to create an appearance that was relatively consistent and distinct from my other seven armies. I also tried to tie them together with a color scheme that was heavy on reds and greens and eschewed blues and bright whites. (The Christmas colors are entirely coincidental - I had plotted them out quite a while ago!) There are also quite a lot of checks, stripes, and even tartans worked in.

So without further ado, here is the army:

LCh or 3Wb general

First up, we have a general, either in a light chariot or as a fast Warband.

3x 3Wb

The army includes three more stands of fast Warband as "elite warriors." The DBA book suggests that they might be armed with both bows and axes, so I've done something I would not ordinarily do and mixed some archers in with the melee troops here. To help keep the "elites" distinct from the next set of units, I have also depicted them with armor, generally a shirt of bronze scales.

2x 3Ax or 3Wb

Next up, we have two units of "common warriors" as either fast Auxilia or more fast Warband. Ironically, they may prove more useful than the elites as Warbands in DBA 3.0 are quite vulnerable to cavalry.

6x Ps

Finally, half the army is psiloi skirmishers - mostly with bows, but I did put together one stand of javelineers.

I will admit, I am a little skeptical how well this army will play out in DBA, as they seem pretty vulnerable unless they can take advantage of rough terrain. For a change of pace, I may also deploy them as the I/4c Hurrian/Early Kassite/Nairi list instead (treating all the warriors as fast Auxilia instead of Warband) - the I/4c list also has a more extensive selection of historical opponents, including the Mitanni, Assyrians, and Syro-Canaanites.

Speaking of historical opponents, the completion of my eighth army lets me put together a nice little bracket:

Maybe in 2022 I will get a chance to play it through and see who comes out on top! If I do, it will help fulfill my New Year's resolution of taking all the figures I've painted over the last couple of years and getting them on the table for a game. 2021 was another good year for painting, with 368 figures finished:

Bronze Age DBA Part 7 - The Plain Before Troy

Well, after a sojourn in the Americas, it is back to familiar territory for my latest DBA army: I/26 Later Mycenaean & Trojan War! The historicity of the Trojan War has stirred a lot of debate over the years, so about all I will say is that my views have been indelibly marked by having a copy of Peter Conolly's The Legend of Odysseus floating around since childhood. (And I suspect I am not the only one.) My intention with this one was to build a single army that could match either the I/26a Achaian or I/26b Trojan lists, rather than two entire armies; for now their opponents are likely to be my Hittites and Sea Peoples.

The whole army together

The figures here are all my usual 20mm plastics, mostly Caesar Miniatures' Mycenaean and Trojan army sets and their Mycenaean Chariots. I mixed and matched pretty freely between these sets; I don't see any indication that there was a lot of difference in equipment between the two sides (and anyway, the Iliad seems to suggest that arms and armor were swapped back and forth or taken as trophies on a regular basis). There are also a few head-swaps and other minor conversions in the mix.

LCh or 4Bd general

First up, we have the general in his light chariot. DBA allows the charioteers to dismount and fight as solid Blades instead, so I made sure to have that option available. The banner is not especially historical, alas, but I wanted to be able to distinguish the dismounted general at a glance. (Bonus point to anyone who can figure out the source of the horse head finial!)

3x LCh or 4Bd

Here are the other three light chariots, along with their dismounted solid Blades counterparts. (The outer two men in each stand of Blades match the two men on foot for the corresponding chariot unit.) The keenly observant may note that I have made some substitutions in the chariot crews - the ones Caesar includes look to me to be more suited for an earlier period. Hence, no Dendra armor here. There's also some historical debate over whether Mycenaean chariotry was equipped with bows - mine are, because I had lots of spare archers, and few spare spearmen.

6x Sp

The core of both army lists is a block of Spears - the Achaians can have up to six, and the Trojans up to five. One minor complaint I have about the Caesar sets is that a lot of the shields have a grooved texture that I expect is supposed to represent wood - I'd have liked to have been able to paint more of them as animal hide.

2x Ps

Both armies can deploy a couple of stands of slingers as psiloi. Unfortunately, the sets only contain a single slinger pose. The second fellow from the left is actually a spare chariot driver who has had his limbs repositioned; the one to his right is a Punic War figure that I have borrowed before.

2x 4Pk (Pylians)

The Achaians are allowed to replace two of the Spears with solid Pike (representing troops equipped in an older style with long two-handed spears). I actually got pretty far with painting these before I decided that they really ought to have shields, so I had to go back in and add those. Unfortunately, neither set includes a really proper figure-of-eight shield, so I made do with what was available.

4Wb (Myrmidons)

The Achians may also replace one of their psiloi with a solid Warband unit representing Achilles' Myrmidons. I tried to distinguish these from the regular Blades or Spear by giving them a mix of hand weapons, and black shields and plumes.

3Bd (Lukka/Lycians)

The Trojans are allowed to replace a Spear unit with a fast Blade unit representing Lukka allies or mercenaries. (The Lukka also feature prominently in the lists of the Sea Peoples, and seem to have lived a somewhat piratical lifestyle along the southwest coast of Anatolia.) The figures here are Caesar Philistines.

3Bw or Ps

Finally, the Trojans get a unit of bowmen, as either Psiloi or fast Bows.

Another angle on the whole army

This is probably the largest of the DBA armies I have painted in the last couple of years, so I am ready for a break after these! I do have one more Bronze Age army in mind, but I will need to resolve some supply issues before I am ready to work on them. Fortunately, I have no lack of other miniatures to paint in the meantime - and maybe I'll even be able to get some of these guys on the table for a game!

(Also, if anyone here is not already familiar with the work of Philotep (favored of Ptah, god of artisans) by all means check out his blog! His latest post has me itching to try painting some plaid.)

The little things that count - wrapping up 2020

Well, I don't know quite what I expected from 2020, but this wasn't it. I do feel quite fortunate to have come through the past year unscathed, and with my family and friends generally still in good health. And for all that this was a terrible year for other things, it was a great year for me getting painting done - at some point early in January I realized I had finished an average of one figure a day, and I decided to see how long I could keep up that pace. The answer turned out to be all year - I finished yesterday with 400 figures completed. This was the first year I have kept detailed logs, but I am sure this exceeds whatever my previous record was - and it may prove to be a high-water mark for some time to come! For the fun of it, I decided to lay out everything I painted this year, all at once:

The bulk of this is my six DBA armies, but there are a number of Reaper Bones figures and a few other odds and ends for other projects in there as well. A few of the miscellaneous miniatures that rounded out the year for me:

As mentioned at the end of my last post, these are old chariots I had painted some years ago, but rebased on 60x80mm bases for DBA, and with some new chariot runners added. The runners are a couple of spares left over from my Assyrians, and a couple of Robin Hood conversions. The bowmen are more Caesar Mitannian Mariyannu Chariot archers, dismounted to use as 4Bw in DBA. Between them, these will let my Syro-Canaanite army double as list I/19 Mitanni.

The other item mentioned as forthcoming in a previous post - a second piece of artillery for Elabrün. These are Waterloo 1815's Austrian Artillery set - and in this case, Elabrüner uniforms don't diverge too much from historical Austrians...

Moving to the Reaper Bones side - at some point back in August or so, I actually ran out of the 1-inch washers usually I use for basing 28mm figures, so I switched to working on ones which went on either larger or smaller bases. These ones are all on the small side: two kobolds, and two halflings. (Or possibly a gnome and a halfling.) Alas, the kobold's mace remains bent despite repeated attempts at straightening it in boiling water. 

Some other assorted Reaper critters: the packrat had been sitting around primed but unpainted for at least a couple of years, but I finally got around to it this past month. The normal rats went much quicker. One of the things I enjoy painting most is animals (hence my delight at getting to paint some camelry earlier this year), so it was fun to paint up a couple of animal companions as a wolverine and a bald eagle. And as a Marylander, of course I had to paint the dire crab up as a blue crab!

This final one is a bit of an oddball - it's an old Mage Knight figure, carved off its original Clix base, repainted, and rebased onto one of the empty bases that had previously held a chariot. I still have several of these, so I will be on the lookout for more flying creatures or other ways I can put them to good use. And now with a giant eagle to hand, I find myself thinking about how to stage the Battle of the Five Armies, from the end of The Hobbit...

So that's it for 2020! Of course, one of the other silver linings of the past year has been the revival of this blog. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by, and especially those who have taken the time to leave comments. Hopefully this year's posts will include a few more games, but if not, I expect I will at least post pictures of whatever I decide to pain next! Happy New Year, and best wishes for 2021!

Bronze Age DBA Part 6 - Like A Wolf On The Fold

Alright, so these guys are a few centuries earlier than the army in Lord Byron's poem, but they are Assyrians nonetheless. More specifically, this is DBA army I/25a Middle Assyrians, as opponents for my various other Late Bronze Age armies. This was a much simpler matter than my previous army, as the Assyrians don't really have any options to build out.

Assyrians arrayed for battle

Leading the army is a Light Chariot general, backed up by three more Light Chariots. Long-time readers might recognize some of these chariots, as they were painted in a previous age, but the general is a new addition, and all four have been rebased on larger bases with supporting infantry. The chariots themselves are the trusty Caesar Mitannian Mariyannu type, but the crews and the horses are taken from the Caesar Assyrian Chariot set. (Why not just use those chariots? Well, they're a four-horse type not really suitable for this period.) The designs on the chariots are based on Assyrian seal designs from that period, and the runners are HaT Assyrian Allied Infantry. 

The general and his retinue

The rest of the chariot corps

The infantry portion of the I/25a list has two units of fast Blades, four Auxilia that can be either solid or fast, and two Psiloi. The figures are mostly taken from the Assyrian Allied Infantry set as well, though there are a few Robin Hood men hidden among the spearmen. As with the chariots, I decided to use these rather than the actual Assyrian infantry that are available from a couple of manufacturers, as the armor and shields of those date to a later period. To help differentiate the different troop types, since I was working with a limited number of poses, I gave the Blades red tunics, patterned shields, and helmet plumes, while the Auxilia have white or pale blue tunics, plain blue shields, and no plumes. (Side note - the proportions on some of these HaT figures are a little odd - they have rather squashed heads but very long legs. The standing spearman in particular looks like he could find a career as a ballerina...)

"Ashsharittu or huradu" infantry as fast Blades

"Hupshu or sabe" infantry as Auxilia

Archers as Psiloi

The whole army again, from the commander's perspective

And there we have my sixth DBA army for the year! At this point I won't claim to be done entirely (since I had originally planned to stop after four armies) but I don't have immediate plans to build another whole army. What I may do next is rebase some more of my old chariots on the new larger bases; this might also let me piece together a Mitanni army by borrowing some troops from the Syro-Canaanites and/or Assyrians. But I think that will be a project for 2021.

Bronze Age DBA Part 5 - The Fifth Column

So here I am again, with the fifth of my four planned DBA armies. Yes, that's right, there's some mission creep going on, and it's an exciting tale of head transplants and Biblical controversy! It starts with most of a box of the Caesar Arab Camel Riders and Bedouin I had left over after finishing my Syro-Canaanites. At some point I realized I could just squeeze out a I/6a Early Bedouin or I/6c Early Aramaean army from the remainder and a few other figures I had on hand. These lists represent a variety of early desert nomadic peoples who inhabited the area during the Late Bronze Age, and should be appropriate opponents for my existing armies. 

Both army lists have an option for either a fast auxilia or fast warband general. The Aramaean list has the alternative of a light chariot general instead. The auxilia/warband general was simple enough - these are taken directly from the Caesar Bedouin set, with a standard put together out of bits and pieces. The chariot is one of the trusty Caesar Mitannian Mariyannu chariots. The chariot driver is from the Bedouin set; the archer is the first of our head transplant patients. He's one of the archers from the Mariyannu set, but with his head replaced by one of the archers from the Bedouin set. One of the accompanying chariot runners is another - the man with the shield is from the Caesar Sea Peoples set, but with a replacement sword and a head taken from the Airfix Robin Hood set.

Wb or 3Ax general

LCh general option for I/6c

A second view of the chariot

The core of both armies is mass of fast auxilia armed with javelins: six in the I/6a list, or five in the I/6c list. These are mostly Caesar Bedouin, bulked out with a few Sea Peoples given replacement weapons.

Light infantry as 3Ax

Both lists have a couple of stands of archers - the I/6a list can deploy these either as psiloi or as fast bow; the I/6c list only as psiloi. However, the Bedouin set contained only four archers, and to cover all the options I needed ten! (Not to mention, I had already borrowed one of their heads to give to the man in the chariot - fortunately another Robin Hood figure supplied a replacement.) Scrounging around, I turned up two Hebrews and four Hittite archers in kilts who could blend in well enough.

Archers as Ps or 3Bw

Possibly the toughest units to fill out were the slingers - I needed six (enough for three psiloi units), but the Bedouin set does not actually contain any. I had one spare swordsman who I could convert to be whirling a sling instead of raising his sword. For the rest, I turned to some HaT Punic War Spanish slingers, doing my best to carve their tunics down to bare skin or the chest-wrap thing that the Bedouin figures seemed to have. In the end, they came out a little rough, but I think they'll do fine on the table. (My biggest problem with them is their proportions - I'm pretty sure their arms would go down to their knees if measured out. Possibly they are part orangutan?)

Slingers as Ps

And finally we come to the most controversial element: the camelry! The I/6c Early Aramaean list gets to deploy a single stand of camelry or light camelry. The Caesar set contains a pair of dromedary camels, each with two bow-armed riders. Simple enough, right? Except:

1. The figures in the Caesar set are clearly based on Assyrian wall reliefs that are at least 500 years too late for the period I'm working on.

2. Current archaeological evidence suggests camels had not really been domesticated yet, as of the Late Bronze Age (~1200 BC). To make matters worse, the earliest camels used in Mesopotamia may have been two-humped Bactrian camels rather than one-humped dromedaries.

3. Certain religious organizations are nonetheless insistent that camels must have been present, because Abraham is said to have owned camels, and Gideon from the Book of Judges is said to have faced an army of Midianites and Amalekites, "whose camels were as numberless as the grains of sand.*" (This cleared up something I had been wondering about in the DBA army lists. You may have noted I have not mentioned a I/6b army list - and that's because it represents these Midianites, Amalekites, and early Arabs, with a whopping five units of camelry!)

But despite being anachronistic at best and erroneous at worst, I had the camels and figured I might as well paint them. (And to be honest, it's hard to resist the opportunity to paint animals that aren't horses.) I did swap one of the riders' heads with an infantryman for a little more variety.

Wait a second, who's steering these things?

And that covers my unexpected fifth DBA army! My plan now is to work on some fantasy figures for a while, but we'll see.

A final view of the whole army together.

*Judges 7:12