Renewing My Vows

Well, I made a vow not to start another project until I had finished the one I was doing.

Was that realistic? Nope.

Because I had forgotten that, as wargamers,  we NEVER finish a project, do we? Seriously?

So I have amended that vow, and now I will not start a new project, until I have completed the one I am working on to the extent that I have a playable army. That is much more realistic. I have already reached that stage with the Assyrians, and the rest of the bits I have still to complete, including the chariots, are simply reinforcements.

And there are so many other armies I want to tackle. I have a large part of the New Kingdom Egyptians purchased, washed and sorted. I picked up three boxes of HaT Theban army sets very cheap, and they are very nice clean figures. I have washed and primed the first unit. I will start on this army before the Egyptians.

I am also tempted by a Late Roman force, and a Parthian cavalry army (even though I hate painting horses!).

Over the last week or so I managed to find the time to finish off a small group of cavalry and the first chariot.

The Project Progresses

The Assyrians are coming along slowly. That's because I am now working once again, and only have a few hours at the weekend to crack on with painting.

However, I am finishing some units. The Auxiliary units are complete, save for a unit of a dozen Archers.

The Assyrians still have a long way to go, but I finished one unit of Archers and a unit of Slingers, and a good start has been made on the second Heavy Infantry unit. The third Heavy Infantry unit, some reinforcements for the unit of Archers, and another full unit of Slingers, have now been primed.

Whilst I have made a start on the Heavy Chariots and the Cavalry, they remain on the back burner as I hate painting animals! I know it's easy once one gets back into the swing of it, but I have always hated painting them. As far as numbers are concerned, I have decided to get another box of Heavy Chariots, and I also have another box of 12 Assyrian Cavalry lying around somewhere, which I shall probably paint up later as Royal Bodyguard. And that will do for the Assyrian project.

On other fronts, I made a start on the New Kingdom Egyptian project and purchased some cheap Caesar Egyptian Infantry on eBay a while back. I am thinking twice about this source of figures for future purchases though, as the P&P charges of some sellers has gone through the roof. When you are being asked to cough up £9.50 for a single box of plastic figures, it's not even a bad joke. I won't pay those kind of prices. I am going to look at mail order shops like Hannants in future.

I also found a mint copy of Bolt Action, the WW2 skirmish rules, for almost half price. They are essentially 40K WW2. Very gamey, very lightweight. Having said that, the rule mechanisms themselves are okay and one can easily disregard the sillier stuff, especially the scenarios, which are dire. If I ever do end up gaming WW2 then I will certainly use 20mm instead of 28mm, and these rules might do the trick for the fast, small scale tactical games I want.

I have aborted at least 3 WW2 projects over the last five years, and I am not sure why. It's a period that attracted me to wargames all those years ago, so why is it I find it so hard to get back into it? I still love reading Charles Grant's Battle!, but just can't seem to get the enthusiasm. Maybe it's the boring colour schemes...?

Limitations

I have decided to scale down my Assyrians a bit more.

The original points cost of my planned WAB Assyrian army was well over 3500, which is HUGE. But I was using the older v1.0 rules, and the newer ones have some changes, notably in Rank Bonus, that mean large units are perhaps not as useful as they once were. WAB v1.0 had a maximum Rank Bonus of +3 in resolving Close Combat. That meant it was good tactics to have large units with four or more ranks, so that more losses could be absorbed and the Rank Bonus would still not drop for a couple of rounds of Close Combat.

WAB v2.0 drops that maximum Rank Bonus down to +2. Basically that means 20 figure units, arranged in four ranks, are now in real terms just as effective as 25+ figure units arranged in five or more ranks. Few combats will go on long enough for the extra figures to make any difference at all. So I decided I might as well spare myself some of the painting. I also put aside one unit of 12 cavalry, a unit of 12 armoured Slingers and a unit of 12 armoured Archers. That drops the points down to a more realistic level. Cavalry especially are horrendously expensive.

I will paint those back-burner figures up at a later date, but right now I want to concentrate on getting a balanced army fielded as fast as possible,

So now the Assyrian army proper (minus its auxiliaries and/or allies) is as follows.

1 x General/King in Heavy Chariot
1 x Standard Bearer.
1 x Royal Guard unit (20 figures)
1 x Heavy Chariot unit (3 chariots)
1 x Cavalry unit (12 figures)
2 x Armoured Infantry units (20 figures each)
1 x Armoured Slingers unit (12 figures)
1 x Armoured Archers unit (12 figures)

The Auxiliaries / Allies are less affected by the v2.0 changes, as they were going to be small units anyway, albeit with a lot of Archers. They remain the same size.

1 x Infantry unit (20 figures)
2 x Infantry units (18 figures)
2 x Archers unit (10 figures each)
1 x Tribal Skirmishers (Archers) unit (12 figures)

Assyrian Royal Guard

Today I completed my first unit of true Assyrians, and of course it had to be the elite Royal Guard.

This is a 20-strong unit, based up for WAB. Tough cookies, too.

I went for rich colours. I like the drama of them. Although I just did a simple block-paint style on all my 20mm wargame figures now, these did take a while to paint as there are so many colours involved per figure.

The first two Caesar chariots are coming along nicely. Both had warps in some of the panels, and as the plastic is thick and strong, and has memory, these cannot just be bent straight. The method I use is to place them in a saucepan and pour about an inch of boiling water on top of them. Leave them 10 seconds then fish them out one at a time with a spoon. The plastic is now so soft that it can easily be straightened. Hold it straight and then dip it into a mug of cold water. Hold it for 20 seconds and job done. I fixed the very warped panels on both of the chariots this way, and they stayed fixed. Sadly Caesar figure sets are a bit bad for bent panels and spears etc. I suspect it's down to how they are handled after ejection from the mould. But the boiling water/cold water method works 100% for me, and although is adds a bit of work, it's not a major chore.

Still got the basing to do, but I tend to leave that until the whole army is finished. It's going to be a simple base colour of flock, probably of tan stone or some such shade.

Assyrian Chariots

The Caesar Assyrian chariots are very nice pieces of kit.

They are very well designed and engineered, and clip together without glue. I will use some though, for added strength. They look and are much more solid than the flimsy and brittle HaT ones. They also snap together in seconds. I clipped the parts off the sprue and had a quick test run, and there are no problems at all. I only bothered to trim the excess sprue from the chariot hull in order to ensure the pins fitted, but I will finish the rest later and make a start on it. Unlike the HaT plastic, this stuff is easy to cut with a sharp blade, and does not tear.

I mentioned in my last post that the set does not include a driver. I was going by reports from the excellent Plastic Solider Review site. However, I think they are incorrect. One of the figures is clearly, to me at least, in a characteristic pose for a chariot driver. All one needs to do is remove the pin on his arm, and I wonder if that was the intention. It would also not be hard to convert the figure holding a sword to a driver, at a pinch. I'm actually at a loss as to why he would be using that weapon on a chariot anyway.

So lesson learned. If building a chariot-based army again, I will think long and hard before using HaT chariot models. I dare say not all the HaT chariots are as badly engineered as their Assyrian one, but I'll make sure to check them out first.

Finally Coming Together!

Well, except for the damn Assyrian Chariots, that is.

Attempting to paint a few details onto the almost finished one, I fumbled it whilst turning it in my fingers to paint the other side panel. In an instant the yoke bent and snapped in half, followed by one of the wheel axles, and then as my fingers finally managed to get a grip again the hull bent, and then sprang apart. I had a major hissy fit!

I threw the thing in the bin, followed by the other two - part-completed - ones from the same box. The two remaining unopened boxes are up on eBay, for someone who has a gentler touch than I do. I kept the figures, horses and a few of the accessories to use elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong. They are nice little models. They would work well in hard plastic, although a few parts would be very fragile, perhaps too much so for a wargames table. But something is badly wrong with that cream coloured soft plastic. Bend a component and it breaks in half. Useless. Maybe it was just that box, but I was loath to open the others to prove the point.

So the chariot parts from one box ended in the bin. Instead I have bought two boxes of the Caesar ones. They are engineered a bit more solidly than the HaT offering. The yoke, beam and chariot floor come as one part instead of three. The parts look more substantial too. That should make it much stronger straight away. The sides are pinned in place, which should make a very strong joint once glued. I prefer the HaT figures to the Caesar ones, especially as the former do not include a driver! As I have three sets of HaT Chariot crew, I will use those and modify another figure to provide the driver for the fourth chariot.

 I have downsized the army somewhat. WAB does not really require huge units or large forces. Units of twenty to twenty four seems ideal for infantry and ten to fifteen works well for cavalry. I had made further purchases of a box of Assyrian Allies and another of Chariots. That brought the latter up to a total of nine, which was perhaps a bit OTT. Getting shot of them and a few other surplus to requirements kits on eBay freed up enough cash to buy the two boxes of Caesar chariots. HaT come three to a box, but Caesar boxes hold only two. As the minimum number of chariots in a unit is three, that leaves one for the General/King. I think a single unit of three will do for now. I may, when funds allow, buy another box but I certainly will not be going back up to nine.

I also got rid of a box of cavalry. Two units of twelve seemed sufficient. Even with the reductions the points total is close to 3000, which would give a long game indeed.

WAB Armies Of Antiquity Assyrian Empire

Hhhmm.

It might be approaching senility, or it might simply be that it has been so long since I played using the Warhammer rules that I had forgotten some important aspects of them.

I rather unfairly suggested that there was not much advantage to using the mixed 50/50 formations of Spear and Bow. I said that it only gave one in Close Combat, but of course I am wrong. I had forgotten that it would also give an advantage from missile fire.

In fact all things considered, it's a pretty useful formation that, for a 25% reduction in missile capability, offers at least a 5+ Armour Save from attacks, and a massive 4+ Armour Save if the Spearmen are equipped with large shields. Compare that to a mere 6+ Armour Save if the Bowmen were alone, and it is a significant benefit. So I was wrong.

However, that does not alter the fact that the Chariot Wars list forces the Assyrian player to field units in that formation, which is something I disagree with strongly. Now I had a vague memory that the early WAB Armies of Antiquity book, from a while back, featured an army list for the Assyrians. I was able to pick up a copy on eBay for less than a fiver the other week. When it arrived I quickly ripped off the paper and flicked through it. Bingo! An Assyrian Empire list. And Lo! The unit compositions are much more flexible that the later Chariot Wars one.

I quote.

"Half the unit may (my emphasis) have swords, light armour, and bows. The other half may have swords, light armour, thrusting spears and shields."

Yes, may. Not will. Which means, however one reads it, that the unit can consist solely of Spearmen if one so wishes. Obviously the person who put this list together is a bit less, shall we say, controlling than the one who did the Chariot Wars list. This list also clears up the issue of second rank missile fire, stating clearly that it is at full strength. That's something that Chariot Wars leaves unclear. The AoA list also allows independent units of Bowmen or Slingers. The only two Assyrian formations that have to field 50/50 ratios of Bow and Spear are the Cavalry (where it is both historically accurate and unproblematic) and the units of Siege Troops.

This may all seem a bit too legalistic for some, but at the moment I am trying to work out unit numbers, troop types, and weaponry, and one has to have a good idea of what one is aiming for, in order to sort out the figures into units for painting and basing.

I am still not totally happy with the Assyrian list in AoA, and will probably include the Assyrian Auxiliary troops that are found in Chariot Wars but not in AoA. There is plenty of historical evidence for these troops. I will use common sense and count them as normal Infantry rather than Light, only allowing the Bowmen to skirmish if they start the battle as a separate Light Infantry or Skirmisher unit. The Spears will remain as normal Infantry at all times, as will any Bows who start the battle formed in such a unit.

So it is finally coming together!