Caananite Chariots, Part 2

A second pair of chariot units issues forth from the painting table...

Cabs repainted on trhese

Minor touch up and gluing of the crew figures

and the horses and horse furniture (quite a few painting errors on the complex horse furniture on the originals). 

The right hand chariot had a "running board" added to it so that the second crew figure would fit!

This second pair of chariots also had the front of their cabs repainted.

Some shading of the crew figures.  

 I opted against using Magic Wash" on any of these chariots and crews -it just didn't seem like it would suit the figures well.

Eight chariot rehabs down, two more to go! 

Howling Blizzard makes me Horse around!

 Pretty much the whole state of Connecticut is shut down today, with snowfall already over  12"here, with strong winds and much drifting. So, what to do with a day out of work?

With the addition of the Cananite forces, my Assyrian army was starting to look pretty outnumbered. I had enough Lead on hand to make 2 new units of LC (Black Tree Designs, acquired last year), 1 of HC (Foundry, acquired from a dealer Bargain Bin at a Historicon 12+ years ago, and 4 more 4-Horse chariots (Hinchliffe, another Historicon purchase, dating back even farther), plus 3 mounted Leader/Hero figures for To the Strongest. With 32 horses to paint, mass production is in order... there are Duns, Palominos, Roans, Light Chestnuts, Dark Chestnuts, Bays and one White horse in the works!  Let it snow!

Uh, evidently. it has!  A week ago today we arriving for a 4 night stay on Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, British West Indies...

On our first trip there two years ago we met a couple on the beach that owned a unit near the place that we had stayed, and they let us stay in their unit for this trip. Above is the view when you walk into the open air lobby!

View from the balcony of the unit straight ahead...

to the right...

and top the left.

View from the balcony in the Master bedroom. 

View looking across the pool to the "lobby and poolside bar.

Thursday was especially nice - high of 80 degrees, bright sun. 

"Shades of Blue"!  When we landed in Hartford on Saturday, it was 20 degrees, and went down to 10 degrees the next morning. Now, about that snow...

Little brown Jugs

I painted up this set of ceramic jugs as additional table dressing for my Ancients games.

 Manufactured in Resin by Stonehouse Miniatures, "Ceramic Jugs"

As you can see, I painted them in  three different basic "pottery" shades.

I used the ink pens for some simple geometric decorations.

A "magic wash" of dilute ink was them applied.

None jugs in the set, some with plugs, some without. Stonehouse also makes Amphorae.

Some other Egyptian items for a sense of scale and place!

Chariots of Canaan

The first of the Canaanite Chariot rehab units rolls forth from the painting table!

I repainted the cabs of this pair of chariots in more muted colors.

Did touch up work on the horses, horse furniture, and crew ... missed a spot on that spear, now corrected!

Glued the crews back in place as needed, and supplied another missing shield using a wood disc.

And, of course, terrained the bases!

This next pair of chariots got touch up and shading of the crew figures

and touch up of the horses and horse furniture.

The two orange/red clad guys remind me of a pair of actors in a farcical play!

Once again the basing adds a lot, as well as helping to unify the collection. Four down, six mopre to go!

1st West Prussian Landwehr Cavalry

While planning my Gross Beeren game for HAVOC (which takes place in 4 weeks), I discovered that my Order of  Battle called for 4 units of Landwehr Cavalry. I had only three, but recalled that I had surplus Prussia Dragoon figures that could be used to raise a new, 4th Landwehr cavalry unit. So I did!

The Erstes Westpreussische Landwehr-Kavallerie Regiment. 28mm Old Glory Prussian Dragoon figures.  Mit Gott für König und Vaterland!

The regulation uniform for the Landwehr cavalry was fairly similar to that of the Prussian Dragoons, except that the coats were dark blue, and the leather work was black. The Provincial color was to appear on the collars and  the cuff piping; I have made the whole cuff in the provincial color, a common variation. 

The provincial color for West Prussia was black, but most of the Landwehr infantry and cavalry raised their instread used "Brick Red" facings, as seen on this unit. I painted them first with Delta CC Pumpkin, with a second coat in CC Poppy Orange on top to get a strong orange-red color against the dark blue of the Litewkas and saddle blankets. 

Landwehr cavalry, like their infantry brethren weren't supposed to carry standards, but they did carry lances. Therefore, I have equipped this unit with an oversize lance/guidon in the provincial lance pennon colors for West Prussia (yellow over crimson), ornamented with a black Landwehr cross. 

The shakos were usually ornamented with a white or yellow Landwehr cross on the front as well. As these figures wear covered shakos, the cross is painted onto the shako covers. I have covered the uniforms of the Landwehr cavalry previously in more detail here. There were many units dressed in decidedly different uniforms, although it is estimated that roughly 75% of the Landwehr Cavalry wore more or less the regulation dress. 

I'm all Spears...

The last of the Canaanite Infantry Rehab figures are now done, as can be seen below!

These chaps look vaguely Egyptian, but of course imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, eh? 

Here';s the original version. I didn't care for the intense, deep green of the tunics at all.

If you look at the "before" picture, you will also note the lack of, err, Spears! I fashioned some out of floral wire, and they glued into place easily. 

You will also note that some figures were missing shields as well. I actually popped all of them off to facilitate the repaint, and, obviously, changed the color to match the border ornamentation on thier tunics. I had to fashion a couple of replacements from wood discs, hidden in the back rank - I see that I missed painting the bronze on them, and also the studs on the 2 different pattern shields in the front rank - both now corrected!

I like the red and green pattern on the white tunics. The trusty ink pen was used to black line the leather armor. 

Once again, the basing with scenic sand, railroad talus, and tufts makes a big difference as well!

This unit of ? Hittite or Hyskos spearmen was painted from scratch from the bare lead that Ken provided. 

Once again, there were insufficient shields in the "parts box" Ken sent, so a few replacements were fashioned from wood discs, seen on the "command" base. Passable, I think, especially from table distances!

I wasn't sure if the ornamentation on the back helmets was that, or plaited hair pulled through an opening at the top of the helmet. I went with painting them as a white decoration, but I'm still a bit undecided if it would look better in black. 

The blue ink pen was used to do a more complex design on the tunics of these Guardsmen, and I was pleased with the effect - oops, missed the right rear guy, also since corrected!

They stand ready to fight with or against my Egyptians!

Scarabs cause HAVOC!

This year my working schedule allows me to run a game at Battle Group Boston's HAVOC convention, held in Shrewsbury, MA, March 31st thru April 2nd, 2017. As it turns out, fellow HAHGS member, Greg, was considering staying overnight Saturday to Sunday; as I hate having to drive from Connecticut to Massachusetts Saturday morning, and then back from Mass again the same evening right after having run a game , we decided to share a room. That arrangement will allow me to run a game on Sunday as well. The events have been duly submitted and approved:

Saturday, April 1st:  2 PM - 6 PM

When Assyria was in Egypt's Land
		8	To the Strongest!	28mm	Ancients/Chariot era	Peter Anderson
	Description:	Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, invaded and briefly conquered Egypt in 671 BC, but really this is an excuse to get the two most famous of Chariot era armies on the table for these simple but surprisingly subtle rules, using a gridded board, playing cards, and no dice!

Sunday, April 2nd" 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Beeren before Noon - that's Gross! - August 23, 1813
		6	Snappy Nappy	28mm	Napoleonic	Peter Anderson
	Description:	Reynier's and Bertrand's Corps of French, Saxons, Wurttemburgers and Italians launch an un-coordinated attack on von Bulow and Tauntzein's Prussians, defending the approaches to Berlin. A French Victory here could have radically altered the course of the "War of Liberation"!

The first event is planned to include some of my Canaanite Rehab figures as Egyptian Allies. The second will act a s a goo prelude an refresher for our Snappy Nappy 1809 campaign in Italy and Carinthia the end of April. As I was thinking about the Chariot era game, it occurred to me that Scarabs might be a fun way of marking "hits" I found quite a few online, chiefly intended for use in jewelry. Some were $3 or more a piece; I wanted something inexpensive, as the game would use quite a few of them. After searching a bit I found a reasonably priced solution.

Shipwreck Beads has a huge variety of beads for sale, including several scarab designs. The ones that met my price point were these: "Blue Iris Scarab Beads", 10 x 14mm: 120 beads for about $11.

Complementing them are these Green Iris Scarab Beads, otherwise the same. I ordered 120 but they only had 37, so they sent me what they had (no back orders), but at the per unit price as though I had purchased 120. That was great, but it brought my order below the minimum free shipping price point.

As I needed to spend a bit more to hit the free shipping price point (but see above), they had some other interesting items, including these plastic sculpting tools...

and many colors and size packages of Sculpey. I figures this might help me come up with a better solution the next time I was faced with the "Clock Tower on a stick" dilemma, LOL!

Here are the scarab beads out of the bags and side by side so that you can appreciate the color contrast and iridescence better. Evidently, there is a long tradition of glass bead manufacturing in the Czech Republic. 

Here are one each of the "blue" and "green" scarabs on the table with a Canaanite unit for size comparison. They look just about the right size for markers - neither too big nor too small. 

I am looking forward to attending the HAVOC convention this year! Hope to see some of you there! In addition to the many games that are presented, they have quite a few dealers on hand as well. 

On a personal note, I just transitioned from 33 years of self employment as a (largely solo) physician to being one of several hundred physicians employed by Western Connecticut Medical Group less than 2 weeks ago. There will be relatively few physicians left in solo or small group practices by the end of this decade,  a consequence of the Government's well intentioned but generally clueless meddling in how we do our jobs, which has been hugely injurious to us in terms of both finances and job satisfaction. Still, I expect the transition to be positive overall, and it should allow me to continue caring for my existing patients for as long as I am able and willing and able to do so.