Battle report [DBA]: The Lamian war (323-322 BC)

A good friend of mine was visiting me on sunday and so we made some matches of DBA. He has played tabletop earlier but isn't an active gamer anymore. Anyhow he quickly learned how to play DBA - it's simply a great game, easy to learn but difficult to master! Ok, he has played DBA twice before when we met after christmas, but that was also some time ago.

So I set everything up and we chose our armies. At the moment I basically own Greeks and Macedonians, so it had to be a combination of these two. My friend chose to field the forces of Antipater. I looked in the list for potential enemies and found Athens, which I played. With these armies we simply had to play the Lamian war (323-322 BC), which broke out after the death of Alexander the great. The Greek cities rose up again to regain their freedom, but were ultimately suppressed and lost their autonomy forever. Focus of the war was the town of Lamia (therefore Lamian war). This conflict was overshadowed by the wars of the Diadochoi, but indeed has much wargaming potential with it's land battles, sieges and marine operations. We decided to interprete the history for our needs, so the following battles are recreated, but only set in the context of the Lamian war 

1. Battle of Lamia

As in history, in our first game the Greeks were attackers. They marched north to conquer the town of Lamia. A Macedonian army was hastily send to prevent this. Both armies clashed on the fertile plains near Lamia. All hills were gentle, so only the woods were difficult terrain.

The view from the Greek perspective: the hoplite phalanx on the left, fully extended. Psiloi and auxilia behind the woods, on the extreme right a unit of cavalry. Not in the picture is a unit of light horse on the extreme left.

On the other side stood the Macedonians. On their right flank was a mighty elephant, in the center the extended pike phalanx. Auxilia closed the gap between the phalanx and the hill. On the hill were the psiloi, behind them the cavalry in reserve.

The deployment from another view.

The Greek general (that was me) wanted to resolve this battle quickly. His plan was to use his longer line to overwhelm the Macedonian phalanx before they could outflank him with their superior and more numerous cavalry (bottom right on the picture). So he pressed on with all his troops.

But it was too late! Antipater destroyed the auxilia, which should guard the flank of the phalanx. Things went bad for the Greeks, who seeked the decision in infantry combat.

This is how the final close combat began. Despite their longer line the Greek phalanx was thrown into disorder. To make things worse the Macedonian cavalry wheeld around to hit the phalanx in the flank, just in time. The Greeks are trapped and so the line collapsed. As the casualty rose the hoplites threw away their shields to run away. The battle ended with a glorious Macedonian victory, they didn't even lost a single base!

Conclusion: it was a fast and fun battle. The Macedonians had a good timing which brought them victory. I need to paint some casualty markers (you don't need them for DBA, but they look pretty cool and I'm a wargaming aesthete). 

Greek and/or Macedonian camp

Hi there,

I've been busy the last months, finding a new job and such stuff. This left not so much time painting or even playing. Unfortunately this development will go on the rest of the year...

But beside that I do have finished something - a camp for my Greeks and/or Macedonians. It's suitable for FoG and DBA with its size of 12x12cm. The tent, which I shortened a bit, is from Italeri's 'desert well and tents'-set (great stuff!). The miniatures are take from Linear B's 'Roman market', but I think you can also take them as Greek civilians. The miniatures themselves are rather chunky, but do look good painted. The hoplite is from HäT.

 

 

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 3

To confess a defeat is never easy, but sometimes inevitable. The weekend was filled with work, not just painting, but also making scenery (not for me, so I unfortunately forgot to make some pictures).

At the beginning everything looked good. I deflashed my miniatures and made some minor conversions. Note the red spears of the cavalry and triairii. They are made of brooms and are much more durable than the soft plastic spears. The legionaries kept their pilum, because it's much shorter and is very detailed.

The next step was priming. I primed my miniatures in GW skull white, as one should always work with bright colours when using the army painter dip. The horsemen are missing on that picture.

I decided to start with the main bunch of the army, the legionaries. This meant painting 24 similar miniatures. Although I saved time by working on so many figures at once it was also very exhausting and sometimes frustrating. It took me all saturday and sunday to complete them. The picture on the left shows them in WIP status.

Even though I had a plan, I did not so much on miniatures monday and tuesday. Yesterday evening I applied the dip at last. They need to dry today. After that I'll white their shealds and put on the decal. Then they need to be varnished and based.

I failed my project. It started good, but I underestimated the work and my very own motivation and working speed. I didn't even finished 24 miniatures, not to speak of the whole army. This is of course a bit disappointing.

But I'm an optimist and always look on the positive things in life. The legionaries are nearly finished, the most work is done. I have never painted so many miniatures in such a short amount of time. The army as a whole is pushed a big step forward. And I'm motivated to get the rest done. So, in the end, not everything failed.

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 2

I'm very busy with my project and don't even find any time to write on my blog! So here's a short update:

I removed the paint on some miniatures using oven cleaner. It works well with badly primed soft plastic miniatures, but took some time too.

 

 

 

No paint left

Working space. I sit on the left, my friend on the right.

Cleaning the miniatures after deflashing.

I'll report more later!

Project: One Week - One Army. Part 1

Hello and welcome on my blog!

This time I want to start a project and share it with you. The title is, as you may have seen, 'one week - one army'. To be more precise: I want to paint a polybian Roman army for DBA in one week, starting today the 24th of January 2013. I'll show the whole way, from deflashing, priming, painting, dipping, finishing and basing. First I have to admit that I already cheated because I have done two elements of skirmishers (called psiloi in DBA) in November. 

The background of my project is the following: a friend and I want to present a participation game on a wargames convention (the Do or Dice in northern Germany, 14th April 2013). Our theme will be the (first) battle of Ausculum 279 BC, which was fought between Pyrrhos of Epiros and the Roman republic. We have enough Greeks and Macedonians, but no Roman army! So my will hopefully visit me one the weekend and we both will only do one thing - painting (and probably some other hobby stuff as well).

Romans of the Pyrrhic wars. Picture from Johnny Shumate.

1. The beginning

I want to start with the DBA army list for polybian Romans. It requires: 1 cavalry (general), 1 cavalry, 6 blades (principes and hastati), 2 spears (triairii), 2 psiloi (velites), 1 camp. This means in miniatures: 6 horses, 6 horsemen, 24 legionaries, 8 spearmen, 4 skirmisher and the camp which will be made of 3 tents and 4-8 miniatures (civilians etc.).

My manufacturer of choice is Zvezda because they have everything I need and look very good. For the infantry I take this set. The cavalry is taken from this set. Civilians in the camp are taken from here. I maybe also add some miniatures from this HäT set to the scene. The tents are made from Rusus. I bought them on the Tactica last year (hey are missing in his shop).

The first step will be deflashing. After that I'll remove the paint, as some miniatures were painted before, and wash all of them properly. Then I'll prime them all with GW skull white.

Raiders from the North - Thracian Light Cavalry

During my painting sessions in December I was able to finish some more units. One of them was a battle group of Thracian light cavalry. As you may have noticed I did two bases for them some time ago. The only thing I did was to add four more bases, so now I have a complete battle group for Field of Glory. The figures themselves are again taken from the hellenistic cavalry set made by Zvezda.

The Thracians were a people living north or north east of Greece, roughly in the region which today is Bulgaria. They were devided into many small warlike tribes and therefore also often made raids into the nearby territories of Greece and Macedonia. Thrace itself was rich of timber and metals, the Thracians often served as mercenaries in Greek and hellenistic armies. They were known for their skills as light infantry and cavalry.

The four new bases:

The battlegroup as a whole:

Grey Beasts - Hellenistic War Elephants

And once more I needed much time to update my blog again. I moved again because I finished my studies (just waiting for my last paper to be checked) and currently I try to find a job or something like that (isn't easy as political scientist and historian). Despite that I had some free time which I spend mostly on painting. Today I managed to make some pictures, so I decided to finally continue my blog and start the new year the right way!

I finished two hellenistic war elephants in december. They are made by Zvezda and are as usal very good looking. The box art indicates that they are fighting against each other, so maybe the battle of Raphia 217 BC is shown. They are both much to big for ancient elephants, but do look impressive on the battlefield. I'm also a big fan of these beasts, as they were a common feature of hellenistic warfare and despite other opinions had influence on the outcomes of battles (heraclea, ausculum, cynoscephalae, just to name a few). Two elephants make one FoG battlegroup and are enough to arm two DBA armies with them because all hellenistic DBA army lists only have one elephant maximum.

I painted the elephants and their crews in a bright and colourful way, to indicate their elite status in the army. Unfortunately the dip was very pasty, so it left some spots on larger surfaces (I diluted it afterwards).

Greek Peltasts

Hi,

I finished a battlegroup of greek peltasts some weeks ago and of course want to show them to you! If you want to know, what a peltasts was, check the Wikipedia article (it's really good), because I'm too lazy to explain it myself. In short, these were skirmishers, but more profession and better armed than the standard psiloi, who were recruited from the poorer classes of the poleis. Peltasts served as light and medium infantry and were especially good on rough ground. They became a common sight in greek armies in the 5.th and 4.th century B.C. and were also in use by the early hellenistic monarchies. They were namend after their pelte, a small shield.

I used this HäT set, which is great for every kind of light infantry. I converted some of the miniatures, because I wanted that all of them wear a helmet, so they look more armoured and differ from normal psiloi. I also replaced the spears with brooms (I highly recommend this blog article) and equipped all of them with shields. I employed the same colours I did with the poorer hoplites and the bowmen, because the peltasts were also drawn from a poorer class in Greece and should not wear expensive clothes in battle. The shield are held in colours, with white free hands, which are simple geometric symbols.

Blowing off the dust... with pictures!

That's exactly what I'll do now - blowing off the dust of this blog. But of course I have my reasons for my neglect. I had to move, because my girlfriend finished her studies and became an assistant teacher in England. So we had to give up our flat and now I'm living for some time alone. Despite that, I'm in a very hot phase of my master thesis and don't have so much time writing my blog or shooting some photos (which, in fact, takes most of the time when making a blog). However I do paint a lot, because I don't have to do much else in the evening, but that has its positive side too - I can eventually finish some stuff. I'll try to make some new pictures, but my girlfriend took her camera with her, so I have to use an older one.

 Besides the things mentioned above, I also took a week off, visiting my girlfriend. We were in Sheffield, which isn't so fancy, but nice though. We visited York, a lovely place with some history and a big church. Of course I'd to check a wargaming shop - you can't go to the motherland of wargaming without doing so! I was in the wargames emporion, which was a very fine shop and offered a good variety of miniatures and systems, even though it was quite small (something you wouldn't find in Germany). And it was also cheap as well, so I had to buy some greek ballistas!

Me, learning new techniques in Clifford’s Tower, the ruined castle of York.

So, what are my plans? Currently I paint a lot of ancients. In the next year I want to play Field of Glory, a system which needs a lot of miniatures. So I have to keep painting. Luckily most of the miniatures I need are already bought. I just have to get it on! I also have some blog posts in the pipeline for months, which I should finish...


I managed to make some photos of stuff I finished in the last month. Unfortunately my girlfriend took her camera with her, so I had to rely on an older one. You'll notice the difference in quality, but I tried to make the best out of it.

First I'll show you my general base for Field of Glory. It can also be used as general in DBA. I used this superd Zvezda set for the cavalry figures. As you may notice I changed the heads, because a barheaded general looks too much like Alexander for me - I want a Pyrrhos! The standart bearer is from another Zvezda set. It has nice miniatures, but the poses arn't really suitable for wargaming purposes. 

Second you can see two bases of velites. These were the skirmisher of the Roman republic. They are the first elements for my Roman army. I mixed  Zvezda and a HäT miniatures to get some variety in poses.

Ancients! Hoplites, bowmen and light cavalry

Nearly two months passed since my last post, a quite sad fact. I admit, I havn't done much since then. I'm writing my masters thesis at the moment and a computer game ist stealing my time. But I finished some ancient figs that waited long enough on my shelf half painted. I also adapted my old terrain to my changed game board, but I missed to make some pictures (it also looks unspectacular, so you don't miss anything). The last thing I did was to change the blog layout, which you may have noticed.

1. The Hoplites

You may have seen my other four bases of hoplites, also taken from this set. They had no armour, because it were the rear ranks. Now I've done some front rank hoplites. They wear greaves and linen armour. I made them very colourful, because they were rich men and rich men always like to show their wealth - and colours were expensive in antiquity. I have two more bases on the workbench, the last ones. With ten bases you can field nearly every Greek DBA army, that involves hoplites (there's only one exception).

2. The Bowmen

Eight bases of Bowmen from this set. With eight bases I can easily make a FoG battlegroup or use them as psiloi for Greek and hellenistic armies. Their tunics are held in bright brown and sand tones, because bowmen were drawn from the poor classes of the Greek society and could therefore not afford fancy colours for their clothes.

3. Light Cavalry

These two bases are from this superb set. They can be easily recognized as Thracians, a people with a long tradition as mercenaries for Greek poleis and hellenistic states. They'll serve as light cavalry for DBA.