Ancient scenic element - grain store, mill and ovens

I have long known that I spend nearly all of my painting time on figures and while having a lot of terrain, most of it remains unpainted.  So I have plan to start spending time on terrain early on in projects in the future.  

This piece is the first of the pieces for my ancient battlefields and (like all of them) is generic to use throughout the period and even into the Crusades (with a push).  

The mill and oven are Grand Manner pieces and I bought the grain stores during a closing down sale - but unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the manufacturer.  The figures carrying the grain and the wood for the oven are from the extremely useful Eureka Miniatures set.

And a photo alongside the Baggage element for the Sassanid army that I showed in my last post.

Sassanid baggage base - Aventine Miniatures Shapur I set

Work continues on the Sassanids with a 'baggage' element for use with the Impetus rules.  This has been put together with the wonderful Aventine Miniatures Shapur set and uses a scenic piece that I printed based on an Assyrian ruin.

Sassanid Cataphracts

Next up are two bases of Sassanid Cataphracts.  These are the heavy cavalry for the army. 

Again, they are the lovely Aventine models.  I do have some more Cataphracts to do from Gripping Beast and also A&A miniatures that are very heavily armoured.

I have some medium and light cavalry on the bench at the moment and a bunch of foot to finish basing.  Then it will be some terrain and more medium / light cavalry.  

I'm working to get this phase of the army done by December.  There is more that will come at a latter date once I get a big enough oponent.

Sassanid Elephants

I have been working on quite a bit of my Sassanid project and have a few new units to post over the coming weeks.

First up is a unit of elephants - these are A&A Miniature elephants that I picked up in a bring and buy at the Partizan show when I was in the UK in 2019.  They are heavy and I bought them in the second day of a 6 week holiday so had to carry them (and a bunch of other loot) for the next 6 weeks.  On the kitchen scales yesterday they weighed in just under 800gm for the base.

In the Impetus lists there are two types of elephants with their strength points differing.   I decided to put two elephants on the bases to designate the 6 VBU elephants and one elephant with supporting skirmishers on the 5 VBU bases.   

Sassanid Archers

Three bases of archers to join the Sassanid armies.  

The archers and the command figures are from A&A miniatures.

More to come soon as I was doing these alongside a large number of spearmen which are being based at the moment.  Also, another base of cavalry are almost done.

Aventine Sassanid Knight and Parthian Noble

Latest addition for the Sassanid army is a piece of eye candy with no use in a game (other than looking good).

It is a 28mm Aventine sculpt that is of a Sasdsanid Knight struggling in mortal combat with a Parthian Noble.  Wonderful sculpt from Aventine.

Next up for the army is another unit of Clibinari Cavalry and some foot archers - not sure what will get done first.

Sassanid Clibanarii cavalry

Next addition to the Sassanid army.  My first cavalry unit for them is a Clibinarii unit armed with spear and bows.  These are again by Aventine and I've done the shield with LBMS decals.  They are wonderful figures to paint.  

The Impetus lists allow a large number of these and I will be painting them :)

   

Sassanid King's Elephant from Aventine

This is the wonderfully sculpted King's Elephant from Aventine to add to my slowly growing Sassanid Army.  I have added a couple of Late Romans to the base to give it some context and to fill in space.  One is definitely Footsore and I think the other was Gripping Beast.  

The elephant is metal and I bought it some time ago.  I have recently acquired some others from Aventine and they are in resin so perhaps this has been redone in resin?   Being metal it is very heavy so there is pinning going on for the back two legs and I discovered a small stump of a bush in the pack that seemed to fit under the front left leg so I added that for additional support.

The blanket, shield design and the banner are all LBMS transfers. The patterns on the coats for the King and banner bearer are my work.

I took some inspiration from Phil Hendry's wonderfully painted Sassanid's in doing this. 

Bronze Age Sea People v Myceanians

I ventured down the highway to the cold, drizzly and misty Southern Highlands for a semi-regular Thursday game. We had a great game today using the Impetus 2 rules.  It pitched Richard's Sea Peoples against Rex's Myceanians. 

This was a replay of a game last Thursday using the same armies - except last week Rex had brought the wrong list and so (unknowingly at the time) fielded an army only 80% of full strength.  So Richard and I were expecting a harder fight than last week and John was supporting Rex on the Myceanian side.

It was a wonderful game with the poor quality Sea Peole troops swarming around the Myceanian chariots as they became separated and picked off.  In the end we had a mutual break of armies on the same turn, so a draw.

As is the custom, we broke for a wonderful lunch of home cooked corned beef, potatoes and Italian style peas with flash sourdough from Bowral and a few bottles of red.        

And a few fashion poses of the great Sea People units

Italian Wars Stradiots

My first unit for the Italian Wars in a few years.  These are 4 light cavalry Stradiots using TAG miniatures in 28mm.

The horses have been painted with the oil wipe method as I have used in the past, which I like as it gives good depth to the colour and does not require much thought to get the highlights and shading in the correct places. As it is messy and takes some time to dry, it is not something that I want to do on 4 horses alone so there are another 8 (2 units of light cavalry) mounted crossbowmen that were done at the same time - the crossbowmen need to be painted.

A Sassanid General and Drummer

Continuing with the Sassanid army I have just completed this command / vignette base with a Sassanid General and his Drummer overlooking the troops as they prepare for battle.  

The figures are from the great range produced by Aventine and the shield transfer is from LBMS.

Start of something Sasanid

Painting all the Adler Napoleonics will involve 10,000+ figures over the next 18 months.  So I also need a 'sanity' project to help with burnout and to not lose touch with different painting techniques.

I have had these Sassanids for about three years waiting for the right moment. Having started to read Adrian Goldsworthy's book "Rome and Persia", I got the itch and so the moment had arrived.

Like all my Ancients armies, these are based for the Impetus rules. The first two units are a heavy foot unit of Levy spearmen and some archers. Basing is pretty simple with just a layer of AK Interactive Dry Ground Terrain Paste which has then had a light drybrush and some tufts applied.

These miniatures are 28mm from Gripping Beast. The army will also include figures from Aventine and A&A Miniatures.