Next Project

True to form, and with my usual Goldfish like attention span I have embarked on a new painting project before fully finishing the Romans! This time it will be a Hyksos DBA Army (List I/17 a and b). I will be using Magister Militum figs, primarily from their Hittite Range. I have loads opf Hittite figs ready to be painted - at one stage I was thinking about doing a Hittite DBM army, but never got round to it. Most of the figures I bought were early Syrian in look, and from waht I have managed to find out, the Hyksos sphere of influence encompassed the Syrian area. It also seems that the majority of the figs on sale as Hyksos are dressed in Syrian style with the fringed, long wraparound robes.

From my reading it would appear that we don't really have any hard and fast references as to what the Hyksos looked like, other than they were, according to the Egyptians from "foreign lands", and referred to as Asiatics. It seems that for the 100 years or so that they ruled Egypt, they adopted Egyptian styles and customs. The idea of this project is for them to be in their "pre-Egyptian" period, thus the Syrian style of the clothing.

With all of these figures, I used a black undercoat, white dry brush preparation, then blocked in the colours before applying a wash of undiluted Klear floor polish mixed with black and brown ink. They were then finished with 2 coats of matt acrylic spray varnish to cover the glossy finish caused by the Klear.


This first pic shows the four elements of irregular auxilia (3Ax). They are Magister Militum's shieldless Hittite spearmen (HNH007). These figs would be good for the Hittite 3 Sp elements too, should I wish to morph the army at a later date.

These guys are the one element of regular auxilia (4Ax). Theses are a very basic conversion. I took four of the shieldless spear figs, bent the left arm in front of the body, and added the shields which I cut off of the figures I used for the miracle wash experiment referred to in an earlier post.

This is one of the skirmishers elements (2Ps), in this case Syrian bowmen (HNH014).

Finally, a horde element (7Hd) - only 6 figs on this base, a mix of various M M figures, representing tribal levies. A mix of SUA005 Irregular Javelinmen, SUA009 Martu Guti Bow and SUA011 Martu Guti Javelinmen. A nice irregular looking mix.

More Auxilia

Two more elements of auxilia done. This now means I only have to finish one more element of light horse.

These guys are Magister Militum figs, the bare headed version of the Auxilia I painted first ... although you will notice one of them has a helmet - he was left over from the first batch so I thought I would include him for a bit of variety. They have been painted up as the Defensores Seniores, a Pseudocomitatensis unit from the Western Empire. The stars are VVV shield transfers. I went hell for leather with these chaps, and got the whole unit finished, including basing in just over two hours.

"Miracle" Wash?

I have seen several discussions on the Fanaticus Forums regarding the "Miracle Wash" or "Miracle Dip" so I thought I would do a bit of experimentation to see how the process works for me. I took 5 of the same figure and painted them all white - a matt white spray primer then a coat of white acrylic. When they were dry I tried different washes over the top to see how they turned out. The results are shown below:

From left to right I tried
1. Brown ink diluted with water.
2. "Klear" floor polish with brown ink added.
3. A 50/50 mix of "Klear" and water with brown ink.
4. A 25% "Klear" and 75% water mix with brwn ink.
5. Brown acrylic paint diluted with water.

(To get a better idea, click on the pic, it will get bigger!)

For me the results were very interestig. I had been led to believe that the 25%/75% would give the best results, but for me, and I think the pics show it the best results were using 100%"Klear". Klear seems to induce a capilliary action, drawing the pigment into the recesses quite nicely. I could see this happenning as I was putting the wash on with 2, 3 and 4. Interestingly, when the washes were being applied, the paint mix looked really goog, but as it dried, the effect looked very messy.

With all of the washes, there was some tainting of the original white colour, but more so with the ink and paint mixes. I think I will do some more experiments with different pigments, and maybe even try some of the specifically manufactured washes. I will report back - watch this space!

Another Element

One more element for the Patricians, another Psiloi element. This time Roman equipped rather than foederati. I now only need 2 more auxilia and 1 more light horse to have all options for both East and West Patrician.

Makkan

Here is another army I did a while ago, I/8b Makkan, again for a themed tournament. I like the idea of themed tournaments because they give an impetus to get armies painted that I might not otherwise have chosen. The army consists of 6 x 3Wb (incl. general), 2 x 3Wb or 3Cm (I chose the camel option), 2 x 3Bw and 2 x 2Ps. All figures are Magister Militum.

This shows the 6 warband elements. I have not been able to find much out about the Makkan, so chose general purpose shielded javelin/spearmen. The general's element is identifiable from the red edges to the shields and the fact that two of them have swords. I made the swords by trimming the spears down, hammering he remains flat, and filing to a blade shape. I know that the swords should probably have been painted in a copper or bronze colour rather than the iron colour I did them in, but I didn't think of that at the time!

...and here is the rest of the army, all fairly generic figures - as I said earlier, I could not find out much on what these guys looked like! Also I can use the figures for other Middle Eastern biblical era armies should the need arise.

Parthians

Whilst I had the camera out I thought I would post a few pics of the first specifically DBA army I painted for myself. I had painted several which were sold immediately on eBay, but this lot were done when I decided to get back into gaming again. I did it about 3 years ago to play in a Parthian themed tournament - I didn't do too well as I recall!
Army consists of 4 x 4Kn, 7 x 2LH and 1 x 3Ax.

Here are the knights. The figures are actually Magister Militum Sarmatians, but they do the job - close packed, fully armoured hooligans on horses.

These guys are the Light Horse archers, these figs are again Magister Militum Hun figures. Not particularly Parthian, but my argument is that they are Chionites, who were a Hunnic related people who came within the Parthian empire. The auxilia element is made of Essex Cuman javelinmen. Again, not especially Parthan, but look OK for Kurdish Hill Tribes, who also fell under the Parthinan sphere of influence.

So there you have it, and entire Parthian army with not a single Parthian figure amongst them!!!

Complete so far

...and here we have all the Patrician elements completed thus far - 18 in total:

1 x 3Kn (gen)

1 x 3Cv (gen)

1 x 4 Kn (Cataphracts)

3 x 3 Cv/3Kn (foederati)

4 x 4Wb (foederati)

1 x 2Ps (foederATI)

4 x 4Ax (Palatina and Pseudocomitatensis)

1 X 2LH (Equites Sagitarii)

2 x 4Bd (Legio Palatina)