Junkyard Planet
Friday, June 28, 2024
New toys for orc armies
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Mesoamerican DBA part 4: Chichimecs
Ah, the siren song of DBA armies - it wouldn't be that hard to paint just one more, right? At the beginning of last summer, there was a crop of "SKODBACs" popping up everywhere (Simple Knock-Out DBA Campaigns). I saw a few reports on these and thought they sounded like fun - but instead of putting one together with my existing Bronze Age or fantasy armies, for some reason the thought crossed my mind that I could paint another two Mesoamerican armies and have a nice little set of five for a SKODBAC of my own.
One of the two additions that I settled on were the Chichimecs, DBA list III/41b. (Before I get much further, I do want to note: "Chichimec" is one of these probably-derogatory exonyms applied originally by the Aztecs and adopted by the Spanish, and is not what these people called themselves.) This list covers various desert peoples of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States; in fact DBA uses it for the Pueblo cultures as well. This was not the first time I had considered them; in fact I painted up a few as mercenaries for my Maya army a couple of years ago (though more on that later.) I figured I would take the same approach as before and convert them from the Caesar Libyans set; my dad had a bunch of spare bowmen left over from building his Libyan army which he was willing to contribute. Well, ten months later, here they are!
This time I did a bit more looking around for pictorial references; Ian Heath's book on the armies of the Aztecs and the Incas had some useful illustrations and I also tracked down a reference to the Ixmiquilpan murals which includes more-or-less contemporary depictions of Chichimec warriors.
So, what about that fifth army? Well... we'll see. These guys took a lot longer than I expected, and I don't have much appetite for further conversions at the moment. Maybe a four-nation SKODBAC would be sufficient fun for now...
Monday, July 3, 2023
Painting, gaming, and a new arrival: 2023 midyear review
Monday, January 2, 2023
2022 painting round-up
Happy New Year, everyone!
Ever since I started tracking my painting a couple of years ago, I like to assemble it all at the end of the year for a review. For 2022, I painted 239 figures in total, down a bit from the last couple of years. The biggest contingents were two new DBA armies, who have previously been featured (Tlaxcalans, Undead), but my Proxian imagi-nations armies also saw considerable expansion (spurred on by several battles being fought over the course of the year.)
Saturday, December 24, 2022
DBA/Hordes of the Things - Mummies and Undead
I've been on a bit of a DBA kick for the past three years or so, but before that I used to play a lot more of the related fantasy rules, Hordes of the Things. With Dark Alliance having put out a set of Mummies a few years ago, it had always been at the back of my mind to pick some up and fit them in as a fantasy complement or opponent for my historical Egyptians. However, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to build the whole army out of mummies, and my first thought was to fill them out with some of the Caesar Undead. Sadly, these are long out of production and I have been unable to turn up any at a reasonable price.
However, earlier this summer, I had a little brainstorm while looking through my collection of unpainted figures. I have a large stash of Atlantic Egyptians that was gifted to me some years ago; I haven't painted many of them because they're a little tall and thin compared to the Caesar figures that make up most of my armies. However, looking at their thin, almost gaunt features and slightly odd postures, I wondered: could I just paint them as zombies of some kind? Turns out, yes, I could.
The next issue was army composition. I decided that I wanted to base it on a DBA army so that I could use it for either set of rules. The question was, who is:
- An enemy of the ancient Egyptians
- Not an army I already have available
- Matches the available figures as far as troop types and weapons
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
The Battle of Ollebetnom
Since finishing his dissertation and escaping grad school this spring, my brother has moved back down to our part of the world and found a job here. Happily, this means we get to see him much more often, and there has been a certain amount of miniatures gaming going on as part of this! This past weekend, we were up at my dad's for Thanksgiving, and I brought along my Proxian armies for a game.
The scenario I decided upon was the Battle of Montebello from Neil Thomas's Wargaming 19th Century Europe book, which features a smaller French force attempting to cross a river and capture a town before larger and uncoordinated Austrian forces can muster a defense. The French also get to take advantage of a rail line that crosses the table to deploy some of their reinforcements. Because of the size and composition of the forces involved, I ended up reversing the scenario - my white-coated ElabrĂ¼ners took the French role, while the Occiterrans in their blue jackets and red kepis took the historical Austrian role. (I also had to tweak some of the reinforcements a bit - so the Occiterrans had some cavalry that the Austrians did not have historically.)
We had some fun setting up the table, digging into our childhood collection of Brio toys to find a suitable train and tracks that matched the classic toy soldier aesthetic. Unfortunately, I failed to notice until afterwards that the scenario was intended for a 3'x4' table rather than our 4'x6', which put Dad (attacking with the ElabrĂ¼ners) at a distinct disadvantage. His foremost units were still one or two moves short of the town when time was called on turn 15. Still, my brother's stalwart defense with the Occiterrans definitely played a role as well, particularly in overcoming the command difficulties imposed by the scenario rules - only 1/3 of the Occiterran units could act at full effectiveness each turn. And most importantly, an enjoyable time was had by all!