Carthaginian Veterans- first unit completed

Crusader Cathaginian Veterans

I managed to get them finished today, slightly ahead of schedule. I will start work on the next unit (which is made up of A&A figures) but need to order some command for them. Once these are done I will probably mix the figures from the two units up a bit.


I painted most of the shields (very quickly) on the basis that your eyes are drawn to the LBM shield transfers so it doesn't matter what mine are like!

Carthaginian Veteran: shield issues

The unit so far

This unit was going so well. I had finished the twenty figures except for the shields and I was just waiting for my LBM shield transfers to arrive. When they did I realised that they don't fit most of the shields in the Crusader packs. This is not LBM's fault, though. The problem is that they arrived with a mixture of three different shields, which is fine for veterans who have looted much of their gear. There were a number of hoplite type shields and this was OK as I had already got some Carthaginian transfers in stock.

Then there were the curved shields (above), which the LBM transfers were designed for, but the problem is that there were only three shields of this design included in the twenty that arrived; most were a flat design (below) for which LBM do not make a transfer.

Having just let them sit for weeks because I was so fed up with this I did glue all the shields on yesterday evening with the realisation that I am going to have to paint eleven shields by hand. This shows how lazy LBM has made me as, of course, this is what I always did before! I painted all my Spartan shields by hand and so shoouldn't be too put off by this!

The good thing is that now I know, with a bit of luck, that I should be able to get them finished this weekend! Next I have a unit of A&A Miniatures Carthaginian Veterans to start but at least I have all the right transfers for the shields for them!

I don't think that we are now doing Zama at the club; there doesn't seem to be that much interest and I don't even know if we have been entered for the SOA battle day or not as I haven't been there for months. Nevertheless, I always wanted a Carthaginian army so will carry on with these anyway.

Carthaginian Veteran Spearmen started

Well I have started work on a 20 man unit of Crusader Miniatures Carthaginian Veterans. One thing I find curious is that they are all modelled with a sandalled left foot but a bare right foot!

Crusader figures

I have also ordered some of A&A's Carthaginian veterans as they are sculpted by Mark Sims as well and they will lend some varity to what will have to be a reasonably large number of figures. I also ordered some of Little Big Men's shield transfers for the A&A figures and must get some for the Crusader figures.

A&A figures

As the Veterans were a collection of different nationalities largely equipped with looted Roman gear I have decided that they will have a somewhat non-uniform appearance; so different shields and different coloured tunics.

Zama: on again?

Well it went a bit quiet on the "will we or won't we do Zama?" front but now it looks as though we may be on to do a game at the Society of Ancients day after all. I'm struggling with envisioning the forces and so I have a dropped a note to Big Red Bat whose Zama project is truly awe inspiring.

Two things we have agreed we need are elephants and Numidian cavalry so maybe I could put in an order for some of those; probably from Crusader.

Balearic slingers

These are my first few figures for the Society of Ancients Zama game. I think we are planning to use the Tony Bath rules and I remember from Cynoscephalae that missile troops are pretty devastating so I will have to get some more of these I think.

They are Crusader figures so were very easy to paint and they match my Romans. I painted headbands as spare slings as they carried three slings of different lengths to shoot at different ranges.

Two other people at the club are interested in entering a game and they have quite a few figures so I may not need to paint that many. I will concentrate on Spanish and Celtiberians to start with as I have always wanted a Spanish army to oppose my Romans.

More on Zama this week.

Society of Ancients: Zama?

Elephants!

We had some people at the Society of Ancients Battle Day over the weekend. Persians against Early Byzantines so not for me this year. However the rumour is that next year the SOA is planning to do something with Hannibal: probably Zama. This is much more exciting and gives me the chance to get going on lots more stuff after the Roman legions I did for Cynoscephalae two years ago.

Both sides had lots of Numidian Cavalry. Hannibal had Celts and Ligurians as well as African (Carthaginian and Libyan) troops. It all sounds quite inspiring!

Hannibal's Last Battle: Brian Todd Carey

I picked up this new book in Waterstones yesterday. It looks like a good summary of the three Punic Wars. The best thing about it is the battle maps, however. Each battle featured gets five or six maps, rather than the more usual one or two, showing the development of the battle.

The battles illustrated in this way include: Tunis 255 BC, Ticinus 218 BC, Trebia 218 BC, Cannae 216 BC, New Carthage 209 BC, Baecula 208 BC, Metaurus River 207 BC, Ilipa 206 BC, Great Plains 203 BC, Zama 202 BC, Cynoscephalae 197 BC, Magnesia 190 BC, Pydna 168 BC and Carthage 147 BC.

From a wargaming point of view this is excellent and has got me wanting to get started on some opponents to my Romans.