Reinforcements - Heinrichsen 30mm Flats

A couple more units have arrived for the ancients. These are all old Heinrichsen figures, although the upainted cavalry castings are 2011 re-issues of the original set from 1921.  I bought two sets in order to make a complete unit.  Each contains two command figures and 8 troopers, giving me a nice 18-figure unit once they are combined and painted.

I'm a little disappointed that one of these riders has a shield and the other doesn't.  Could further break it down with another two sets of course, but not something I want to spend the money on so they'll have to do as is.

And here's a quite appealing set of 20 ancient Greeks, apparently peltasts although they wear the old-fashioned crested Corinthian helmets. I got these on eBay, paid rather more than I wanted to as someone bid me up on it, but I think they'll look very good as a peltast formation once I get around to repainting them.

I like this officer that came with the peltasts.  Quite old-fashioned and not sure what the designer was thinking of with the helmet, looks more like Renaissance parade armor. But I think he'll make a fine Hyborian era general.
 

Making good headway on the phalanx, finished 4 more figures yesterday, 28 down, 8 to go.

Epirote War Elephant - 30mm Flat

Here's last week's painting, from a set by Lampert (Frankfurter Zinnfiguren),  Die Elefanten des Pyrrhus.  It's the only one of the set I have, no matter since this elephant works for any Hellenistic army if we don't obsess over the accuracy of shield patterns. As always, painted in acrylics.

I have one more unpainted elephant, a great, well-armored Seleucid beast.  I'll hold off on painting it though, need to work on more infantry and cavalry now. Too many elephants and my army will be like Germans top-heavy with Tiger tanks. The Macedonian infantry and cavalry castings have arrived from Heinrichsen.  Now I have enough figures to finish the first phalanx, a dozen left to paint.  Should be done in 2-3 weeks.

Heinrichsen Macedonian Infantry - 30mm Flats

Heinrichsen was one of the great old companies producing large quantities of flat figures in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.   As you can see in the example, the "factory" paint jobs were of indifferent quality.  While the designers and engravers were highly skilled craftsmen, the painting was largely done by women and children, with quantity taking priority over quality.

These Macedonian infantry figures date to the early 1900's.  I was able to assemble some figures by purchasing here and there when they happened to show up on eBay auctions. I finished the four figures shown here yesterday.  They're the last that I have for my phalanx, 22 figures now stripped and re-painted. A lot of the Heinrichsen ancients were quite naive in style. But given these particular designs are nearly 100 years old, the accuracy is not at all bad. The sarissas are short, but given the figures were made to be played without constantly toppling over, that strikes me as an acceptable compromise.

Thankfully, Heinrichsen put these back into limited production in 2011 and I have ordered two more sets. When they arrive from Nürnberg, that will give me enough phalangites to put together a 32-man unit in four ranks of eight.  The sets currently in stock also include these slingers, my repaint shown here sandwiched between two factory painted figures.

I've now started painting a Lampert war elephant while awaiting the order from Heinrichsen. 

Numidians Completed - 30mm Flats

Finished these up yesterday.  This is the Scholtz (Berliner Zinnfiguren) Numidian Cavalry set # 100/28/4.  I made one modification, substituted the command figure from Golberg's "Carthaginian Strategists" for the rather bland officer of the original set. In general, I prefer all the figures in profile but I think he works better as the CO than the original on account of the his horse not having the full bridle.

Kieler (Oki) Hoplites - 30mm Flats

Making good headway on the Numidians. 12 finished, figures 13&14 well under way, and #'s 15-17 primer sprayed this morning. The end of the queue is well in sight now, should finish by next weekend.

In the meantime, here's some factory painted hoplites I got from a wargamer/collector named Paul in Arizona. Our deal was a combination, he had some extra Kielers and we split a few sets of Lampert (Frankfurter Zinnfiguren) ancients which I had ordered from Germany.  Lampert has an amazing selection of Republican Romans and other contemporary figures, by the way.  He doesn't speak English or take Paypal which complicates things, but he's very willing to send figures outside of Germany if you're willing to do things the German way.

But I digress:

 Ionian Hoplites

Wish I had more of the peltasts, been keeping an eye out for them. Sooner or later I'll get around to reworking a unit or two of hoplites in my own style. And now for the bizarre:

Kieler Carthaginian Infantry

Could be the worst set Kieler ever produced from the standpoint of historical accuracy, comically bad in some ways.  Bad history maybe, but vigorous and appealing figures for all that.  I think they'll be just fine for Hyborian age warriors.