Saturday, August 3, 2013

Readings and Ramblings


So the recent Hail Caesar game got me thinking more about my ancient (mid 80s) greek armies.  I could have sworn that I had a bag of left over Greeky bits (odd figures and spare Rafm spares) but I thorough scrounge through the spares and unpainted piles came up short.  So back to the drawing board on getting new figs....Maybe when the kid is off at uni I can justify a small order.

Meanwhile I been trying to figure out how to base my units for Hail Caesar.  No firm decisions on questions like 16 or 24 man units?  2 or 3 ranks deep?  Use the official HC 20mm per fig or the existing 15mm per man frontage?  Oh well.

On the plus side I've been reading!


Highly recommended - if majorly depressing.  It's always a wonder that those darned meddling Hellenes managed to buy their hatchets long enough to turf the Persians out of Greece.  Any way I learned that the Hoplite class was real read and needed to be burly to cart that panoply about.  Plus apparently olive trees are really tough to get rid of (the author tried to take out old fruit trees on his land and broke his axe).  While the big hoplite clashes were limited, there's plenty of scenario based stuff to work with.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Peter

    I have a massive amount of 25mm Ancient Greeks painted in the Old School style.

    I rebased them a couple of years ago to allow me to use them with multiple rulesets.

    Each close order figure is singly based on a magnetic 20mm square. I make sabot bases lined with steel paper to a size required by various rulesets.

    For Hail Caesar I have gone for 8 wide and 3 deep sabots for a standard sized unit. Larger and smaller units just have different sized sabots.

    For another ruleset (Slim Mumfords) I have gone for 5 wide and 2 deep.

    I am contemplating 4 wide and 2 or 3 deep for Neil Thomas' AMW rules, 4 sabots per unit.

    Same figures, different sabots.

    Jim

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    Replies
    1. Jim

      Cool idea but maybe too much work for me. I am definitely a fan of the 24 man unit - but not all my phalanx units agree with me!

      Cheers
      PD

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  2. Umh, I think I know where your bag of spares went. Or at least one bag of them and a handful of spare minifigs........ gone now though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Curse you RossMac I'll get you.

      Actually no, I swear I had a bag of greeky bits in my grubby paws earlier this year. It was while I was in the midst of a review, reoorg and reduce binge of the spare parts boxes. I fear I may have fallen victim to wargamers' famous last words "oh I'll never want to look at that period again"

      Cheers
      PD

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  3. Hey Peter, I'd go for 24-man units with 15mm frontage to reinforce the look of the shieldwall. Perhaps four to a base in two ranks to help maneuver and reduce mashing of figures?

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    Replies
    1. Curt

      Well I like that option - it's basically what I have, so it's the lazy man option! I do like the 24 man units, it just looks and feels right (and it's flexible for rule sets that worry about number of ranks etc).

      Cheers
      PD

      Delete