More Carthaginian Elephants

 

1st Corps Miniatures

Gripping Beast and Wargames Foundry

Here's another post from the archives of various Carthaginian elephants. I think my favourite with howdah and crew is the Gripping Beast model and of the untrained elephants for Zama, the Agema Miniatures model. The 1st Corps ellies are massive by comparison.

Relic Miniatures and Gripping Beast

Agema Miniatures

Late Etruscan Command

 

Here are some Late Etruscan Command figures that I've just finished painting. The figures are by Aventine and Victrix with LBM and Victrix shield transfers. The Victrix figures are from the Republican Roman cavalry set which includes Etruscan helmets options and they have a lovely Etruscan shield transfer set as well. Garry has a really nice Etruscan army, that inspired me to start one of my own. You can see his Etruscans in action against my Samnites in a game we played at the club a few years ago:

https://bucellarii.blogspot.com/2018/09/samnites-versus-etruscans-basic-impetus.html

I have quite a few spare plastic Greek hoplites, so I'm planning to use some of these for my first class Etruscan infantry and have used the Victrix Greek slingers and Roman leves with spare heads to make up fifth class Etruscan infantry as javelinmen and slingers. Agema Miniatures have a Kickstarter Etruscan range too, that should be available soon on their website. I just received in the mail an order from Gorgon Studios of second class spearmen and Lars Porsena in a chariot - can't wait to paint that!

Carthaginian Elephants

 

Here are two Carthaginian elephants with mahout, that I've just finished painting. They're Agema Miniatures, with metal mahout, tusks and trunk and a resin elephant body. I have two massive 1st Corps Carthaginian elephants also with mahout alone but these figures are much better size. According to Mir Bahmanyar, author of the Osprey book Zama 202 BC, 'in general, the Carthaginian elephants deployed at Zama did not carry infantry in howdahs on their back' (p.42). Polybius and Livy do not give any details of the elephants' appearance in their accounts of the battle, so I'm not sure what this is based on.

Last Saturday we went on a cross country ski, day trip to Mt Selwyn. I'm not much of skier but this is a really nice area and about 20 years ago we did a winter ski park crossing from here to Guthega. The Mt Selwyn ski resort and much of the surrounding area burnt out in the 2019/20 summer bushfires. It was good to see a lot of new undergrowth on the smaller trees and at the resort they've built accomodation cabins.

The Big Trout Adaminaby

Lunch stop

Mt Jagungal hidden in cloud

Early Carthaginian Chariots

 

Here's an Early Carthaginian chariot I've just finished painting and two others I painted about four years ago. The first is by Agema Miniatures and the other two are Newline Designs. I stuffed up when assembling the Agema chariot and crew. While I looked at the painted version on the website, I failed to notice that the spearmen with the shield was on the left side of the chariot with his shield hanging on the outside. 

Luckily I had a Newline crew figure that fitted in the remaining space (I still have two more of these to paint), so all was not lost! The Agema chariot is a nice mdf kit. Incidentally if you're drilling holes for the crews' feet in to the floor of the chariot, make sure you use a mask and do it outside. The horses and crew are nice figures but pinning two weapon hands was very time consuming and fiddly - give me plastics any day!

Republican Roman Principes, Triarii and Command

Another post from the archives today with a Republican Roman Principes and Triarii unit and a foot command stand of a consul and his lictors. The Principes and Triarii are Victrix Miniatures with Victrix shield transfers and the consul, legate and his lictors are all Agema Miniatures metal figures.