Summer Read: SPQR by Mary Beard

My latest summer read (or rather listen to, at odd moments of the day such as dog walking and driving in the car) was Mary Beard's SPQR as background material for an unexpected wargame project with a friend who is taking up the hobby late in life. I spied Command and Colours in his games cupboard (I do know him as an active RPG fan) which led to a few leading questions and he revealed all. Then from board games he independently took the plunge into 6mm Baccus Late Republican Rome. I clearly have some catching up to do. Ancient Rome was an area I always wanted to dig deeper into, I have sated my Greek knowledge with books and extended DBA armies, but have only tinkered at Rome. I spied Mary Beard's SPQR book on his shelf and thought that a good supplement to by Osprey's Enemies of Rome compendium (see below, narrated by a voice actor but good nevertheless): 

Boy these Romans are a funny lot, indeed what constituted being Roman seemed a flexible definition in itself. Background done, it is time to move onto some physical armies. I am aiming at some Spanish (Numantines) and Pontics to fight my friends Late Republican Romans. We have ducked the Punic Wars for the moment, but doubtless we will come back to them in teh future. 

6mm Hittite DBA Army

Looking through my (ahem, those started but not finished) collections and projects for 2019 (yes I know it is now nearly 2021) and I came across my "starter" DBA 3 ancients (and in this case I really mean ancient) project (see below, small but perfectly formed, the coin in the background is a 5 pence piece): 

Now for 15mm scale armies you have just a few figures per stand, but in 6mm you can proportionally expand by a factor of four to fill out the base with figures (see below, 2Ps comes to eight figures, 3Pk means twelve, the army has a certain mass): 

The idea being that the density of troops gives the impression of capability, a thin line of skirmishers protect the thicker formation of Pikemen (see below, note in DBA 3 these early Pike are Fast not Solid, solid Pike would be sixteen and really crammed on the base): 

Below is an example of a Hoard (7Hd which equals twenty eight figures so this is a Solid formation) but the irregular variety of  weapons shows them to be of relatively poor quality (see below, they move awkwardly and fight poor but they have their uses, so rather than rushing to the rule book the look of the troops should indicated their strengths and weaknesses): 

The New Kingdom Egyptians are sorely needed as adversaries! When the armies are placed against each other it will be interesting to see if the combat factors make sense just by their appearance of the match-ups. Watch this space, but I need to paint another army first ;) 

6mm Ancients: Sumerians v Minoans

Loved what I saw on:
https://irregularwars.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-bull-and-shepherd-more-6mm-lart-de.html

Next stop after the New Kingdom Egyptians is the Trojan War
The Sumerians's are also on the list
However my rule set of choice will be DBA Version 3

Work Starts on the New Kingdom Egyptian (I/22) 6mm DBA Army

For the Hittites (and there loose formation) I just plonked them on the base and painted around them. The close ranked Egyptian infantry are another matter, hence a factory production system approach is required methinks, painting the figures required for a base then basing them (see below, yet another use for coffee "stirring sticks"):

The plan is simple, a dab of PVA glue on the base to stick it to the stick, let it dry then paint it was Airfix Grey Primer (01) and then "wash it" in Vallejo Brown Wash. The Chariots however will be done the Hittite way (see below, cheap "Pound Store" [yes, contrary to an early alarmist post they are still trading] superglue all over my hands - the Egyptian two man Chariots are much easier than teh three man Hittite Chariots I had to put together!):

Despite their small 6mm size the New Kingdom Egyptians still have a considerable number of infantry to paint - especially when I insanely multiplied the number of figures on a base (see below, the New Kingdom Egyptian infantry mass - their Chariots can be seen in the background):

As these two DBA armies (Hittite and New Kingdom Egyptian) are progressing well I am already paying consideration to "what next". I have my eye on the "Sea Peoples" I/28 as they fought both.

New Project 6mm DBA (Version 3) Biblical Armies for Kadesh

First yea seek inspiration (see below, Osprey Kadesh [Qadesh] Campaign book and The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History - Hittite v Egyptian):

Find yea a source of synergy, the 'new' DBA Version 3.0 rule-set (see below, something I have already played with - following the lineage of Version 1 [a great new idea in wargaming], Version 2 [expansion and the increasing sad rules lawyer interpretation of cheesy whims and wins (competition wargamers)] to Version 3 [which seems to be a strong shot of antibiotics killing most of the "cheese culture" that formed around DBA] IMHO - and I can be as wrong as much as the next man):

Use the unintentionally(?) acquired 'new' [for me at least] 6mm Ancient Biblical [again a new buzz] armies. These were sensibly bought as a 'pair' of antagonists from Rapier Miniatures. These small 'army pack' were densely packed into a (re-utilised) Business Card container fot for a small Warmaster OoB which is more than adequate for the required DBA armies (see below, historical "pairs" come highly recommended in the preface and notes in the body of the rules):

In addition, seeing as this was my second "comprehensive read" through of the rules I tried a first stab at XCON'ing (aka .. expert content - Att/Def v Foot/Mounted, Move Good=Rough/Bad and 'Specials' such as any 'quick kill' situations) for each troop's characteristics on its base. This is the basis for a specific Hittite QRS [Quick Reference Sheet] (see below, note I used the larger 60mm base width usually associated with 25/28mm figures so I could put more representative quantity on each base, Psiloi will look thin while 'solid' bodies of troops had more depth to them):

The secret key to success is to keep doing a little bit at a time and before you know it your first 6mm DBA Army has been painted (see below, in haste I chose to glue the small figures to a base and paint around them. The up side of this it made the terrain basing easier [PVA-Glue, Sand, base wash in Anita's Acrylic Artist paint watered down then highlighted using Games Workshop's special gel dry-brushing (white) paint]):

I seemed to get away with this as the Hittite army (apart from one base of Hoard [7Hd] is a "fast" army in that the Pike [3Pk] and Auxilia [3Ax] are 'gappy'. In short I got away with it, the New Kingdom Egyptian on the other hand are more "dense" (in the formation sense of the word - aka in DBA 3 language are "solid"). Basing wise I decided to (roughly) use the following formula: 15mm or 28mm number of figures [as per the rulebook] "times by four" (barring the Chariots where "what would fit on the base" dictated the number). For the Imperial Hittites this gave me:

• 2Ps: Psiloi = 8 Figures
• 3Ax: Fast Auxilia = 12 Figures
• 3Pk: Fast Pike = 12 Figures
• 7Hd: Solid Hoard = 28 Figures
• LCh: Light Chariot = 2 Chariots [2 Men in Each]
• HCh: Heavy Chariot = 3 Chariots [3 Men in Each] 
• Cmp: Camp = 8 Figures
• Gar: Garrison = 8 Figures

The hope was to be much more suggestive of what the troops were capable of. It therefore comes as no surprise that Psiloi "look weak" and would be likely to run away from the likes of 'Spear' and 'Pike' - who in turn would could not catch them, being slower moving all their "mass". The plan is to keep this consistent with the New Kingdom Egyptians barring a few officers marshalling their serried ranks if "bows".

Notes: Interesting Links -
http://www.camrea.org/tag/kadesh/