Oops! This has been in Draft status for around 3 years. Time to publish…

To take advantage of Museum Miniatures’ January sale, I placed a large order for Warring States Chinese figures to bring my triple army up to date. So far I have painted up a lot of Bow Levy, and rebased my DBA 4Sp figures as Light Foot for Early Warring States.

All of the figures are Museum. The red guys were painted by JM, the rest by me.

After I finished painting up all the Bow Levy bowmen, I read the Meshwesh army list more closely and realized I should’ve gotten crossbowmen instead. I opted not to restart from scratch. I have about 5 more bow figures that I will eventually base as Skirmishers or Archers depending on what the army needs when I’m finished.

After rebasing, I got 16 stands of Light Foot out of my 12 stands of 4Sp and assorted spare spearmen. This is not quite enough for a triple Early Warring States army; it looks like I may need to buy a few more packs of spears or just pretend my halberdiers are light foot.

JM’s basing didn’t match mine, and the paste he used ran off the sides of the metal bases, so I decided to rebase his 3Cb as proper Archers, and rebased a few Skirmishers for good measure.

Running tally of Triumph Conversions

This post

• Newly Painted: 12 elements; 36 figures (plus 5 not shown)
• Rebased: 20 elements

Total

• Newly Painted: 34 elements; 109 figures
• Painted/Rebased: 7 elements; 8 figures painted
• Rebased: 32 elements

 

I’ve started playing Triumph. After building a few armies out of my existing DBA figures, I decided to build up my armies to better work with Triumph. Depending on the army, this means either rebasing elements or painting new ones to increase the size of the force.  I’ve had to do a little of both, to get my Classical armies up to date.  Clearly I need to adjust my depth of field  and get some better lighting before I take too many more pictures.

I started with figures I had on hand that extend the armies I already have painted. My first batch was enough Greeks and Thracians to at least be able to field single armies.

Now that Greek Hoplite armies are mostly Heavy foot but with some Elite Foot, I need both more elements in total and some different elements to distinguish between Heavy and Elite.  I painted up some Essex Later Hoplite Greek figures wearing metal breast plates to represent Elite Foot, as well as a dedicated general and a few more linen armored units.  Everything is hand painted including the shields, but my decreasing eyesight is becoming apparent.  Along with my 12 Spartan Hoplites this is more than enough to field most Hoplite-heavy Greek armies or a Persian triple army mercenary Hoplite contigent.

The other major change in Greek armies was reclassification of light troops from Psiloi to Rabble.  I had 2 elements of Greek Psiloi that I rebased as Rabble, and eventually I painted some more to bring it up to 4 rabble. The paint jobs were close enough that none of the figures stand out, once they’re based consistently.  I also painted 3 elements of Thracian Light Foot to augment my Thracian army.

Along with the Greek Rabble, I also painted a bunch of Javelin Cavalry for my Alexandrian Macedonian army. Most of these represent Thessalian Cavalry, but there’s also an element that is more plausibly Thracian.  This is a mix of Magister Militum (Chariot) figures and Essex 15mm. The size difference is apparent if you’re looking for it, but not so bad when they’re based consistently and with only two horses per element.

Thinking a bit harder, I don’t remember what order I painted all these in, so I might’ve gotten some of it wrong.  In any case, I also needed way more Hypaspists for a triple Alexander the Great army, and my existing Hypaspist needed to be rebased as Raiders.  I could’ve chosen Pike, but I don’t yet have a full set of Alexandrian pike yet, so I decided to make the Hypaspists Raiders for variety.  These were Old Glory figures I got from JM unpainted.  I declined to paint even more Alexandrians looking like clowns, and chose more straightforward colors for their armor.  The shields and plumes are enough color for these elements. I also had a few elements that were previously “4Ax,” but the closest equivalent in Triumph is Greek Mercenary Peltasts (Light Foot); so, more rebasing…

Next are some mostly rebased Persians, augmented with newly painted Light Foot. I had 4 stands of Persian 3Ax with identical figures on each set of 2 stands, as well as 6 more identical unpainted peltasts.  I painted the 6 remaining guys and rebased everything with different figures on each base for variety.  You can find the newly painted figures if you look hard enough, but the paint jobs are close enough to match well.  I also rebased a bunch of DBA 3Cv stands as Javelin Cavalry, including the general, who is no longer allowed to go into battle on a chariot.  Good for morale, bad for King Darius’ hemorrhoids.

At this point I have a lot of options for an Alexandrian Macedonian triple army in Triumph, and limited choices for Later Achaemenid Persians. I may pick up some more Light Foot figures for the Persians, but I have enough mounted troops for now.

Rebasing figures that were originally based on metal bases, attached with either super glue or epoxy, is basically not a problem at all. The figures can be removed easily with an X-acto chisel blade, and it gives me an opportunity to update my basing. I’m not sure how difficult it will be to remove figures from wooden bases.

Running tally of Triumph Conversions

• Newly Painted: 22 elements; 73 figures
• Painted/Rebased: 7 elements; 8 figures painted
• Rebased Elements: 12 elements