Age of Hannibal: 6mm Iberian or Spanish Army

 Howdie.

 In my third Punic Wars installment, I am presenting my Iberian, or if you rather, Spanish or CeltIberians, army.   The peoples of the Iberian peninsula played a critical part in both the start of the 2nd Punic War, and the fighting that followed.  Iberians could be found fighting one anther, the Carthaginians, or the Romans... or (as I use them primarily) as part of a larger Carthaginian or Roman army.  In my previous posts on my Carthaginian Army   and my Numidian Army   I explained how there are contingents of troops operating within a larger multi-national force.  As with the Numidians, I wanted the Iberians to be a functional army in their own right, being able to field against outside aggressors from Carthage or Rome.  I feel in game terms this army is much more formidable than my Numidian army.

Except where noted, these are all Baccus (and in fact all of the Spanish are Baccus).

 Here we have the entire army, which is 1 general and 1 sub commander, and 46 bases of troops (14 bases of Scutarii and CeltiIberians, 4 bases of Spanish light infantry, 10 bases of Caetratti, 3 bases of Spanish heavy cav, 3 bases of Spanish light cav, 6 bases of Balearic slingers, and 6 bases--the only Rapier miniatures in this group--of Celt slingers).  

 Here are the commanders... a Spanish general and a sub commander.  I decided to use a single bag of Spanish heavy cav for multiple purposes.  This included pulling 3 mounted figures for command models... adding some foot Scutarii to the general.

Here are the formed infantry, which is comprised of 6 bases of Scutarii painted primarily with mixture of white, gold-yellow, and red shield colors..... 4 bases of Scutarii painted with a mix of darker primary shield colors... and, 4 bases of what are actually Celts, but painted as if they were Spanish.  I am not sure this was a great idea or not.... but it allowed for more variety, and a small group of infantry that looked different, perhaps representing a northern Iberian tribe, or from somewhere between Spain and the Alps.  This, and having the Scutarii painted with 2 different distinct color sets, helps me as the player identify elements in the game, or even makes it easier to split troops between two opposing armies.  First, the largest block....

Then the smaller block of Scutarii.... as well as the light infantry and the heavy cav.  I used models from that single bag of Spanish heavy cav to create only 3 bases of heavies, knowing that I had an overabundance of Carthaginian heavies already.  I created the light infantry bases with two sparse ranks of 5 models each, mostly Scutarii with a couple of Caetratti mixed in, and then a couple more Caetratti forward as skirmishers.  This adds more versatility to the army, and may represent either smaller tribal groups, or specifically trained light troops.

And here are the "CeltIberians", alongside the light cav.  So the remaining models from the heavy cav bag were dispersed to create 3 bases of Spanish lights.... again, knowing I have so many other cav to pull in.  This was one of my cheap skate moments (really, it was because I didn't think I needed 5 bases of heavy cav.... and if I bought separate light cav, that would work out to maybe 8 bases, or a total of 13 Iberian cav bases, which I felt was way too many ).

Here are some of the Caetratti skirmishers....

Now, because I was not sure of the best place to include them, here are the Balearic slingers... elite missile troops, and a nice addition to any ancient army of the Western Med.

Something else that I didn't have a good place to include, are these Celt slingers from Rapier.  I bought them in the beginning, just trying some things out.  There are two fairly large Celt armies in our club, so Celts have not been my priority, as I can rely on other people's Celts to join my Carthaginians.  The Numidians and Spanish in the club are more limited, so I focused on building larger forces of them.  However, I would at this time like to expand the Celt contingent, again into a balanced force, though a smaller one.  Something like 4 bases of formed infantry, 8 bases of warband, and maybe using the same trick I used with the Spanish heavies, 3 bases of heavy cav and 3 bases of light cav.  A small, but useful force.  For now though, I have only these...

Sometime soon I will post a combined army, something to show how the Punic army would look going into battle.

Thanks for reading.

             

Age of Hannibal: 6mm Numidian Army

 Howdie.

 You might be asking yourself... "Numidian Army?  Who does that?"  Well, obviously I am not the only one, but its not exactly in the top 10 favorite ancients armies. My Numidians are primarily to provide a supportive contingent to my Carthaginian army.  However, by buying just a few extra miniatures, I was able to form a 30 base army for Age of Hannibal.  Its unlikely I would ever use all 30 bases as part of a Carthaginian army, but this allows me to entertain scenarios such as ones where the Numidians may find themselves independently fighting either the Carthaginians, or, after the fall of Carthage, the Romans.  It also allows me to cheat a little with bases if I am short in one place or another.

For me it feels better to think of purchasing "armies" rather than just bits and pieces.  So, instead of just a few bases of light horse and skirmishers, I have a force that can be fielded on its own.  Within its own limitations and troop choices, this is a relatively balanced force

Anyway....

Here is my commanding Numidian general, in the form of a darker skinned Hellenistic commander on a base with a few Numidian infantry from Baccus.  Most of this army are Baccus figures, but there are a few bases of Rapier Miniatures (as previously discussed in my post about my 6mm Carthaginian Army ).

 

 This is the entire army... in addition to the command base, there are 10 bases of Light Infantry, 10 bases of Skirmishers with Javelins, and 10 bases of superb Light Cavalry.  It is the light cav that are the most important to the Carthaginian army, in particular to the campaign of Hannibal.  Hannibals' one great battlefield defeat, Zama, was the one battle he did not have a superiority in the area of Numidian light cav.   Altogether, this would be a sizeable army... though, a very limited one.  While the light cav I talked about were extremely useful, even they lack the punching power needed to crack formed heavy infantry.  This is a mobile but light army.

I truly intended to create a few bases of "regular" formed infantry.  I just could not do it.  The Numidian infantry did not seem to have an intrinsic type of troop I felt would stand toe to toe with say Hannibal's African veterans, or Roman legions.  So, I ended up creating 10 bases of light infantry (which to be honest, I could also field as rabble if needed).  I did this by making two sparse ranks of only 5 or 6 models each (compared to the formed infantry of  3 full ranks with 7 or 8 miniatures each) with 1 or 2 additional models deployed in advance of the lines.  They look distinct from both skirmish bases and heavy infantry bases. 

I also formed 10 bases of javelin armed skirmishers, using the same models as for the light infantry.  2 of these bases (the 2 in the lower middle and lower right positions in the image below) are Rapier, the other 8 are Baccus.  These can be useful, to provide additional skirmishers in a battle when needed.

Finally, there are 10 bases of Numidian light horse.  Since light cav have no front facing in Age of Hannibal, I chose to base then performing a turn.... they do actually have an identifiable "front" but look nice in groups of 4, forming a circle.  8 bases are Baccus, and 2 are Rapier.... one base has a skirmisher on it as somehow I came out 1 horse figure short.  In the last image, you can see from left to right, Rapier skirmishers, Baccus skirimishers, and Rapier light horse.

 

 I think I could borrow a base or two of elephants form the Carthaginians to field with these Numidians, and it would look perfectly fine.

Not exactly a world conquering army, but a nice one to have.  My next posting will be on my 6mm Iberians, who form what I would consider a much more formidable force, one that fields better and fights harder.  More on that later.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Age of Hannibal: Carthaginian Army in 6mm

 Howdie.

 As you may be aware, I was involved in part of the development of the Little Wars TV ruleset, Age of Hannibal.  Actually, I even provided the cover art....

Hannibal Portrait

 Not surprisingly, I have a few miniatures in 6mm for this game.

I will be following up with additional portions of my Punic army in the near future, but for now, I will only be discussing what I consider my "Carthage specific" portion of the army.  Given the nature of the Punic military, it will be understandable that this force of mine is separated into contingents.

Here we have the full weight of Carthage, 23 bases of troops (12 formed spear infantry, 6 heavy cavalry, and 5 elephants) with three commanders.  This represents the smallest of the three contingents in my Carthaginian army.

 When first choosing my miniatures, and before we had fully worked out the system, I decided to purchase small amounts of both Baccus and Rapier miniatures.  Both are 6mm, and both I think are fine ranges.  You will notice that the Rapier is somewhat larger than the Baccus.  Ultimately I chose to fill out my armies with Baccus, but the Rapier provide some variety to my army, and would certainly be an option for anyone's army.  Both paint up fine.

Here are the commanders, a general and two captains or sub-commanders.  I have used the general as Hannibal, however, I think I need a base with more flair to represent him.  I do have additional unpainted leaders, and may make a decision about the elephants, discussed below....

Here I have the core component of the Carthaginian infantry force, 4 bases of Baccus African infantry and 4 bases of Veteran infantry. 

They are supported by 2 bases of Rapier Punic Heavy Infantry and 2 bases of Rapier Libyan Heavy infantry.  Having different bases does allow to have different troops in your army be readily identifiable... or could even form part of an opposing force, like, say, rebelling mercenaries.  There are also a grand total of 6 bases of heavy cavalry, which are 5 bases of Baccus and 1 base of Rapier.  This is too much heavy cav at the scale we normally fight battles at in Age of Hannibal.  However, when first organizing them, I was not sure.  Now, I definitely do not have need of so many... and I also found I did not like the look of the 3x3 ranks I put the Baccus in.

And finally, here we have the iconic element of a Carthiginian army, the elephants.  There are 2 bases of Baccus elephants, and 3 bases of Rapier elephants.  You will notice a sizeable difference between the two.  You may also notice that I placed a couple of Numidian javelin men on each, to represent the coordination of skirmishers with elephants in combat.  If 6 bases of heavy cav is too many, 5 bases of elephants is way too many.  Again, this is because I was not thinking clearly about how to organize armies.  I am not sure that Porus would need 5 bases of elephants at Hydaspes.... but maybe.  Anyway, I am thinking about dismantling one of these bases (because 4 would be plenty for any Punic battle, including Zama) to secure a single elephant to create a dedicated commander base for Hannibal.

 

Some other notes.... I recently re-flocked the bases a bit to keep them consistent across all of my forces.  Most of the players in out club tend to go with darker, greener, flock styles.... and generally I think players in a club are serving each other better by having similar flock on their bases.  There is a visual appeal.  However, considering that these troops will fight in battles representing actions in North Africa, Spain, and the length of Italy, I really wanted them to look like they are in a drier, more arid, environment.  Not desert, not mountains, but also not a lush loamy farm valley either. Something that would not look out of place anywhere in the Western Med.

Anyway, hope you like them, and I will follow up with more of this army.  Until then, keep the elephants coming, and maybe learn how to complete sieges....

Thanks.