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.