Anyone seen my Pachyderm

The Carthaginian army has always had a fascination for me and I first built a 25mm army in the late 70’s using mainly Garrison and Lamming figures. Many games were played using WRG 5th edition and the army was trampled underfoot by Macedonian Successors, Byzantine, Roman and many other armies.

With the coming release of Infamy for the Punic Wars and the existing Clash of Spears rules it was time to revisit and rebuild the army.

The first units to be painted was some Iberian scutarii. Unfortunately I do not know the figure manufacturer as they were given to me as a present. For this reason my normal approach of using shield transfers had to be abandoned. The figures were painted using natural colours to represent unbleached cloth but with the traditional edging of either red or purple depending on the sources you believe.

Next up on the unit list were the Libyan Spearman. These are Victrix figures and the pack contains both troops equipped with the more traditional “hoplite” cuirass and those equipped with captured roman equipment. The first figures are the more traditional ones.

The figures were block painted with the cuirass being painted an off-white and then washed to bring out the details. The flesh tones used are from the Foundry range for North African Mediterranean flesh washed and highlighted. Shield were completed with my go to Little Big Man studios transfers.

The only regret I have is that I have based these on my usual 2p coin bases but on reflection if I am to use them for To the Strongest it may have been better to base on square bases.

The last of the units I completed so far were the Libyan skirmishers that came in the Victrix Carthaginian pack.

These were straightforward to paint in undyed cloth and the flesh colour was the same as I used for the spearmen.

The tricky bit were the shields as for some reason I didn’t get the transfers (old age must be creeping in). For a couple I used some spare LBM transfers for the Numidian cavalry I have but had to cut these down. These were the giraffe and zebra shields (again I hate HD photos as the white showing on the edge of these shields doesn’t show that vividly on the actual figures and I am now going to have to revisit them to touch them up 😧😒).

For the rest to get the animal hide effect it was out with the cut down brush and stipple the colours on to try and get a reasonable effect that I am happy with.

It was time to tackle the Pachyderm someone bought me.

Now this is going old school with a metal elephant from Armorum and Aquila miniatures. A nice enough model but did require a load of plastic putty to fill the gaps when putting it together.

It was first given a base coat of grey and then a wash of Nuln Oil to dull it down.

Next after that was dry it was a matter of giving it a coat of Army Painter soft tone to introduce a “browner” tone, this was followed by a couple of dry brushes first of dark sand and finally a dark flesh tone around the truck and the ears.

It was then a matter of picking out the details and adding a couple of shield transfers. Nearly there just need to varnish and sort out the crew.

Well I manged to finish the rest of the crew, varnish and get the elephant based.

The next set of troops completed for the Carthaginians are the Citizen Spearmen, while these troops rarely if ever fought abroad they can also double as additional spearmen if needed.

The figures are once again Victrix with Little Big Man shield designs. Painted mostly in neutral colours and carried older Thureos shields.

What will be a couple of units of the “Veteran” Infantry, these figures have replaced the traditional Carthaginian armour and shields with equipment salvaged from the Romans so have Scutum shields and also chain armour. The historically the chain could either have been looted or obtained from Gallic allies.

These figures were undercoated black (apart from the shields) and then had a heavy drybrush of the metallic (either Gunmetal or Bronze depending on armour type).

The next units completed were some Numidian allies.

The first unit represents the Numidian javelin, light troops with no armour and hide covered shields (again LBM Studios). The figures are again Victrix.

The 2nd unit completed used the heavier shields and even some helmets! These represent the attempt by the Numidian king to train some of the foot to fight in the “roman” way.

I did these to introduce a bit more variety and they will also be used as javelin skirmishers if needed (if my opponent objects they will receive a blow from the metal pachyderm  for being picky.

Next up we have the Numidian Cavalry skirmishing horse. To differentiate and try to make them stand out the horses were either painted as greys and light browns. The only problem is that the Victrix horses are too big really as the horses described for the Numidians were noted for their smaller stature when compared to the Gallic horses. This must be saying something as the Gallic horses would probably only be the size of a modern pony.

In my inimitable style I decided to start of the Republican Roman forces even though I have not finished off the Carthaginian forces.

Starting with the infantry I had to consider how I was going to differentiate between the various subunits on the table. It was around this time that the Roman army was undergoing reform and rather than troop type being defined by class (and having the money to pay for equipment) they were organised by experience with the government providing the arms and armour. At this time the Roman infantry was broken into four key groups these were:

• Hastati – newest and least experienced troops armed with pila;
• Principes – experienced troops armed with pila;
• Triarii – veteran troops armed with spear;
• Velites – light infantry skirmishers.

The Triarii (armed with big sticks) and the Velites (armed with light throwing sticks) were easy. It was the Hastati and Principes that provide the problems as they could appear the same.

Luckily I had both the Victrix’s “Rome Legions of the Republic 1 and 2” as a starting points so started building the figures with the intention that the Principes would be wearing chainmail from the 1^st box and the Hastati would be wearing the armoured discs out of the 2^nd. While this may not have been 100% historical it would allow for easy identification on the table.

So worked commenced on building 120 figures.

Now we had the second bone of contention were the troops uniformed or not and did they have the same shield designs (if any).  On the uniform the balance of probability was they were not uniformed and that they were wearing civilian clothes. On the shield design there is no hard evidence either way as far as I could find.

This is where the wargamer stepped in. These were regular units so of course they would be uniformed (and easier to paint) and they would have shared shield designs to ease identification of units on the table.

As with the Carthaginians these troops will be used for both skirmish (Infamy when released and Clash) and “rank and file” rules mainly “To the Strongest”.

For skirmish level rules troop ratios do not really come into consideration but for “TtS” I needed one each of the Hastati, Principes and Triarii to form “Quincunx” (no giggling at the back). If I ever expand the army to play “Hail Caesar” I would need to add an additional Hastati and Principes unit as they really should be 2 for each Triarii but that is in the distant future.

So now on to the next 6 units before I start on the cavalry.

Over Christmas I managed to get the figures I’d been painting for the last couple of months based.

First up are the 3rd Quincunx of Roman infantry. These were organised in a similar way to the first two.

Now thanks to Christmas presents I now have at least enough figures for another 3 infantry units. I have not decided yet but I think these will be based slightly differntly as I now have enough figures for any skirmiah game I wish to play as well as rank and file so these later units will probably be based just for rank and file games 🤔.

In the Victrix packs there are a lot of additional Velites more than I needed. Instead of wasting these a bit of a quick conversion removing the spare javelins from the left arms and using some of the spare Pila from the heavy infantry and we have some “Proletarii” or emergency levy or alternatively some of the Penal Legions.

Finally we have the officers, standard bearers and musicians.

The next units to be completed were the Roman Cavalry. For some reason there are 16 figures in the Victrix packs so have few spare for command in the skirmish level. But as the Romans were always short cavalry this also gives me the two units I need for the army under both the Polybian and Camilian lists for “To the Strongest”.

I also managed to complete a couple of commanders (don’t ask why one is on a round base and the other square as I have no idea why I did this) these are from Gripping Beast Roman Senators.

Now for some units that can either fight for the Romans or the Carthaginians. The Italian Allied cavalry, these are Gripping Beats cavalry and are smaller than their Victrix cousins so cannot be mixed but do look OK when fielded in their own unit.

One thing I can say was that they were easier to put the shield transfers on as they had a plain shield and there was no fiddly cutting to do on the transfers😃.

I started the Italian Allied Legion from Victrix for the next Quincunx. While I was finishing these figures off I also excepted the obvious and I had more infantry than I would ever need for a skirmish force for my Romans and would retire the “sabot” bases and multi base the figures so out came the square bases (well rectangles actually).

The intention was to keep the same unit frontage but increase the number of figures on the bases however when I started to base up the figures the plan didn’t work. The way the figures and shields are posed I couldn’t increase the number of figures on the base! Oh well it least gave me a couple of more units.

Above shows how the units can be used for the two “rank and file” rules we use.

As well as the heavy infantry I also completed their supporting Velites.

The other units I completed were the Balearic Slingers and the Cretan Archers. Both these units can be used for either the Carthaginians or the Romans so its a 2 for 1 deal.

I based one unit of each on sabot bases and the other as a multi base so I still have some for the skirmish games.

For the Balearic Slingers I followed the description in on of the old WRG Macedonian and Punic Wars books which was based on a roman source that described them dressed as in the “Spanish” fashion. This was white tunics edged with purple or deep red. The figures were Victrix.

The Cretans are Gripping Beast figure so one piece and metal and no construction required 😃.

Again these were painted in muted tones to represent “undyed” cloth.

When I first started this project if someone had said that the first time I would field the armies it would be:

• the Republican Romans
• it would be a “rank and file” game rather than a skirmish game

I would have laughed but the other week they were on the table against a Pyric army in a game of To the Strongest. This was slightly “out of period” as I fielded the later “Polybian Roman” army rather than the “Camillan Romans” that would have actually faced Pyrus but I have to paint up more legions before I can field that army.

A few more pictures as the game developed when I get chance I will do a fuller battle report in my other project.

I have been finishing off some odd figures before launching into the remaining “legions” I have to paint to round off the Romans.

First up were a couple of more units of the “prolectarii” or levy hastati that I’ll be using to represent the raw legions in the army for To the Strongest.

Next we have another unit of light infantry velites to annoy the enemy.

Next I had a few spare command figures by Crusader Miniatures. These were painted up so that not only as figures in skirmish game but also to represent the heroes in To the Strongest rules.

One of the advantages of collecting both the Carthaginian and Republican Romans is the number of mercenary or allied troops that fought for each side.

I finally got around to finishing some Spanish Caetrati (Javelin armed skirmishers). Figures are A&A Miniatures with the usual LBM Studios shield transfers. Two units based slightly differently, one based so I can still use individual figures for skirmish games while the other has been based for “rank and file” games of To the Strongest and Hail Caesar.

Painting wise I went with the “traditional” white tunics with coloured edging described in various books but I believe all came from the same historical source.

Next we have Italian or Ligurian Allies these are the Armoured Italian Javelinmen from Victrix and have been based for rank and file as I have another 24 to paint so some of them will be based for dual use. These were just painted in various colours and again used the LBM shield transfers.

Onto the Carthaginian Cavalry (or what used to be called the Liby-Phoenician Cavalry under WRG). These are Gripping Beast figures and have been painted up with the linin cuirasses in the main. Where mail appeared I deliberately gave it a bit of bling with bright copper and gold as these represented the richer citizens.

The Generals have also been completed. The first is from Crusader Miniatures who do a mounted and dismounted Hannibal. They have been paired with standard bearers from Gripping Beast.

Next we have another Hannibal this time from Gripping Beast. I particularly like to shield transfer on this one and painted with maximum bling (although there is definitely a Foo Man Chou vibe with the tache).

Finally a generic command figure from Gripping beast.