Sometimes you just look for things to do rather than paint - Arab Photo Gallery

 Just not feeling it today for painting so decided to pull out my Arabs to take a few pictures and make stir the juices.

These are a mixture of Old Glory 15s, Khurasan and Essex with one or two random others I found in the lead pile when putting them together.  The army itself started as a boxed Arab Conquest Army for Old Glory 15s.  Paint jobs are also a mixture my own and several other painters.  I will try list all of that in the captions of each picture as we go through these.

This is the overview of the entire force.  Originally this was built as an Arab Conquest list for the last US FOG Team Tournament in 2015.  Since then I have replaced most of the cavalry but more on that later.

Arab Generals 1

Arab Generals 2 - The three horse mounted command stands are from the Early Medieval Arab range from Khurasan.  The banner holders are one of the unarmored lancers from the same range.  The camel command stand is from Essex.  I use this army as a Pre-Islamic Arabian, Pre-Islamic Bedouin, Dynastic Bedouin and other Arab based Dark Age lists.  I painted all of the command stands.  The flags are some I found online and resized for 15mm.

Arab Archers - These are a mix of OG15s and Khurasan Early Medieval Arabs.  The OG figures were painted by Larry Reeves and I painted the Khurasan. 

These are Bedouin Cavalry OG15s from the Crusades Range.  Originally all of the cavalry in this army were from OG but I found the poses and sculpturing sort of bland.  This is the last BG from the original build.  I painted these.

Arab skirmishing archers.  Old Glory 15s painted by Larry Reeves.

Arab slingers from Khurasan.  I painted these and think they turned out well.  OG15s does not have an Arab slinger casting.

Bedouin Light Horse - These are Khurasan unarmored lancers mostly painted by Thomas Demers of Mad Monkey Painters.  I added a few figures as I needed more to flesh them out to three BGs.  The next BG follows in the next picture.

Bedouin Light Horse and Arab Camelry with Bow - The Bedouins are again from Khurasan and mainly painted by Thomas Demers.  The camelry are from Forged in Battle painted by me.  Love the way these turned out by I learned I hate painting camels and these casting in particular.  The figures are split waist with two different torsos and two different camels.  

There are 5 BGs of Jund Cavalry or Bedouin Cavalry all from Khurasan.  Thomas Demers painted most of these and I added one or two to fill out the ranks.  

City Cavalry Lancers - These are Khurasan Armoured Lancers from his Arab range.  I painted these myself and the flag is something I created.  You are only allowed 6 total of these and I may add two more stands later.

5 BGs of Arab Heavy Foot - all Old Glory painted by Larry Reeves with the exception of 1 command stand that I added later.  Eventually, I may replace these with the new Forged in Battle castings.

In V1 & V2 of FOG, the Average Jund Cavalry could dismount as Superior Offensive Spear so I built this army with this in mind.  In V3,  they dismount as how you buy them so not such a get over anymore.  I may add another command stand and a stand of spearmen to flesh these out to a 6th BG of Arab foot.  Larry Reeves painted these.

A battle group of Arab Javelinmen - all OG15s painted by one of the Chinese painting companies that I picked up off Ebay.  I picked these up several years ago before the Chinese decided their paint jobs were as good as gold and liked the paint job so much I rebased them and kept them.  In later armies, I use these as Ghazi volunteer foot. 

Dailami foot - These are all OG15s that I painted for my Sassanid and Pre-Islamic Arabian armies.  These were a labor of love and took quite awhile to finish.  I may add two more bases some day as they can by 8 stands in some of the later Arab lists.

Ambush markers for FOG - sometimes I use just two of these together to form a camp for FOG 300 or ADLG.  I painted the figures on these and found them in the figure bin.  The one in the center is an Essex javelin man.  I think the other two are Museum.

Full size FOG camp that I painted and created.  The foot figures are all Essex.  The tent is from Baeuda.  The well is one of the OG15s camp sets.  The camel is Museum (I think) that I found in the figure bin and the palm tree is one I picked up in Hobby Lobby.

FOG 300 camp (or if I have to ADLG camp).  The figures are all Essex.  Originally, I had 6 bases of these that I picked up off Ebay from one of the Chinese painting companies.

While these started life as an Arab Conquest army, I use it now as Pre-Islamic Arabian, Pre-Islamic Bedouin, Muslim North African and Sicily plus a few others.  

The 1st Crusaders or Some of them, anyway.

 Coming off the Chilled Iron FOG Tournament recently where my Crusaders made another foray onto the table, I decided to start work on my Post-1st Crusade campaign again and ended up taking pictures of my current collection.  I love the Norman look of the first crusaders and have a load of them still unpainted.  Most of the figures are Old Glory 15s but there are some odds and ends mixed in.  I will add comments in the captions where there are different figures.

Here is the whole host with two camps in the background.

These are my generic leaders.  All of the command figures are from the OG15 pack NO01 Command with an extra milite from either OG15 pack NO02 or NO06.

These are my more specific leaders.  The left one is supposed to be Raymond of Toulouse and these are from the Essex Norman command pack.  The middle is Adhemar Le Puy and these are various figures I found in the spares box.  The far right is Beranger of Narbonne.  The colors are speculative but they look nice.  The figures on that stand are all OG15s from the command and cavalry packs.

These two stands I painted and they are a mix of OG15s NO02 and NO06.

Thomas Demers of Mad Monkey Painting painted these two stands and they too are a mix of NO02 and NO06.

These serve as my Turcopoles/Byzantine Cavalry.  They also do double duty in my Seljuk Turk army and Komnenan Byzantine army.  They are a mix of figures from OG15 packs ST03, ST08 and ST09.

The infantry in the front are OG15s with a mix of NO05A and NO07.  Thomas Demers painted most of these figures with a few that I did.  The horde in the back are a mix of manufacturers from all over.  Some I picked up years ago from Hinds Painting and a few I painted.  The archers on the left are a mix of OG15 NO04D and some random Baueda Norman archers I had.  There may also be a random Essex figure in there.

The spearmen in the front are a big time mix of Khurasan Norman and Southern Lombard Milites, Essex and OG15s.  The OG15s are from NO05B.  The archers behind are the Syrian Christian Archers from OG15 pack OR08.  I painted both of these groups.  The Horde in the top left are mentioned earlier.

Here we have another group of spear that I painted.  They too are a mixture of OG15s, Khurasan and Essex miniatures.  The Crossbow behind are OG15s mainly from the FC04B pack.

This is my Crusader fortified camp.  I picked it up off Ebay, rebased it, redid the gate and added the cobblestones.  Wish it was middle eastern in color but it works.

These three bases together work for a full sized unfortified camp for FOG and split apart work for three FOG 300 camps.  The two ships I picked up years ago in a HYW English army I purchased from Hinds Painting.  The other base has a wizard from Battle Valor's Fantasy line and three mules I picked up in a mixed bag from Hinds painting.

Chilled Iron 2020 Field of Glory Tournament Results

 Unfortunately, we only had 5 qualifying players at the Chilled Iron FOG Tournament this weekend.  As such, we only played three rounds instead of the 4 scheduled but all seemed to enjoy themselves and no one left brain dead.

Final Results

Gino Agnelly, Lee Cleveland and I (Christopher Anders - the referee) only played two rounds.  Per Gulf Coast Championship Guidelines the referee is not eligible to win the tournament and, where possible, always plays the lowest ranked player.  In this case, it was not possible as by points, Joey should have played Willard in Round 2 so I played Joey to keep Lee from having to play Joey (they play each other all of the time).  Lee had to leave after Round 2 anyway and Gino had to look for some Blue Boy paintings (don't ask, it really doesn't make sense anyway) so he sat out Round 2.  It worked out just fine or so everyone said at the end.

Round 1 action - Gino Agnelly w Ptolemaics vs Lee Cleveland w New Kingdom Egyptians

Round 1 action - Joey Miller w Nikeforian Byzantines vs Willard Moore w Teutonic Knights

Round 2 action - Christopher Anders' Crusaders (in the foreground) vs Joey Miller w Nikeforian Byzantines

Round 2 action - Willard Moore w Teutonics vs Lee Cleveland w New Kingdome Egyptians

Round 3 action - Joey Miller w Nikeforians vs Gino Agnelly w Ptolemaics

Round 3 action - Christopher Anders' Crusaders (in the foreground) vs Willard Moore w Teutonics - still in set-up.  We did not have time to take an action shot.  Willard's Teutonics crumbled in just about 1 hour.

2nd Place Finish - Gino Agnelly

2nd Place Badge awarded to Gino - Emblem of the Ptolemaics

Chilled Iron Champion - Joey Miller

Championship Badge awarded to Joey Miller - actually a Carthaginian Emblem but Joey loves his Carthaginians

Found the badges on eBay from a seller out of Hong Kong.  I picked them up about two months ago.

Wrap-Up of the Broken Rays of the Sun Campaign

After the last two battles in the Summer of 220 AD (7th turn of the test campaign), two of the three dynasts in the campaign were killed in battle leaving only one still alive, Vologases VI.  It just so happens with Vologases' victory he accumulated enough VPs for his prestige to rise to King of Kings level.  One of the victory conditions in the campaign is end a campaign turn at Social Rank Level 4, King of Kings.  So after 7 campaign turns and five table-top battles, the 1st run of the Broken Rays of the Sun draws to a close with Vologases VI the winner.

Babylonian Sun Times Vol 7, Summer 220 AD (Final edition of this run of the campaign).

Orange outlines the areas under direct rule of Vologases VI, Blue indicates areas offering fealty. Red is the Roman siege of Dura

Very likely the Broken Rays of the Sun will return in 2021 but for now I will take a break from the days of the Parthian Sun.  Until next time...

FOG 300 2nd Battle of Ecbatana

 Summer of 220 AD - Vologases VI is set to continue the siege of Ecbatana when out of the morning mists, Tiradates III, himself, leads his arms onto the field to break the siege.

List and host of Vologases VI (numbers of the BGs refer to order of march):

List and host of Tiradetes III (numbers of the BGs refer to the order of march):

Vologases won the initiative and elected agricultural.  Tiradates took the compulsory open field along with a gentle hill.  Vologases took an open.  The open field fell in the center of Vologases base line while Vologases open fell in the center of Tiradates baseline.  The gentle hill ended up 4" in from Vologases right side edge on the base line.

View of both armies deployed - Vologases on the left, Tiradates on the right

Tiradates' forces deployed:  BG 1 - 6 stand light horse, BG 3 - Bow-Cavalry, BG 5 - Cataphracts, BG 4 - Cataphracts, BG 2 - Bow-Cavalry (#'s correspond to order of march)

Vologases' forces deployed:  BG 1 - light horse, BG 4 - Camelphracts, BG 5 - Cataphracts, BG 4 - 6 stand Bow*-Lance-Cavalry, BG 2 - Bow-Cavalry (#'s correspond to order of march)

Vologases (referred to as Purple going forward) moved first.  Purple BGs 5, 3 & 2 moved as a group 7" forward.  Purple BG 4 moved 4" forward.  Purple BG 1 moved 4" forward including a double wheel to move a base width towards the center.  In Joint Action, Vologases moved to join Purple BG 5.

After Purple 1st turn

For Tiradates' (referred to as Red going forward) 1st turn, Red BG 2 moved 5" forward.  Red BGs 4 & 5 moved as a group and wheeled 4" towards the center.  Red BGs 1 & 3 each moved to within 3" of Purple BGs 2 & 3.  In the shooting phase, Red BG 2 scored a single hit on Purple BG 1 who could not reply as they were out of range.  Red BG 1 scored 3 hits on Purple BG 2.  Red BG 3 only managed 1 hit on Purple BG 3.  Purple BG 3 scored 2 hits on Red BG 3 while Purple BG 2 scored a single hit on Red BG 1.  Red BG 3 rolled out of its cohesion test.  Purple BG 2 survived both its death roll and cohesion test.  Both leaders opted to stand pat and the turn ended.

After Red Turn 1

For Purple turn 2 (Vologases),  Purple BGs 2 & 3 charged.  Red BG 1 evaded and ended up off the table.  Purple BG 2 charged forward 6" stopping to the side of Red BG 3.  In impact, Purple BG 3 scored 3 hits to Red BG's 2.  Red BG 2 survived the death roll but disrupted on cohesion.  In the maneuver phase, Purple BG 5 wheeled 4" towards the Red cataphracts (BGs 4 & 5).  Purple BG 4 moved 4" straight ahead.  Purple BG 1 moved 2" forward.  In the shooting phase, Purple BG 1 scored 0 hits but took 2 in return.  Purple BG 1 survived its cohesion test from the hits.  In melee, Purple BG 3 scored 4 hits on Red BG 3.  Both survived their death rolls but Red BG 3 failed its cohesion test and dropped to fragmented.  Both leaders opted to stand pat again, so the turn ended.

(Unfortunately no picture survived of this turns final positions)

For Red turn 2 (Tiradates), Red BG 2 charged Purple BG 1 who evaded 7".  Red BG 2 pursued 4".  Red BG 5 declared a charge on Purple BG 5 while Red BG 4 successfully rolled a CMT to hold.  In the impact phase, both generals joined the front ranks.  Both BG 5s scored 2 hits for a draw.  Both generals also survived attempts by the opposing troops to rip them from the saddle.  In the maneuver phase, Red BG 4 passed a CMT to move short up next to BG 5.  In melee, Red BG 5 scored 2 hits but took 4 in return.  Both generals again survived the combat but Red BG 5 lost a base to hits and disrupted.  In the other melee both BG 3s scored 2 hits each for a draw.  With both generals in the fight, joint action ended the turn.

After the Red 2nd turn.  The lighting makes the marker behind Red BG 3 look like a disruption but is actual a fragmented.

To begin the Purple 3rd turn, Purple BG 4 charged forward into Red BG 4.  This caused Red BGs 4 & 5 to disorder as well as Purple BG 5 (Purple BG 4 is camelphracts).  In the impact, Purple BG 5 scored 5 hits to Red BG 5's 2.  Subsequently, Red BG 5 dropped a base to hits and disrupted.  In the manuever phase, Purple BG 2 turn 90 to get on the flank of Red BG 3.  Purple BG 1 turned 90 and moved 5" over the hill towards the center.  There was no shooting to be had so into melee the turn progressed.  In melee, Purple BG 3 scored 3 hits and took only 1 in return.  Red BG 3 survived its death roll but failed on cohesion dropping to broken.  Both BG 5s scored a single hit to the other for a draw.  Red BG 5 then successfully passed its cohesion test for seeing Red 3 break.  Purple BG 4 managed no hits to its contact but took 1 in return.  Purple BG 4 passed both its death roll and cohesion test.  Red BG 3 evaded 5" but was caught by Purple BG 3 and lost a base.  In joint action, Red BG 3 successfully rolled to stop pursuing while Purple BG 3 routed off the table.  Red BG 5 successfully rallied back from disrupted to end the turn.

(Yet another turn in which a picture did not survive)

The Red 3rd turn began with things looking grim and not improving.  Red BG 2 tried a CMT to turn and move and failed.  They opted to turn 90 in hopes of surviving a little longer.  In melee, Red BG 5 scored 2 hits but took 3 in return.  Purple BG 4 scored 1 hit and took 1 in return for a draw.  Disaster struck when Tiradates died from the 3 hits taken to Red BG 5.  To top things off, Red BG 5 then lost a base to hits and fragmented on cohesion followed by Red BG 4 also fragmenting for seeing the CinC die.  Down 5 attrition points, Tiradates army dissolved around his dead body.

Final positions at the end of Red Turn 3 melee.