Rapid Fire! France in 20mm - 1st British Armoured Division headquarters

At Forêt-des-Jolies-Arbres stands a Guy Lizard ACV of the HQ of the 1st Armoured Division under the watchfull eye of a Cruiser MkIV of the 9th Lancers.

The ACV is a 3d print from MiniGeneral and all figures are conversions.

To the left you can see  a glowing General Roger Evans discussing with one of his brigadiers about the recent failures.

The torsos of the figures are the venerable Matchbox British officers. They needed riding boots to look like BEF officers so Evans got  new legs from an Airfix German and the other one got them from a metal Irregular Miniatures French figure.

The radioman was more complicated with lots of  different pieces coming from many directions.

The torso is the Matchbox Monty with Esci Russian legs from the figure that rides their T-34 range. Arms and gas mask bag are made of GreenStuff. Here I made a mistake by placing a bereted figure. I found out that the beret was only generalised around 1941 (only tanks and recce troops used them by then) when the figure was already painted.

A quick plastic card table and a map and its done. 

This was the original picture that provided inspiration for this stand.

The MiniGeneral Guy Lizard ACV got a pair of antennae and one of the external canvas roofs was open. I made the open canvas roof a bit simpler than it was really.

The Mark IV is one more MiniGeneral  miniature. The RF 1st AD needs some 75 model tanks between light and cruiser tanks and still 18 are now missing.

Next: Janissaries for Mohacs, or a few Morris Quod for France 1940 or Punic Wars.

Daimyo set of Rules in 20mm - Japan's Sengoku period/Sekigahara 1600: Koboyakawa Hideaki's clan

Hideaki looks at at  valley below mount Matsuo still not knowing in which side he will fight on the 21 october 1600. This is the 5th clan I made for Sekigahara but with over 40 in the battlefield there is still a long way to go.

His army was the 3rd biggest on the battlefield with 15.600 men and its defection to Ieyasu's side decided the course of the battle.

For the first time I converted a few Ashigaru to use the ōtsuchi (big hammer). Recently I managed to get the 2017 Japanese movie Sekigahara, a brilliant movie which places Mitsunari as the hero of the story (and Ieyasu as the villain) where plenty of ōtsushi can be seen in action.

The ōtsushi in action hammering a few heads.

The mounted Samurai are the usual Zvezda. Its Sashimono  and Nabori also taken from the 2017 movie Sekigahara. They are completely different from the ones in Samurai-Archives and they look great on the battle scenes. Which of them are the true ones?

Koboyakawa Hideaki's model is a resin copy of the Zvezda General with another head using a variation of the eboshi-nari kabuto.

Close to the already painted Hideaki is a war drummer also from Zvezda.

I included some shields in both archers and teppo stands.

The foot Samurai are again the usual Zvezda. Is funny how these excellent figures put an end to other 20mm plastic Samurai being produced elsewhere.

Some teppo Ashigaru are conversions from those grizzly Zvezda  figures carrying severed heads. 

The majority of the Ashigaru are the usual Red Box.

The other group is mixed Zvezda and Red Box.

Here they go down mount Matsuo to hit Ukita Hideie in the flank. 

Next: more BEF or Punic Wars. 

DBM Gaugamela in 20mm - Alexander's army.

This post replace the old one from 2011 with the same models. Hundreds of my faithfull followers (well, one at least...) complained about its poor quality pictures and hopefully these can make more justice to the models. I mentioned that old post on the one about Darius army and put it to rest. 

Still a few units like Hypaspists to be done but the majority of the army is here.

Alexander's figure and its beautiful Bucephalus are Zvezda and its Companions are both Zvezda and Hat.

The Thessalian cavalry is also Hat and its leader, Parmenion, had some Milliput applied on the horse's tiger skin to make him distinguishable.

The Hat Prodromoi. Only one figure can be used from the several available sets so some arm twisting was used in order to create more variety.

Alexander's lights.  In the first line there are the Hat Cretan archers and Zvezda Macedonian archers; second line has the Hat Agrianians and the third line has Hat Illyrian javelinmen.

Irregular auxilia from several of Hat sets. Some shields are scratchbuilt and other are Newline Designs.

 Three of the Taxeis of Alexander Pezhetairoi are Hat industries...

... the other three are a mix of Zvezda and Atlantic conversions. 

The Atlantic conversions are based on the Greek Classic Hoplites. I chose the positions in which they are standing, cut ou the big classical Hoplon and sword they have, glued a roundel of plastic card and drilled the long sarissa on the right hand. like this they make some reasonable back ranks of Pezhetairoi. 

The front ranks are glued in double ranks as the Zvezda figures work better this way. 

Some middle rank figures didn't carry the small shield and some had to be made in plastic card. The Sarissas are made of plastic broom bristles with the tip heated with a lighter and squashed with pliers and finally shaped with an X-Acto.

Here it is Alexander's army ready to perform the famous tactic used in Gaugamela headed to strike at Darius himself.

Next: more Samurai or the armies of the Punic wars.

DBM Gaugamela in 20mm - The beggining of the Achaemenid Persian army

I started this army many years ago with a few touches here and there in recent days. The idea is to be able to refight Gaugamela 331 BC and by consequence all other battles of the campaign.  Darius army is the obvious oposition against Alexander's army that will  be showned soon.

The figures used here are Hat, Zvezda and Newline Design.

Here is what is done up to the moment, around 220 figures. What is necessary is something like four or five times this lot for the full Persian army of the battle even if definitive numbers vary a lot. I'll try the 1000 mark figure that will represent aproximately the 100.000 men of Darius army that modern historians say it had. 

Heavy Persian cavalry. Figures are mostly Zvezda with one Newline Design cavalry figure for stand. 

Light Persian cavalry. The figures are again Newline Design and Zvezda with some Italeri Mongol conversions with Zvezda heads. 

Apple Bearer infantry. A full Hat unit.

Albanian archers. Hat and Zvezda figures.

Sparabara infantry. A bit anachronistic but a must and helpful to beef up the ranks. Newline Design and Zvezda figures. 

Mardian archers. Hat and Zvezda.

Atropates Takabara. A full Zvezda unit.

Persian Levy infantry. All are Hat with a converted standard bearer. 

Babylonian Levy archers. Hat figures. 

Persian irregular cavalry. Everything is Zvezda.

Atropates psiloi archers. Hat and Zvezda again.

Saka psiloi. Zvezda  and Zvezda with different heads. 

Albanian javelinmen. Hat figures. 

War chariot. Newline Design.

Darius chariot with the man itself. Another nice model from Newline Design. 

Next: most probably Koboyakawa Hideaki's clan for Sekigahara 1600.