Osprey Army of Herod the Great Review

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I have no real interest in Jewish armies, apart from the Maccabees, so I bought this book for the sake of having another one for the collection. However a quick flick through revealed a book that would capture my imagination.

The main theme of the book is as per the title, the Army of Herod the Great. As a result it covers a small subject period covering about 160 years most of which focus’ on the king himself.
As with most Osprey books there is a brief description of Herod’s live and his relationship with the Romans and also a glimpse on the time period slightly before and after the life of Herod. The main focus is on the composition on the army.

As you may of gather I have somewhat fallen for this book. The subject matter is incredibly interesting and covers a fascinating period where the arms, appearance and tactics of a lot of the Hellenistic armies changed from their Macedonian origins to that more of a later republican Roman army. This for a diehard Hellenistic fanatic is incredibly useful and I would recommend anyone with a similar passion to acquire this book.

The author, Samuel Rocca, presents his work in an incredibly readable way, which always get my vote; a book with an interesting subject matter that is written in a laborious fashion always ends being a disappointment. I’m unaware of any other work by Mr Rocca but I hope he continues to write for Osprey (hinting at the Maccabees).

The art work is by Christa Hook, who I usually sometimes have issues with (my own personal taste) but once again I was more than happy with the results. Each plate is illustrated beautifully and clearly demonstrates the evolution of this Hellenistic army as well as the supplementary auxiliary troops that one could expect to find in the army of Herod the Great.
All in all I good read and useful resource for the wargamer/modeller.

5/5

WW2 Skirmish-Eastern Front: Rules of Engagment

Right then boys and girls (cos clearly women come to this site), a rather delayed update.

First things first. Much has been going on. Have played a lot of different wargames as of late but mostly these three, check your six, the rather brilliant General Qaurters 3 and the also epic Rules of Engagment. I also have been doing a lot of reading, so two more books will be reviewed, both of the ancient world.

Pictures of various figures will be uploaded to but my photographer is ill so I wish him well and a speedy recovery so he can crack on!!!! Mercanary!

Any way, this week at my club (the fantastic mid Somerset wargames club) we did a practise run of a Rules of Engagment, a very brilliant World War 2 (though highly adaptable) platoon/company basesd game. We are going to be puting on a display game at the Shepton Mallet Model engineering show in April so we thought we better try out our game!

Background.

Ok so its 1944 and the Red army is pouring into Hungry. The objective for the Russians was to take a small industrial complex and take control of a broken down Tiger II (this idea was taken from STCW where some Yanks or Brits were trying to take a Strumtiger).

The German/Hungarian objective was to try and defend the tank until it was repaired.

The Battle Field from Russian eyes.

In regards to forces I forget how many Russians there where ( I think about 6 squads) but they were bolsterd by 2 T34/76s, a T60/70 and an SU85.

The axis had three squads of SS, two Hungarians, a Hungarian Sniper team and two Italian sqauds who were wearing desert clober (I don't have enough Hungarians yet so my brave Italians turned up). Support came in the form of a Panzer IV H and a Pak 40 for the Hungarians, a Stug III long barrelled and a Skfz251 mit 37mm for the Germans and the Italians had a M14/41.

Russians with armoured support.

Initialy things went well for the Axis (well the Hungarians) The sniper missed but his buddy claimed a kill. The Panzer IV opened up with its MG and cut down most of a squad and a rfile squad supported by its LMG open fire and claimed some kills.

Then things went in the Russians favour.

A morter opened fire and took out some Hungarians in a ruin. The sniper's freind was shot and fell out of the tower and some plucky Russians stormed the building and finished the sniper off.

The Russians advance but the squad on the left has been cut down by the panzer behind the wall.

The Axis tried to fight back ( I say Axis, the SS didn't fire a shot all game!). The mortered Hungarians fell back to rally behind the cover of a wall whilst the Pak40 took a pop at the morter and managed to cause surpression.

The remaining Hungarian rifle squad fended off some advancing Russians and the brave Italian tank team took a shot at a T34 only to have its shell bounce of the Russian tank. The Russians riddled the Italian tank with machine gun fire in reply, killing all the crewm within.

Axis forces vainly trying to hold the soviet advance

The Russians presssed on, overwhelming an Italian squad in close combats whilst the T34's mopped up the other Italian squad.

Soviet SMG squad jumps over the wall to deal with the Italians and in confronted with the Rallying Hungarians.

Time constraints meant that the game ended early but it was a good match up so this is probably going to be the game we take to the show. As mentioned above the SS didn't enter the combat but know doubt they would later and would of slowed the Soviet advance.

3 of us played the game, one with the Russians and the other two with the Axis. I took the motely crew of Italians and Hungarians as I have a thing for the underdogs!

A great game and I recomend buying RoE if you want a good skirmish game. We are planing to do a cold war game at some point by hashing the rules a little.

More updates to follow!

Book Review - The Spartan Army!

Right then.



I have been interested in doing a book review for some time now so I thought I would chose an easy subject and one that many people may of read. My first review is the Spartan Army by Nick Sekunda published by Osprey!

I can honestly say that I am one of those people who have a large collection of Osprey books but have read a mere handful. In fact I think its only two. When I mean read, I mean read from the start to the end and not just taking a mere glance when I need to know what colour a Macedonian tunic should be or the colour of Royal Navy Battleship turrets in World War 1.

As I wanted to do a review I chose a subject that currently intrests me and one that would probably intrest many others, know small part due to the 300.

The book is part of the elite series of osprey titles and seems to follow the usual Osprey trend of a brief introduction and history of the subject peoples followed by a discription of their weapons, armour and appearance.

As well as this you get a number of colour plates in the middle of the book (altough this seems to be changing in later books) which are accompanied by plate discriptions at the back. There are also various black and white imagaes dotted around the text showing artifacts such as shields, statues and a whole host of other treasures. So far so good.

The artwork (Richard Hook) is fantastic and really does capture the imagination of the reader. The detail is excellent and I feel that Mr Hook has done an excellent job in showing the development of the Spartan Army. My knowledge of Spartan appearance is not to a high level but it was reassuring to see that Mr Hook hasn't placed the Lambda on the Spartan shields at Thermopylae and instead used them for Spartans during the Peloponnesian War. Such consideration for historical accuracy (or as near was we can get it) is always welcome to a stickler such as myself.

The content of the book is generally excellent. I am a fan of Nick Sekunda's work and he clearly has a passion for ancient Greek history. The information in the text was very informative and, importantly, very readable.

Whilst Mr Sekunda has mainly focused on the Hoplite side of the army he has included some information on its cavalry and light troops to.

As ever the subject matter has been throughly researched with a lot of primary sources being used. This, in my mind, enhances the reliability of the information given.

My only negative comment would be that I would of quite liked some information on the Spartan army after its defeat Leuctra at the hands of the Thebans. Although, arugably, the Spartans played less of a role in the Greek political world after this time, it would of have been intresting to see how the Spartans adapted to new troop types such as Macedonian phalangite and the thureophoroi.

Apart from that I overly enjoyed the book. It is well written and provides a good basic introduction into the Spartan army.

Rating 4:5

Something different - 15mm Seleucids!!

Another update chaps....you lucky people!!

This time its from my other big passion...15mm ancients! These chaps are Seleucid Argyraspides who the elite gaurds unit of the Seleucid kings.

The figures are from Chariot minatures who are very nice people and the shield decals are VVV. My only complaint about the figures (and its only slight) is the lenght of their spears as I would of thought they would have been longer like their pikemen couterparts! But still very nice figures and good starting block for my army.

I'm a big Seleucid fan as I did my dissertation on them at uni. As a result I want to get them as historicaly accurate as possible. I painted the tunics red and not purple because I had seen images of Alexanders Silver Shields in Red in the Ancient Warfare magazine and as the Argyraspides were based on this unit I thought it made sense.

My figure painting skills are taken from my father (who is a bloody good painter) and Minifigs, who do a bloody good guide on their website (and also on the Fanaticus site)

These figures (two bases) are for my FOG army but I will use them for DBA as well. Just need to get their Roman armed comrades and I shall be on my way.

Anyway I hope you enjoy them as much as I did painting them.

Tally Ho for now!

WW2 1/3000 - Royal Navy, Italian Navy and Kriegsmarine!

Right then ladies and gentlemen..after a bit of break I'm back with some new odds and ends.

Firstly we have my WW2 1/3000 ships. These are based the same as my WW1 and I think look quite good. I'm eager to press my Italian ships in to battle as I'm very proud of my 1/4 Italianess...plus their ships, like most Italian things...are pretty damn smart.

Vittorio Veneto - (Navwar)

This is one of my favorite ships...very elegent lines and bloody powerfull to boot. Good model, my only complaint would be the hunk of metal under the rear turret guns but this was easily filed down. A nice job from the Navwar chaps!!!

Zara - (Skytrex)

A nice little model of the heavy cruiser Zara...I annoyingly missed some of the mold lines around the hull so had to scrape of the paint and touch up the paint but then dropped the bloody thing....still love the ship though.

Andrea Doria - (Navwar)

HMS Renown - (Sktrex- I think!)

Another one of my favs is the old Renown...not sure why but she is a lovely ship and Britians last Battlecruiser!

HMS Prince of Wales- (Navwar)

Prinz Eugen - (Navwar)

Scharnhorst - (Navwar)

My all time fav ships is the Scharnhorst and her sister - undergunned but not badly armoured, had they been upgunned to 15" guns then they would of been very deadly ships!!! Like the VV they had elegent lines and nice ships!

Bismarck - (Navwar)

The big bad Bismarck. Caused a lot of trouble for the allies (well the Good old Royal Navy) but probably more on a Psychological level. Had the Kriegsmarine had a few more of these monsters then maybe they would of had a better chance against the Royal Navy...but thats a big 'maybe'

So there is my WW2 fleet..not bad and can be easily used to practising GQ3. Not sure if the German labels are correct but I imagine some kind sir will let me know!

As a result I'm not sure what to paint up now in regards to ships....maybe some smaller stuff for the Med, or some WW1 Med navies..suggestions would be welcome!!

WW1 Aircraft

My Venture into the First World War continues. This time its the aircraft that are getting a look in!!



After a longish break I have gone back to the 1/72 kits which I intend to wargame with.

I thougt I would go with something easy so got an Airfix Fokker Dr1 which I will paint up as Voss' as I never did when I first made the kits!!!



Tis a funny kit and the bits do not fit all that well but you have to love it.


I also played my first (and Second game) of wings of war the other day and to my surpries it was actually very good. If you like a fun game and into the dog fighting then this is a nice litte game!! More updates to come soon.

Tally Ho!!!

1/3000 Custom Minas Geraes

Keeping with the 1/3000 theame I am scratch building a battleship on the Minas Geraes class which was used by Brazil.

The reasson for doing this is the new Fleet Action Imminent suppliment which covers some of the South American navies. I figured I needed a break from the North Sea!

Unfortunalty Navwar and sktyrex don't make this model but hey, it gives me a chance to learn a new skill.

Anyway here is a couple of pictures of my ship in the construction stage. Basicly a big blob!

The hull was made from the same thick plastic card that I used to base my ship. A thinner bit of card was used to create the upper hull. Miliput was used to fill in areas and extend and shape the upper deck.

The next stage is to shape the miliput parts, create the bridge and drill in wire to build up the funnels. The turrets I hope my father will be making as he is very skilled at sculpting.

Tally ho for now!

1/3000 WW1

This is my first update!!! Horrah!!

Below are a couple of pictures of my WW1 project. Most of my ships are geared up for Dogger bank which I play using the very good General Qaurters 3 rules!!

So far I have played a few games all with differnt out comes. Tis worth a look this set!!!!

The British and German Fleet

SMS Derfflinger

Probably my favourite of the Dogger bank battle. This ship, like most of my other ships, is based on thick plastic card which is then covered with the Vallejo water effect. I then use a cocktail stick to create a wave effect. The ship then slides out, leave it for a few hours and then its dry!!! Cool!

HMS Tiger

SMS Blucher

The poor Blucher, designed in response to the British Invincible class but secrecy on the British side meant that the Germans believed that the Invincibles were to be armed with 9" guns. As a result the Blucher was armed with 8". Still I think she is somewhat of a beautiful ship!

HMS Iron Duke

Overall I'm happy with my results with my little ships. My fleet is ever growing so I'm sure that I'll have more to show in the future. At the moment I'm working on some WW2 British and Italians.!!!!!

Laneism is Reborn

Back in 2001ish I started Lanism which was simpley me ranting about life in around a Plmyouth with the odd teen rampage on Poltics and parties that I had been to!

Not much as really changed apart from the parties have gone and been replaced by my private hobby.....wargaming...yes I finally came out as a gamer!

So now this blog will explore that many periods that I now game but it will also include some reviews on any decent films and music that is out there (which is difficult as all good music died with Joy Divsion and Thin Lizzy).

There will of be course be a number of poltical rants which really means I'll be moaning about the goverment for some reasson or the other.

Tally Ho for now!