It’s the Libyans! (Bronze Age chariot)

[Rob Dean 16253]

This hasn’t been a particularly good month for painting.  I had a week off back on the 9th, but, as shown here, my desk had gotten too cluttered to actually get much painting done.  I’m also off this week, and decided that I would try just putting one task on the desk at a time, to see if that would help.  My son has been diligently working on his Bronze Age DBA armies, so I decided that I would finally get started on the last stand of figures I needed to finish my 2nd DBA army.  (DBA : De Bellis Antiquitatis, a popular set of ancient wargames rules for small figure collections to be played on a small table.) Earlier this year, I had managed to get all of my 13th C BCE Libyan infantry done, to match against my New Kingdom Egyptians, but I still needed a “chariot general” base.  

 

Son and I have been working this project intermittantly for about fifteen years, and we have a deep stash of Caesar Miniatures 1/72 scale plastic figures.  There is no “official” Libyan chariot, so I cobbled one together using an Egyptian chariot body, horses from a different (Mitanni) chariot set, and a Libyan commander pose.  He’s a little too wide to be able to fit a driver in as well, so, artistic rendering...

 

 

 

 

We used to mount our chariots on a 40mm wide by 60mm deep base, but the DBA rules call for 60mm by 80mm.  The single chariot looks a little lonely, and there isn’t room for a pair of them, so he and I agreed that we would generally mount a couple of “chariot runners” with each vehicle.

 

Most of my Libyans are done with cloaks painted to represent hairy hides from spotted cows, in keeping with the modern painting guide depictions.  However, searching around for actual contemporary Egyptian depictions of Libyans came up with this (I’ve cropped a single figure out of a group of four):

 

I did my best to replicate the alternating rows of “eyes” and “arrows” on the general’s cloak, and echoed the pattern on the chariot body decorations because “why not?”.  At least any historical nit-pickers are likely to have seen the same picture...

 

 

Here’s the completed “army”.  With the Egyptians, I can at least stage a remote game without using proxy figures, although we are starting to look forward to getting together for an actual games day sometime again (probably still six months off...).  Maybe my next army, the Nubians, will be ready by then as well.

 

[BadgersinMeadows 2769]

Looking good! I love this period, and chariot warfare is so fun, if a little expensive in my usual 28mm scale in both historical and fantasy. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by BadgersinMeadows

[Rob Dean 16253]

21 minutes ago, BadgersinMeadows said:

Looking good! I love this period, and chariot warfare is so fun, if a little expensive in my usual 28mm scale in both historical and fantasy. 

 

The Caesar Miniatures aren't too expensive; the suggested retail price is $13US for a box of two, and we've gotten a lot of them at 20% off sales over the years.  My son developed a love of 1/72 scale plastic as a kid, due to the frugality, and he's kept it up as his earnings have increased. (He's 30 now.)  One of my friends blogged about the first game we played with them, at which time we were going for some popular fantasy cross-over potential by playing with Warhammer Ancient Battles.  Our ambitions were probably a little unrealistic at the time, which is how we came to generally set the project aside for a while.  

[Glitterwolf 213190]

I like it!

 

You could use GW Warmaster rules as well I guess.

[KruleBear 5222]

Very nice. I played DBA at a con about 15 years ago and really enjoyed it. Nice Libyan army you have. And I guess I am not the only one that has to roll his eyes at the historical nit pickers 

[Rob Dean 16253]

6 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

I like it!

 

You could use GW Warmaster rules as well I guess.

 

I’d have to dig around and see if I still have Warmaster Historical around; I picked one up from a flea market but never played, and it may have been sold back out again by now...in principle, yes, I’d think so.

 

4 hours ago, KruleBear said:

Very nice. I played DBA at a con about 15 years ago and really enjoyed it. Nice Libyan army you have. And I guess I am not the only one that has to roll his eyes at the historical nit pickers 

 

To be fair, internal to the family, son and I both tend toward the nitpicky, but we try to keep it among ourselves. 

 

DBA is ok; I got the first edition when it came out in 1990 or so. We’ve spent a good deal more time playing the fantasy version, Hordes of the Things, which we also tend to do in 1/72 scale plastic.  My second son plays that as well.  He’s the first one in the family to have bought DBA 3.0, which is why elder son and I took it up, but got overwhelmed by grad school again, and hasn’t actually painted on his El Cid project since last Christmas.