Bronze Age Warriors - Minoan Part 3

Minoans Part 3

Having had a bit of a busy time I have finally completed another batch of 12 Reg Pk X Minoan Pikemen. This project seems to be taking much longer than I anticipated & I am only 25% through the Reg Pk X required to complete this army. The Museum Miniature MY11 Kilted Pikemen with figure 8 shield are now discontinued.

Museum MY11 Kilted Pikemen Figure 8 Shield

Last week I impulse bought a large batch of Myceneans off EBay I paid £80 for 16 Chariots & 178 infantry so was about half price. The plan is to paint them & resell them to subsidise the original outlay of my Museum Miniature purchase. The Chariot Miniatures came with separate shields, both Tower & 8 shield. They are marketed as Mycenean so will be suitable for Minoans & Trojans.

I completed the first batch of 48 figures today & I am quite pleased how they turned out. I used MYG5 with Tower Shields for the Reg Pk X front rank & MYG21 without shields for the Reg Pk I rear ranks

Chariot Miniatures MYG5 & MYG21

This brings the painting tally so far for 2022 to

240 foot [72 elements]

Onwards & Upwards as they say!

Bronze Age Warriors - Minoan Part 1

Minoans Part 1

Back between Lockdowns in 2020 I purchased a large number of unpainted Minoan chariots plus some OK painted infantry from a friend. I paid very little for them but I soon realised that all of the infantry would need repainting & rebasing so in effect it was effectively an unpainted army. I waited until Museum Miniatures had their January sale before ordering the missing figures required for the Minoans & also ordered some figures from Chariot Miniatures [Magister Militum] for the Libyan & naked slinger contingents.

I only started painting the army on the 31st October 2020 after recovering from catching Covid-19 earlier that month.

Museum Miniatures have now retired their old 15mm castings & replaced them with the new Z Range sculpts but my army uses their older sculpts.

Museum MY09 Reg Ax I

Chariot MYG4 Mycenean Archers

Chariot MYG8 Slingers

Museum MY10 Archers

Chariot MYG3 Javelinmen Irr Ax I

Chariot MYG3 Javelinmen Irr Ps I

Chariot LIB4 Archers Irr Bw I

Chariot LIB4 Archers Irr Ps O

The first 97 elements completed

All the bases are finished off in my now standard basing style.

This now brings the 15mm painting tally from 1st January to 23rd December 2021 to:

777 foot, 13 artillery & 4 war drums [247 elements]

212 cavalry [73 elements]

12 Bamboo & Paper Lions [8 elements]

3 elephants [3 elements]

Plus I have rebased

32 elements of Pikes

28 elements of Archers

10 elements of Psiloi

8 elements of Horde

3 elements of misc foot

54 mounted elements

In addition to this I have painted up loads of 6mm WW2 Italians to clear out some of the surplus things I have had for years.

15mm Chinese - Finally Completed

15mm Chinese Completed - Part 24 Yuan Artillery 

With this blog entry I can honestly say I have finally completed the Chinese Army project I started in May 2020. It seemed like it would never end & only started because in 2019 I had a Late T'ang Army & ended up buying two other Heinz Chinese Armies from EBay from the same seller. This allowed me to create a Chinese collection spanning from the Three Kingdoms, Northern & Southern, Sui, T'ang, Sung & Yuan Dynasties covering 220 AD to 1368 AD.

I still need to paint up some more Mongol & the Khitan Liao allies for some of the dynasties but to all intents I have completed the Chinese parts. The Yuan were early adopters of Black Powder Artillery but they were very small pieces compared to the later Ming guns which is why I decided to use 10mm scale guns instead of later era pieces. 

10mm Kallistra H-7008 Bombards & Essex CHN20 Chin Chinese Artillerymen

10mm Kallistra H-7007 Field Guns & Essex CHN20 Chin Chinese Artillerymen

Chariot HDC6 Han Chinese Archers good for N&S Dynasty Archers on new bases

Leftover N&S Dynasty Archers rebased as Psiloi

Essex SUA8 Sung Chinese Archers on new bases

Essex SUA8 Sung Chinese Archers on new bases

Unknowm Code Essex "Chinese" Archers on new bases

This now brings the painting tally for 1st January to 20th May 2021 to:

205 foot, 8 artillery & 4 war drums [67 elements]

154 cavalry [49 elements]

12 Bamboo & Paper Lions [8 elements]

3 elephants [3 elements]

Plus I have rebased

32 elements of Pikes

28 elements of Archers

8 elements of Psiloi

50 mounted elements

15mm "Chinese" Off EBay - Part 11

More Chinese Off EBay - Part 11

Continuing to paint up the bulk purchase I got off Ken Bell I realised that some of the figures are the now discontinued 15mm Essex TA Code mounted range.

There were six OK painted riders Code TA2 Heavy Cavalry with Lance and Shield, these come on unarmoured horses but if you put them on armoured horses they become code TA2A Extra Heavy Cavalry with Lance and Shield. A quick look through the bag of mounted lead me to finding that there were six odd armoured horses which do not match the Essex website pictures. The riders were not fully painted so I completed them before painting up the six odd mounts. This allowed me to create two off elements of cavalry which can be used as Guard elements in my Sui or Tang army plus any other similar looking cavalry in other armies. I have another 24 TA2A still to paint up but they will be painted in a different colour scheme. Plus loads more TA3/TA3A code cavalry

Essex TA2A Extra Heavy Cavalry with Lance & Shield

Next are twelve TA4 Chinese Light Cavalry with Javelin and Shield. These are used as Light Horse elements and I already have twelve elements of these so this means I can probably field more than enough for all permutations.

Essex TA4 Chinese Light Cavalry with Javelin & Shield

The last batch of Essex mounted for this blog entry are twelve TA5 Chinese Light Cavalry Horse Archers. These are used as Light Horse elements and again I already have twelve elements of these so this means I can probably field more than enough for all permutations.

Essex TA5 Chinese Horse Archers

Last up are eight odd Chariot Miniatures TIB3 Tibetan Nomad Cavalry with Bow. It took me a while to ID these figures but they are a perfect fit with the small Tibetan command I completed earlier this year.

Chariot TIB3 Tibetan Nomad Cavalry with bow