Harry V - 28mm Carthaginian Cavalry (130 pts)

Hi All, 

More progress on the Carthaginian front. For this post I have 12 Carthaginian cavalry from Aventine Miniatures in 28mm. These are a mix of packs, some sold as Carthaginian cavalry, others as successor cavalry. 

 

These figures will be my last unit of ethnic Carthaginian cavalry for the army. 

I am generally a pretty big fan of aventine miniatures but these cavalry will definitely look quite small next to their Victrix brothers I did for my first entry. Most of the rest of the cavalry for this project will be Victrix, so hopefully they don't look too out of scale when massed together. 

Some of these cavalry I have actually been holding onto since around 2018 when I first got back into miniatures and had originally wanted to do a Carthage project, so it was nice to finally get these completed and onto the table top. 

The basing on these figures is a little sparse, I actually was shocked to realize I was basically out of nice tufts! However I am reasonably happy with the basing, and think it gives a decent enough dry North African feel. 

First the foot and now the horse.  These aer wonderful Harry, love the bright colours on the cloaks.  I think that your bases look perfect for North African or Sicilian scrub.  I am bumping points a bit for the size and quality of your pots today.

From Harry V 28mm Carthaginian Citizens/Spearmen (720 pts)

 Hi all, 

Sorry to kind of drop a points bomb with this post, but I have also know completed 144 28mm Carthaginian citizen spearmen. My process for troops like these is to do a massive production line with each step of the modeling process, so they were finally completed all at once. 

The vast majority of the figures are from various victrix sets (and some wargames Atlantic bitz), with 6 figures drawn from the Foundry/Casting room miniatures Carthage range to add a little character and a few other figures from the plastic Carthaginians from Agema miniatures. 

Each unit has 36 figures, these are for To the Strongest, where they would likely be classified as raw spearmen. I have gone with deep units to give them a little more staying power. Raw spearmen tend to be speed bumps at the best of times in the rules, so the extra depth should hopefully allow them to survive a little longer and let the elephants and cavalry win the day.

 I also think it is the historical deployment. 

For the shields I mainly went with the thureos style shields as I was aiming for a punic wars look, however there are a variety of shield types mixed in to represent a more ad hoc nature to the units. Thureos was recorded as being used in third punic war in the literary accounts, and there are North African monuments with the shield as well. According to Spanish historian Quesada Sanz the Carthaginians likely introduced large, oval shields to the Iberians, so I think Thureos is reasonable, especially as that shield type seemed to majorly come into fashion across the Med In this time. 

If I was purely going for a Sicilian Wars style army I would have used all aspis shields, and in fact I kind of wish I did as the citizen infantry played a major role in those wars against Syracuse. 

I think these troops could do equally well as less well equipped Libyan foot. I think that armor tends to be over represented by wargamers in the ancient period, I think the vast majority of troops would have lacked significant armor in any army from the period. 

One source of inspiration for these was the Truceless or Mercenary War were Libyan subjects along with mercenaries revolted against the Carthaginians due to a lack of pay after the first punic war. At times during this conflict every able-bodied Carthaginain who could shake a spear was drafted into the ranks, so I included a number of very poorly equipped fellows in the ranks. At the same time, the levy would be a cross-section of society, so included some well armored officers and troops to represent the wealthier classes. 

 

I used figures from a lot of different victrix sets for these units - some purpose bought, other figures were sprue left overs that could be reasonably pressed into service. 

For helmets, the montefortino style is the one that I used most, but there are a range of hellenistic types as well as the conical helm often associated with Carthage. The montefortino seemed to be manufactured in scale and widely used by Carthage and distributed to her mercenaries, so this made the most sense to me as head gear. 

Duncan Head in the book "Armies of the Punic and Macedonian Wars" has a recreation of a Carthaginian citizen in that book - it seems like every figure manufacturer has basically copied that look for every single figure sold as a Carthaginian citizen. I personally think that the citizen body would look a little more varied and diverse. 

This project was absolutely a speed paint for better or for worse. The qualities of the figures varies pretty dramatically in some cases, depending on the mood I was feeling when painting. 

A lot of the back rank figures required some conversion work to get the upright spears - the Victrix citizen set only has attacking poses, so some surgery was required for the back ranks. 

I usually organize the figures on popsicle sticks, with 4 figures to a stick, and paint in batches of 16 or 4 sticks. For these simple ancient figures with only a few different colors I find I can comfortably due 16 in around an hour, not counting drying times for washes. I focus on one tunic color per day and then mixed all the figures together to get random blends of tunics for the final units. I also undercoat with a skeleton bone color primer as I find that gives and excellent base for off-white tunics and the spear shafts. 

For basing these deep units, I stuck the first two ranks on the bases, then applied the ground cover, and then did the following ranks, to make applying the basing material a little less messy on the figures.

Yowza that's a big Phalanx Harry!   It just looks amazing.  love hear the kit bashing and mixing of figure ranges, that IMHO is the only way to go.  I got a chuckle about the Duncan head illustration.  The WRG Armies and Enemies series is a wonderful resource, but yeah it did tend to focus designers on one look.  Luckily, the mix and match approach can get around most of that.  I also enjoyed reading about your batch painting approach.

From HarryV: 28mm Hannibal's Veteran Carthaginian Spearmen (380 pts)

 Hi everybody, for my second post I have four units of Veteran Carthaginian Spearmen 

Across the units are 76 figures in 28mm scale at 5 pts each, coming to a total of 380 pts. The figures are a mix of multiple manufacturers. The largest part are from aventine miniatures, but there are victrix, agama, lucid eye, and warlord games all present as well. 

These figures represent Hannibal's veterans over the course of their 10 years saga in Southern Italy, along with their return to Africa for Zama. They are for the "To the Strongest Ruleset". 

The first unit is the most aggressive, and has the biggest concentration of victrix figures. All the veterans are rated as Veteran Legionaries in standard sized units for the To the Strongest Ruleset. 

I chose figures mainly in standing poses as I was envisioning them at the Battle of Zama where they formed Hannibal's third line. They are surveying the battlefield, watching the first lines in action and determinedly awaiting the battle's conclusion. 

In terms of equipment I wanted a diverse, yet cohesive look to the units. I tried to tie the units together with the mostly scutum shields and Carthaginian shield designs. However, I wanted the figures to have a wide variety of equipment. 

The eagle eyed will notice Gallic figures mixed in. This is taking from a lecture by Adrian Goldsworthy, who describes how while initially fighting in their ethnic contingents, over time Hannibal's troops converged together into mixed units over their many years fighting together.

"You might fancy that the Africans were for the most part a body of Romans from the way they were armed, they were so completely equipped with the arms, some of which they had taken at the Trebia..."

Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 22.46

As well as figures marketed as Carthaginians, I used a lot of Roman figures in these units to simulate the looting of Roman equipment. I think given that Livy describes them as looking very Roman, this points to the use of the scutum. Over many years of campaigning, cut off from supply, I imaged the veterans would be using what they could find locally in Italy.

In terms of painting and modeling, this was more on the speed painted side of the spectrum. I wanted to use a lot of white cloth and shields to give them a Carthage look. Carthaginians are described with white shields in the Sicilian Wars, but mainly this choice is from playing too much Rome: Total War. There is light conversion work throughout, mainly on the plastic figures - lots of kit bashing. I am not a huge fan of the agema plastics, mainly the heads look weird on the bodies.

Thats it from me this week. Next week I will have my Libyan Skirmishers completed. 

More lovely looking ancients Harry.  Love the mix of figure manufacturers and the varried equipment within the units.   They look fantastic all lined up too.  We've had good luck with TtS using my Late Romans vs Picts etc collections. 

 

From HarryV: 28mm Carthaginian Cavalry (110 Points)

 

Hello all, after following this challenge for a few years I am super excited to finally take part myself! I am hoping to keep myself motivated and on track painting my Carthaginian Army for the "To The Strongest!" ruleset.

For my first submission I have a unit of 11 28mm Carthaginian Cavalry for 110 points. 

The figures are from the Victrix Greek heavy cavalry set, with some light conversion work - they have heads drawn from some of the different Victrix plastics, but mostly they have head swaps using metal Aventine Miniatures successor heads. 

These cavalry could play some different roles depending on the scenario or campaign in mind. They could do well as either Carthaginian Citizen cavalry or as Liby-Phoenicians etc. 

Some sources do say that Hannibal perhaps had a small contingent of Liby-Phoenician horse during his campaigns, and Carthage was known for its good horse breeding lands and strength in cavalry. 

My interpretation of the cavalry was that they are quite hellenized by this period in history, and probably represent the higher ranks of Carthaginian or Libyan society. To that end, I wanted to give them the fanciest helmets available. 

My goal is to get most of the African contingent of my forces done during this challenge. I painted up my better equipped Libyan/Carthaginian troops before the challenge,  my goal is to get around 100 of Hannibal's Veterans done, as well as 144 less well equipped Carthaginian/Libyan levies. If I can get those done it's on to the Numidian and Moorish elements next, or maybe some Iberians. 

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First, welcome to the Challenge, Harry! I'm always delighted to see those who have previously observed take the plunge and join in the fun.

These Carthaginian cavalry look fabulous. I love the varied, vibrant colours of their armour, kit and garb, and they definitely benefit from the head-swaps, keeping things interesting throughout the unit. I see you're using Simon's irregular bases, which look terrific especially when tarted-up as you have with groundwork and tufts. We've played quite a lot of TtS over the years and I'm envious of you with such a great collection of units. But even better, we have more to come from you! I look forward to seeing this project expand as the Challenge rattles along. Great work!

- Curt