OK, so when the dog killed my laptop, it took most of my notes and plans for my Imagi-Nation project (as well as many other notes and plans.) That really took a lot of wind out of my sails for all things hobby-related for a while. I also had an occupational injury in there which limited my abilities for a while.
When I did start up again, I started helping my daughter Maria assemble the Wargames Factory Amazons that I gifted her for her birthday (I also gifted Diana, who is 13, a box of the same for her birthday; she never even opened it, they outgrow things so fast!) She had tried to do them on her own, but found them much more fiddly than the GW High Elves she had previously finished.
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| Wargames Factory Amazon Warriors |
So, it became a Daddy-Daughter project, with her deciding on poses and equipment and me doing the actually assembly (using tweezers as necessary lol!) The plan was to base them individually, and play Song of Blades and Heroes with them. Before we even finished assembling them, Maria lost interest in hobby gaming. Ah, the terror of unlimited data on an iPhone in the hands of an 11-year old!
Now, what I wanted to do was finish working on my armies for De Bellis Antiquitatis (referred to as DBA hereafter.) I had been halfway through a New Kingdom Egyptian army and an Early Libyan army themed on Amazons before I ran out of funds to finish them. But now, I had a discarded box of soldiers to work with... could I do a Greek-themed Amazon army with it?
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| A New Kingdom Egyptian chariot in front of my Built Up Area. |
You see, I am a bit obsessed with historical/legendary Amazon armies. My research has shown that there were two actual possibly historical Amazon societies in antiquity. One was in the Libyan desert, based on some rock art. This was the inspiration for the Amazon theme of my Early Libyan army. The other was on the south coast of the Black Sea, on the Thermodon River. These would be based on a Skythian army list in wargaming terms. But the bulk of Amazon army ideas seems to be greek, so I always fancied doing a semi-historical Hoplite DBA army as Amazons. And now I had my chance. Previously, my only colpeted Amazon armies had been in 15mm, one for Hordes of the things, and one for DBA v1.0 using the Early Libyan list.
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| My 15mm HotT Amazon army, using nude females from Museum Miniatures and loosely based on early greek armies. |
I looked through the DBA 3.0 draft lists for Early Hoplite Greeks to see if there were any greek armies that would have come from northern Anatolia, and after some questions on TMP I discovered that Asiatic Greeks (DBA 3.0 list I/52g) were exactly what I was looking for. And, since I had all the army lists on my phone, I could sort everything out while at the doctor's office or in line at the grocery store. It rated as 4 Spear elements including the General, and 8 Psiloi elements that I arm with bows, since a big part of the greek Amazon legends was their archery.
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| Libyan Amazons, converted from Shadowforge Tribals with Wargames factory Amazon Warrior heads, based on rock art found in Libya. |
So, it was all good. I went about and organized the Amazons, realized I needed a few more, and my older daughter volunteered her box to add to the army on the provision that they could both use it when the time came for gaming. Everything was assembled and primed, I cut my bases so they would be ready when the time came, and I started painting. I did Psiloi first, since that was the bulk of the army and there would be less to of them to complete in order to show more finished elements. It's my way of fooling myself into thinking I have finished more than I actually have.
Around the time I had finished six of my eight Psiloi elements, I sat down to start writing this blog post about my progress. I opened up the army list on my computer, and much to my surprise the Asiatic Greek army entry indicated 1 Cavalry element as a General, 9 Spear elements, and 2 Psiloi elements. Somehow, while looking at things on my phone screen, I had missed a line and built my Amazon army as the I/52h Aitolian or Akarnanian army instead. I had no idea who the Aitolians or Akarnanians even were. As it turnes out they, they were a league of city states on the west coast of Greece, about as far from any historical Amazon settlement as possible. But, it was were I was already headed with the army, and short of buying another box of Amazons, it was what I was going to finish with.
When it came to painting, I decided to go with one of my favorite color combinations, bronze/gold and black. I was somewhat inspired by the new Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot in the upcoming "Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice" movie:
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| Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman |
I also decided to hand paint all of my shields individually, with varying degrees of success. For pictures of the Amazon army, see
DBA 3.0 Greek Hoplite Army
