Ancients wargaming - focus, please…

Thureophoroi - mix of Aventine and Gripping Beast miniatures

I've made a variety of noises about rebooting my Ancients wargaming. I have to admit, to my deep shame as editor of Ancient Warfare, I've not been very successful. I've painted some Caesarian Romans, dabbled with some late-Roman cataphracts, and started some 5th century Spartans. Of course I've also 'invested' in some of the very nice new Victrix ancient plastics. Clearly, it's just all too interesting and I lack focus. Terribly so...

Solution - a project!

Fortunately, I am in the lucky circumstance of having a colleague who's not just very much into wargaming, but whom I regularly get to tease about his own lack of focus (he's just too polite to do it to me). Guy, for it is he of course, already has half-a-dozen ancient armies, like you do. But his are mostly based for Warhammer Ancient Battles, languishing unused and in need of some TLC. Moreover, he also has one or two half-heartedly started armies, and we both feel bad about how Project 217 petered out. Therefore, we've set ourselves a challenge and project:

The project is to build a new third century BC army between August 2018 and July 2019. Standard basing 40*40mm for infantry, 50*50mm for cavalry so we're fairly flexible rules-wise, and it'll be in 28mm, as we both prefer that size. We'll need to finish a new unit every month, of which no more than three may be rebased/dust-blown-off repurposed old units, and no more than three refurbished and expanded units. Any time Guy visits Karwansaray HQ, we'll try to organise a battle for what we have at the time and of course, as soon as the project is over, we'll have to have proper battle.

First units?

I haven't yet decided which army I'm going to build. Everyone is always attracted to the major players of the era, but I'm partial to the city states, or perhaps one of minor (if such a thing exists in that group!) Successors such as Lysimachus. However, that can wait. I can probably start with some units that'd be useful anywhere, such as Thureophoroi, Tarentine cavalry, or Cretan archers. It begins!

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