28mm Classical Indians for Saga

After I had finished painting several armies for the Saga Age of Alexander book (Macedonian, Successors, Greeks), I thought I was done with that era.  I enjoy watching the games that Graham's Wargame Vault posts on his Youtube channel.  One of the armies that regularly shows up is Indians.  I liked the style of play, it was different from any other army I had, and I like Indian bistory.  So in early 2023 I began calculating if I could build a relatively inexpensive army, even with the elephants and chariots.

My first thought was to use Old Glory for the bulk of the troops as they are less expensive than the other options.  I contacted my friend Keith to see if he was going to order from them anytime soon.  There is a saying among my friends that "Keith has everything".  It turned out to be true in this case, he had some old RAFM Indian infantry that he was generous enough to give me.  There were enough to make 2 units of 12 levy archers and 2 units of 4 hearthguard with a couple left over.  Keith ordered 2 elephants and 2 4-horse heavy chariots from Old Glory for me.  A couple of weeks later I had everything in hand ,except models for the general. and could start painting.

It doesn't make any difference game-wise, but I decided that I was going to model the army of Ashoka.  Not the Star Wars character, the 3rd-century BC emperor of the Mauryan dynasty.  I saw one of the Pillars of Ashoka erected during his reign on a long-ago trip to India.

The centerpiece of the Indian army is the Elephant General.  I wanted a nice model for this, so splurged on a resin one from Aventine.  It is larger than the Old Glory elephants, but that is only fitting for the general.  It came with plenty of quivers, some of which ended up on the other elephants.  It is escorted by 2 maiden guard that I had left over.  The general figure is wearing gilded armor and a tiger skin.

There is also an option to have the general either in a heavy chariot or on foot.  I liked the look of the 1st Corps chariot models, so ordered a command one from them along with some miniatures for another project.  It was very easy to assemble.

The two Old Glory heavy chariots assembled easily after a bit of filing.  They are made of metal, so quite heavy.  The crew are packed tightly.

The metal Old Glory elephants came in two halves with separate heads.  The poses are different and there is some variety in the crew so you can individualize them.  This one is known as blue elephant.

This one is known as yellow elephant.  I've added some more decoration to it since I took these pictures.

RAFM are older, true 25mm miniatures, still available today.  I was fine with that since the focus of the army would be large models that would draw the most attention.  They are clean sculpts with fair detail.  There is only one pose of each type, although half of the archers had armored torsos.  I grouped those together as mercenaries, which are often referred to in period accounts.  The only drawback is that the archers required some assembly.  It isn't unusual to have separate bows that need to be glued on.  What struck me as odd was the separate heads.  Separate heads that are all the same, for bodies that are all the same.  Why?  At least they glued on easily.

These bowmen were the first miniatures I painted for the army.  You can see that I was experimenting with several different skin tones.

The armored bowmen with leather bands around the torso.

A unit of swordsmen.  Unlike the bowmen, I used some color on these, going with saffron clothing and green for their quilted armor, with a red plume.  They are classed as hearthguards in Saga.

I painted a unit of Maiden Guards, although they are attested later than the period I had chosen for my army.  It is also unclear whether they ever saw the battlefield or only had palace duty.  But I had the miniatures, so why not?  Two are painted with lighter skin as Greeks from the remnants of the Indo-Greek kingdoms.

There were enough spare crew left from the 1st Corps chariot to make a general on foot as well.  It is an option I probably won't use, but I like these poses, wanted to paint them, and couldn't fit them in the chariot.

My Indians made their debut in the Saga tournament at the Advance the Colors convention in October 2023.  I won two games against Greek Cities and Republican Romans, then lost the third against Achaemenid Persians.  Not bad for their first outing with no practice.  I will have a better handle on their intricacies the next time I use them.  Most importantly I am happy with how they turned out.

28mm Characters for Saga

One of the standard Saga scenarios in the Book of Battles supplement, Old Feud, includes the use of character figures.  Each player chooses one to add to their army that has a special ability and also needs to be protected.  There are 6 options: The Brute, Counsellor, Traitor, Soldier, Princess, and Mystic.

In 2021, my friend Mike Demana painted up a set of miniatures for use in this scenario, and inspired me to do the same.  I bought the initial minis for the project at Historicon 2022, and gradually added more in various purchases and from my stock of unpainted miniatures.  You can see Mike's work here: Lead Legionaries.

My project soon expanded in size to two sets of characters, one for the classical period and one for dark ages/early medieval.  I painted them in 2022 and 2023.  It was a fun project and a nice change to do some individual models that aren't part of an army.

Classical  (l-r)

Soldier: Successor officer from Aventine

Brute: Thracian from Footsore's Mortal Gods range

Counsellor: Primus Dominus from Footsore's Gangs of Rome range, painted as a Roman senator

Traitor: Primus Domina from Footsore's Gangs of Rome range.  When I first saw this miniature with a dagger, it reminded me of representations of Medea from Greek pottery.  Perfect!

Mystic: Maker unknown, purchased at the Historicon 2022 flea market from a bin full of miniatures.

Princess: Primus Dominus from Footsore's Gangs of Rome range, painted as an Egyptian.

Dark Ages (l-r)

Brute: Giant Viking from Foundry.  I've named him Thorkell the Tall after the early 11th-century historical figure.

Counsellor: Knight Hospitaller from Footsore, originally given away as one of their monthly free miniatures.

Traitor: A Reaper Bones mini, almost as tall as Thorkell, closer to 32mm than 28mm.

Soldier: An Irish Chieftain from Footsore, originally given away as a monthly free miniature. 

Princess: Maker unknown, purchased at the Historicon 2022 flea market.

Mystic: I have two miniatures for this one, a pagan and a Christian version, both from Gripping Beast.

28mm Cretan and Balearic Mercenaries for Saga Age of Hannibal

When planning my Age of Hannibal armies for Saga (Iberians and Epirotes), I took a long look at the mercenaries section to see what mercenary units were available and which I thought would work best for the two armies I was planning (Iberians and Epirotes).  

There are 8 different mercenary units included in the Age of Hannibal book, with armies only allowed to use those they historically employed.  For the Iberians, the only mercenary unit they can use is the Baelaric slingers so those were an easy choice.  If I don't use them as mercenaries there is an option to arm 8 Iberian warriors as slingers so there is a second option to use them.

The Epirotes can choose from 6 mercenaries, and I chose to build the famous Cretan archers.  They were used by most of the Hellenistic successor armies and should also be in the future Saga book Age of Alexander.  So in addition to providing support to my Epirotes they should be usable in some other armies in the future.

When ordering my Epirotes I bought part of the army from from Aventine Miniatures in Northern Ireland, including 2 packs of skirmishers to use as Cretan Archers.  They come with separate small pelta-size shields that attached easily.  This is the first time I have used Aventine and they are great miniatures.  The forthcoming Saga Age of Invasions book will include Sassanid Persians; if I like the battle board I will definitely be using Aventine to make the army.

I painted the Cretan tunics black since I have seen depictions of them in black, plus it gives them a distinctive look.  When trying to decide whether to leave their shields as plain bronze or to paint a design, I looked at the terrific Ancient Battles website by Jeff Jonas.  There is an article on Cretan shield designs, which heavily inspired the designs I painted.  You can find it and many other good articles on wargaming the Hellenistic period at:

Ancient Battles

For the Baelaric slingers I used the same color scheme as my Iberians; tunics in various shades of off-white with red stripes on the borders.  The miniatures are from Crusader, one of my favorite 28mm manufacturers for Ancients.