Macedon wasn't built in a day

Finally, after far too long getting round to the required painting,  I have a more or less complete Alexandrian Macedonian army for DBA rules.  This has taken months - I really don't know where the time goes, but clearly not on painting.  I do have a hunch that for me, painting small numbers of figures is slower than large batches - when you have a 'regiment' of 20-odd it's far easier to do a production line approach and do all the white, then the brown, flesh etc, but with only two or three of each variety of figure there's too much time spent switching between colours, washing brushes etc. That's my excuse, anyway! I noticed that doing the 16 Phalangites did seem quicker and easier than the 2, 3 or 4-strong other elements. Anyway, here they are in all their ( not very much ) glory:

As you can see they are pretty simply ( roughly!) painted; just block painting with a quick wash of 'light tone' for a little bit of shading, and finally matt varnished.  I did the cavalry first which may have been a mistake, I think I was getting a bit better when I did the infantry and I was quite pleased with the Phalanx! I think the bases may need an extra coat of green, some of them look a bit wishy-washy.

The full order of battle is as follows: 

Front Row ( l to r ) :     1 x  2LC Prodromoi  

                                  1 x 2 Ps Agrianians 

                                  1 x 2 Ps Archers

                                  1 x 3 Kn Companions

Back Row ( l to r ) :     1 x 3 Cv Greek Allied Cavalry

                                  1 x 4 Sp Mercenary Hoplites

                                  4 x 4 Pk Phalangites 

                                  1 x 4 Ax Thracian Peltasts ( standing in for Hypaspists )

                                  1 x 3 Cv Thessalian Cavalry

 

One further thing has occurred to me, which is that my Alexandrian Macedonian army is missing an Alexander.. I need to do something about that.  

 

So now, onwards and upwards -  I have a Persian army waiting to be painted. Here they are, in their prime(r) so to speak, after getting sprayed on a sunny day last April. Oh dear, it really has been months:

 

 

I am going to have a hard think about these and try to do more 'batch painting' if I can, as mentioned above - I'll try to do each colour on all figures that need it, rather than just doing 3 or 4 figures at a time. Keeping a very basic simple palette will probably help - although the Persians may not quite lend themselves to that!  we'll see how it goes.   It has occurred that I might commit heresy by playing a game of DBA with the (completed) Macedonians against the (only primed) Persians - though that is perhaps a bit unfair on Darius' chaps, denied their proper warlike finery.  

 

Mention of Darius reminds me that there is another thing missing - The Great King himself.  So we have Alexander vs. Darius, but no Alexander or Darius..  If only there was a large wargames show this weekend,  with loads of tradestands selling nice figures that might include a 20mm scale Alexander the Great and Darius of Persia... oh, hang on a minute, I remember now:

Yes, the aim is to go along to The Other Partizan on Sunday,  I suspect several readers of this blog will also be there.  If so, I'd be happy to chat, do feel free to say hello and slag off my rubbish painting..

 

So obviously if all goes OK,  the next post here  will be a report from The Other Partizan.. Until then keep well, everyone.