The Boys in the Hittite Sports Cars: Some 15mm Biblical-era Chariots

Here they come,

The boys in the Hittite sports cars,

Waving their bows in the air,

Who do they think they are?

And where did they get those cars?

(With apologies to Trooper)

Earlier this month I posted some photos of my first completed 15mm ancients DBA army and promised some chariots to go with them.   These four two horse chariots are also from the 15mm Syro-Canaanite range from Gladiator/Fighting 15s.   I imagine I could use them to represent Canaanites, Syrian city states, Philiistines, or later Hebrews, anyone from the late bronze age middle east, basically.

 Each chariot, team, and crew are colour coded.  I don’t know how accurate this is, but since chariots were the sports cars of the period, I imagine they’d be a showy bunch.

 The bowmen are armoured in the scale mail of the period, so these models would also do as upgraded elite 2 horse chariots in a rules set such as ADLG.

As fate would have it, an order of back issues from Against the Odds magazine arrived recently, including their game on Kadesh, so if I want to play a game involving thousands of chariots without having to paint them all, that’s waiting for me.  I hope to have a report on this game this summer.

First DBA Army Completed: 15mm Early Hebrews

Back in October I announced here a project called “Getting Biblical”.  A friend of mine had previously expressed surprise that I as a wargaming clergyman had shown no interest in biblical era armies and battles, and I thought, “good point, why is that?”  The question was especially perplexing as, early in 2020, I spent a month in Ethiopia teaching the book of Isaiah to some young seminarians, and I thought at the time, what great inspiration.   Every power of the Middle East - Egypt, Ethiopia, Assyria, Israel and Judah, and Babylon - is mentioned in that book.

In the last few months, I was introduced to DBA, and that made the whole project seem far less daunting.   Working in 15mm, generating 12 bases for a complete early Hebrew army, that all seemed doable.   So, I dug out the Fighting 15/Gladiator ancients figures I purchased last year and got to work.  It’s hard to find dedicated ancient Jewish figures, but the Fighting 15 Syrian/Canaanite range seemed close enough.  It didn’t take me that long to get these figures finished and based.  Don’t ask me about the shields, I just had fun with them.

 Out of these figures I can assemble this army, which in DBA parlance is 1/27 Early Hebrew c 1250BC - 1000BC.  Baker and Laflin-Barker write: “This list covers the Hebrew armies from the selection of Joshia a Judge until David’s accession as King and is largely based on the Biblical - which, unreliable as this may be as history, is often the only source available” (DBA 3 WRG 2014 p. 42).  

The lighting here is uneven, but in the front row left there are 2 X Gadite or Issacharian skirmishing javelin men (Psiloi), with the choice of third unit of Ps front right.  I could have chosen either retained mercenaries - 4 Aux (Auxiliary), but I wanted the whole army to be Fast and the extra unit of Ps to exploit rough terrain (the only battlefield on which this army survives).

In the middle row, starting on the left, is 1 X Benjamin archers or slingers - 3 Bw (Bow), then 2 X Simeonites or Ephraimites - 3 Wb (Warband) - and on the right the General based as 3 Ax.  In the rear rank are 5 X other tribesmen (3 Ax).

Historical opponents for this army include 1/6b Midianite or Amalekite Army or early Arab Army, 1/20a Ugarit Army, 1/20b Other Syro/Canaainite Army, 1/22a or 1/22b New Kingdom Egyptian, 1/29a or b Philiistine, and 1/31a or b Neo Hittite/Later Aramean Army.

I have four chariot stands complete which I’ll save for another post, which would give me the nucleus of a Syro-Canaanite army, but a Hebrew/Philiistine matchup would be fun and would take me back to Sunday school days.    I mentioned the Book of Isaiah at the start of this post, and all of the armies mentioned above pre-date the period of the two kingdoms, the exile, and post-exile.   Never fear, a recently arrived order from Essex gives me three DBA armies to paint and play with: Late Hebrew, neo-Assyrian and Babylonian, so I’m quite spoiled for choice, really.

Blessings to your brushes!

MP+

In the 

Getting Biblical: A New Project

Hello friends:

I’ve been in a bit of a blogging funk lately but I thought I should shake it off to report that I seem to have been bitten by the biblical bug.   Normally I’m quite reluctant to pick up a new period or scale.  In fact, I’ve recently purged my quite large 20mm WW2 collection to force myself to focus more on fewer projects.   However, for some reason, I found myself ordering these three books.

 

(Annoyingly, the bottom two books disappeared without a trace.   My wife said with a stricken face that she may have scooped them up in a stack of recycled magazines, so the Assyrian book is reordered from Osprey).  

So why ancient biblical armies?   Partly it’s because I’ve been listening a lot to the Mad Axeman podcasts.  Tim Porter and his crew make ancients gaming sound like too much fun, and all a bit mad, really.   I confess I’ve never been that sold on the idea of ancients gaming.  Line up two mobs with stabby pointy things, sound a horn, they all run at one another and bish bosh one side or another runs away.   I’m intrigued enough now to have a go myself.

Also, as a wargaming vicar, it really just seems like something I should do.   Recently I taught a course on the Book of Isaiah, and had to restrain myself from telling my students too much about the military details, though they are in themselves fascinating.   The 7th century BCE has loads of interest, perhaps starting with the Assyrians, the apex predator of the period, but there is of course the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Syria or Aram and its various city states, and Egypt to the south, so quite a few armies and possible matchups.  Of course, the idea that all these armies have chariots makes it appealing (see 2 Kings 9.20).

So what rules to use?  Again, to thank Tim and the Mad Axeman crew, the new edition of ADLG seems worth a look, and it’s many army lists will help me, a newcomer to the period, figure out the basic troop types and which army looks like what.

 I reached out to Tim on Twitter and asked his advice on figure manufactures, of which there are many. To field largish armies and to make the painting faster, 15mm seemed the best scale.  I settled on Fighting 15s / Gladiator Miniatures, ordering a bunch of fairly generic infantry and a variety of two horse chariots with a variety of armoured and unarmored crew.  This should be enough to flesh out Syrian and Hebrew armies with some Bedouin allies.    I’ll add the Assyrians on a subsequent purchase.  Here are some test figures almost done.   

It’s a back burner project for now but a pleasant change of pace.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

MP+