Meet the Achaeans

This post I had intended to highlight our play-testing for WorLard III. Unfortunately, the batteries ran out on my camera after just one shot! On the plus side, with that one quick snap, I did manage to get a picture of the club's rather nice model of Troy, which will form a splendid backdrop to our game.

Troy

With only two more club nights before WorLard (gulp!) we really need to be finishing off now. Fortunately, the rules seem to be coming together quite nicely with only a few issues yet to fix. I guess we will only really know on the day but they have already given some entertaining club games so they are at least looking promising.
Figure wise we have Matt's magnificent collection of Foundry Trojan Wars figures to fall back on, which should ease the pressure off Jim's painting schedule. My Achaeans are now complete so at least that's one side sorted. With that in mind let's take a closer look at the Achaean army.

At the moment the Achaean army will be lead by three 'Heroes'. Ultimately, I will give these appropriate names but for now we're going with names from the Iliad. Hopefully, using names that most players should recognise will add a bit of colour to the proceedings. So here we see Agamemnon, Achilles and Meneleus; accompanied by an unamed Hero as a Force Morale marker. In my head I see the morale marker as Agamemnon but I suppose we could call him Nestor for the day.

Achaean command

Much of the time our Heroes will be swanning about the battlefield on their chariots. At the moment I have no plans for an actual chariot force for the Achaeans but the Trojans will get one for the day. On the down side, if this works, I may eventually have to buy some more chariots! I will probably detail my rationale for this and my version of Homeric warfare in a later post.

Achaean mounted command

Mycenaean warrior vase

Sea People

Most of the fighting in the Iliad appears to consist of throwing spears. Hence, the bulk of the army will consist of spearmen. I've gone for figures that have a Late Bronze Age look based  upon the Mycenaean warrior vase and the Egyptian depictions of the Sea Peoples.

Warlord Achaeans

There doesn't seem to be any differentiation between armoured and unarmoured units, in the Iliad, so all units will consist of a mixture. The bulk of my figures are from the Warlord Achaean and Sea People ranges with a few Foundry sculpts thrown in. Below we see a typical group of Achaean spearmen. I have four such groups.

Newline & Foundry

I've tried to keep the slightly larger figures in separate groups, so here we see a mixture of Newline and Foundry figures. I have one such group, although I suspect I might replace these with Warlord figures eventually.

Achaeans with Dipylon shield

It is also clear, from the Iliad, that some of the Achaeans were a cut above the rest; 'elites' if you like. The troops led by Ajax and especially Achilles being a prime example. Hence, I have 2 groups of 'elites' in my force.

Achaeans with Dipylon shield

It helps to have distinctive looking figures so that the 'elites' can be easily distinguished. For this reason I have gone for troops with the so-called Dipylon shield. I was dubious about this at first as the evidence for this shield type in the Late Bronze Age is a bit thin on the ground but it does remain a possibility and is nicely distinctive.

Spot the Myrmidon

There is a school of thought that the Dipylon shield developed into the later Boeotian shield, which looks a lot like the shields carried by the Myrmidons in the film Troy. Hence, my 'elites' will of course be Myrmidons.

Newline archers

Last but not least we have the archers. These represent contingents such as the Locrians but should really be a mix of slingers and archers. The only slingers I could find were au naturale, as depicted in early Mycenaean art, but troops with tackle out didn't really fit with the intended look so I stuck with bowmen.

Warlord don't do archers so these are Newline; the Foundry version are also very nice. I have two groups of 6 archers but I am only fielding one group at the moment. The extra figures will allow me to use units of mixed spear and bow but that is for a future development.

shock markers (Warbases casualty dials)

And finally, we have the shock markers and yes the rules do generate a lot of shock!





So there we have it, the Achaeans currently stand at 3 Heroes with chariots, 2 groups of Myrmidons, 5 groups of spearmen and 1 group of archers.

I have a few ideas on how to improve these but lets get the Trojans done first. With a bit of luck I hope to have made a good start on these by April; ready to face Uriah's Sea People.