David's Men of Might

A few days ago, I saw a blogging friend's display of his ancient Egyptian army which reminded me I had an Israelite army in storage in the Garage-Of-Holding. I also decided to make a display of them. I had done up a small army according to GW Historicals' Warhammer Ancient Battles, using their Chariot Wars supplement. I was quite pleased with the figures at the time and as I saw them again this morning, I'm still quite pleased. When I painted them, I was in my "black-lining" phase, and I may go back to it. That technique provides for a lot of contrast and the figures look pretty good at the usual wargames table distance.
The army itself usually provided auxiliaries for my friend Irwin's Egyptians. It might be too small to stand alone when compared to the size of most of the WAB armies I've played with and against. Still I think they're worthwhile. Chariot Wars names each type of troops in the Israelite army for the different tribes of Israel. I'm not sure how realistic it is and I've forgotten the designations anyway, so my photos are more based on the weaponry rather than tribe.

Archers... The figures are Ral Partha historicals usually moulded by Iron Wind Metals.

Archers of a different type. Again RP/Iron Wind... In their catalogue, the different figures are listed as Hittites, Amorites, Hebrews, etc., but I figured since the Israelites armed them selves in the style of whom ever they were allied to at the time, variations in dress and armament are acceptable.

Javelin armed skirmishers by RP/IW
My tyle of painting is obvious here - dark background with lighter highlighting. I might try this again.
I found it very effective with skin tones but less so with later uniform cloth.

Same crowd, different angle. I used a lighter wood tone for the javelin hafts for the most part.

Slingers who would've done David himself proud!

Spears in the light-medium infantry category. More RP/IW figures. The standard bearer has a sort of bronze disk and is accompanied by a ram's horn musician.

A different view. The RP/IW figures are more or less "true" 25mm figures so appear slight compared to 28's, but I do like how this crowd turned out. Shields are separate and you have 2 or 3 options.

More spears dressed in a more Hittite theme. The standard bearer has a sun wheel this time which is a chariot/waggon wheel mounted on a pole. The officer is some sort of ancient Middle Eastern general who looks rather lively and fits the theme well.

More of the same. Bases are 20mm plastic squares I painted them brown, dipped them in yellow flocking, then added some white play sand and green flock as detail. I often paint some light brown or yellow brown first and dip it in the sand before doing the larger area in yellow flocking. I think it looks suitably desert-y.

More light-medium infantry that could either skirmish or stand in line. The original figure had an open right hand for a spear or javelin and a knife held blade-down in the left hand. So I stuck shields on them.

Sea-people allies! Phoenicians? Sicilians? Sherden? Who knows?
They could be subjects of Zoomie, King of Mars for all I know. They're mercenaries
More RP/IW figures and I like their looks.

Lots of leather and bronze.

Heavier infantry armed with spear, shield, and bow. I used them as the Gibborim, the so-called "Men of Might" - tough heavier infantry used to stand in the line of battle. Yes, the Mogen David, the Star of David is strongly in evidence. Whether this is histoical or not, I don't know, but for my purposes, it looks good.

Here we see that the Gibborim also were armoured with bronze scale-mail.

The leader and the musician. Tome the figures are well proportioned and they paint up nicely.

The Commanding General - bronze armour, spear, bull-hide shield, and fancy helmet.

The prophet who accompanies the army. This is a Eureka Miniatures offering. That's an Australian company that makes some interesting figures. I think this is the Prophet Chuck, one of the very minor prophets.

The Army standard and another musician

The general's bodyguards. I think they're RP/IW Trojan War figures

Another look at some of the command figures.

No Israelite army could be complete without the Ark of the Covenant!
This is a beautiful Eureka Miniatures piece with four priests carrying the Ark and a fifth leading the way with the Shofar.

This is a wonderful set piece for an Israelite army. In WAB, it permits special morale additions to the army. The trouble is that when it is on the field, it attracts EVERY ARROW OR MISSILE WEAPON on the enemy's side. I has to be up front to gain the pluses but up front it gets wacked early on. 

Still I'm glad I have one. Eureka offers a second set of Ark bearers in SS uniforms for all your "Lost Ark" Pulp gaming needs. Note that some of the priests are smart enough to don helmets!

This army might never see the light of day again, but I'm glad I did it and I enjoyed telling you about it. Thanks for stopping by!