Battle Report: In Strife and Conflict: Battle of Kadesh II: Candle-powered How-do-you-do!

 

I want to eventually run an "Educational" game around the Battle of Kadesh at my local libraries.  This will be with people who don't know anything about wargaming and probably don't know much about ancient history.  Chances are they will be a mix of children, teens, and adults.  I have never done anything like this before.  

Therefore, I want to test run the Battle of Kadesh scenario from the In Strife and Conflict rulebook to see if it will do what I need it to do for the demo game.  Therefore, I ran this scenario a few times to see how different folks would play it.  

Forces

Egyptians

3 Light Chariots

- Composite Bows

- General

1 Professional Infantry

2 Auxiliary Infantry

- Composite Bows

4 Archers

Hittites

3 Heavy Chariots

- Javelins

- 1 General

1 Auxiliary Infantry

2 Levy Infantry

- Bows

2 Skirmishers

Mission: 

We followed the outline in the main rulebook for the battle.  

Set-up:

Of course, we will be playing today on a 72MU by 48MU board with each MU equal to 1 inch.  

Using the core rulebook rules, we set-up the table per the scenario.  The Egyptians start with a limited number of units on the table, representing the Pharaoh and his advanced force.  The Hittites get all their troops to start with on the other side of the river.  

Crossing the Orontes River is Dangerous terrain, but only Difficult at the Fords.  The fields around Kadesh are also Difficult.  The city itself is Impassable.  

King Muwatalli II and his Hittite Army

The Pharaoh is out ahead of the main army with his Sherden Guards and some Archers of the Ra division.  The rest of the Egyptian army will begin trying to get to the battle starting in turn 4. 

The Ra Division out front near Kadesh

I will be giving an overview of the battle below, pulled out into my usual three sections of Maneuvers, Battle, and End Phases.  I will then give some final thoughts at the end. 

Maneuver Phase

The Hittites seem to be following a more historical depiction of the battle.  The King and his chariots are going around the city and towards the fords on the South side of Kadesh.  Meanwhile, the Pharaoh confident in his divine heritage moves forward, as the Hittite infantry move to block him crossing the ford.  

As the Pharaoh moves across the Orontes, he draws first blood with a volley of arrows into the Hittite skirmishers.  His Sherden were on the shore looking to follow.  Perhaps the Pharaoh has bitten off more than he can chew?    

Battle Phase

Poor Command and Control by the Pharaoh allows the Hittites to reinforce the ford on the North side of Kadesh.  This blocks the Pharaoh from forcing his crossing, and gets him tangled up with Hittite Spearmen.  The Sherden Guards are following-up, but fording the river has delayed them from helping the impetuous Pharaoh, The Heavy Hittite Chariots begin to cross the Orontes River south of Kadesh, the upper branch.  

Hittite Skirmishers join the fight at the ford with the Pharaoh.  With the aid of the light troops, and some re-rolls; the Pharaoh is easily routed!  Meanwhile, other parts of the Egyptian army begins to enter the field of battle.  A unit of Light Chariots, 2 Archer units, and a Auxiliary Infantry unit with bows.  Too little, too late!  

The Hittites reinforce their shoreline on the North side of Kadesh, while the Egyptians rain arrows down upon them.  The Hittite King and his chariots race around Kadesh towards the second ford and the bulk of the Egyptian army.  The newly arrived Egyptian forces move to try to reinforce the last ford before the Hittites can get to it.  

Egyptian bowfire clears the Hittite Spearmen off the ford, and the Sherden begin to march across again.  However, the crossing is the target of murderous and accurate bow and javelin attacks from the Hittites as the Sea People cross.  

To the South of Kadesh, the Hittite chariots get to the second ford of the Orontes and find the Egyptians blocking their advance.  The enemy has been located at last!  The lead chariot throws their javelins but fail to cause much disruption.  

The Hittite Heavy Chariots are met with murderous Egyptian bow fire, and the initial attack is quickly blunted and sent reeling!  Failures of King Mutuwalli II with Command and Control lead tot he heavy loss of life.  

At the other ford, the Hittite missiles manage to rout the crossing Sherden Guards, failing to get across.  This causes the Egyptian forces there to start to waiver.  A Hittite skirmisher unit is set to wavering from Egyptian counter-fire.

The Hittites decide to bid all of their King's Decree except 1 to get initiative, and once they have it they launch a charge with their Heavy Chariots, determined to break their way across the ford.  The charge hits home, and pushes the Egyptians back and wavering, losing two courage but at the cost of 1 in return.

At the Northern ford, the Egyptian Light Chariots seize the initiative and push across the Orontes.  They open fire on the disrupted skirmishers and send them fleeing to the four winds.  However, the Archers are too busy re-organizing to press the archery duel.  However, Hittite counter-fire is enough to drive the Egyptian chariots back, scattering them yet again!     

 

End Phase

The momentum of both sides has been blunted, and the battle is winding down.  The Hittite Heavy Chariots try to push through the last ford South of Kadesh, but the disrupted Egyptians manage to stay strong with support from a nearby archer unit.  At the other flashpoint, Egyptian archery forces the last Hittite skirmisher to switch to Open Order and fall back.  This leaves them disrupted.  However, the Egyptians do not try to force the ford yet again.  

In a last push, King Mutuwalli II throws everything he has into the battle South of Kadesh along the shores of the Orontes River.  However, despite disrupting the Egyptian lines, he can not break through.  For their part, the Egyptians are content to have held the Hittites back, and do not try to cross the Orontes again.  

Conclusion

Some big divergences from what we know of the historical battle.  The Hittite Chariotry followed a more historical approach, but were held by the Egyptians.  Meanwhile the Pharaohs efforts to cross the Orontes and act aggressively were obviously and painfully halted.  He was forces to flee back to his camp with his tail between his legs!  This looks like a much closer battle than the last Battle of Kadesh we fought. 

Hittites earned 24 point but lost 18 points for +6 points.  The Egyptians did the inverse.  Therefore, the Hittites win the battle again!  

This less than decisive win matches what we know of the aftermath of the actual battle.  Kadesh seems to have stayed in Hittite control, Egyptian influence in the area waned, and the Pharaoh did not venture forth again into the Levant.  A relatively historical outcome for this one.    

Final Thoughts

Crossing a contested river is hard!  Both sides failed to manage it!  Missile power ruled the day.  A single missile unit was not enough to stop a determined advance, but the force that was better able to coordinate their firepower was able to route attackers.  In addition, the chariots were very mobile and allowed rapid re-deployment and maneuver, but were not overwhelmingly powerful in the attack.  That seemed about what I wanted out of this ruleset.

I think the next step is to create some unit cards with one side being game details, and the other being some historical details.  I.e. why chariots?  Who was Ramesses II?  What was needed for Bronze weapons?  Why Bronze?  Etc.  I would also like a timeline of the "historical" battle that I could project during the game as we go through some of the phases of the battle.  Maybe a map of the area as well?  Anyway, the tools to make it a "learning" game.  Then, I will be ready to take it to the local libraries and college for some demos!  Two players on the Hittite side, three on the Egyptian side, and me as the GM should be do-able.   

Until next time! 

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Battle Report: In Strife and Conflict - Battle of Kadesh Test Run

I want to eventually run a "Educational" game around the Battle of Kadesh at my local libraries.  This will be with people who don't know anything about wargaming and probably don't know much about ancient history.  Chances are they will be a mix of children, teens, and adults.  I have never done anything like this before.  

Therefore, I want to test run the Battle of Kadesh scenario from the In Strife and Conflict rulebook to see if it will do what I need it to do for the demo game.  Therefore, let's get it on the table and see what happens!  

Forces

Egyptians

3 Light Chariots

- Composite Bows

- General

1 Professional Infantry

2 Auxiliary Infantry

- Composite Bows

4 Archers

Hittites

3 Heavy Chariots

- Javelins

- 1 General

1 Auxiliary Infantry

2 Levy Infantry

- Bows

2 Skirmishers

Mission: 

We followed the set-up and parameters located in the In Strife and Conflict main rules. 

Set-up:

Of course, we will be playing today on a 72MU by 48MU board with each MU equal to 1 inch.  

Using the core rulebook rules, we set-up the table per the scenario.  The Egyptians start with a limited number of units on the table, representing the Pharaoh and his advanced force.  The Hittites get all their troops to start with on the other side of the river.  

Crossing the Orontes River is Dangerous terrain, but only Difficult at the Fords.  The fields around Kadesh are also Difficult.  The city itself is Impassable.  

Hittites on the left

I will be giving an overview of the battle below, pulled out into my usual three sections of Maneuvers, Battle, and End Phases.  I will then give some final thoughts at the end. 

Maneuver Phase

The Hittites start with 8 King's Decree to the Egyptian 3.  The Egyptians will increase when more units enter the board.... hopefully.  It is no surprise, that the Hittites can easily bid enough to go first.   As the Hittites press forward, the Pharaoh looks to threaten crossing the river west of the city.  He sends runs back to his main force, urging them to join him for the battle.  As the Hittite main force approaches the opposite side of the Orontes, the Pharaoh wisely turns away.  

The Hittites were stacking up and preparing to cross the Orontes, when the rest of the Egyptian army arrived on-scene.  With the arrival of the rest of the army, the Egyptians seize the initiative! The Sherden guards storm across the ford and try to attack! However, the ford is too much for them and they become disordered going across, falling short of their foes!  The Archers support the attack with a rain of arrows, that weaken the Hittite infantry on the other side. 

With that, the Battle of Kadesh begins in earnest. 

Battle Phase

Hittite bowman from the follow-on infantry try to barrage the Sherden with arrows, but they fail to find their mark.  Hittite spearmen wade into the ford and attack the disorganized Sherden.  The men of Hattusa are supported by a unit of Skirmishers.  The fighting is indecisive and neither side seems to be able to dislodge the other.  Meanwhile, the Egyptian army rushes to aid their forward units. 

The battle at the Ford rages, as a second Hittite Skirmisher unit manages to charge the Sherden from the flank.  It is enough to start to push the Pharaoh's guards back to the shoreline.  Meanwhile, the Hittite Heavy Chariots look like they are going to try a dangerous crossing! 

The Egyptian archers of the Amun division move in to support the Sherden at the Orontes shore.  With a great push, the Hittite spearmen and support manage to force the ford.  However, with the effort they are a spent force!  Heavy Chariots begin fording the river further upstream.  Seeing the Hittite spearmen fallback, an approaching Levy infantry becomes disordered!  

The Egyptian army is moving up to support their chariots, when the Hittites try to steal the Initiative, but fail.  Egyptian Light Chariots pepper the crossing heavy chariots with arrows, but only cause minor casualties.  The Heavy Chariots come roaring out of the river and attack!  They catch an Egyptian Infantry unit and the Pharaoh's unit with their attack!  The Pharaoh could not Evade as he was out of King's Decree, but a supporting Light Chariot unit snaps to his aid.  The Chariots exchange casualties.  The Chariots vs. the Infantry cause the Egyptians to be pushed back.  

An Egyptian Archer unit charges into support the Egyptian Infantry against the Hittite Heavy Chariots.  The battle is fierce and both units are reduce to 1 Courage left.  A second Egyptian Infantry unit manages to move up and lend support as well, enough to rout the Hittites!  

With a unit of Heavy Chariots routing, the Hittites need to start making collapse tests!  One of the Levy Infantry turns tail and runs!  

End Phase

Egyptians maintain the initiative, as the Hittites do not have many units left.  However, the Pharaoh is in danger!  None of the other Egyptian units can get to the Pharaoh to help out.  Ramesses puts up a valiant fight, but ultimately has to flee the field, along with his supporting Light Chariot unit.  Meanwhile, the Hittite King Muwatalli II emerged from his river crossing and attacked the severely depleted Egyptian infantry unit and easily routed it. 

With their Pharaoh fleeing this time, the Egyptians had to make some collapse tests.  The two remaining Archer units decided to withdraw in good order.  With the Egyptians shaken, the Hittites took the initiative! 

King Muwatalli II crashed into the flank of the remaining Egyptian unit and caused it to reel back, batterdd.  However, the troops quickly re-organized.  Meanwhile, the last Egyptian Light Chariot unit maneuvered close to the badly mauled Hittite Heavy Chariots and filled them full of arrows.  The survivors turned and fled.  At this, the remaining Hittite Levy Infantry became disordered.  

The destruction of the Hittite unit forces another set of Collapse tests on the Hittites.  They both passed.  With that, King Muwatalli II surveyed the battlefield and the coming dusk.  He withdrew back across the Orontes River and castled up within the walls of Kadesh, his remaining infantry joining him.  

Conclusion: 

Before we go to the points, neither side completely collapsed, so this will be a pyrrhic victory at best.  King Muwatalli II will also gain some propaganda points for driving Pharaoh Ramesses from the field of battle.    

The Egyptians scored 37 VPs for routed units and lost 55 points for - 17 points.  Ouch! 

The Hittites scored 55 points and lost 37, so + 17 points!  

A minor victory for the Hittites!  

Final Thoughts

Let's go the historical record on this one!  Here is how the battle of Kadesh unfolded per Ramesses own propaganda.

Per Wikipedia

Our battle took place a bit differently.  Here the battle took place on the South side of the river, while our battle took place on the opposite side, before the river split and the walls of Kadesh.  In out battle, the Hittites did manage to break through the Amun division with the Pharaoh, but did not engage with him until a bit later.  Ramesses would have us believe that he manage to force the Hittites back, but in our battle he fled the scene.  Historically, it was a draw but there are signs that it was a Hittite victory as Egyptian influence in the region waned after the battle.  Some minor discrepancies, but the overall flow and outcome of the battle seems to match with what we saw historically.  Just the point of decision changed a bit.  

As the Egyptian player, I think the battle folded about how I had planned it, minus losing the Pharaoh.  Interestingly, the Hittite player thought about using his chariots to move around the South side of the city as the real battle did, but decided not to due to the turn limit.  He did not think he would get to grips with the enemy fast enough.  

Next time, I will consider making the river Impassable instead of Dangerous terrain.  The Hittite Heavy Chariots crashed across with little problem.  However, if I make it impassable the fords will become the major choke points and killing grounds.  That may limit the free-wheeling nature of Chariot Warfare and detract from the flavor of the game.  I will have to test that out. 

Overall, a fun little battle that took about 90 minutes to complete.  Until next time! 

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Battle Report: In Strife and Conflict- Scouting Engagement in the Levant

 

Now that the armies for Kadesh are sorted, I figured it was time to do a playtest of the basic rules.  I have done some playtesting using templates previously, but this will be the first time with actual miniatures!  Exciting.  

I Ramses the II, he who makes mortals tremble, have marched north past the fortress of Tjel.  My intention is to reclaim the city of Kadesh and the Kingdom of Amurru.  The foolish rulers there have turned from my munificence and have taken council with King Muwatalli II from the North.  I shall teach them the error of their ways.  

As part of this effort, my might army has probed the coast scouting the best way forward.  Local vassals of the Muwatalli have come forth to challenge me.  Foolish mortals.  We shall sweep them aside like so much dust. 

At some point, the Kingdom of Amurru which was led by the city-state of Kadesh.  They had been vassals of the Egyptians in previous centuries, but overtime had drifted to the Hittite orbit.  This angered Ramessess II who wished to rebuild Egypt's empire in the Levant and return the region to Egyptian control. The year prior to the Battle of Kadesh, Egyptian forces were all ready active in the Canaanite lands.  

Today's battle will represent some of the scouting and blocking forces engaging in southern Canaan.  

Forces:

Today's battle is speculative in nature.  Therefore, we will be using the standard Lines of Battle to choose forces up to 24 points.

Egyptians

1 Light Chariot  

- Composite Bow 

1 Levy Infantry

- Bow 

1 Auxiliary Infantry

1 Archer

Hittites

1 Heavy Chariot

1 Light Chariot

Levy Infantry

Skirmishers

Mission: 

We will be playing the Scout the Area scenario found in the main rules.  The intention is not to destroy the foes, but to understand the terrain.  

For ease, we decided not to use any complications for the raid scenario.  

Set-up: 

We are using a 48 x 48 MU table, with 1 MU being 1 inch.  Therefore, a 4 by 4 space.  

The Western edge of the table is the Mediterranean Sea.  The Egyptians get the South, and the Hittites the North.  We divide the area into four zones and randomly determine terrain per the rules in the booklet.  The North side is 1 and 2, and the South is 3 and 4.  

1 = 2 level hill

2= Pond 0r Dangerous Terrain

3= Grove or Difficult Terrain

4= No terrain  

Hitties in distance with skirmishers, Levy, Heavies, and Lights. 
Near side is Egyptians with archers, levy w/bows, Auxiliary, and Lights

As normal, I am covering this battle in three phases.  I will not be talking about each individual decision, unless it is relevant.  However, I took careful notes of the outcome as this is a playtest game.  

The first two turns are the Maneuver Phase, Turns 3-6 is the Battle Phase, and turn 7-8 is the End Phase. 

Maneuver Phase

The speed of the Hittite force pays off, as they are able to grab 4 of the 6 objectives early.  

The Egyptian light Chariots go out dangerously ahead of their support to grab an objective as well.  The last objective is under the bows of the Egyptian archers, and the javelins of the Hittite skirmishers.  The skirmishers overlook it from the hill top.  

Battle Phase

The Hittites get the initiative and begin the attack! The heavy chariots manage to rumble towards the Egyptian lights at a gallop.  The Egyptians try to evade, but can not get away fast enough and are caught by the Hittites.  A swirling melee ensues and the Egyptians are pushed back.  The battle is joined by the Hittite light chariots, and things look bad for the Egyptians.  All is not lost, as the Egyptian Auxiliary infantry manages to charge into the fight.  

The Egyptian Archers manage to get the last objective, but are under threat from Hittite skirmishers on the hill top.  

Meanwhile, the Egyptians disorder the Hittite Heavy Chariot, but their Chariot forces and Auxiliary infantry are forced to fall back!  

The Archers are hit by a rain of javelins from the hill, but keep enough courage and discipline to fire on the Hittite Levy.  Along with the fire of the Levy Egyptians bows, the unit is reduced to half courage, but stays in formation. 

The Hittite Heavy Chariot hits the Egptian Levy in the flanks.  Despite the flank charge, the Levy put up fierce resistance.  Both sides are heavily injured and disordered.  The Hittite Levy join the fray, and further demoralize the beleagured Egytpians.  

The Egyptian Archers and Hittite skirmishers trade shots, but the cover of the Hilltop gives the Hittites the advantage.  

End Phase

In the fight in the center, the Egyptian Levy manages to send the Hittite Heavy Chariots and Hittite Levy packing.  However, the Egyptian Levy also have to fall back.  

However, Javelins from the Hittite Skirmishers also rout the demoralized Egyptian archer unit.  This leaves the field to the Hittites. 

Conclusion

A Hittite victory no matter how you slice it!  I did not have the speed for this mission compared to what the Hittites brought to the table.  My focus on needing to dash forward also restricted my ability to shoot and scoot with my Light Chariots, their main advantage over the Hittites.  

The Hittites grabbed 4 objectives, and I grabbed 2.  In addition, my forces were completely routed.  We did some damage to the Hittites though.  We routed their Heavy Chariots and their Levy infantry.  We also pinged some courage from the skirmishers, so it wasn't a completely 1-sided victory for them.  

In reality, I would image the Hittite Light Chariots in my rear would have made sure very few of my Egyptians made it back to the Sinai and out of Canaan.     

King Muwatali II am displeased with the Egyptian dogs entering the kingdom of my vassals.  Gather the soldiers o Hattusta so we can whip these mutts back to the desert where dogs belong.  Our mighty armies will teach them a lesson not soon forgotten.  Let us march to Kadesh! 

Final Thoughts

How did the game play function?  Well, chariots were much faster than any foot mounted troops.  That was exactly as how it was intended.  In addition, skirmishers in cover were hard to dislodge.  Everything else seemed to work as intended.

Evasion by the Light Chariots against foot foes would have worked great, but I was charged by chariots that also had Pursue.  Therefore, the two options sort of negated each other this game.  I think I need some more playtesting using evade and pursue with chariots.  I have seen Egyptian Light Chariots with bows very effectively employ hit and run tactics, but not today.      

I went back and tweaked the set-up rules a bit, because as written now they overly favored the defended.  I also did not notice that once all tokens were gathered, the game ended!  Whoops. I played that a bit differently.        

Overall, I was pleased with how it all went.  It was relatively easy to wrap your head around, with the most questions coming around joining a combat that had all ready been resolved.  I might want to add an example of play to clear up how this section of the rules works.  It is not 100% intuitive 

 as it is delayed support + charge dice rather than a full attack dice + charge dice.  More to come in that space. 

Bonus Content

I painted up a lone, 28mm Whizkids pre-primed model for a member my RPG group.  I was not super impressed with the "pre-prime" and recommend anyone else just prime them again.  They did not work well with Speedpaints at all.  Instead, I had to use my standard base and wash techniques.  

Nothing special, but now we have a full party of painted minis when we play.  Our current campaign is pretty OSR and "Combat as War" so far, so the minis on a battle mat are pretty nice to have handy.  If we are using minis, I prefer for all of them to be painted.  I'm strange that way!   

Until next time! 

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On The Painting Desk: Battle of Kadesh - So It is Written, so it is done!

 

For 2023, I decided that my big project was going to be a Battle of Kadesh scenario.  This included rules, a scenario, and two armies of 6mm miniatures from Baccus.  I started the project pretty late in the year, and had a slow start in getting going.  There was a race to the end of 2023 to get at least one of the armies painted up before 2024.  Well, here it is 2024 and I am still posting about the first of the two armies!  However, I actually managed to finish this army at the end of December so I did manage to get it done in 2023.  

When we last left this army, I had finished off 6 bases of archers.  That left only a few units left to complete.  I had some Sherden royal guards, some Auxiliary Soldiers, and some levy none of whom had any bow support.  I also had 3 bases of Chariots to paint up for the Pharaoh and his striking units.  

I decided to start the next phase of the project by finishing off the remaining infantry units.  I followed the same pattern I have so far with all the minis for this project.  A pavement undercoat, then painted on the flesh tones, white clothing, bronze, white for shields, and a dessert brown for bows and hafts. 

The Sherden required a slightly different approach as they used a lot more Bronze armor.  In addition, they had some blue, Lapis Lazuli looking points on their shields that I picked out with a blue.  I also tried to give each unit a "unique" color for their banner and shields to help me differentiate them on the battlefield at arm's length.  

The Pharaoh's Royal Sherden Guard

Of course, once all the 6mm minis were painted, I went on to the basing.  Again, the techniques was the same as all the others.  I used gap filling putty on the bases and put the strips onto the putty.  Once dry, I painted the bases Territorial brown.  I then dry brushed a Khaki color and spot applied some green wash.  The last step was to paint the edges of the bases black.  

 Then, they went and joined the rest of the army marching across the desert.  

The Royal Guard lead out some soldiers and levy towards the Levant

That left me with the last 3 units, the Chariots.  These would be the main striking force and one of the unique units for the army.  I had never really painted chariots at this scale before.  I was unsure how to proceed as they came in some small pieces; an axel, the chariot car, and two horses.  I decided to paint the horses like all the infantry models, and the chariots I assembled the cars and axels before sticking them to my painting stick.  

I then proceeded to follow my normal approach to painting the Egyptians.  The only deviation was with the Pharaoh's chariot.  I decided to give him 4 horses, and painted the chariot crew and car a bit flashier than the others.  

Here they are on the shores of the Red Sea, perhaps recreating a scene from Exodus?  

Here is a full army shot of the Egyptian force heading to Kadesh.  

With the last elements painted, the Egyptian army is complete.  I barely finished it in 2023.  The Egyptians were ready to march to Kadesh!  Now, I just need to paint up the Hittites and we would be ready for a big throw down in the Levant before the end of 2024?  Hopefully.  

So it is written, so it is done!   

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On the Painting Table: For the Glory of Ra- More Egyptians for Kadesh

 

Faithful readers, you know I have been working on a 6mm project for the Battle of Kadesh for sometime now.  This means I have been grinding out work on an Egyptian army first.  I have completed the following: 

• 4 Bases of Skirmishers with Bows
• 4 Bases of Auxiliary Infantry with Bows
• 2 Bases of Levy Infantry with Bows

However, that still leaves a whole lot of bases left to paint.  I have started tackling the largest single unit of the force, the Archers.  There are 6 total units.  Each unit has 12 strips of 4 archers and two command strips also with 4 figures.  That means each unit will have 56 figures per base.  That's a lot of batch painting.  

Progress was very slow on these units.  Painting any single 6mm figure is pretty simple.  Undercoat black, use Bronzed Flesh for skin tone, add white on the skirt, and skeleton bone for the bow/quiver, brown on the base.  Easy.  However, batch painting all of of them..... not easy or fun.  

I actually decided to paint them by unit to break things up a bit.  I batched the undercoating, then skin tones.  Once I painted the flesh on 2 units worth I went back to unit #1 and painted the other colors.  Then, I flesh undercoated unit #3 and then went back to finishing off Unit #2.  I did this routine over a few week ends until they were all complete.  

From there, I went onto the basing.  I used the same method of gap filler spackle that I have been using.  The command elements were a bit more complicated because I had to "cut" them off the strips so I could arrange them to face the correct way.  However, it was nothing complicated.  The biggest danger was one of them flying off into space, but a closed hand around the piece solved this little issue. 

After letting the bases fully dry, I moved onto one of my least favorite parts.  I painted all the bases using a Territorial Brown dry brushed with a Khaki color.  Then, I used a Green wash to add some foliage look.  The last step was to re-edge the bases with pure black.  This helps the whole unit stand out a bit on the table and look finished.  

6 Units down.  That left 5 bases of Egyptian Infantry including a base of Sherden Guards, and 3 bases of chariots to call this army done.  The bulk units were now complete.  The race to finishing off the Egyptian army before the end of the year was on!  

Below you can see the 12 bases the army is right now.  This is a mix of Auxiliary infantry with bows, Levy infantry with bows, archers, and bow armed skirmishers.  You can see that firepower was a big part of this army.      

Until next time.  I hope I have the whole army done! 

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