Greek Strongman Claims: "Reports of my Death are Premature"

Historicon this year was great. I don’t think I ever enjoyed a convention as much as this one, with three fun-packed days: Thursday - shopping in the dealer area; Friday, the 25mm AW tournament; and Saturday, the Death of Achilles (DoA) demo game. After DoA, my wife Roberta – who had joined me on Friday night -- and I bugged out for home, sweet Virginia, home.

The dealer area in the Lancaster Host expo center was as packed with vendors and new stuff as I have ever seen it. Notable were the 25mm Amazons from Eureka on view at Merrimack Miniatures; the new 25mm lines from Black Tree Designs (a.k.a. Icon Miniatures), including Greeks, Vikings, New Kingdom Egyptians and three packs of Trojans; and the super new figs from Australia’s Castaway Arts, including Hebrews and Midianite Arabs. I was also glad to see Steve Mynes of Age of Glory and the guys from Renaissance Ink; lately I have been using the latter’s wooden, magnetized bases to good effect, especially for my Achaean and Trojan hero figures. Highlights of "dealer day" included camel-shopping with Paul Schneider, who’d walk a mile for a camel any day, and knocking back some brews with Terry, Jeff, Paul, Mitch Abrams, and Ken Brate at AW/MW central (room 523). I bought some Teutonic Knights from Mirliton and some Ral Partha Biblical Syrians from Jake Kovel’s bargain bin (great figures and great deal).

25mm AW Tournament

The next day, Friday, was AW 25mm tournament day. What I had decided to do before the con was to mix components from my DoA game to create a tournament list for that juggernaut of the Late Bronze Age, the Sea People. Although the Sea Peoples list is given a bad rap in the notes accompanying the army lists, Perry’s [AW list editor Perry Gray] latest version is not all that bad, featuring lots of optional veteran HI/LAI infantry and optional warbands. I upgraded my guys to cut down on the number of stands I had to bring, and worked it out such that the numbers of loose order infantry and skirmishers I brought exactly matched the lists I designed for DoA.

The Sea People held their own versus Bob Grosse’s Hittites, and Karen Jarosz’s Celts, winning both games by scores of, respectively, 3-2 and 3-1: a total score of 6 is no great shakes, but it’s good for a first go with an army of dubious merit. I’ve been on a real roll lately, scoring 3’s game after game in tournament play, but both games in this tourney were running well in my favor when time was called, so I was very pleased. Bring on the Seleucids! I’ll write on piece on the Sea People and their performance at Historicon for a future Saga.

The Evolution of the "Death of Achilles" Demo

The study of the Iliad has been a particular hobby of mine for over twenty years, during which time I’ve managed to learn Homeric Greek and to read deeply into the vast critical literature on the subject. It is only recently that I’ve been interested in gaming the subject, and AW is an excellent means to that end. For the DoA demo, the fast play version of AW (FPAW) was used to prepare materials for the players.

DoA was launched (in secret) last April. Having written pieces for Saga describing the antagonists; the Achaeans (Saga #82, Aug/Sept 2001), and the Trojans (Saga #83, Oct/Dec 2001), I was primed to put the white metal on the table. I’ve been accumulating Mycenaean/Trojan War/Chariot Age figures for years, but had never really gamed them, except for a NASAMW-sponsored, WRG 7th Bronze Age theme tournament held years ago. The centerpiece of the army I tabled then was the 144 castings of the only figure I have ever sculpted and cast, a Mycenaean warrior inspired by the famed "Mycenaean Warrior Vase". Many of these veterans are still featured in my polyglot DoA collection, despite the arrival on the scene of great figures by The Foundry, Redoubt, and Old Glory (samples of which also appear in DoA).

Still, at the time I formerly committed to Terry and HGMS East for the DoA Demo, much was left to be done. To bring the older home castings up to date, they were extensively "converted", i.e. altered by handcraft, using tufts of twine for horsehair crests, light card for better and more dramatic shields, and twine, epoxy putty (a.k.a. Knead-a-kite) and paper for enhanced clothing and body armor. Many of the newer castings, especially all of the heroes, had to be painted.

There is enough material here for several Saga articles on sculpting, casting and/or converting figures. In addition, several terrain features had to be scratch built. Fortunately, I had access to an old wooden castle we bought for my son when he was a little guy, and several pieces of it were pressed into service as the walls of Troy and the Skaean gate (and they really looked good).

I needed to gin up the Scamander River and the Bay of Troy. These I made out of several pieces of thin plexiglass I had in the basement, and some cardboard backing from an artist’s sketchpad.

An approximately 2’ x 3’ sheet of plexiglass was painted on the "bottom" with dark blue, water-soluble Rustoleum, and striped on the top with impasto’s of white for waves, to create the Bay of Troy. A beach/shoreline was made by smearing a concoction of sand/dark brown paint/acrylic modeling paste – a goo I call "mud" – along two edges of the top side of the Bay piece. The beach was dry brushed and highlighted with shades of flesh and linen.

The Scamander was simpler to make. I had a 3’ x 6" piece of plexiglass for the job, but I needed twice that amount. I bungled cutting another piece of similar size from my remaining stock of plexiglass sheeting – in fact I ruined that piece @#$%$ -- so I had to substitute the cardboard. Making the river, I simply smeared the topside of the plexiglass with two riverbanks of "mud", and dry brushed and highlighted as above. The "water" in the river was left unpainted, so the net effect had my scruffy brown ground cloth – a.k.a. the notorious "ground cloth from hell" – visible through the plexiglass between the banks of the river. Works great. The remaining length of the river, comprised of two 1.5’ x 6" pieces of cardboard, was made by applying the mud banks as above, but painting a dark brown river, glossed up with Minwax "dipping varnish". The visual effect of physically different segments of river actually looked great.

Death of Achilles Historicon 2002

Introduction
The Outline of the Game
Trojan and Greek Commands and Map
Realities of Hosting and Conclusion