OGAM Egyptian - how I plot before I buy. The game of 3 halves: Planning before Painting and Playing

I had originally planned and promised an article on doing OGAM in 15mm. But no, do the work yourself! Wargaming is a game of 3 halves: Planning, Painting & Playing. Now I'm coming at this from a fun campaign point of view rather than serious competition. Here's my musings and planning. Rather than purchasing in one rush, these will be assembled bit by bit and amended by chance and new releases.

Some of you might come from a background where the game designers monitor and charge for each section of the above. They sell you expensive rulebooks and manuals that tell you what to buy, from them, and what colour of which bit to paint and the silly name of the products required.

First there's the reference books. I'm looking at the war of Horus and Set, and there just so happens to be an excellent book on the subject from Osprey plus several others on the long history of the region. Plus the rules. Rummage in your DVD selection for those Mummy and Scorpion King plus any foreign legion films particularly “follow that camel”. And Cleopatra. Plus Stargate.

Have I confused you? Yes? Then my work here is done. The war between the gods was the potted version of the struggle between the upper and lower Nile delta and successive waves of invasion and conquest. I'd suggest that you choose the particular historic or mythic point(s) that interest you.

Let's start with Set, god of the upper Nile and the desert. He is also god of foreigners, so he gets the Sea peoples. But lets divert for a moment, consider who else you want to do- because the list of possibles run through:

Hykos
Numidian
Libyan
Persian Satrap
Alexandrian Macedonian
Romans – Caesarean or Anthony's legions (do you want to do the Roman list when it comes out?)
Muslims
French foreign legion (well bit of a stretch-)
British

You might have to tweak the list a bit, just don't tell Andrea! But any set that lets Achilles command hoplites- should allow Rolls Royce armoured cars to engage sphinx’s. That gives the framework for the mortals. Set gets the giant scorpions and, I'd suggest sphinx. Now here's the rub. Set costs 356. Legends 4 scorpions and the ram headed (desert walking) sphinx cost 294. That gives you a maximum size of 882 (3xlegends) as Set is costly that leaves only 232 for the mortals.

Say unit of 8 archers @20 = 160 and 8 light infantry @ 10 = 80, total 240.

Horus next. He is the god of the lower Nile and the representation of the incumbent Pharaoh. The rules state that there is only one – but there are dynastic feuds and rebellions where 1 per side could be fielded. He gets the crocs. A toy shop Now you may want to “swap out” as above or use Splintered Light's Sons of Horus.

Horus costs 404. Legends Pharaoh, the falcon headed Sphinx , 3 giant crocs cost 444. That leaves, in out set vs Horus, leaves 42 for the mortals. If we flip, 444x3 = 1,332. That's a bit more like it. Gives you 484 for Horus's mortals and Set now gets 682 to spend on mortals.

Finally Anubis. This is the god that might appeal to the pulp player. You need rabble, mummies and priests. The big stumbling block is the jackals – no-one makes them but lets do a bit of lateral thinking. Jackals are dog sized, so transform these beasts into warriors and use Pendraken's Anubis warriors. If you mount them 2-3 to a base as I did my satyrs I'll think you find them suitable.

Anubis costs 232. Legends human-headed sphinx, 4 great mummies cost 440, using 3x legends we get 548 for mortals. You must have 1 unit of mummies, 4 @ 18 = 72, and jackals 4@ 10= 40, giving you a minimum spend of 112 on mortals. This total works well with the other 2. So we can say that 1,400 is a good max size for any of these armies.

Rather than put in lots of links, here's the main links, you can just shop around!

GZG  Now I've seen these before - http://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/index.php?_a=product&product_id=757

Splintered Light has Sons of Horus and a whole Egyptian dead range.

http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/sonsofhorus.html

http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/egyptianundead.html

 

Rebel have Egyptian civvies and more mummies. Pulp/steampunk adventurers

http://www.rebelminis.com/pulpadventures.html

Plus a rather nice not-scorpion that I think is ideal-

http://www.rebelminis.com/scbuandcr.html

Pendraken has lots of little mummies including one with a crucified teddy bear in the accessories range. Plus the jackals for Anubis. I use their large skeletons for my Greeks and you can add some wrappings-.

http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Fantasy-c21/Egyptian-Mythology-sc148/

Now the problem with scorpions, Pendraken do 2 types, for your giant do you want one big one ore a swarm of terrier size chitinous terrors?

Irregular Miniatures have large flats that will do for gods plus both 15 & 28mm crocs. I use their 20mm lion for the Numean lion.

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/indexes/15mmindex.htm

 

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/index.html

Old Glory has a wide range of Egyptians, archaeologists, mummies, Tauregs.

http://www.oldgloryuk.com/15mm-horror/50/209/500/518

Good old 15mm.co can do you a lovely Sphinx that does for the human head version. The falcon head can be adapted from the griffon quite easy and the chimera has a goat head so it's just a bit of surgery with a mini hacksaw, some filler and you're there! I made my Kirin from one that looks like that featured in 47 Ronin.  http://www.15mm.co.uk/collections/hot-15mm-fantasy-range?page=2

Giant scorpions and mummies must be available in 28mm, but I hate to think of the cost!