My first game of 2023 saw my Palmyrans give Gordon's Numidians a practice for a competition Gordon had entered.

This time I thought I'd go for the 'Roman' version of the Palmyrans which resulted in a rather small and not at all elite 22 element army.

The Numidians won the initiative and decided to attack in Steppes (why?!) so I rather fortunately put down an impassable river on one flank. Again oddly Gordon didn't really want any terrain so the rest of the table was rather empty apart from a couple of hills on Gordon's side and a patch of scrub on mine.

On deployment it quickly became apparent that I had totally misjudged Gordon's army. I'd been expecting the usual mix of light cavalry, javelin men, imitation Legionaries and an elephant or two. What I faced was a horde of Medium cavalry, almost all elite and some with the new 'javelin' ability allowing them to shoot from a new (I think) variant in the army list!

The Numidians rush forwards on the flanks:
On the left there is some initial combat and skirmishing:
The Palmyrans are already being split into smaller groups:
On the right they advance but are unable to catch the faster Numidians:

The Palmyran army is becoming scattered with open flanks available to the faster moving Numidians and some of the weaker Palmyran units being picked off:
A rare success for the Cataphracts as they catch up to an evading Numidian!
Unfortunately the Numidians are now taking advantage of the flank opportunities they have engineered:
Further losses to both sides on the left:
Elements are scattered everywhere now, the slower moving Palmyrans can't take much advantage of this though unlike the Numidians:
Eventually the Palmyran army breaks with the Numidians having suffered significant but sustainable losses themselves due to their larger army size:

My first game with the 'tribute' 25mm Hinchliffe Palmyran army against Gordon's Sassanid Persians. To use as many of the newly painted ones I went for an army of cataphracts, horse archers and foot archers with no Roman contingent. 

Winning the initiative I decided to attack in plains and was immediately surprised that Gordon appeared to want to close the table down suggesting he didn't have the masses of bow armed heavy cavalry I was expecting. This became very apparent on deployment:

Looking at both sides initial positions it seemed there was an opportunity for another of my 'let's redeploy the army' attempts. Moving my left flank cataphracts to the right centre would get them away from the elephants and allow me to delay Gordon's slow moving right flank troops with light horse. A decent command roll encouraged the attempt so the cataphracts began their march. In response Gordon moved his elephant and supports to attempt to counter:
One light horse on the left flank is trapped and attacked by Levy spearmen:
On the right both sides rush to try to gain an advantage:
The trapped light cavalry valiantly hold on:
A medium cavalry horse archer charges the Persian allied Arab swordsmen to stop them attacking the Palmyran archers:
The skirmish combat continues, the Palmyrans still have a small advantage:
Not so good here though as the Sassanids manage to get their elephant into a Palmyran cataphract with an overlap. Unlike the Palmyrans the Sassanid cataphracts are elite so they have an advantage there as well:
The light cavalry contest is starting to go against the Palmyrans and the first cataphract is down:
The remainder of the cataphracts are being overwhelmed:
Given the situation the Palmyrans start to fall back and the army flees:

The first metal army I ever painted back in the 70's was a Hinchliffe Palmyran army to play WRG 5th Edition at the club in Redcar. For many years they campaigned with me but eventually I sold or swapped them for another army and they disappeared into the mists of time!

For a while lately I contemplated trying to get them back  but, realistically, that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't remember who I sold them to or even if it was in Redcar or London. The clubs I played at then no longer existed and many of the people I played at the time would now probably be no longer active so while I'd definitely recognise them again if I saw them the prospects of doing so seemed minimal.

While looking at the Lancashire Games website for some 15mm Franco-Prussian wars figures I noticed that they had taken over manufacturing and selling Hinchliffe figures  at very reasonable prices. Inspired by my new-found enthusiasm for 25mm ADLG and being tired of painting WW2 stuff I thought why not order a few figures and see how they came out? At worst I could add them to my existing Late Roman army to give it a few options.

As is often the case a 'few' figures ended up turning into 'quite a lot' of figures as I painted them up and placed more orders to add a 'few' extra elements...

Six bases of Regular Archers:

Six bases of Irregular Light Archers:
The green Cataphracts:
The red Cataphracts:
Regular Medium Cavalry:
Irregular Medium Cavalry:
Caravan Guards as light camelry:
The purple Cataphracts:
Irregular Light Horse:
Zenobia:
Sub-general:
The second sub-general:

The last of the new figures for the 28mm Late Romans have now been completed.

The first mounted general:

The second general:

Finally the two bases of Cataphracts:

In general I'm happy with these figures and how they have come out. The painting style is similar to the original figures but they are considerably larger, especially the foot archers.

As ever having started off with 'I'll just re-varnish and rebase a few of these old figures' I've ended up adding more figures to the army which, to some extent, dilutes the idea of using the old ones!

In this case also I really like the cataphracts. The first metal 28mm army I ever owned was a Hinchliffe Palmyran army that I still remember well.

Sadly I sold/swapped it long ago in the mists of time. I did think of trying to track them down but given the number of years ago and the clubs I was in then no longer existing that does not seem likely.

There is therefore a temptation, given that I like these cataphracts, to remake the army. I've already started looking for 28mm Zenobia figures and working out vaguely what I'd need to buy...….