Just Add Water

Monday, 30 March 2026

Clubbing it! The Battle for the Oasis at Āb-Šādahr (Ābšādahr)! Middle imperial Romans take on Early Sassanid Persians

We started a great two week game last evening, the Battle for the Oasis at Āb-Šādahr (Ābšādahr), about 80 miles south of the great city of Ctesiphon.

Āb-Šādahr (Ābšādahr)
Āb = water
Šād = joyful / prosperous
-ahr / -ahrā = place or land
Meaning: “The Oasis of Joyful Waters.”

Apologies once again for not including a narrative (life is very much getting in the way at the moment!) but the game was very evenly poised with most of the until the action starting to develop on the left flank as the Roman Legionaries and Sassanian Aswārān (singular aswār; also spelled Asbārān and Savaran) were coming very close to melee.

The next Sassanian turn was to decide the battle within the next two turns, the Cats went in and with some quite ugly dice rolling they bounce with the Shahanshah's unit being run down, another unit panicking and legging it leaving only one unit of Cataphracts willing to face five units of Roman Legionaries. Time was running down both literally and figuratively so we called time on the game.

Overall, the Early Sassanid and middle imperial Roman clashes have been some of the best games we have played and are deserving of many a rerun so we will be returning to this Third Century, the middle imperial Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire very soon.

Saturday, 14 March 2026

Palmyrene Armies Using Their Own Legionaries?

Hi, Is there any evidence of Palmyrene armies using their own Legionaries in the fight against Shapur I, or at anytime, or were they actually Roman Legionaries, trained under Roman discipline?

***Please cite sources so I can do further reading***

Image for well, fun really.....

Tuesday, 10 March 2026

First Six Late Roman Equites Scholae Palatinae

A while ago I came to a decision regarding army painting where I planned Ito speed paint two armies for every one that I took my time over. Some may think me sprightly at 58 but I'm beginning to "feel it" in terms of how much can I paint in my life what can actually be used useful on the wargames table? The trick being able to paint fast enough as to get units ship shape and battle ready on the table at pace, but not to lose too much by way of quality.

Basically my methodology for painting horses as fast as possible has come to this.

1/ A black undercoat over a black primer. Then a medium grey drybrush, then contrast paint, Goregrunta Fur (lol) and for variation, Wyldwood (lol). Both gave a (sort of) oil wiped look to the horses but were perhaps more subtle. I should add, the contrast paint was painted on, but unlike like a wash, rather as an even covering all over the horses. The first time I tried the method was on some plastic Elven Steeds, which gave a very good even subtle finish after just one coat (see below).

The Black Undercoat, Neutral Grey Drybrush, Contrast Paint Method: Plastic Elven Steed

The next step was to try the same technique on a metal horse. unfortunately, the results were not the same as metal castings always have some "pitting" due to the manufacturing process and this showed on the horses.

For contrast, the Black Undercoat, Neutral Grey Drybrush, Contrast Paint Method:

2/ I was essentially back to square one (I did keep the horses for the second rank of the Equites Scholae Palatinae very much in keeping with painting up the army as fast as possible). I then, quite by accident, heard via a chap on a Facebook forum about the makeup sponge technique for horses. I was (very) unfamiliar with this concept so did a little digging and with the help (and support!) of one of my Facebook friends, Nigel Higgins, I gave it a go with quite astonishing results!

I will put together a tutorial at some stage as if you are willing to cope with the drop in quality, this is going to save a lot of wargamers a lot of time! They are far from perfect but do look like they have been layered up; good enough for me!

Makeup Sponge Method