I like to joke that this is my single most "uncompetitive" DBA army. In DBA terms, it's an army of troops that need the shelter of terrain, but have the highest possible Aggression, meaning they're the least likely to be the ones to set the terrain. But, all that gamesmanship aside, how can you have Biblical armies and not have THE army of the Bible...? Add to it that they are an opponent of the New Kingdom Egyptians, and you just knew I'd have to paint and field these guys! It's fun to say (in your best Charleston Heston voice: "Pharaoh, let my people go!" And lose.
Anyway, this army was the first I purchased from Venexia miniatures. Venexia are the type of figs that -- when you see them unpainted, fresh out of the pack -- you said, "Oh. Those are...okay. I guess." They paint up nicely, though, and I was pleased with how this army looked on the tabletop. One thing, though. Venexia is apparently a big proponent of one of the things that drive me batty in 15mm: Separate weapons in shields. Talk about fiddly bits!!! On the plus side, it let me customize the army, make it very irregular looking and all. On the minus side, it was a pain in the you know where! So, let the potential buyer of Venexia beware.
There was never any doubt that I wanted to do an Ark of the Covenant as part of my Early Hebrew camp. I mean, really, how can you NOT?! I picked up this pack of priests and horn blower from Falcon Miniatures to supplement the Venexia army pack. Although I admit the casting of the Ark is pretty lacking in detail, I think the whole effect is nice. The standard bearer is a converted Venexia spearman, while his standard is scratch-built to resemble one in an image I found on a Google search. The shaft is a piece of brass wire, the crossbar is a Kraft Stick, and the "hangy down things" are simply a lead spear that has been squeezed and twisted with pliers to look like some sort of cloth suspended from the crossbar. The gold disc on the crossbar is simply a piece of stiff cardboard cut out with a hole puncher.
The surface of the camp is a slope from the back left hand corner of the photo above down to the bottom right. It shows up better in person, and is scattered with various rocks and pebbles to represent the rough Judean hillsides. I picture the Early Hebrew army keeping to the hills and coming down out of them only to attack once they've decided to give battle or raid. So, the "Coming Out of the Hills" look is what I was striving for.
I'm pretty happy with all of my Biblical era camps, and this one is no
exception.