More on Ancient gaming and lists

Blogging sometimes sends me off in unexpected directions.  I like to pretend that I have some sort of idea about what I intend to write about in my next couple of posts and then one thing leads to another (or to be more accurate its more a case of  one post leads to another) and I'm off down a different rabbit hole!  So it is with this post.  My last post on army lists and balance in DBA got me thinking about the development of the DBx family of rules and how they represent a complete change of direction from the older WRG Ancients rule sets.  So I dug out the copies of the WRG  rules I have (4th Edition through to 7th) to remind myself of how they worked.

Barney looking for me down that rabbit hole or possibly digging out the rules from my filing system!

I should say at this point that I have a soft spot for the WRG ancients rules.  Like many gamers of a 'certain' vintage they were the first proper rules I used.  Before WRG I had rules by Charles Grant and John Tunstall which were as much tutorials on how to write rules as they were a fully formed set of rules.  WRG were different, from the start they were written as a set to use in competitions so had to be full and complete, or at least complete enough to not need house rules for competition use.  Second they tried to cover everything needed for the period they covered, weather, time of day, troop definitions the whole nine yards as they say.  With WRG rules an opponent and I could buy a set of rules and use them exactly as written by and large, although there was always the small matter of Phil Barker's writing style to give rise to some points of debate on interpretation.

Those rules were pretty much the only game in town, as it was a couple of years before competing rule sets arose.   Those I tried were no improvement and were often worse than WRG.  At best some were Ok but for whatever reason they came and went while the WRG sets soldiered on year after year.  I started playing using 3rd edition and as each new edition appeared switched to the new set.  The core mechanisms stayed pretty much the same right through to 6th edition.  They were detailed and often slow to play and most games I played struggled to come to a natural conclusion in a single session.  Part of the after game ritual was the discussion which usually started with 'well if we had time to play another turn I would have....'

It was 7th edition that made dramatic changes to core mechanisms.  Basing as elements and no figure removal (as with DBx) came in with that set, although the weapon and troop classes remained the same.  The command rules became more detailed and there was less scope for changing things on the fly.  One of the issues that confused me was that although units were based as elements some formations required troops to be based in part elements (such as wedge or rhomboid) which partially defeated the element concept.  For a lot of gamers the 7th was too different to earlier editions and it simply wasn't WRG ancients anymore.

Phil Barker's original concepts had stayed unchanged from 1st through to 6th edition ancients and similar concepts were used by scores of other sets as well.  Combat focussed on the armour type of the target unit and the weapon system used by the attacker.  Units lost figures once the casualty calculation reached multiples of 20 casualties (as each figure represented 20 actual men).  This had drawbacks as units tended to contract along their frontage which isn't how things worked in reality as casualties would be replaced from the rear ranks to try to maintain a units frontage.  In 7th the actual number of casualties was determined but was then used to determine if the unit became fatigued and influenced immediate reaction to the combat.  Then the casualty slate was wiped clean. Instead fatigue carried forward and impacted on the unit's performance in future turns.  No figures were (or could be) removed so frontages stayed intact.

WRG didn't develop their ancients set any further then 7th edition although others did (Warrior were, I think, developed from WRG 7th edition).  Instead Phil Barker wrote DBA.  Then he bolted on additional chrome to DBA to create firstly DBM and then DBMM, in effect he started to move back to something like a simplified 7th edition but from the other direction.

About the time 7th edition were published I drifted out of figure gaming for a while due to the usual reasons, young family, change of job and my gaming group breaking up to take new jobs in different places.  I bought a copy of 7th, read it and made notes on the mechanisms, but never played it.  To be honest I couldn't get my head around the newfangled idea of basing as elements and the lack of figure removal as that had been at the mainstay of every other set of rules I had ever used until that point.  My 25mm collection stayed based for 6th edition and didn't morph into DBx armies.

My 25mm Late Imperial Romans based for 6th Edition.  These are a mix of Hinchcliffe, Prince August hand casts, Irregular miniatures plus a few Essex

My 25mm 6th edition armies went to a good home when I downsized. The video shows them as they were when I was checking them before they went to their new home.  They hadn't been out of storage for a decade at that point which explains the loose spears and shields. The unpainted stuff had been that way for about 20 years at that point!

Having looked back over the old rule sets I can see what the design objective with 7th edition was.  I even wish I had had the chance to play them as there is a lot of good in them.  Strangely when I came to write my homebrew ECW rules many of the concepts from 7th solved design issues I had and addressed some of the playing decisions I wanted to focus on.  Looking back I can see the first glimpse of DBM, DBMM and related games like ADLG in those rules.   Personally I think that Phil Barker recognised that there was tension between detail and playability and wanted to address it with 7th.  I don't know that he achieved that  to the satisfaction of players.  The fact that he turned to DBA as a new starting point and them developed rules more akin to 7th with DBM and DBMM suggests that he was close to what he wanted but couldn't quite get there with the mechanisms of the previous sets.  None of which really matters when looking at whether DBA and it's further developments deliver a good game or not, but it is interesting to see how we got to the place we currently occupy with WRG rules.  I suspect DBA 3.0 is the last hurrah for WRG ancient and medieval rule sets but 1969 to date is a damn good run by anybodies standards and many of the current rule sets for the period owe a lot to the work done by WRG.

Over 20 years gaming right here in one place - WRG 4th - 7th editions

Comparison of army lists

Following on from my Roman v Persia DBA game over Easter I got to thinking about the balance of the standard 12 element games of DBA.  So as an exercise I converted the two armies to DBM, DBMM and ADLG equivalents using the closest matches to the DBA element choices I could find.  The results confirmed one of my views about DBA's 12 element selections which is that the armies don't give balanced match ups, even between historical enemies. DBA doesn't distinguish between Inferior, Ordinary or Superior troop categories  as DBM or DBMM do (shown by the initial after the type in brackets so (O) is an ordinary example of the type).  It doesn't have points values either as selections are made assuming all troop types are of equal value.  What the comparison did was show that this simply isn't true.

The closest match is DBM as there is almost a 1:1 equivalency in the element types if we assume all DBA troop categories are equivalent to Regular  and Ordinary troop classes in DBM.  The Army lists for my game were: 

Early Sassanid 
General (Cv), 5 Asaravan (Cv), 1 horse archer (LH), 1 elephant, 1 Daylami (4Ax) and 2 Levies (7Hd).

Western Late Imperial Roman
General (Cv), 1 Equites (Cv), 1 Cataphract (4Kn), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH), 2 legionaries (4Bd), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax), 2 Light Infantry (Ps).

DBM equivalents
The DBM armies are (based on my admittedly elderly copy of DBM (1994) and equally old army lists (1993)) as follow.  All troops are solid unless noted as (F) for fast or (X) for exception.

Early Sassanid (all irregular troops)
General (Cv (S)), 5 Asaravan (Cv (O)), 1 horse archer (LH (F)), 1 elephant (El (O)), 1 Daylami (Ax (O)) and 2 Levies (Hd(O)).

Western Late Imperial Roman (all regular troops)
General (Cv(O)), 1 Equites (Cv (O)), 1 Cataphract (Kn (X)), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH(O)), 2 Legionaries (Bd(O)), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax(S)), 2 Light Infantry (Ps(O)).

The points totals are interesting the Sassanids cost 90 points but the Romans are 97pts.  There isn't an option for 4Ax (O) in the DBM Late Roman list, but using the raw point cost it would only reduce the total by a further 3pts to 94.  It seems like Phil Barker considered that the Roman army is actually worth between 4.5% and  10% more than the Sassanid when he wrote the points for DBM.  Which reflects the outcome of the DBA game.  It might be argued the true cause of the discrepancy is the difference between regulars and irregulars and that does account for the points difference within DBM itself.  The way to test it is to replay the game using DBA but with DBM points values which would give the Sassanids an additional 9 pts to spend for at least one more element.  That would allow an extra Asaravan or LH element for example.

DBMM equivalents
DBMM points are identical for the Romans but has differences for the Sassanid Persians as they have to take Cv (S) for Asaravan which brings the totals to a close match of 99pts Roman and 100 pts Sassanid.  This will be something I might refight using DBMM 100 (the 100 pt DBMM light variant).

ADLG equivalents
ADLG has a different set of troop definitions although the points values are broadly similar to DBM/DBMM so I have gone back to basics and tried to replicate the troop types in ADLG terms.  I used the DBM/DBMM descriptions as they give more detail than the DBA list and make it easier to compare troop types to get the closest match possible.  In ADLG ordinary generals don't have a points cost, it is only the better generals who have to be paid for.  As result I based the list on the (stay with me here the next bit is a bit convoluted) the DBA list converted to DBM ordinary category troops and then looked for the nearest ADLG equivalent.  It isn't possible to match the DBA list exactly due to the slightly higher points costs for some troop types.  What we get is:

Sassanid (pre 430 AD)
1 x General, 5 x Asaravan (HC- Bow), 1 x Cataphract, 1 x Horse Archer (LC - Bow), 1 x Elephant, 1 x Javelinmen (LMI - javelin),  2 x Levy (levy).

Late Imperial Roman
1 x General, 2 x Equites (HC), 1 x Cataphract, 2 x Eq Sagittarii (LH - Bow), 1 x Eq Illyricanii (LH - Javelin), 2 x Legionaries (HI- Sword), 3 x Auxilia Palatina (MI-Sword, Impact), 2 x Light Infantry (LI - Bow)

I considered comparing the relative values of the two armies under the old WRG ancients rules using the 1982 6th Edition Ancient's lists.   However, the rules are so different that it wouldn't really add anything other than remind me how much I miss my triple armed legionaries!  I have a set of 7th edition but have never used them in anger, they would be closer to the DBx rules family as they are element based.  Short of trying out 7th solo, the next step is to refight the action under DBA using the DBM list and then doing it again under ADLG rules.

After all of this I have kind of reached a conclusion.  Which is that DBA as written is fine as a basic introduction to wargaming in the period prior to 1500 AD, but.....   The but being that the lists don't really provide the incentive to play some of the weird and wonderful armies that live out ot the fringes of playability because of the 12 element format.  In future I may very well simply play games using DBA rules but selecting 100 pt armies from the lists for DBM/DBMM to give a bit more balance.  That way it might actually be interesting to see a match up between lets say Italian Hill Tribes and Burgundian Ordonnance.

Random Thoughts #2 - home thoughts from, well, home

With this period of enforced lockdown restricting access to news (when was the last time there was anything of substance reported that wasn't Covid-19 related) I have begun to realise how life must have been before the mass media.  While I still turn on the news I don't actually miss the lack of the details of latest events in some far flung ex-outpost of empire or the inability of some people to realise that shooting large numbers of other people is not a sure fire way to solve problems.  I suppose it's the curse of news programmes having a set length, they have to find something to fill the bulletin with even if it's pure drivel (or Donald Trump as it is more commonly termed around here).

It's almost like we have moved backwards in time to the long ago days of my childhood.  The skies are bluer, the birds sing more loudly and sound travels without being drowned out by the incessant rumble of passing, planes, trains and automobiles.  All that is missing is the sound of passing Blackpool trams in the distance and I could be back in Anchorsholme, in my grandparent's garden in the early 1960s.  For me at least the pace of life has slowed too, as I'm working from home, so no mad rush to get to the office, no worries about travel delays and very few frantic calls from clients.  I'm begining to see the attractions of my retirement next year.

Strangely I don't seem to have as much free time though.  The absence of work related time loss means we (that's Mrs E and I) have the time to take on those bigger jobs around the house and garden we had put off until we had enough time to start and finish them at one go.  So the extra free time bizarrely means I have less free time for the things I spent that time doing before.  The real bonus is that Mrs E and I haven't spent such a long and uninterrupted period of time together since we were students.  I don't disappear for a couple of days at a time to go to visit clients  and we are both home all day everyday.  It's a wonder she hasn't done me some serious harm for being underfoot all the time (only joking).

Even George and Barney seem to be enjoying us being at home all the time. Although they are not getting as many walks as before they are getting more time with their favourite humans.  We get time to play with them in the garden and if we are doing gardening things they amble around out there taking in the smells and hoping to catch a hedgehog (which we disapprove of much to their disgust) or a small crunchy rodent.  George has signed up as apprentice hole digger, he will move up to journeymen status once he learns to dig where we actually want a hole.

George (L) and Barney (R) say stay indoors like this.

While the cause of this temporary slow down is not a thing to be happy about in any way, shape of form, if you look hard enough there are some silver linings.  With clouds as dark as these it would be horrible if there weren't.

Stay safe everyone and I hope you and yours are all virus free.

Hitting a minor landmark

Just for clarity this is not about traffic accidents, I would have to be allowed outside for that to happen!  No I have finally crawled above 20,000 pageviews.  It only took 104 posts and seven years.  I make that an average of 192 views a post or about 2,850 views a year.  which sounds a lot until you look at the stats for some of the blogs I read.  I still haven't managed to reach a huge number of followers either, clearly I have a select and discerning readership.

The most popular posts were a bit of a mixture.  The 'how to make' and 'how to paint' posts are right up there often with several hundred hits, although they take a while to to build to those numbers. Product reviews and game scenarios are also popular and tend to build up hits much more quickly but to fall away rapidly too.  I suppose I should do more of those things.  What it shows is that there are some core interests that do bring people to the page.

Putting a link on to The Miniatures Page always brings in a good number of hits surprisingly rather more than similar links from Facebook.   Perhaps I should start spamming more forums?

The good news is that this was never about my becoming a web celebrity (good thing really) but more of it being an outlet for my gaming thoughts and obsessions.  Given that I'm a gamer in his 60's sat typing in a back bedroom on a topic that is never going to set the world on fire I think I'm probably doing OK.  So here is to the next 20,000 hits.  I suspect this post will not generate many of them!

Gaming in a time of Lockdown - Solo play DBA Romans v Sassanids

As I can't play with an opponent during the current Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK I have printed off the solo expansion rules for DBA from the Fanaticus website.  These are intended for use with DBA2.2 but only need a couple of minor tweaks to adapt them to DBA3.0.  These concerned force selection and ensuring forces maximised the support rules.  DBA 2.0 amd by default DBA2.2 has rear support but no side support and that needed correcting to ensure solid bows and solid spears selection reflected the change.   I have since also added some options for garrisoning cities and forts as well.  To be honest the game I played didn't really benefit from the changes I made but they are there for next time.

In this game a Late Imperial Roman force faced an invading Early Sassanid Persian force.  It was the first outing for the Sassanids and my first attempt to use elephants.  As you will see I have learned a few things about their use.  The two armies consisted of

II/69(a) Early Sassanid (Aggressor)
General (Cv), 5 Asaravan (Cv), 1 horse archer (LH), 1 elephant, 1 Daylami (4Ax) and 2 Levies (7Hd).

II/78(a) Western Late Imperial Roman (Defender)
General (Cv), 1 Equites (Cv), 1 Cataphract (4Kn), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH), 2 legionaries (4Bd), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax), 2 Light Infantry (Ps).

The solo rules require the player to select his 12 elements before  working out the options for the non player (let's call that the AI from here on in).  The rules require you to dice for the options but have modifiers to each di roll to create a balanced force related to the troops chosen by the player.  For example it has a modifier to increase the chance of taking pike elements in pairs as they get a rear support bonus which of course requires two units of pike.  You  then decide on the terrain, if the AI is the defender there are rules to determine the AI's choices and placement of the terrain.  Next you deploy then again the rules select the AI formation, group make up and deployment.  this can be a bit random and I will add a rule to avoid anything other than LH being out on a limb. They then go on to determine if you are facing an aggressive, neutral or defensive AI player.  That result will influence the tactics available to the AI each turn as the game unfolds.  There is an option to allow the AI choice of tactic to be overturned by the player if the AI seems to be making a choice which is particularly poor, but it isn't an automatic ability there is a dice roll with a small chance of the AI tactical choice being kept.

As the defender I had the choice of terrain items and placement.  Given that the Sassanids are cavalry heavy and had an elephant I decided to close the terrain down as much as possible and to try to force the elephant to attack where I wanted.  I took the obligatory pair of plough, a difficult Hill, a Bog and a wood.  The dice were reasonably kind and allowed me to load my left flank with terrain but placed the wood to my right.  With Hindsight I might have done better to select an enclosure rather than the second plough as that is always rough going.

I deployed with the Auxilia on the hill covering my left flank, cavalry and cataphracts to the centre of my line (as I expected the Persian cavalry to attack down the central avenue of good going) then the Legionaries lastly the Psiloi with and Light Horse stacked up in column at the end of the line.  I had split the Sassanids into two cavalry commands, as required by the solo rules, an infantry command containing just the levy and an elephant command with Nelly and Daylami support.  The General I kept as a separate command to be able to move him to join the best positioned command as the game developed. The dicing for the Sassanid deployment weighted the centre of the battlefield as expected but put the Levy out on the Sassanid right behind the bog.  The Elephant formed the centre of their line with the Daylami directly in front and the General sat slightly behind.  To it's right are three Asaravan Heavy Cavalry with Light Horse in the second rank.  On the other flank are the Cataphracts then two more Asaravan.

The starting deployment, Romans to the right

Turn one saw the Romans adjusting their line to place the Auxilia more squarely onto the hill with it's rough going and to bring the Light Infantry towards the centre of the line to face the elephant.  I should have remembered that in DBA any light troops or Auxilia  can quick kill Elephants.  The Auxilia would have been a better match up than Psiloi.  On their right they start to make a flanking move around the woods.  The sassanids throw for cautious tactics and only get one pip which means they can only move one element and choose to advance their right hand cavalry group.

End of turn 1, you can see the Roman line being sorted out, lucky the Persians were not more on their game!

Next turn the Romans get 3 pips and use them to continue to sort out their line, they don't have enough to move the Light Cavalry though.  The Sassanids roll cautious again but at least have a decent pip score and are able to move forward almost everywhere.  Who didn't move, yes it was the Levy!

Turn two ends and the Sassanids have started to roll forwards

Turn 3 the Romans are now fairly comfortable with their formation now and have enough pips to start the Light Horse moving again.  The Sassanids roll cautious for the third consecutive turn and again roll a single pip.  they choose to move the elephant group up, which means that they have no counter to the Roman Light Cavalry. still it's going to take a while to get anywhere dangerous.

Turn three the Romans reversed their line slightly and the Sassanids move the Pachyderms forward

By turn four things are starting to look interesting!  The first shock of the game occurs the Roman Psiloi take a chance and engage the Daylami who are exposed ahead of the elephants.  They roll well, have an overlap and the Daylami roll very badly and recoil.  Except they have a big problem, a big gray trampling type problem!  They are in base to base contact with the Elephants and can't recoil through them.  1-0 the Romans.  I told you I learned a few things about using Elephants.  On the Sassanid turn they roll aggressive and get good pips.  They throw cataphracts at one of the Roman Psiloi separate  two Asaravan from their left to attack the Roman Light Horse and charge the right wing Cavalry into combat against the opposing Roman cavalry group.  However the Psiloi are having an outstanding day and force a recoil on the cataphracts.  The main cavalry attack doesn't create much traction either with recoils going both ways but no kills.  It's only over on the Persian left where a Roman Light Horse is trampled under foot due to being unable to recoil that they taste success.  1-1 at the end of turn 4

Those Psiloi are tougher than they look, the Legionaries look on awestruck as they repel a cataphract charge.

Turn 5 sees it all go wrong for the Sassanids.  The Romans throw their cavalry forward and create an overlap with the auxilia who come down off the hill as there is nothing threatening their front.  Both in the Roman bound and then the Sassanid one they Persians have terrible dice rolls and in three combats are doubled by the Romans on their right wing.  4-1 to Rome and game over.  Even had the cavalry fight gone differently next turn would have seen a guaranteed Persian win over the Roman Light Horse but Roman flanking attacks going in against the Persian line at either end.  It would have probably stretched the a Romans slightly but still be a 4-2 win.

The end, there is a striking absence of Persian cavalry at the far end of the line!

The solo rules are OK although the mechanism for tactical options could be better and the way to fix that is with better descriptions of the available options and perhaps some different options, or possibly a grand tactical stage before the game commences as part of the deployment phase.  Either way I'm pretty sure I could beef them up.  I made some poor tactical choices such as not allowing room for the Daylami to recoil and not being more cautious (hard to imagine that with the Sassanid dice) in preparing attacks.  In effect  the Sassanids lost in the approach phase of the battle.

I know an awful lot of people really like DBA but the more I play it the more I see some weaknesses that really should be addressed.  It has it’s strengths too of course, it plays quickly, the rules come with full army lists and decent explanations of the mechanisms in action.  What I don't like is the lack of distant shooting other than for Bows and Artillery, this really hampers bow armed cavalry armies like the Sassanids who would have stood off and shot, evading local counter attacks wherever possible and coming straight back to shoot again.  I understand that the game tries to simulate that at a very high level but it just doesn't have the feel of those tactics.  For the standard game the other serious limiting factor is the 12 element basic army.  I accept that it also allows players to build an army without too big of an outlay but it feels constricting.  Big Battle DBA offsets that to a large extent but still only allows the limited choice across the original 12 elements.

Overall I prefer the two follow up expanded variants to the system DBM and DBMM with their more detailed army lists and extensions to troop types.  I also like ADLG which has mechanisms which cover distant shooting, although it has accuracy issues with it's army list composition.  I am hoping the updated version later this year will have been improved in that respect.

All that said though when I want a quick game that lets me get the toys on the table DBA is a good shout and the solo play modifications do make you think about tactics more than would otherwise be the case.  I'm wondering if I could adapt them to other related games.

So thats week three of lock down done, stay safe everyone and try not to go stir crazy.

Testing Honours of War rules for the Seven Years War - 1 The armies

I have never really played any Horse and Musket period stuff but I have friends who do.   They recommended trying Keith Flint's set in the Osprey rules series set - Honours of War.  By coincidence I saw a copy at a big discount a couple of years ago at Joy of Six and bought them on a whim.  Then did nothing with them other than read them through.  Then a couple of days ago in one of those Face Book things that goes around another friend listed Barry Linden as one of his favourite films.  That got me thinking about the period again and I dragged the rules out for another look.

Although the rules look to be lightweight don't be deceived they hide a lot of period flavour while still being easy to master, which is ideal for big games with a lot of units.  I tend towards big historical battles with lots of troops on the table so that was a big plus.  However, I didn't want to splash out on figures without testing the rules and period first so i turned to paper soldiers.  I looked for some on the web and the ones that I liked were from Junior General's site.  These are top down images and are rather nice as these things go.  The only problem was that they are scaled to match 28mm and I (of course) wanted 6mm or thereabouts.  I couldn't import the original images and resize them so I drew up the figures I wanted in MS Paint at about 15mm size and resized those once I was happy.  For test playing a game or two they will do nicely.

Each square is 2cm - These are Line Infantry

The whole thing took me about a day and was actually quite enjoyable, plus all it has cost me is two sheets of printer paper and some ink.  That has generated six Battalions of Line Infantry, two of Light Infantry, three of Grenadiers, three artillery units and three Squadrons of cavalry for each side.  On top of which are command stands for four Infantry Brigades and one Cavalry Brigade and a Commander in chief for both sides.   They don't represent any particular nation or actual unit.so I suppose I have entered the world of imagi-nations. I will stick the printed troops to some cardboard or mounting board salvaged from other projects and Bob is your Mum's brother or Dad's as the case may be.

My 6mm DBA/ADLG armies in pictures.

As yesterday’s weather was nice and bright I took the opportunity to take some photos of my Pre-gunpowder forces.  These are based to do dual duty for DBA and related games in that family as well as for Arte de la Guerre (ADLG) so descriptions will tend to blur between the two a bit.   I’ve done this for two reasons, first is vanity pure and simple.  Second is to have a record for insurance purposes just in case.  Sorry the images are a touch on the small size but you should be able to click on them to see larger versions.

I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of progress I have made.  At one level I knew what I had painted, but at another it wasn’t real until I saw them altogether.  So without further ado.......

First up are the 9th Century Anglo-Saxons.  General Fyrd (Horde) at the back in three ranks on each base.  Select Fyrd and Hearth Troops at the front.  To me this really looks like a shield wall army in a way that my old 25mm troops didn't. Tactically it’s a bit simple minded as there isn’t a lot of subtlety available when all you have are melee focussed infantry to play with.

Middle Anglo-Saxons 

Next up are the Vikings These are intended to cover the period of the initial raids at the end of the 8th century through to the invasion of The Great Heathen Army and its campaigns in the 860's onwards.  They have a lot of fast swordsmen plus some Axemen (a different class in ADLG), and Hird who are close order for ADLG but 4Bd for DBA.  They also have the option of berserkir, who doesn't love to have an option to use loonies with axes once in a while?  In time I will add more close order swordsmen to cover the armies of the Danelaw from the end of the 9th Century onwards.

Vikings - the loonies with axes have been made to stand by themselves 

Following on from the Vikings come the Strathclyde Welsh.  These are the last of the Sub-Roman British sub lists and are actually a decent bet against other British Dark Age armies.  They have cavalry , both heavy and medium cavalry in ADLG terms along with some halfway decent spearmen, both medium and heavy infantry options in ADLG.  DBA with its 12 element armies over powers them as historically they struggled to hold their own as they were always over faced by the sheer numbers facing them.  in reality they only survived by the careful use of  off of alliances and accepting client kingdom status.  A fun option to use in a Dark Age campaign though..

Strathclyde Welsh - almost combined arms by 9th Century British standards

The Welsh Princedoms or more simply the Welsh are culturally the same people as the Strathclyde Welsh.  The two groups were separated by the expansion of the Anglo-Saxons into three geographical areas wales itself and modern Cornwall who are covered by early welsh lists and the strathclyde welsh of south west Scotland and North Western England.  The  southern Welsh seem to have reverted to a more traditional tribal way of fighting while their northern cousins retained some Roman ideas probably because they were more more romanised in the first place. Their main strength in DBA is in their fast warbands.  ADLG makes them medium swordsmen.  Personally I think a LMI javelin option would suit them quite well.  I haven't tried them out on the tabletop yet.

The welsh Welsh - Fast Warbands are us 

I haven't included the other main forces in Dark Age Britain, being my  the Picts and the Scots-Irish as those armies haven't been worked on since I last posted about them.  Pictures will follow in due course.

Moving on to the more traditional 'Ancient' period we have the ever popular Late Imperial Romans.  I have always had these in my collection going back to the middle 1970's, first in 25mm from Hinchcliffe, then as Irregular Miniatures 6mm and now I am upgrading to Baccus figures. 

As you can see this is an army in transition.  The heavy cavalry and the legionaries at the back are going to be replaced in the very near future.  You can see the difference in basing styles between the Irregular Miniatures castings and the Baccus equivalents in the front ranks.  I have salvaged some light cavalry and Auxilia which have been rebased but the close order castings from Irregular will be retired as soon as the Baccus figures leave the painting table.  This is a true combined arms force with shock heavy cavalry, Cataphracts, artillery. and good heavy and medium infantry options supported by light cavalry and light infantry.  My go to ancients army and it will only get bigger.

Late Imperial Romans - Western Empire

Of course they need something to fight so here are the Early Sassanid Persians.  Levy at the rear of the elephant corps.  You can't see it but the front rank of levy have shovels while the rear ranks have buckets, very big buckets for collecting elephant dung!.  They all have really nice rose gardens at home!  Cataphracts and heavy cavalry backed by horse archers give this army its punch.  Awaiting a couple more heavy cavalry and some LMI javelinmen to complete the basic ADLG 200pt army.  This is another army I used to have in Hinchcliffe 25mm.

Early Sassanid Persian

Last but not least are the Dacians.  At some level I must really have a taste for barbarian infantry armies and this one is better than the average uncouth hairy non Roman.  After all they have a large proportion of semi naked loonies with big choppers, AKA Bastarnae falxmen.  This is an army where you either have to think very carefully or not at all when deciding on how to use them!  For extra oomph Dacians get a Sarmation ally with heavy cavalry, in this case they are Irregular Miniatures and need replacing so they are not so clumped together on the bases..  Again this army needs some expansion but it is a fair way down the to do list so may not get the attention it requires until the back end of the year.

Dacians - We have a cunning plan....rush forward and chop the enemy into teeny weeny pieces

I haven't included the Maurician Byzantines which were my first 6mm army.  They were bought as an Irregular Miniatures battlepack and really need updating  as a lot of the figures are close order castings and don't work for my current basing style.  I'm currently looking around for available 6mm figures (but with no success) or at least decent proxies.

That's the current based and ready fight troops there are a goodly number of additions on the painting table or at least in the queue to get onto the table as listed in the previous post.  Hopefully I can make some serious in roads into those in the next few weeks.  

The Leadpile - March update

Having decided what to do for the weekend, the choice being upstairs, downstairs or garden, Mrs E and I decided on doing some gardening.  Nothing too heavy as Mrs E's arm is still healing so just planted a few bits and pieces and set some seeds for transplanting later in the year.  If the world comes to a grinding halt I should have spinach, courgettes, lettuce, coriander and chillies available.  How many chillies for a pack of Baccus soldiers do you think?

While I was outside I took advantage of the dry weather to spray prime the next batch of figures.  In this batch there are 20 Hun LC, 10 Late Imperial Roman Horse Archers, 10 Goth Medium Cavalry, 20 Sassanid Heavy cavalry 24 Moorish Infantry and Greek psiloi who will become Sassanid LMI, and  64 Late Roman Infantry.  That's everything I need to complete a 300pt ADLG Sassanid Army and most of the balance of a Late Imperial Roman Army too.  That's going to make a reasonable dent in the leadpile, but it doesn't look like Horse by Horse is going back on the bookshelf anytime soon.

The leadpile is still ahead in the painting stakes. After Vapnartak in January I had an additional 594 6mm figures in the pile.  By the end of March I had painted and based 104 mounted figures and 109 foot, so the leadpile is still ahead by 381!  On top of that I have rebased a further 64 foot and 40 cavalry which were those Irregular Miniatures figures that are open order castings and can be separated from the strips they are cast in to be based in the same way my Baccus stuff is.  Those provided two units of Hunnic Light Cavalry and two of Auxilia Palatina.  Not as nice as the Baccus equivalents, but waste not want not and all that.

The transfers I made are working well on the Roman shields although I have found that the red printer ink can bleed through the back of the transfer if soaked too long.  The trick is to hold it with tweezers for a short a period as possible, just enough to get the transfer to slide off the backing paper with a bit of help rather than waiting for it to float off.  Pictures of the results will follow once I have a couple of units done.

I now have completed DBA armies for both Sassanids and Late Imperials and both are almost there for ADLG at 200 pts albeit without much flexibility for alternative troop selections.  After I have done these I think a bit of infantry painting is on the cards.  I have Picts and Scots-Irish from Irregular Miniatures sat waiting for attention, which when done will bring those two up to DBA sized armies.

I also decided to make some more terrain so with help from the ever useful Milliput and cardboard I set to making a marshlands piece.  I'm not 100% happy with it but it will serve I can't get the surface of the water to look completely still.  I have a better result with varnish than I do with Woodland Scenics' realistic water but it still isn't the dead level smooth finish I crave .  Their burnt grass fine turf works well though and I'm very happy with the look of that part of the build.  I have done two versions one as a 3D terrain piece and also a felt outline that will replace it when troops occupy that terrain.  I think that I might try using an image from google earth as the outline as the felt looks pretty naff (do people still say that?) on its own.

See what I mean about the felt?

More self-isolation excitement tomorrow when I may vacuum clean, hell I may even go as far as dusting.  I can hardly wait.

Hoping everyone who reads this is doing well and staying safe.  Take care all.