The More the Merrier

Or in this case 'The Moor the Merrier' or Mauri, it's the North West African chaps who are the focus of this post.  I was looking through my lead pile and realised that I had bought a couple or three packs of Moorish Infantry.  These were used for various Dark Age types like the Welsh Princedoms and Dal Radian Scots.  The castings are bare legged and only have a tunic so they can be pressed into service as any number of lower class skirmishing foot types in that period.  I have sufficient of those for the time being so I decided to use them as Mr Berry intended, well I had quite a lot of them more (or should that be moor) than enough to cover the DBA3 infantry requirements for a Later Moorish army.

With very little variation in clothing choices, which meant a restricted palette, painting looked like it was going to be easy.  White(ish) tunic,  some dyed cloaks dark skin tone and then just animal skin shields in a mid brown, hair in a dark colour and weapons.   Well at least it it looked easy!  Moors didn't have the really dark skins of Sub-Saharan Africans  so getting that shade right took a few goes and as for the white tunics....Arghh!  White is one of those colours which is difficult to shade (I really must try a contrast type white paint at some point) and it took me a few attempts before I came up with an system that I was happy with.

I started with a white undercoat courtesy of Halfords ever reliable rattle can automotive primer.  I pre-shading on that but didn't like the contrast it gave.  So I had a cup of tea and a bit of a think ( but didn't take off any handles or things what hold the candles*) and decided on a new approach.  I painted all the tunics in Vallejo Bone white which is more of a pale coffee brown and all the flesh in Vallejo German Camouflage Brown a darker mid brown with a hint of something else in the mix possibly blue.  Only then did I apply a thinned wash of GW Agrax Earth Shade.  After which I dry brushed the tunics in Vallejo Ivory and then picked out some high spots in Vallejo Pure White.  It sounds like a lot of work but it doesn't take as long as you might think.  Adding some variations between black and chocolate brown for hair and some pale brown for javelin shafts pretty much completed the main paining.  A coat of varnish and the final touch of silver for and bronze to weapons and officers helmets and that was job done.

A gratuitous close up so you can see the final effect on those pesky tunics

Basing is my usual black basing sand and fine flock patches.  I used less flock than normal as Moors live in the Semi-Arid lands of North West Africa.  I will have to order some Moorish cavalry next time I'm buying from Baccus, then the Moors can be off to the races (see what I did there?). I have completed 44 of the infantry to date and have a further 36 on the painting table nearing completion.

A few more Moors (sorry I couldn't resist it), there are more to come (sorry, not sorry) 

The Moors are an interesting army in DBA a general who is either cavalry or light cavalry, five Light Cavalry and six javelin armed foot who can be a mix of  light infantry or fast auxilia. Not a lot of punch but a whole lot of nuisance value.

As an aside, and I may already have posted about this.  I read something on a blog a while ago which has been a game changer in terms of brush care.  The occasional use of alcohol based hand sanitiser gel to clean brushes!  The gel means it sticks to the brush and it removes acrylic paint a treat, being clear also means you can see what is being shifted too.  It doesn't seem to damage the glue holding the hair in place, although I take the precaution of washing them out in warm water with a drop of Mrs E's shampoo in it afterwards.  After a second rinse they get a bit of hair conditioner then a final rinse and dry.

* For the education of younger readers go look for Bernard Cribbins' song "Right Said Fred".  It's a tale of the trials and tribulations of two removal men.  As an aside we had a second hand upright piano when I was very young that had both handles and things what held candles!  Life eh?

The Great War in the Air - Part two

 The charts and tables

If you have looked at the original rules for Flying Circus you will have seen that those rules had a bespoke chart for each aeroplane.  That wasn't going to work with the much larger number of 'planes I had in mind so I took inspiration from another game where a generic data sheet was used and the bits that were not required were blanked out and specific data added into the relevant boxes.

The Control Sheet
You will need one of these for each aeroplane on the table with the relevant min and max data added and irrelevant parts blanked out.  You will also need some markers to track current height, speed, overspeed, ammunition  and damage.

Speed (throttle) shows the current movement points in level flight and is the speed generated by the engine.  If an aeroplane has dived it can gain additional Kinetic Energy (KE) this is acceleration due to gravity less deceleration from drag.  The maximum energy an airframe can 'store' from diving either in a Power dive (PD) or a Steep Dive (SD) is limited by a number of factors.  Lets lump all of those together as 'drag'.  That number is recorded in the Max KE box while the KE which is gained by diving is shown in the Kinetic Energy gain and loss section gains by power diving or steep diving on the left side and conversely the amount lost each turn in level flight (LF) or climbing is on the right .  If the airframe is storing kinetic energy it is tracked on the extra speed from diving track  This energy can be useful or may risk damage if the 'plane exceeds the VNE speed (velocity never exceed) as recorded in the VNE box.  Aeroplanes may also accelerate under power (Throttling up) or decelerate by cutting power and letting drag have it's effect.  The maximum number of movement points that can be gained or lost in a turn by these actions is recorded in the movement maximum gain and loss area.

Height is tracked using a counter on the three height tracks one shows 50 feet increments up to 1,000 feet, one 1,000 feet increments up to 10,000 feet and the last is in increments of 10,000 feet.  To track current height you need three counters one on each track.  Of course all aeroplanes have a maximum ceiling which is recorded to the left of the height tracks along with a box to record the maximum climb rate of the aeroplane.  Note that some manoeuvres can have an effect on the altitude of the 'plane.

Turn codes are the number of hex sides that can be moved through in a single hex and the cost per side in movement points and the number of hexes required in forward flight before making the next turn.  Turn codes A- D are as in Flying Circus.  I added extra more sluggish turns for larger aeroplanes These are turn codes E and F.  Code E costs one movement point for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  Turn code F costs two movement points for the first hex side and can only turn one hex side in a single hex.  In both codes E and F the aeroplane must move forwards one movement point before making another turn.

The Statistics
You may not agree with some, or all of these and I can't be certain that they are anywhere close to actual performance data.  This is because I tried to find formulas which gave me the same stats as Flying Circus provided for it's original list of aeroplanes.  To do that I had to work with what data was actually available.  I could calculate secondary stats like lift area and power to weight ratios, but its all a bit vague really. Actual aircraft designers should probably look away now! What it does do is generate different data for different 'planes and in general scouts perform better than two seaters perform better than multi-engine types.  In general early war craft are more fragile that later war stuff.  V- strut sesquiplanes with smaller lower wings than upper are also a riskier proposition especially in steep dives but gain lift and turn rate as well as improved downwards visibility.

I used some ludicrously complex formulas to generate some kind of differences between the various aeroplanes and added some wild approximations as well.  Feel free to change anything you like, after all its all pseudoscience really!  What I have is a complicated spreadsheet but more on that next time as it really needs a post of its own, which is code for I need to tidy it up so it makes sense to people other than me!

Mixed emotions!

 A number of years ago I added a plea onto the Baccus forums for the esteemed Mr Berry to create a range of early Byzantines so I could replace my venerable Irregular Miniatures army.  At the time the response was that it may happen but not in the immediate future.  However, I wanted a Byzantine army, specifically one for the 5th - 6th centuries, so I decided to proxy other Baccus figures to that very end.    Sassanid regular infantry had a suitably large shield so I started there and though I say so myself they don't look too bad, yet they were not perfect.  In my mind's eye I had an image of the old Hinchcliffe 25mm figures but in glorious 6mm, but needs must and all that.  At 'The other Partisan' last month I bought some of Mr B's Hunnic Noble to serve as, well, Hunnic Nobles, but also to proxy for Boukellariioi for Belisarius or Narses.  This week in a fit of enthusiasm I started to work on a second unit of Skoutatoi.  No sooner had I started then 'bingly bong' goes my mobile phone to alert me to the fact that Baccus 6mm have launched a new range for a new period.  Yes you guessed it the period is 'Late Antiquity' and the range 'Early Byzantines'.

So this is the cause of my mixed emotions the infantry are exactly what I was dreaming of but I already have proxy troops for that role.  I almost wish that they were not what I wanted, but the entire range is perfect!  Damn you Mr Berry, now I think I may be falling prey to some form of compulsive behaviour disorder.  This is caused by knowing that the exact figures I want are out there so my lovingly proxied Sassanids are no longer ticking the right boxes.  I must have proper Byzantines, I need proper Byzantines!!!

Not 'proper Byzantines' but I was happy with them until.....

So in due course I will, of course, weaken and buy said 'proper Byzantines' the only question remaining is what to do with the demobilised Sassanid proxies, other than use them as Sassanid regular infantry (well that would be too easy wouldn't it).

Proper Byzantines!  (image from the Baccus 6mm catalogue)

Other than the above mixed emotions the new range looks really useful.  It will cover Justinian Byzantines and Maurikian Byzantines, it has the Avar influenced half armoured cavalry (drool)) as well as lance and bow armed heavy cavalry.  At a push it would cover Byzantine armies through to the introduction of the kite shield in the late 10th Century.  The castings look excellent, you can see them here Baccus 6mm and the later Byzantines from the early Medieval range are here Baccus 6mm.  I now have a terrible stabbing pain in my wallet!