Progress in April - the leadpile diminishes

Lockdown has actually slowed down my painting output, odd isn't it.  I suspect it is because while still working, I'm now doing this from home every day and not just three days a week.  That means I have more freetime and things I would have been putting off are getting moved up the priority list which means that figure painting is being moved down!  The good news is that I haven't bought any more figures so the leadpile is still diminishing.

The photos are pretty poor I'm afraid its really sunny here today and my phone camera doesn't seem to cope well with contrast.

As well as the 6mm stuff, I also painted a couple of old castings in 25mm (or possibly 28mm) that have been sitting in the lead pile for a couple of decades or more.  I think they are Grenadier fantasy figures from the 1980's or 90's but I'm not sure.  They don't feature on the leadpile statistics as they aren't part of the 6mm pile.  I'm not sure how I am going to texture the bases yet.  I might try something different from my usual sand and flock approach.  These are big beasts at 30mm from the soles of their feet to their eyeline.  I have an idea in mind to use these to throw a spanner into the works for any French and Indian Wars skirmish games I might host in the future.

Not sure what these are but they will be fine as Sasquatch

During April I managed to complete 11 elements based for DBx or ADLG totalling 60 cavalry figures and 56 foot figures all in glorious 6mm-arama.  This is made up of two Late Roman Auxilia Palatina bases, 2 Sassanid LMI Javelinmen bases, 2 Gothic heavy cavalry (Roman Foederati), and 4 Late Roman Heavy Cavalry (Equites).  On top of which my resin pile is slightly smaller too.  I have completed 3 Dark Age buildings and a Roman villa.  The buildings are a mix of Levan and 2D6 and are as always lovely sculpts.

Auxilia Palatina with home made transfers on the shields

I have used Moorish Infantry for the Daylami LMI as they are Ax(Fast) in DBA and Light Medium Infantry in ADLG so a less well regimented look seemed right.  There are only 12 figures per base compared to 16 for DBA Solid Auxilia or the ADLG Medium Infantry Sword which also helps distinguish them.

Daylami Javelinmen for the Ssassanids.  

The Roman Equites are part of the revamp of my Late Imperial Romans they are Baccus late Imperial Roman Heavy cavalry.  To be honest apart from the lack of cloaks they seem almost identical to the Goth heavy Cavalry.  If need more I may try the earlier period Heavy Cavalry instead just for some variety.

Roman Equites

The Goth heavy cavalry are the first ones I have actually painted as Goths.  All the previous ones to cross the painting table have become Strathclyde Welsh noble cavalry.  I have some Goth medium cavalry in the queue and likewise those will be the first of those to be actual Goths too.  I really like the Gothic range from Baccus, nice sculpts and capable of being proxies for a huge range of other armies as they are generic Dark Age migration period barbarians.  My only historical quibble is that none of the foot have the strange, stepped shoulder, coffin shields, although that would stop them being such useful proxies.

Gothic Heavy Cavalry.  Lets claim it was at dawn and they riding out of the sunrise...or something!

The buildings are a Leven Roman Villa which has been sitting around for a year or more a small viking hut also from leven and two thatched 2D6 dark age buildings.  These work well with the leven anglo-saxon and viking range but seem a bit big compared to the leven Roman villa, still tey are never going to be side by side on the table so it's all fine, and both are simply lovely sculpts.

More Urban sprawl.  I remember when this was all rural drop terrain

The leadpile is still ahead by 265 6mm figures compared by the start of the year, but I have actually painted more cavalry than I bought so I'm ahead there by 19 figures.  Still not going to run out of figures anytime soon though, although I may need to give Irregular Miniatures some of my money for some castings that Baccus don't do, or at least don't sell in small enough numbers for what I need.It's not going to be much of an order mostly foot command figures, but you know how it is once I start to look at the online catalog almost anything could happen!

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.

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.  

Another week another game

Apologies for another post without pictures.  I was so involved in the game that I forgot to take any photos.

In a personal best for consecutive games this century, Tuesday of last week saw me back at the gaming table.  this week for a game of Arte de la Guerre.  Now these are a set of rules I own and really wanted to like.  For those who haven't seen them (have you been off planet or something?) these are an extremely popular set on the competition circuit and get a lot of blog coverage.  Trebian hosted the game and has already posted a battle report over on Wargaming for Grown ups (Link to Wargaming for Grown Ups) so I'm going to stick to a quick personal view.

As I say I wanted to like these rules and I did.  Like all rule sets there are niggles but overall these are because of the basing conventions and are similar to those experienced in any game with DBx style element basing. What I did like was the use of cohesion points to give a bit of resilience to the units.  Heavy Infantry need to take four cohesion hits before being destroyed, most other units take three,  with light troops taking two.  Units with a single cohesion hit fight with a disadvantage which means that you have to think about screening melee troops and withdrawing the screening units before they are destroyed.  I'm less keen on the army lists which feel very competition focused and don't have the detail of the lists from DBM or DBMM.

The rules are translated from the French and the translation is very good but some of the concepts do need a moment or two before they click.  For example heavy troops are not better armoured than medium troops.  Instead its a measure of how close packed and how resilient they are.  I have settled for thinking of light troops as open order, medium as at deploying at order and heavy as being at close order.  Instead there is an option to give some troops the 'armour' capability giving them the chance to offset loosing combats effects.  To make things even more confusing Cataphracts and Knights are already 'armoured'.

All of that aside the game played well and allowed a battle to be played to a conclusion in under three hours.  It was tight and winning didn't harm my view of the rules either!