Trying to hit a moving target

This is not a post about the odds of hitting something with a projectile weapon, but a reflection on the wargaming  targets I set myself for this year.  You see they moved, I wasn't looking and suddenly my priorities changed.  Or possibly I became side tracked.  I don't have a laser focussed, hard edged focus on my targets so it was bound to happen.  This year my interest in creating 2mm armies for Strength and Honour was replaced by an interest in completing my 6mm pike and shot army.  If I do anything with those rules I will actually go with my existing 6mm armies.  My focus on DBA armies which are contemporary with my Late Imperial Romans has remained and my wish to build up some Goths and other assorted migration period Germanic types has also survived.  

As a result my painting time has been given over to painting Goth Warbands and 17th century Bavarian Cuirassiers of late.  I'm here to tell you that painting that blue and white checked Bavarian flag is damn tricky in 6mm too.  I'm reminded of the early versions of the FIFA football video game where the graphics were incapable of showing Blackburn Rover's blue and white halved shirts so they instead used an average tone of pale blue all over!  I tried I really did but I just can't get the lozenges the right shape, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  My Bavarians will have to live with some dodgy diagonal stripes on their flags.  Still progress has been made and so far this month I have finished two bases of ten Cuirassiers and three of 16 Goth foot warriors.

The Goths as they currently stand (or for the cavalry sit)

Adding those to earlier figures I painted earlier in the year gives me the army shown above.  These can be any flavour of Goth or even Vandals I suppose.  They can fight alongside a Hunnic force as allies and at a pinch stand in for Franks or early Saxons.

Hopefully this will be the Roman view of them, from behind as they retreat

This painting output has had the bonus effect of pushing me over my painting target for 2025, yes folks the lead pile is currently 30 figures smaller than it was on 1st  January.  I'm not 100% on target as I have slightly more foot figures than I started with but the amount of cavalry and miscellaneous stuff like artillery and dragoons I have completed has taken me over the total figure count target.  That includes adjusting for the number of figures bought during the year as well.

But what about the moving targets?  Well I have taken some items off the list and added a couple to it.  The plan to extend my DBA armies out to being basic ADLG army size is no longer a priority.  I doubt I will have time to finish my Hunnic or Moorish DBA forces either.  I do have all the figures for the Moors but would need to buy more Huns to get me over the line on that one.  So I have punted all those down the road for the moment.  I'm still torn over what do about the Early Byzantinian DBA army.  At the moment it is entirely made up of proxy figures, but I am very tempted to grab some of the new Baccus figures to replace the current infantry, who would then revert to their Sassanid allegiance.  I suppose I might just get the Moors over the line if I get some serious painting time in, but then again I might not as there are a lot of light cavalry to work through.

It's good to be flexible I suppose, and important to be realistic about what I can achieve over the next few weeks.  Watch this space, as they say, although it is unlikely I might just surprise all of us before 31 December comes around.

A sheepish painting admission

 Yes I'm painting some sheep and not in 6mm either.  Lurking in the furthest reaches of my lead pile were some 25mm sheep from Irregular Miniatures.  These must have been gathering dust for the best part of thirty years as I got them when I visited the workshop when they were based in Norton.  In fact I was discussing Dark Ages figures and Ian gave me some sheep as a freebie with the comment that it would give the armies something to fight over!

I suppose I should flock these?

They are actually rather nice models similar to the Herdwick and Cheviot breeds seen on the Pennine uplands.  I have a solo gaming scenario in mind that they will feature in.  To that end I have rooted around and found a handful of Dark Age figures in  (gulp) 25-28mm.  There I said it, I'm straying from the smaller scales for once.  I'm thinking of a scenario where a couple of Norse farmers go hunting and have to cross the table top encountering various animals or humans.  The objective is to bag a few rabbits or Ptarmigan etc for the pot and get back unscathed.

The sheep are mounted on UK1p coins and just need basing materials adding to be fully completed.  I will be using flock, thank you for asking.

  

Made it! - I beat the lead pile!

There is nothing like leaving things to the last minute, is there?

I set myself the challenge of painting more figures than I bought in 2020.  That meant I needed to paint and base 758 6mm figures, I know some people could do that in a couple of weeks. but for me this is a biggie!  In 50 years of wargaming I have never before ended a year with less unpainted figures than I started with!

I finished and based a couple of DBA elements of early Byzantine Skoutatoi.  I need to texture the base but they are eligible for use under my house rule of no unpainted lead on the table for solo games.  As an aside I have finally found a way of using yellow that will not allow darker colours to show through.  The answer is to use a coat of pale sand or tan yellow over the darker colour then the bright yellow over that.  not my own discovery but something from one of the pro painters out there.  As I type this I am ahead by 5 figures overall but I have three days still to go.

And here they are the first over the finishing line.

 

On The Painting Table

You might have thought that with the lockdown forcing us all to stay at home that I would have done a lot of figure painting, but in reality what has happened is that I have slowed down. I suspect that this is because I'm still working, albeit from home and I'm relatively busy with work.  I was already working that way for a part of each week so I have a desk in the box bedroom which I laughingly call my office This is the same room where I have my painting desk setup and after a day sat there working the idea of spinning the chair around 90 degrees to the painting table isn't as attractive as it was before lockdown.

Still despite all of that I have managed to  move on with some projects.  The Picts and Scots-Irish have full DBA armies now covering the early medieval parts of those lists.  There are reinforcements from Irregular Miniatures in the post for the Picts.  These will let me cover the earlier period of their list to provide an opponent for my Late Imperial Romans, by adding Attacotti and chariots to the mix along with more spears and cavalry.  I have also painted up some more of the 1/2400th Ironclads from Tumbling Dice.

The painting table itself currently has more Sassanids which when painted and based will complete the basic 200pt ADLG army.  There are more Late Roman horse and foot plus some Huns and Goths.  Lastly a few command figures for various of my Dark Age armies so I can morph them to ADLG from DBx.  Oh and some Sassanid armoured spearmen who are going to be the test for proxying as Maurikian Byzantine Skoutatoi.

More Horses to paint, that will keep me busy for a while.

So as the lockdown eases, as they used to say in Hill Street Blues, Lets all be careful out there.

  

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 lead pile and projects

As a follow up from the post about 'The Pledge' I thought I might monitor the movements of my lead pile a little more closely this year.  Just to stop things from getting out of control and as a set of defensive statistics in case of questions from the Memsaab.  Plus it motivates me to make inroads into the unpainted lead.  I don't quite have enough unpainted stuff to allow me to be safe from a radioactive fallout, but it must be getting there.  My trip to Vapnartak has been my only buying activity this year (so far) and painting didn't happen during January for various reasons.

Vapnartak saw the purchase of 150 6mm Cavalry figures (15 of those are mounted generals) and 444 6mm Infantry figures plus 1 (yes that's one) 25mm figure.  In my defence that was a freebie from Galloping Major.  So far I have completed 30 cavalry and 8 infantry figures.  So I make that as the lead pile being in the lead by 556 figures.

Project wise I have made a start on replacing my Irregular Miniature's 6mm Late Imperial Roman's with Baccus figures. I bought enough to form the core of an ADLG army.  Although most of the Vapnartak purchases were for that project, I still have some gaps in the Dark Age Britain armies and I bought some Irregular Miniatures 6mm to cover those.  The idea is to ensure that I have at least a DBA army for all of my dark ages forces and then to head out towards an ADLG 200 point army for each.

Longer term I have a couple of other project ideas,  one is to create an Early/Justinian Byzantine army and to create at least the core (DBA sized) of some barbarian migration period forces for my Late Imperials or Byzantines to fight.  That would probably mean Huns, Franks, Ostrogoths/Visigoths and Avars.  I also have it in mind to upgrade my original 6mm ancient period army of Irregular Maurikian Byzantines bought back in the late 80's or very early 90's.  The problem with creating Byzantine armies is a lack of figures.  Baccus don't do any specifically Byzantine figures so it will be an exercise in proxying.  The early Byzantines are less of an issue as the Infantry didn't look very much different from Late Imperial Romans and the cavalry had enough Sassanid, Hunnic and Avar influences that proxies exist within the Baccus range.  The Maurikians are more of an issue but I'm thinking that a mix of Later Sassanid and either Hunnic, Sarmartian, Gothic or Moorish horse might cover most things.