Sea Kings and Horse Warriors

While discussions of incendiary devices in pre-modern times usually begin and end with the Byzantines and Greek Fire, the use of fire dates to Biblical times. Bronze age armies of the middle east and eastern Mediterranean figured out how to take the pitch or oil from naturally occurring wells and turn it into a weapon capable of being thrown by hand or hurled by catapult. The Byzantines deserve credit for weaponizing available fuel sources into something more potent. In the mid-eighth century, the eastern Roman Empire looked as if it would soon go the way of the western half. It was beset on its frontiers, from the Arabs to the south and Bulgars to the north. Drawing on ancient Greek records and scientific tradition, Byzantine alchemists developed Greek Fire. Primarily a naval weapon, special fire ships were fitted with tanks of fuel and pumps that could spray Greek Fire at enemy ships. 

By all accounts, it was a fearsome device. Supposedly, it ignited on contact with water and could not be extinguished. In reality, some sort of primer or pilot light ignited the fuel, and it only appeared to ignite on contact with the sea, but it would certainly burn on water making it a devastating naval weapon. It could only be put out by smothering. Byzantine fire crews kept sand and vinegar on hand in case of accidental fire.

Its exact composition was a state secret. The liquid mixture was produced by very few (a single family by one account) and the troops who used it knew nothing of its preparation. A similar level of secrecy also applied to the working of the projection device. An infantry version of the pump/flame thrower device was also used with mixed results. It could be clumsy and slow. Once, the Bulgars managed to capture some of the Greek fire, but were unable to operate the equipment. 

Sometime in the mid-tenth century, the armies of the Caliphate also began using a similar pump/siphon device that was handheld, in the fashion of the Byzantine device. Whether this was a result of reverse engineering of the Byzantine invention or the outright acquisition is not known. Incendiaries were devastatingly effective against Crusader siege engines. Saladin's use of naffata troops is well documented. Saladin sent troops armed with Naphta grenades against houses and civilians during an uprising in Egypt led by African troops. The Christian defenders of Jerusalem noted his use of incendiaries in catapults used to attack the city walls. During the Third Crusade, Swimmers smuggled containers of the fuel into Acre during the Crusader's siege of that city. 

While the Greek Fire of the Byzantines was a closely guarded secrets, Arab alchemists were more ready to commit their recipe to paper. One of Saladin's chroniclers describers the burning substance as a mixture of tar, resin, sulphur, dolphin fat and goat fat.

I suspect, the cost, availability and unreliable nature made widespread usage of naffata troops less than common.

Overall, it is safe to say that outside of the navy, fire troops were not common, and very rare in the kind of fast moving skirmish combat that SAGA depicts. Because of its limited range and unpredictability, it was most often used against soft targets (civilians and civilian structures and in sieges).






Naffata in SAGA

Gripping Beast and Essex (far right) figures

In SAGA, a unit of four Naffatun troops can be purchased for a single point. Up to two models can then be assigned to a unit of warriors, but not levies or hearthguard. Naffata shoot with a movement activation, similar to javelin throwers but only at short range.  Since their weapons are an area effect attack, they have +2 to hit on attack rolls. They can generate between one and three hit dice each, up to the controlling player. Why not choose all three? That brings us to the Naffata's disadvantages. If a Naffatun rolls a "1" an accident has occurred and a friendly model must be removed from the unit, controlling player's choice. Another disadvantage, a considerable one in my opinion, is that unlike other shooting attacks, a naffata attack puts a fatigue token on its own unit. However, the defending unit takes at least two fatigues if it suffered any casualties.   

I would like to play these in my next match, mostly as a test of their balance in the game. AS SAGA as advanced, some of the new units have moved to the extremes in terms of bonuses and drawbacks. Correctly deploying them is more tricky than the shield wall and charge combat of early SAGA.  I probably will put them into as large a unit as possible, not a 6 person squad shown above, given their propensity for friendly casualties. 

Some readings used to research this post: 

A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, by J.R. Partington
Medieval Siege Weapons (2), Byzantium, the Islamic World and India 476-1526 AD by David Nicolle

Book 4, Chapter 19, Section 3 of William of Newburgh's history of English monarchy

The Capture of Jerusalem by Saladin from De Expugantione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum

Last year, I purchased a shedload of Essex Arab and Tang Chinese figures from a webstore that was closing down.  A number of them were cavalry and unfortunately they were riders only - no horses. But at well under a dollar for a 28mm figure, I couldn't pass it up.  However, finding compatible horses has been a bit of a quest, but I like the hunt. Essex's would of course be perfect, but after rather high shipping costs and currency exchange, I was looking at about a $4 horse. Wanting to keep costs low, I looked at a variety of plastic sources.

HaT is a manufacturer of mostly 1/72 soft plastic figures.  I have a Macedonian and Persian army from them.  They are good figures, but no one seems to game ancients in that scale - it is either 15mm or 25/28mm.

HaT must have recognized this and has begun putting out a line of 28mm El Cid era figures. They still do not seem to have much of a grasp of the wargame market as their figures are upscaled from their 1/72 line.  Details like chainmail and faces are indistinct compared to any other plastic 28mm products on the market.  Most striking though, are the proportions. The HaT figures are more accurate, with a figure about 7 heads tall, whereas most 28mm figures run 5 or 6 heads tall.  This can make HaT's visually incompatible side by side - if that matters.  Because all I wanted were the horses, which don't seem to suffer from scaling issues, I bought a box:



On the other hand, they are inexpensive.  I can get a pack for under $16 at a "big box" hobby store, or pay a little more via the internet.  That's a decent price for 12 plastic 28mm figures - but are they worth it in terms of quality?

Below, here are some of the Essex heavy cavalry mounted on HaT horses.  All it took was a little shaving of the saddle and some file work on the rider.

Essex Arabs on HaT horses.

HaT Arabs with Gripping Beast heads

Below, a comparison of the converted HaT to similar models.

From left to right, Old Glory, the converted HaT, Gripping Beast and Artizan.

The same horses for my Tang China cavalry



Overall, the HaT's are a good, but not ideal way to supplement your early Arab or Moor army. In light of the recent announcement from Gripping Beast that plastic Arab cavalry is coming in April, I am afraid these might not be so useful after all.

I've seen the Steppe Tribes faction do some pretty nasty stuff in SAGA and have been thinking it would be fun to give them a try. Where to begin, though? "Steppe Nomad" is very broad and nonspecific compared to, say "Norman" or "Welsh."

Nonetheless, warfare in late Antiquity and early medieval was similar across the Eurasian plains. It's just a matter of picking which variety of horse warrior you prefer or can find.

As it turned out, I came across a sizeable number of Khitan, Chinese and Tibetan figures on closeout this summer. Here is the first completed set from that purchase.

The Warlord - This Khitan commander with his falcon is a really nice sculpt. Hunting birds should be seen more in character minis, given their popularity in both Europe and Asia.


The banner was lifted from the Osprey book on Medieval Chinese Armies. Steppe armies, both pre and post Mongol era used color names for the divisions of their armies.





Far East SAGA

This is the first of three Asian forces I'm putting together for SAGA. No custom battle boards this time, because I will use existing battle boards that are most analagous.  The Khitans will obviously use the Steppe Tribes board, and I have some ideas about China and Tibet.  The goal is the end of the year.

Later this week, more Vikings!

As SAGA's Crescent and Cross pushes the game's scope geographically eastward, one of my current projects will take my game even more to the east - China, Tibet and the Mongolian Steppes.

Following the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in 907, tribal peoples to the north of China enjoyed a brief respite from imperial interference. The first to dominate this political vacuum was the Khitans. The Khitans (pronounced kit-ens, not key-tans) were not originally steppe peoples, originating in forested highlands, but they eventually adopted the lifestyle and tactics of steppe warriors.

Steppe tribes succeed under a strong visionary leader, and for the Khitans it was Yelu Aboji (r. 907-926). Under him, they conquered a very agriculturally rich strip of northern China called the Sixteen Prefectures, and at the same time extended their control over more nomadic steppe peoples to their north in Inner Mongolia. From the start, the Khitans set up a dual administrative system, with Chinese governance in the sixteen prefectures, and a traditional steppe tribal structure for the rest of their territory.

Predictably, the Khitan rulers gravitated to the Chinese territories and increasingly abandoned the steppe lifestyle in favor of the luxuries of Chinese imperial governance.  They were a formidable enemy to the Chinese for they combined the power of the steppe horse archers with the wealth and manpower of their Chinese cities.



The Khitans were eventually destroyed by an alliance of the Song Chinese and the Jurchens.  The Song never accepted the loss of traditionally Chinese territory to a barbarian people and hoped to manipulate another group of barbarians into destroying them.  A common enough practice throughout Chinese history, but this time the strategy backfired on the Chinese.  The Jurchen attacked Chinese territory and captured the Song capital and the imperial court in 1127.

My next post on the Khitans will focus on their heavy cavalry and command, along with how I plan to use them in SAGA.

Taking a break from painting was definitely invigorating.  It gave the eyes a bit of a break, I ran a little more, and got ahead on my lesson planning.  But the call of the paintbrushes could not be ignored and earlier this week I returned to the painting table. While I don't have any finished projects to show, this is my progress so far.

Currently on the painting table is a unit of Steppe nomads.  These are Khitans from Essex.  The Khitans were a semi-nomadic people north of China in the tenth and eleventh century, fighting often with the Chinese and Koreans.  However, it was a subject people of theirs, the Jin, who ultimately destroyed their empire.  


Below are two packs of minis I ordered from Curtey's in the UK arrived this week. I placed the order less than two weeks prior - all in all excellent service and I plan to order more, as this was more of a sample order. These are Tibetan cataphracts and heavy infantry.    




So, yes, with the Chinese, Khitans and Tibetans I am now working on more Far East figures for skirmish gaming.  My two options are to modify either SAGA or Ronin for these armies. Ideally, I will play the Chinese and Tibetans on existing battle boards with minimal modification to preserve game balance.  Stay tuned.

And finally, while I was away from the blog I backed this on Kickstarter: Resin Terrain Kickstarter

I have been making an effort to limit my crowd funding budget, but this one struck me as an interesting idea for flexible terrain solutions.

One of the main reasons, I focus on the Dark Ages, rather than earlier (Roman) or later (Gunpowder) eras is that I don't usually like painting units.  I started out in miniatures in my teen years as a fantasy RPG player, so even in wargaming, I like the individuality of the figure.

However...maybe I am of a different mind now.  While working on my Gripping Beast Arabs, I also decided to hit the lead mountain and paint this unit of Arab infantry from Essex.  Colors and heraldry may have entered Europe through exposure to Muslim armies in Spain or the Near East, so uniformity of colors may be appropriate in this instance.

Essex is one of the older players in the historical miniature market and the figures are a bit dated.  The posing is stiff, the hands are poorly formed and they are a bit "flat" which was a necessity in older casting tech.  On the positive side, fabric folds and belt details are finely done and hold up alongside recent lines.




I like the look of a 15 man unit (two are not pictured) lined up in identical colors.  A unit of identically painted Holy Order Crusaders might match against them nicely.  The movement tray is from Litko and the printed flag was found at the DBA Fanaticus site: Flags and Banners for DBA

Bonus pic below is another easy conversion of a GB Arab head on a Wargames Factory Numidian body for a light skirmisher.

Having good experiences with Gripping Beast's previous plastic releases, I preordered their Arab Spearmen and Archers boxed set.  A quick plug for my favorite online retailer - Architects of War - my order arrived on Friday, .



The box contains eight identical small sprues and there is no separate command sprue.  Each sprue contains five unarmored bodies and eight heads.  Three of the bodies have premodeled left arms for shield carrying warriors.  The other two bodies have attachable arms that can be used as archers or light spearmen.  The weapons on each spear are five right arms with spears, two right arms with bows, two quivers, three round shields, two teardrop shields, one right arm with a sword, one right arm with a horn and four attachable left arms in several positions.  Also included, is a green Renedra sprue with assorted base sizes for individually mounting a few figures and group basing the rest.



The quality of the figures is up to the standard set by previous Gripping Beast plastic releases.  Mold lines are minimal and the parts detach cleanly from the sprues.  The poses and stances are very natural; excellent for ranking up into large units.

I know some hobbyists do not like the preset left arm and prefer the adaptability of being able to attach more parts separately. For me, that's one less unnecessary gap to fill. Speaking of, all of the arms on my first batch attached very well. The gap line was so minimal that a little extra paint was sufficient to fill it in.

With any plastic release, a common complaint centers on the offerings - what's included and what's not.  I expect the lack of a command sprue with an armored officer and retinue will bother some as it has been a feature of previous previous plastic releases from this manufacturer and others.  In all honesty, I already have plenty of those figures in metal.  I appreciate forty low level troops for a reasonable price, saving the show pieces for metals.  And while the package and sprue size is very efficient, it means fewer add ons. For me, a few extra bits would have been a nice inclusion: small pennant banners, swords in scabbards and another shield variation.  

The five figures from a single sprue

As for uses, Gripping Beast obviously brought this set out in time for the SAGA Crescent and Cross release. Even without that tie-in, affordable Arab/Saracen troops is something the market has been demanding for some time.  The box touts the fact that the figures can be used from pre-Islamic conquest up to the Renaissance Ottoman battles.  I suspect with a little bit of conversion, some Colonial gamers could put these into a Mahdist uprising battle. But if a gamer wants to be most accurate, these are centered on the Crusade era.  The fully veiled heads will make good Berbers from the Almoravid invasion of Spain, while the beardless turbaned heads could be good for Ghazi era Persia - enemies of Seljuks. Speaking of Seljuks, I don't think these would fit Seljuk infantry for the Crusade period.  Eleventh century Seljuks might have been more likely to be bare headed or helmeted, and most would favor trousers over robes.

Outside of historical armies, lots of eastern themed fantasy options exist.  A Middle Earth gamer could use these for Easterlings. I have been itching to return to my Dark Sun AD&D game, and with some appropriate weapon changes, a few of these might do as NPCs.

For the archers: The Gripping Beast in the center is a bit a less bulky than the Artizan Moor on the left, but they should mix in well together.   The Essex Arab archer on the right is noticeably diminutive beside them.  It is an older figure, and obviously a victim of the "scale creep" in 25/28mm.

SAGA's introduction of the Steppe Nomads into the recent expansion has opened up a number of figures I have acquired from my years of gaming with Byzantines.  While not as numerous as Vikings, Saxons and Normans, SAGA gamers can find a number of steppe figures that can fit into the early medieval period.

The Pechenegs 

The Khazars, probably a Turkic people, were for a time the dominant power on the southern Steppes in the early medieval period. In the ninth century, the nobility converted to Judaism, probably as a way of trying to balance relations with both the Christian Byzantines and the Islamic Abbasids. At the same time, they were dealing with territorial challenges from the Rus to their north and Pecheneg Turks migrating through their lands. The Pechenegs became something of a player or a pawn in the ambitions of the Rus, Khazars and Byzantines on the southern steppe.  Pechenegs in the service of the Byzantines killed Sviatoslav I of Kiev and, as typical of the times, turned his skull into a drinking goblet.

Old Glory's pack of Pechenegs has 10 figures in 5 poses.  Additionally, the bodies are in two pieces - an advantage for those wishing to convert or customize.  I found it to be too much work, with large gaps that needed filling.

The Seljuq Empire on the eve of the First Crusade photo from Wikipedia

With two Rus factions for SAGA forthcoming, I thought it would be a good idea to run through some of my Rus figures.  Most of them were purchased as a way to give an eastern focus to my Viking army, without the intention of building a separate Russian army.  As it turns out, I have a few figures from most of the manufacturers currently.

Below are some Magister Militum Rus. These are metal figures of average to good casting quality. The sculpts are well detailed, but not as good as the Gripping Beast figures. Shields are separate, and soft metal spears are included, which I chose not to use.