Wargaming Girl

It took me a few evenings longer than I'd thought to finish these off, but they're done now. This unit of cataphracts and the command base (added to the light horse I painted a very long time ago) will allow me to field a small Scythian ally with my Sarmatians. And it's only taken me six years to get them done!

Cataphracts:






Commander:






I'm not sure if it really shows in the pics, but these chaps all have some fancy freehand patterning painted onto their sleeves, trousers and the saddlecloths.


I've placed an order for the additional figures that I need for the Mongols, but it will be a while before they are ready for me to start painting them. Which means I'll have to work on something else until then. the big questions is "Sea Peoples or 6mm ACW?". You'll just have to wait and see which I decide to go with.

Edit to add:

Oooh! This was my 1100th post!

With the Ming chinese done and dusted (for now) it was time to move on to something else. I was planning to make a start on the additions to my Mongol forces but when I got them out on the table I realised that I was missing a bunch and I'll need to place an order for them. Scratch the Mongols for now.

I don't want to work on the Sea Peoples army just yet, so I had a look through my various drawers to see what else there was. Lo and behold I found a quick project I could work on - some Scythian cataphracts and command group. I did make a start on them about, ooohh, very nearly six years ago and they've sat in the drawer part-painted ever since. Truth be told, I'd barely started painting them when I must have moved onto a different project.


It was long overdue that I should finish them, so I put them on the table and started painting. I've managed to get most of the way through and might even finish the painting tomorrow night.

These will allow me to field a Scythian ally force with my Sarmatians - essential if you want to have more than two units of light horse.

Today's review is of my first "proper" (ie historical) army - 15mm Sarmatians. You know, the big scary block of big scary men on big scary horses with long scary pointy things (or BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT; or the BSB for short!). I haven't added to the army for a couple of years and there are still a load of figures to be completed at some point - the horses are done, but I still haven't finished prepping the riders, let alone painting them!

I've also got some Scythian heavy cavalry and command group sitting in a drawer part-painted. I really should finish those at some point.

Anyway, pics.

Bulgar medium cavalry

Rhoxolani "other cavalry"

Alan and Scythian light horse

Light foot

Medium foot

Generals

Baggage camp

BSBoBSMoBSHwLSPT

It's certainly interesting to see how my painting and basing has developed over the years since I painted these. All the figures here are Donnington Ancient & Moderns. For the cavalry with lances and spears the worst part was having to drill out the hands. I think I only sunk the drill bit into my own hand a few times...

Ooops! A week since my last post - I'm slipping again. Fortunately that is only in terms of posting here and not as a result of being idle.

Whilst I might not have made as much progress as intended on the Mongol light foot, at least there is a good reason. I realised that the only chance I'd get to do any spray priming would be at the weekend, so I spent a couple of evenings gluing them onto sticks for painting (and gluing riders onto horses).

I also had a game of FoG:AM on Thursday to give Clive some practice before Warfare. He's taking Mid Republican Romans which was a good excuse for my Sarmatians to have a gentle trot across open steppes. they took along some Scythian mates. Sadly, I didn't take many pictures, mainly as a result of me trying to compensate for my completely idiotic initial deployment.





My crappy deployment was made all the worse by my truly awful dice rolls in combat and the loss of two generals. I think the horsey boys were regarding their model generals as extensions of me and showed their contempt for Clive killing them by passing their cohesion tests with flying colours.

In the end we ran out of time, but it was a clear "winning draw" for the Romans. At least the horses got some exercise for the first time in a long while.

With hindsight, I should have taken Siracae or Iazyges Sarmatians rather than the Rhoxolani. Their shooty medium cavalry is "Bow*" rather than "Bow". This means that in single rank where they can evade, they only get 1 die per 2 bases which effectively means no shooting against most opponents. The alternative is to have them 2 ranks deep so that they can shoot (but can't evade). The inability to evade means risking being charged and then being at a disadvantage in the combats to follow.

Our club has been introduced to a set of French ancients rules - L'Art de la Guerre" - by Seb. The English translation of these is now available and we made a mass purchase. I picked up my copy on Monday evening. Having had a quick read through and seen bits of some games at the club, they look to be a great set of rules. Army size is somewhere between DBA/DBM and FoG. Command and control looks quite interesting and will lead to some tough decision making when the armies are in contact. Two great advantages of the game - you only need one d6 and the armies should fit in a small box making transport very easy. The movement and range units are in 40mm increments for 15mm-based troops, which with the smaller table size used means that battle lines will get into melee quite quickly.


Anyway, that's enough rabbiting about games, time for some workbench chit-chat.

Mongol Light Foot

They're nearly finished. I just need to do belts, metals and the fur trim to the coats and hats, give them a Klear/ink coat, spray with matt varnish and flock the bases.



Seven Years War Russians

Yesterday morning I was thinking I wouldn't be able to do any priming as it looked like rain was on the way. Fortunately the sun came out instead, so in the afternoon I set up to do the spray priming. I'd managed to spray the artillery, commanders and grenadiers with the red primer. However, the can ran out when I was part of the way through the first of the 6 musketeer regiments.




So, I moved onto the cavalry and primed them grey. Very little of their uniform is red, so there was no benefit for using red primer for them.


This morning I popped out to Halfords for some more red primer.


I picked up 2 cans so that I will have enough for future infantry and artillery additions, I should have picked up a can of grey as well for the cavalry additions I will be making. I can do that next weekend or some other time.

The weather today has been grey and damp, so I haven't been able to continue with the priming. I'm hoping for some decent weather next weekend.


Painting Plans for the coming week:

1. Finish the Mongol light foot

2. Start on the Russians. I'll probably do the artillery first, then the commanders, then the grenadiers. The artillery should be quite quick as the crews had red uniforms and the woodwork of the guns and limbers was painted a rusty red colour (so I'll just have to paint the metalwork - result!).

Another game against Alan, this time against his Early Successor army with the same Sarmatian list I used against Jerry. For this game we agreed to play on a 5' x 4' table. I must apologise for the quality of the photos - the table was in a dimly lit spot and Alan kept blocking the light so I had to snatch shots quickly (hence the camera shake. Believe me, the pics I've omitted are even worse).


My main force - most of my lancers flanked by half my shooty cavalry on my right wing with the Scythian light horse forming the centre. Their job would be to delay, harass and maybe break up the lines of his pike phalanx.


My left wing was over at the edge with the Sarmatian light horse, the 4th lancer unit and the other half of my shooty cavalry. The plan was to drive through the gap between two areas of brush and come onto Alan's flank and rear. Alan had other ideas though, and sent his medium foot supported by light horse and some cavalry to occupy the terrain and threaten my flanks.


My right and centre are going to plan. The lancers and shooty cavalry are starting to get into position to turn the flank of his phalanx, whilst the Scythians have disrupted their line a bit and are no holding off his skirmishers and smellyphants.


Back on my left wing, the light horse have broken Alan's light horse and my left-hand shooty cavalry have broken his lancers. However, his medium foot are in position to charge my right-hand shooty cavalry in the rear....


....as this picture demonstrates quite nicely!


Heading back to my right wing, things didn't quite go to plan, and I've lost a unit of lancers to his Elite pikemen. Mind you, I've got cavalry who could potentially get into position to flank charge his pikemen, which would help.


Unfortunately the landlord called time before I could play my last turn. I was nicely set up here to charge the fragged medium foot in the rear (which would automatically break them) while my other shooty cav and lancers would charge those two units of medium foot, who are "in the open" with one of them "in column".

However, I didn't get to play that turn, so I only managed a narrow victory having broken 2 and fragmented 1 of Alan's units, whilst only 1 of mine was broken.

What I could have done better:

1. Run my lancers hard up the right edge of the table in column before turning them to come in on the flank and rear of the phalanx. The Sarmatian light horse and shooty cav should be used to screen them and prevent the phalanx turning/wheeling to meet the lancer threat.
2. Pick an army where the shooty cavalry are Bow rather than Bow*
3. I should have run the Scythians up on the left wing, through the central block of brush terrain.

Jerry's Romans first faced my Sarmatians about 18 months ago. That game was 650 points and his Romans back then were Mid Republican; my meatheads were Iazyges. This rematch was Early Imperial Romans against Rhoxolani. Could I do better than a narrow win this time?

My army consisted of:

FC + 2 x TC
1 x 4 Light Horse (Average, Unprotected, Bow Sword)
4 x 4 Lancers (Superior, Armoured, Lancer/Sword)
4 x 4 Other Cavalry (Superior, Protected, Bow*, Light Spear/Sword)
Scythian Allies -
FC
3 x 4 Light Horse (Average, Unprotected, Bow, Sword)

Jerry's Romans consisted of a bunch of Legion, some medium foot auxiliaries, a few cavalry and some useless skirmishers.


As you can see from our deployments, the decision to play on a 6' x 4' table was vindicated!


"Meatheads - prepare to advance"

On my right flank are the Scythians. My plan was to use these to distract (and maybe break up) Jerry's line of Roman legions. My meatheads were aiming to edge across onto the Roman right flank, supported by some of the shooty cavalry.


Things look to be going to plan, with Jerry voluntarily breaking up the legionary line in response to taunts from the Scythians. The Sarmatian light horse charged and caught the evading light foot; Jerry's light horse were being variously charged and shot at by my shooty cavalry on my left flank.


One of Jerry's legionary units has charged the Scythians, mainly to allow his lancer cavalry to join the scrummage against my lancers. Of course, this left the legionaries rather isolated and surrounded by skirmishing light horse.

At the top of the picture you can see the Roman cavalry moving into position to prevent my carefully positioned flank charge against the legions. Oh well!


A couple of turns later....

Remember that legion which charged the Scythians? See that unit just up and right from the centre spot? Same one, broken by massed shooting and a flank charge! There do seem to be a lot of "Broken" markers and missing units on the Roman side....


And the Romans are routed! In the last melee phase I managed to break 2 more units to win 22:3 - a much better result than last time.

This game did teach me two things - Protected Bow* cavalry aren't much cop and I need to work a bit more on light horse positioning.

Challenge Submissions

Another submission went in this afternoon - 32 Swiss halberdiers, which will score me 64 points. This would have placed me 7 points behind Ray, but he managed to sneak a unit of cavalry in, scoring him 52 points. And he has, apparently, got a load more stuff almost finished. It doesn't look as though I'll catch him then.

Also, having leapfrogged ahead of Fran the other day, he's zoomed past into 4th place with a huge entry. No way I'm going to catch him now either.


Completing my Swiss

The halberdiers will be the last of the Swiss for a little while. I've decided to hold off on the pikemen for now, until the mass of lead I ordered from Donnington today arrive. Then I'll paint them all up together - 256 pikemen! Plus some more handgunners, crossbowmen, artillery and the command stands....


What's next?

I've (re)started work on my Scythians. I'd left the light horse with the riders primed and the horses part-painted a few months back, but with the Swiss decision I needed something to paint up. I've managed to get a decent way through these today - horses almost finished (just metalwork and horsehair tassels to do) and the riders have had trousers and jackets done. I might manage to finish painting them tomorrow, so they may be based, flocked and tufted for submission to Curt on Wednesday all things going well. Like the Croats, these will be a fairly colourful bunch.

After these guys, I'll be switching back to 28mm and the Normans. This afternoon I washed the various (Conquest Games) infantry and knights sprues in warm soapy water, rinsed them and have left them to dry. At some point this week, I'm going to have to do a very big assembly session. Hmmm, maybe I should prep some more 15mm stuff to preserve my sanity?

Well, everything is done now for this regiment - matt spray varnished, basing gunk dry-brushed, tufted, flocked. So, here are some pics of the finished regiment, including some close-ups *shudder*









I've somehow managed to paint up 650 points worth of troops, which is plenty for an army as it stands - I just need some command groups to actually use them. Looking through the drawer with the rest of my 30YW lead pile, I've got the following to prep up:

12 mounted figures for command groups
12 Reiters/Harquebusiers
2 field guns
10 dragoons
casualty markers* - 8 horses, 8 riders, 8 musketeers, 8 pikemen
"ambush" markers - 4 herdsmen plus sheep, pigs, goats, chickens
Camp items - 2 wagons (plus 2 draft horses); religious group (altar, priest, 4 monks); farrier, assistant and horse; goods/cargo (barrels, sacks, crates, cannonballs, chests); foot officer figure
22 pistol armed "horse"** (late war) plus 2 mounted standard bearers
9 assorted mounted standard bearers***

* to be used as markers for Cohesion state
** not a priority for painting up right now
*** I might paint up a couple of these to go with the foot officer or on other camp bases

Obviously my priority for prepping and painting are the command groups, and I might as well prep the Reiters, artillery and dragoons as well. This will probably keep me occupied for a couple of evenings, then it will be a couple of days for priming (and allowing the gesso to fully cure) before I get to painting them.

In the meantime I do have a few things I can be getting on with as a break from doing prep-work - my Scythians are looking accusingly at me, as are the various SF figures I've started painting (battle bots, space demons, Chewks). I also need to do the basing on my Saga Vikings.