II/82a Western Patrician Roman v III/35b Feudal Spanish

A last chance to get my new armies on the table before the end of the year! I'm using a 1.2m square board. It's a broad valley, narrowing to a defile: featuring steep hills on three sides with low, wooded hills within the valley.

Romans roll defender and field a German-heavy option, and elect to keep an Ax back in their fort. With a feeling they ought to have opted for a Hun LH they have 3x4Wb, 1xBd, 2x4Ax, 2xPs, 1Cv, 2x3Kn, and a KnGen. 

Spanish roll aggressor and field the first or main of any option. This leaves them a core of 3x4Sp supported by fast Cb; two javelin toting Ps, one LH for annoying enemy deployment of light troops, one Cv for killing said light troops, and the real strength, 3Kn and a KnGen. 

The Spanish push lighter groups up near the limit of deployment. It's nice to have plenty of room!

Turn 1

PatRom PIP=1!

The mass of troops move forward at slowest pace, 2BW.

FeuSpa PIP=6!

Left flank LH+Ps race forward then split, the Ps ducking inward to ZOC PatRom right; LH stays clear ready to zip round further if the next roll is a 6. (Spoilers: it is not.)

Turn 2

PatRom PIP=3, and the warbands wheel up into the wooded hill cover. 

FeuSpa PIP=3, so playing safe, the Ps and LH pull back while the main mass of troops walk forward.

Turns 3 to 4:

Both sides use crafty maneuvers. PatRom Cv races in, is flanked by Ps before Wb can support; but it holds on long enough for the Wb to in turn trap the Ps. The FeuSpa LH races back to its own lines before it too can be trapped!

Turns 5 to 7

PatRoms decide to attack left while holding right. The Wb begin the slow process of getting across to mark the FeuSpa Sp, covered by their Cv, while the bulk of forces wheel left (below); in response the FeuSpa get their left flank wheeling forward and prep for their main advance by spreading out on their right (below).

These processes work best for the PatRom, though only by leaving their left flank horribly exposed:

And again, although the FeuSpa push their Cb into the wooded hill to match the Wb, their left flank Kn can't ever quite catch the other two Wb!

r

Turns 8 to 10

The FeuSpa get a real roll on and attack all along the line! Their left Kn and right Cv slaughter a Ps and Wb!

With precious few PIPs to spend the PatRom KnGen commits himself right, and destroys one of the Kn! And in the woods, that audacious Sp element is made to pay: a Wb manages to front up and immediately destroys it!

But the shoe is on the other foot as the FeuSpa pounce on the isolated enemy general!

Turns 11 to 12

Draw! Draw! Draw! The melee continues around the two generals, more and more elements being sucked in. Meanwhile the FeuSpa Cv pounce on the seemingly-easy target, Ps.

The PatRom Ps score a 6:1 over the Cv! And with that, they have their 4 elements to 2 victory!

Both sides look great, and although it's a shame that the Feudal Spanish could not win, it's nice to have a Roman side that does not suck.

Last horse elements of Khazar/Pecheneg added

I'd had Dark Alliance Steppe Warriors ready to go for quite some time but found myself stepped-out after working on the Khazar/Pecheneg army last year. So how could I make this as easy on myself as possible, while still bringing them up to a look that would fit into my (also lazily) painted existing elements?

By dry brushing all metals, that's how!

Mini review: these steppe warriors are a fantastic buy, as the various figures can be judiciously mixed into most if not all eastern European mounted sets, including Germanic and Scand/Rus-origin. They have very little flash/mold marks, and the plastic is easy to clean off with a sharp knife blade. Sculpts are excellent. There are no 'weird' or super-unlikely weapons such as elaborate flails with long chains, which are a bother with several 'historical' sets. There are even extra weapons and scabbarded bows to hang on mounts! The only minor negative is that the set of 12 is really two sets of six, meaning that (as a standalone set and not intermingled) it's hard to make them look individual enough.

Assembled, the set makes four 'heavy charging' four 'medium melee' and four 'distance' poses/fitouts, and mounts match these in terms of armor and saddle-hung weapons. I configure the two sets of six into three LH of 2 pieces each, and two Cv/Kn of 3 pieces each.

With a basecoat of solid burnt sienna building up color on mounts and riders is easy. The big decision I make is to skimp on detail for metal, because if I color them in too specific a way they won't go with Huns or Germanics or Slavs if I do want to use them there. So the end result doesn't quite match the previous Khazar/Pechenegs. That is a very minor point next to the bases - I ended up pouring far too much flock down compared to the lightly-flocked originals. Good enough for now!

Pecheneg war wagons at last!

 After a full year of being in denial I finally admitted that the war wagons I had as WIP were not good enough, tore them down, and recreated them. 

This conversion uses

- a one-inch cardboard tube for the canopy;

- polythene foam for the body;

- Napoleonic gun carriages for the undercarriage and wheels;

- card for the armored driver box and rear;

- and masking tape for the sidewall texture.

Glues are hot glue to hold the undercarriage together and PVA for most other joins.

The horses are Airfix Napoleonic RHA, and as they are larger than the original pairs I found (and the right scale for other elements in the army) they only just squeeze in on the 'long' DBA base. They are joined to the body by Airfix French Napoleonic Artillery (there's a blast from the past!) limbers. 

Painting the latex grouting that I routinely use for basing over the wheels and hooves more or less secures the pieces to the bases. I don't think they will survive being dropped though, which is one of the benefits of using 1:72 plastic, normally. 

The bases were already discolored by the abortive first effort so look darker than they ought, but overall, not bad. They look menacing and I look forward to using them for Pechenegs!

The strange pull of Book III's steppe armies

 I have finally completed what threatens to be an ever-growing morph.

The aggregated force:

This aggregate army gives me either:

III/1 Slav: Definitely III1c Southern Slav, and options to combine Vikings or Carolingian period German Knights to cover III/1a. The 1b army Western Slavs are spear-heavy, so probably not those.

III/16 Khazar: Pending the completion of a bolt-thrower, only the more mobile options.

I have put together two war-wagons as at Dec2021, so that the army will also suit III/47 Pecheneg very well.

Some close-ups

For foot troops in particular I tried to paint with a natural fiber, natural dye kind of blend. Mounted troops get more rich silk and bold type colors.

I think of this as my CvGen, all Orion minis

light horse examples from Orion

two examples of the Orion cavalry

the horde elements are mostly Orion Skythians with a few Orion Slavs

Orion Slavs feature a surprising variety of archer minis, and mixing those with other Orion minis permits a nice mixture.

Slavs left, Skythians right. The odd couple at center are Greek staff slingers from Alexander's Lights by HaT.