Reviewing Older Projects - Looking forward to Midgard

With the upcoming launch of Midgard Heroic Battles, it made me break out my miniatures from both Dux Britaniarum and Infamy, Infamy. Both projects I really loved but didn't get enough chances to play.

For Dux, I have three armies. A Romano-British, Early Saxon and a Pict force. The Picts are not even a complete base army. I have a base force for both the Romano-British and the Early Saxons. Most figures for all of these are Splintered Light. I have a few reinforcements that are needed still. The Romano-British do not have any heavy cavalry. I could use a few additional sections of warriors and levy to flesh them out as well. i will be fleshing these out with Splintered Light minis.

My understanding is that Midgard forces are larger than those for Dux and Infamy. So, i don't quite have enough to pull it off yet for the Dark Ages.

My Romans for Infamy are closer to being ready. I have five full groups of 8 Auxiliary Infantry ready to go. I started to work on some movement trays for them as well. I have 6 of 8 of a sixth Auxilia infantry group painted up. I have a group of archers as well. What I do have is additional Auxilia infantry that I bought off of eBay. These are based 4 to a base and are not the same as my other minis. I have enough for three and a half more groups. There is another lot that I bought that are based 3 to a base for a total of 48 more figures. They would need to be rebased. I can separate these and build out six more groups of Auxilia. I would want to repaint the shields on these to match my existing miniatures. Mostly as i was modeling a unit based on the Saalburg Cohort fort in Germany.

What I am lacking is Auxilia Cavalry to complete out the unit. I really don't want to paint up cavalry. I am too slow of a painter and horses take a long time for me. I am looking through the offerings on eBay and am thinking that I may end up just painting my own. Most have spagetti spears that look like they could break at any minute. I really like Rebel Minis figures. However, their command figures are not great. They have no cavalry command to speak of. Peter Pig is an option. Old Glory 15s and Khurasan are also options to look at. I will likely make Roman Auxilia Cavalry my next hobby purchase.

My Infamy Celts are another story. I have loads of figures. I purchased a few years ago a lot of celts that were painted. However, most are only partially painted. I rebased many of them. I am trying to get them sorted on movement trays. I have enough for a base force. I play on using them for both Gauls and Britons. The Chariots are in rough shape. Most have either broken or come apart. With some TLC, I should have a huge Celt army. I am missing some figures to complete out cavalry. Mostly a command element. I have tons of chariots that i could have enough for two groups of 10 chariots. If i can get the broken ones repaired. I did have some fun finishing a Celt light horseman last night. It was good to paint something other than a ship again.

So, what I know is, my armies are too small for Midgard. With painting time, I have a large enough Celt Army. I lack minis for all of my forces. I had purchased a set of armed Dark Age peasants for use with Dux but lacked stats with the rules to use them. I was planning on working on some anyway just beacause I think it would be fun to have some really bad troops on the field to defend a village or the like. I figure I can try to use them for Midgard.

Roman's for Dux - since 2014

I just went back and looked at how long I have been tinkering with Imperial Roman's and figuring out how to use Dux Britanarium with them. My first posts about it came out I 2014. Figures have languished for a while. Now they are getting attention again.

I've been on a buying spree and am waiting on the postman to deliver some new things.

So, what's new? Well, I have abandoned my mods for Dux B as Rich will be issuing a Sharp Practice Variant. Instead i am focusing on a campaign for the new rules. Based of course on my favorite Roman Fort at Saalburg. The campaign will put the Cohort against a German confederation. The Tribune of the fort has to manage his forces and assign them to the fort's outposts and deal with the ordinary tasks as well as defend against German raids. The German player must plot out raids and keep his confederation together.

This will give "century" sized games until the sides meet in battle. Reinforcements can be called on and allies can be raised. I have a good start on it but need Rich's rules before I can do much more. I spent some time thinking about formations and how troops would move through evolutions between them and the advantages each would convey. It has been a fun excersize.

Painting wise I now have 3 fully painted tent parties of 8 auxiliaries each. I have two more on the paint table and six skirmishers. In addition, I painted 2 optios, a centurion, two signifiers and two cornicens. And I painted a mounted Tribune. I had given away my previous command elements and am starting over. I need to buy another CB command pack that had the Tribune and servants.

Here are the most recent painting efforts. The Tribune needs more work. I don't like how the horse came out. Maybe once I spend time on the mane, I'll like it better. I wanted to try a white horse and I don't think it will work. The shields came out OK. Honestly, they are way better than I thought they would be since my hands can tend to shake.

The two based minis are ones I did back in 2014.

Another item I am working on is the support elements. Specifically, the civilians that accompanied the century into battle. Stretcher bearers, medics, water bearers and miles. This provides several support items that can be brought into combat for bonuses or help.

Next, i have the start to a Roman fort. I am planning on building a numerus fort (klienkastle) and the Saalburg wall and gate. I bought the Roman Seas fortification set and printed it out resized for 15mm. This will become a template for me to cut out some foam core and build it.

I bought the War and Empire Roman bath house. When it arrived, I was rather disappointed. I think it would be more suitable for 10mm models than 15s. Thinking of scratch building one of those as well.

Enough of a ramble.

Shopping

Well, I had a little bit of fun money and started surfing the web. I was looking for more sabot bases for Dux Brit and Sharp Practice. One thing I have seen on a few blogs was a single figure sabot base to identify individual leaders. I like the idea. Several companies offer them. Supreme Littleness, Warbases and Greenstuff Industries in particular have them. The last one is a US based company. I decided to go with Warbases for 2 reasons: 1) they were the lowest cost and 2) their individual sabot base was less intrusive than the others.

What I ordered was a 30mm base with a 20mm slot in it. There is just enough room to place a number on it and base it to look like the figures. I bought 12 of them. The plan is to number them one through six in red and blue. This will work for Sharp Practice, Dux Britanniarum and Chain of Command as my leaders are all on the same size base (a US penny).

This will reduce the number of times I end up asking, who is that guy again? During the course of a game. I'll take pictures when they show up. I plan on getting some work done tomorrow on my ships and possibly some empty bases to put in my sabot bases when casualties are taken. We will see if that happens.

Hobby Progress

I have decided that I really do not like the ground cloth that I have for my games. It is a dyed bed sheet that lays very nicely over the terrain forms I place under it. But the pictures that I have taken, one of my proof readers remarked looked as if it were a snowy background. Somehow, it was bleached out by the lights. That was disappointing.

I have plans to make one though. The problem is, i don't have enough materials at the moment. I have the ground sheet that I want to use. I need more Burnt Umber paint and caulk in order to make the mixture to coat the canvas cloth I have purchased. I have clamps to hold it in place while it dries. Trying to figure out if I can pull this off over the weekend. Until this step is done, I don't think I can make more progress on the Kharkov supplement. I am so close that this is frustrating.

Today I received my package from Blotz. The fences are really nice. They are laser cut MDF and fit together tightly. There are ten 4" long fence sections and three gates of close to two inches each. Since they are laser cut, only one side has the scribed details on it. They fix this by making a framework that is applied to the back of the fence. It is cleverly done and looks good. This should complete out my fence needs for at least scenario two of the first campaign. I had also bought the Blotz gravestone pack. There are a set of twenty nine tombstones. Of these, twenty one are the normal rounded headstone designs. Some are cracked and others are broken with most being whole. Then there are several crosses. four of them have what I would consider a "Presbyterian" cross with the circle around it. And four are a plain cross. the plain crosses will work but the others will need to have the circle clipped for the Ukraine.

So I am in a holding pattern for the moment until I can work on the revised ground cloth. The lure of Dux Britanniarum is calling. I have four Romano-British bowmen on the table as well as five Saxon cavalry. I just finished a Romano-British mounted noble. I also have four goats and a goatherd. The goats are now painted. I am going to try to work on the fences first but who knows. I lack reinforcements for the Romano-British. The bowmen will help as they are the first eligible reinforcement unit. I just ordered some Romano-British Warriors and a light cavalry pack from Splintered Light by way of Noble Knight on eBay. The second reinforcement is six warriors. With the pack I ordered, I will be able to field two groups of warriors. So that should be plenty. Light cavalry is the third reinforcement. The pack comes with six light cavalry and a cavalry group is four figures. So plenty there as well. That leaves me with only two packs left to get - Heavy Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry command. Ultimately, I want to pick up another pack of elites for the Romano-British as the career path allows for upgrades to groups and depending on choices, you could have 2 to 4 groups of elites. One pack of 12 will give me two groups. That should be plenty.

My Saxons are doing fairly well. I would like a pack of elites as I have plenty of warriors and skirmishers. I really would like just 4 javelin armed guys but don't want to buy a pack of 12 of them. I also would like actual light cavalry for the Saxons. I will probably buy some Khurasan Miniatures Germans as they have Cavalry followers that seem to fit and some of their infantry as they just look really nice.

The Picts are the last that I will flesh out. I have miniatures to paint but I am not sure what I am actually missing.

Also on the table is the ruined village from Red Vectors. They are glued together but I am not sure what to do with the roofs. I also have two T-34s that I am building as wrecks. I will probably break those out for What a Tanker games. lastly, there are a bunch of hay stacks that are the more rounded lumps of hay that I am not as fond of.

More Painting Progress... Most off Target

Broke out the paints over the weekend and managed to finish off some more stuff. The only Kharkov related items I finished were three jump off points and some sheep.

That brings me to 7 Jump Off points finished. These are fairly generic and should work for The sheep were nice little models. I really enjoyed painting them up. Very quick and probably not an accurate job. There were six ewes and two rams. They make a nice little herd.

Next up is a group of farmers. The one with the shovel maybe could fit with the Kharkov project but I painted him more to match his buddy with the hat who seems more AWI to me. The third fellow is a Dark Age Shepherd.

Lastly are my Saxons. I had five warriors on a painting stick and then six Saxon archers. This gives me a complete unit of archers and allows me to change my mixed unit of skirmishers to all bowmen. So that is a win for me. I think that helps round out another full unit of warriors for the Saxons as well. I may have had a spare warrior around. If not, I think I have spare lead in a bag somewhere.

I wanted to do something nifty with the shield designs but in the end, my hands were shaking far to bad to accomplish anything like that. I did paint a shield for a Saxon Elite that seemed to have lost his. I also have a bishop that is ready for basing and five looting Vikings (who I will use with my Saxons) as markers for when the Saxons find loot during a raid. Those are some fun figures. There are two carrying sacks of who knows what. A guy trying to make off with some church relics (read a box box filled with skulls). There is a guy pulling a crown from a treasure chest and the last one is making off with a woman in a dress. It was their high value loot pack from Peter Pig. Very colorful figures that I have been enjoying so far.

Lastly, I just undercoated a group of 5 goats and two haystacks. More to complete my farm stuff. These will work for Kharkov. So I don't feel too bad about it. Once that stuff is done, back to painting houses for Kharkov. I am struggling with the roof joins at the moment so I have placed them aside. I also have the Red Vector Ruined village pack sitting underneath those. I doubt I will get much of that done this week but who knows.

Till next time.

Distractions, Ugh

So I found a youtube channel that was posting their Dux Britannarium campaign. I love the game but have barely played it. I knew I spent a ton of time painting figures for it. I thought I had a base force for both Saxons and Britons. I also had some Picts around somewhere. So instead of painting today, I made an inventory.

Saxon Horde

It was refreshing to see how well my Saxons are doing. I have most of what I need. What I found out was I was an idiot when it came to skirmishers. I have 2 guys with javelins and two guys with bows. They should all be the same type. Oops. Anyway here is my base force.

Pardon the junk picture. I have to paint the movement trays. I stole the skirmisher trays from my AWI guys. I am using the same basing method so if I paint them up for this, it will work for them as well. Bonus!. I sorted through what else I had. I found I had a nice set of dead Saxons. Donnington Miniatures, I think. They have a nice selection of dead guys.

Looking through the tray, I found two Wicca Priests or wizards. The picture was horribly out of focus and that is annoying. They are much nicer than the picture shows. These guys wouldn't be seen util a first battle and after the Saxon leader has advanced himself a bit.

One of the reinforcements is Saxon Cavalry. I have 4 of these guys ready even though they don't show up until the last round of reinforcements. They are also armored. Which makes them not light cavalry. But they will do and I really like them.

Next we have some reinforcements. I am out of skirmish trays so they are individuals. I have two groups worth here. Then I realized something. One of those groups was painted as foederati as possible mercenary support for the Britions. So I really only have one group of reinforcements of Warriors and one Mercenary Warrior group. Still, they could be used either way. The foederati were painted more uniform in appearance. I neglected to get a picture of them.

All in all, not bad. I need at least one more group of warriors for reinforcements (preferably two), another group of skirmishers (I have 6 bowmen to sort this out that need painting). I think that will have me set. I am pretty happy with what I have so far.

Post-Roman British

Here is where the gaps are occurring. I have the base force needed but really nothing beyond it. I opted to get smaller group shots for the base force. I kept the troop types having the same basic shield design to keep them straight. This was very helpful when I went to them years later and tried to sort out what was going on. I placed a warbases order today for more sabot bases so I can accomodate 8 groups of British and 4 groups of skirmishers. That should sort out all of my forces.

The first group is my British Lord and champion with his loyal warriors.

Next up is the second noble and the levy.

And then comes the next noble and his group of Milites/Elites.

The last part of the base force is the skirmishers. Here I at least have four of the same type. All bowmen.

I searched for anything else I had ready. Very little emerged. In fact, there were no unpainted figures much to my horror. I will have to visit Splintered Light again and order some more troops. (Reminder, I am running a sale on my scenario books. Use coupon code "ZWOSESMPIF" at check out for a 50% discount - https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen). What I did find was three lone figures. A British noble on horseback, and two country priests. They will come into play a little later in the campaign. I can use the noble on horseback when he reaches the fourth level of reinforcements. The priests come into play if I help one out in a scenario.

With that disappointment, I made a list of "needs". This includes another group of bowmen or slingers (4 needed). A bishop. Good news there, I had purchased some Peter Pig figures hauling loot. It includes a nice scandalized bishop as well as five guys hauling off loot. I intend to use these for Saxons when they succeed in finding loot during a raid. They are primed and awaiting paint. A group of six warriors. The SL packs come in 12 so that shouldn't be an issue. I'll have a spare. A group of 4 light cavalry. The SL cavalry packs are in packs of 4! Two groups of shock cavalry and a noble. Well I have the mounted noble at least.

I am thinking of picking up a pack of elites as well. The reasoning is late in the campaign, you can gain extra elites depending on your path. The same holds true for the Saxons. I may have some spare unpainted figures for that though.

Picts

This is my smallest force yet. When Dux first came out, Mark L decided to jump in and went for a Pictish force. He made his way to paint 2 of the 4 groups of raiders, four crossbowmen, four slingers, a noble and a champion. I may have painted the raider cavalry. I only say this because the bases are ones I used. Mark based on very small washers. I will have to rebase to match the other troops.

Now for a base force, I am short 12 raiders. However, I have all 12 on painting sticks! Good news. I think I would rather have javelins for skirmishers than slingers. The slingers are generic enough that maybe I could move them to the Romano-British and get some javelins. Still thinking on this. I have another pict Noble to paint up to round out the leadership. Also a standard bearer and a musician just because. That would round out the base force and give me something other than a mercenaries to be used by either Saxon or British.

But the expansions call for Pictish war hounds. I have two dog holders for my Saxons that I bought from somewhere. I can picture the website in my head. The figures are a little on the thin side so they are just there (painted though). I will look at splintered light and see what they have. Next is 4 more raider cavalry. They are in the box on painting sticks! Next one is six more raiders and another noble. Got those ready to paint too. But alas, I don't have six noble raiders with a noble. I potentially have the noble but I would want him to match his men so that is probably splintered light again. I also have 4 more crossbow guys but they are just extras.

I need a druid type of guy. I will see what I have. I probably need to buy something. All in all, I have no excuse not to play this now as a solo campaign or talk my son into it. I should be able to manage a few raid scenarios before needing more figures.

What I really need to do is finish my East Front stuff and stop being distracted. Lets see how that works. That's it for now.

The Vikings Have Landed

A lovely brown box arrived at my desk this afternoon. Opening it up revealed the Essex Viking Crew and the Viking ship that I had ordered.

The ship is tiny. It comes in at under 4 inches long. It is very wide as well. It makes it much more useful as a merchant ship than a warship. It is well built. The detail is very nicely done. It is ready to build with the sail lowered. The ship does not come with the tiller. The tiller comes with the separate crew pack. It has the oars. The rowers in the crew pack are made to place the hands of the rowers on top of the oars where the pierce the side of the hull. The ship does come with a set of shields to mount on the side of the ship. I think I may not use them though.

This could make for an interesting piece to have on a table. I could use it as objective for a Romano-British raid.

Invading Early Saxons

Well I seem unwilling to let things sit for too long. I placed an order yesterday for a pack of Essex Miniatures Dark Age boat crew. This gives me 8 oarsmen and a helmsman. Then I picked up their tiny longship.

The Essex longship has 4 rowing benches for the 8 oarsmen that are in their pack. Fiddling around on the internet I found a cool graphic of the ships found at the Skuldelev site. This graphic is pulled from this neat site: http://www.donsmaps.com/viking1.html

The Essex longship is about the size of the small cargo ship. (I found another image that showed their rowing benches but I can't find it now.) Now the Essex longship is roughly 80mm in size. I already have a Peter Pig longship. It is 6" in size (152mm roughly). It sports 14 "rowers" on 7 benches even though I grabbed the sailed one instead of the rowed one. Still a rather small ship in comparison to the Skuldelev 5 which is a small warship. That one has 13 rowing benches. So what I am looking for is at least one more longship for my growing fleet. Actually, I still want the Peter Pig Rowed ship as well.

What I will do with my small navy is still undecided. I want to use them to represent the arrival of reinforcements and change the Saxon reinforcements that show up to be based on ship's crews. So as the reputation of my Saxon lord grows, he would gain additional ships crews to his service. Its still an idea in flux.

One idea is for the scenario in one of the TFL specials which features a landing. That would be great fun in and of itself. But the thought of basing reinforcements by ships crews is what is sticking in my head. I am just not sure how they would make any appearance on a table top.

Piddling Around With Dux Brit Again

I am still in a malaise when it comes to painting and I have not gotten in a single game yet this year. However, I have been looking at my Saxons, Picts and Romano-Brits again. I have the base forces for Romano-Brits and Saxons. I have most that I need for the Picts. What I lack is the reinforcements that would occur as a campaign continues.

So I found myself on E-Bay. I ended up winning a perfect auction for me. It had 6 saxon elites (which I really did not need), five RB Heavy Shock cavalry and 12 RB archers. Those are way more archers than I need. But all are Splintered Light figures which dominate existing troops so they will fit right in.

But that is not all I was looking at. I ended up picking up some Viking figures that I thought might prove useful. I picked up the high value loot pack and the Vikings carrying loot packs. Neither are very useful for the game, BUT, I thought they would be useful for when troops capture loot in the game to mark who is running off with stuff.

Now there were other things that I was looking at too. Essex Miniatures has a pack of Vikings at oars with a steersman. I really want to make a longship or the like for my incoming raiders. The old Two Dragons line also had such a pack but I can't find anyone who has them. Rumor has it that they also had a nice longship. I want to make my own as the ones that I have found on-line are all smaller than I would like to have. I have held off on buying the Essex pack so far. I want to try to paint something before I buy any more figures. (Who am I kidding...)

Anyway, it felt nice to at least think about the hobby a bit.

Trying to Keep My Head Above Water

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog lately. Well, there is a good reason for it. My Mom has been having some serious health issues this year. I am back down in Tampa for her 3rd hospitalization of the year. This has been much of the focus for me rather than fun stuff. Hopefully things will start turning around.

What I have been doing is listening to more of the Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. Once I strip out his hatred of all things Christian, its a fun book series. This has prompted me to reevaluate my Dux Britannarium forces. I really only have the basic troops. I don't really have enough to expand those forces in a campaign. I guess the sensible thing would be to remind myself that I have never played more than 2 games in a campaign yet so why worry about it. But I am not feeling sensible. I have cast my covetous eyes on Khurasan's Late German figures. I am thinking of getting a pack of their Follower Cavalry for the Saxon Light Cavalry reinforcements and a pack of their Western Infantry. They would provide a nice contrast to my Splintered Light figures to differentiate them as later followers.

I also started to think about how these would be represented in a campaign. The basic starting Saxon Force is about 34 troops and four leaders including the champion. That works out to about one ship's crew. Now the Dux B campaign system assumes a larger ratio in that you are a budding warlord about to take over province. 34 guys are not really much of a force at 1 to 1. Unless you consider them as smaller pieces to a larger campaign. Your noble starts out with a single ship's crew and attempts to build a larger force as he gains reputation.

Anyway, that is what was running through my head while sitting in the hospital the past week.

Slow but steady Progress - Dux Romans

I managed to get my next group of 8 Auxiliaries on to bases last night. They still need paint and flocking but are getting close. You can see them in the picture below with the sandy bases.

The centurions are primed and on a painting stick. I still have to prime my shields for them. I also have my next command group and 16 more Auxiliaries on the tray. I really need to order some of the Rebel Auxiliaries in the next few days to bulk up the troops.

I also worked on the watch tower. I added a wooden frame to what will be the 'rock' base of the tower. That went well. I cut up some match sticks and PVA glued them in place. I am still trying to work out how I will do the 'rock' portion. I will probably buy some grout or Spackle and carve the rock shapes into whatever I end up smearing on it.

Dux Brit Picts

I think I have mentioned before that I picked up the start of a Pict army from Mark a while back. I have 8 spearmen, four crossbowmen, four slingers, 8 casualties and a leader of some sort that I picked up from him. With the release of the Raiders supplement, I now know what I still need.

Since slingers are not really a part of the Pict force in Dux Brit, they will become part of an Irish force. I did have some Old Glory Picts that I have managed to paint. So here is my Pict Javelin men.

These feature my attempt at painting a plaid of some sort. I am not happy with it but I am not sure I can do any better. Next up is some Pict Cavalry.

Here I have the same plaid attempt as the javelins. I actually like these for some reason. One of them slid forward when I glued him to the saddle when I had my back turned. I thought of prying him up and reseating him but the effort will probably result in me repainting him to some degree. I figured I can live with it.

I also got some new miniatures in the mail. There are two packs of spearmen and a pack of command figures. Each spearman pack comes with 8 spearmen. I have three figures that appear to be advancing and five that are standing there with spears. In all four different casts in the pack. The command pack has two spearmen blowing horns, two mounted fellows with swords, a man standing holding a sword and bear handed fellow who is supposed to look commanding.

The command pack is perfect. It gives me exactly what I need for my Pict army. I can use it for either a mounted option where the champion and lord are mounted or dismounted. I have the other spearman who can serve as the second noble for my force. I already have these fellows on painting sticks and am ready to paint undercoat them this evening.

While I am at it, here are some pictures of other items that I have finished.

A single 6" section of rail road tracks.

A pair of Early Saxon mercenaries.

A pair of Zulu officers for my ever stalled Zulu project.

Roman Dux under Construction

Well I have decided to to the German Limes route with this. The Upper German-Raetian Limes to be exact. This was a 353 mile (568km) stretch of fortifications with some 900 watchtowers and over 60 forts. Each watchtower was behind the palisade wall by some 20 to 50 meters. Each watchtower was separated by 300 to 800 meters provided they had a clear line of sight to one another. Just as with Hadrian's wall there were small fortlets (kleinkastel) staged along that held detachments from 40 to 80 men in strength. My area that I wish to copy is that of the Cohort fort of Saalburg. This is a great site in that they have some of the most complete reconstructions of a roman fort in Germany. Also it is dead easy to find data for it on the internet. (Remember, I am lazy.)

What did I stumble upon today but the most marvelous site: Vici.org. It has fantastic maps of the whole area that I am looking to include in my campaign. Here is the first map I made from this site.

Map from Vici.org. Terrible white lettering over the map is all mine.

Here we see the Cohort Fort of Saalburg with the watchtowers associated with it and the milecastle/kleinkastle that also had the same unit - Lochmühle. Saalburg was the home of Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata. This was an Auxiliary unit that was at least in part mounted. This fits in with my preference for a mixed unit. To the northeast, Lochmühle had elements of the same unit present. While the milefort to the southwest was a unit of Auxiliaries from Legio XXII.

The Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata was a Cohors Quingenaria Equitata unit. Formed by six centuries of infantry (80 men each) and four turma of cavalry (30 men each). This matches with the size of the fort.

The fort of Saalburg is well documented and there are any number of diagrams showing what it would have been like.

Taken from http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/geschichte/kastellgeschichte.html

Just 200 meters from the back gate of the Saalburg fort is the lime itself. The German Wikipedia sites are actually really helpful here. There is a diagram of what the gate through the lime would have looked like near this fort.

taken from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:ORL_A_03_tab_10_pic_03_Limes%C3%BCbergang_Saalburg.jpg

The child fort at Lochmühle is another story. This is far less documented as what it would look like. The general size is known. It was a 18 meter by 22 meter rectangle. It was set back about 30 meters from the lime. The artists reconstruction is dubious in that some sources claim that this fort had only one gate and this shows two gates.

Image taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/8/8b/Kleinkastell_Maisel_-_Kleinkastell_Lochm%C3%BChle_-_Ringwall_H%C3%BCnerber_069.JPG.

Basically if you take the drawing at face value, there are room for 4 tent parties and an officer in the truncated barracks as well as a storeroom, a workshop and an outdoor oven. So that works out to about 32 men plus a head NCO, just under half a century.

That just leaves the watchtowers. These would be temporary duty for about 8 men who would take turns manning the towers. These would be wood or stone structures of 3 stories in height with the entrance on the second floor. In addition to this, there would be the patrols. Plenty of things to be going on for a campaign.

I am putting an artificial dividing line for the towers to be at tower 3/63 for the purpose of the campaign. That would be as far to the southwest as the troops at Saalburg would have to patrol.

Now, if push really comes to shove and the forces at Saalburg need backup, they have to call out to Legio XXII Primigenia Pia Fidelis at Mogontiacum or Legio VIII Augusta at Argentoratum or even Legio III Italica at Castra Regina. This could come into play if I ever venture into 6mm miniatures for Romans.

I think my next step will be to make some terrain.

Welcome and other ramblings.

Since the last post, we have had Inchigh74 join the ranks here at Wargamers Odd's & Ends. he runs the blog 1914-45. It is a sight that oddly enough covers wargames taking place between 1914 and 1945. Stop on by and take a look.

I still can't get my mind off of the Early Imperial Romans. The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to look at gaming around the Limes fortifications on the German frontier. If you have any interest in this, one site that caught my eye that I am reading away on is the JAMES CURLE's A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE: The Fort of Newstead in the Parish of Melrose that can be found on http://www.curlesnewstead.org.uk/index.htm. There is also a PDF of this floating around as well but the site has been very nice reading.

I am getting tempted to attempt to build a Roman fort in 6mm with some Baccus Roman figures for larger scale actions and then a watchtower in 15mm for use with skirmish figures. Just not sure what I want to do. There is the Hotz's Roman Seas sets for terrain as well. There are some nice looking buildings there. Basically everything to build one of the Roman Legionary forts plus a nice Roman town outside the fort's walls. If nothing else, it would provide a template to work with to attempt to make my own. According to the web site they should not be hard to put together. Then again, I am likely to glue my fingers together as well.

Given that my scratch building efforts are not that great, what is out there? Well, JR Miniatures has a Mile fort. Several places have Roman tents. Just not sure what else is out there.

More Thoughts on Roman Dux

First things first, welcome JP. He is the latest to join up here. He is a busy man with two blogs that are well worth looking at. The first is Herefordshire 1938. The second is The Very British Civil War Miniatures Guide. The Very British Civil War is something that keeps trying to tempt me but I have held firm on so far.

Roman Dux
I am getting closer to the point to getting miniatures for this. But I want some more things fleshed out. I am still attempting to decide if I am going to aim for a Hadrian's Wall based campaign or on one of the German Limes along the Rhine. The Rhine one is sorely tempting me. Those are fortifications I think I am capable of modeling. A long wooden palisade and a ditch with scattered watchtowers with signal pyres. Definitely doable. Then a fort further back to support troops. This rather than the Hadrian's wall model with two towers and a milecastle supported by a fort.

In either case, it would be the Auxiliaries that would handle most of the man power. So that led to a couple hours of Google time looking up Auxiliaries. The formation that caught my eye was the Cohors Equitatae. Since nothing is easy (Nil Facilis Est), this type of formation could have 2 different subtypes. Both offer possibilities. The first is the Cohors Quingenaria. A small force of around 500 men with 120 being mounted and the rest formed into six centuries of 80 men each. The second is the larger Cohors Millaria of around 1000 men featuring 240 cavalry and 10 centuries of infantry.

While looking into these I found an interesting sentence that I could not find anywhere else. There is a claim that these units fielded archers in addition to normal infantry. This would make one of these formations a true all arms force. Perfect for a skirmish game. I will take the smaller force as it neatly fits into the fort that would support a section of Hadrian's Wall - 6 centuries and 120 cavalry. Some sources point out that the cavalry would be more messengers and skirmishers than true fighting cavalry. But that is fine for the purposes here.

How to split this up? Well, I am determined to try the 8 man group size to base the troops on. Who would be the leaders. Well since the size of the force would be a cohort, the commander of the Cohort would be a senior centurion, the Pilus Primus. But we can't have lowly centurions being in charge of anything. This detachment will need some noble senator or the like hanging around to inspire the rabble...er...men to deeds of greatness. So that means we need s tribune who was given an independent command. (probably as a punishment for something said while in the cups at the officers mess to end up our in some backwater). Each century would have its centurion. In addition, an Optio would be present to support the centurion. Also a Tesserarius would be present in each century as a third in command. That gives us an officer pool to draw from for our games. The cavalry would be led by a Decurio. The senior Decurio commanded a turma of 30 cavalrymen.

A watchtower would be garrisoned by a 8 man tent party that would be rotated regularly. A foot patrol would be anything from 1 to 4 tent parties of infantry led by an Optio or Tesserarius (watch commander). A cavalry patrol would be lead by a Decurio and contain two groups of 4 men. (OK a Decurio would have had 10 men under his command but what can you do) Now this is too small a selection of forces for Dux B. So what we are interested in is not small patrols but what tribune would put in the field when the locals are acting up. The whole force of 500 is way too much. So what do we do?

Lets look at what our force has. Taking some liberties, lets assume that one century of our Cohors Quingenaria is sagitaria (archers). That gives us 5 centuries of infantry. Given that we are an Auxiliary unit, our forces would be entirely Warrior rated for Dux. (Maybe. We will see) Our Vexillation that we will send in the field will include: 1 tribune (has to cover himself in glory after all), a centurion, an Optio, 5 groups of 8 Auxiliary infantry, 2 groups of 4 archers and 2 groups of 4 cavalry. The cavalry would be counted as heavy and are armored with swords.

Opposing Forces
Now, the problem part is who do they fight? For the German Limes, we have Germanic tribes. Because I am fundamentally lazy here, they would look like... Saxons. But what troops would they have? Hmmm.... Well the best way to address this (remember I am lazy) is what miniatures are out there? Well Peter Pig (I am a big fan) has javelin armed troops, Sword armed men, archers and light cavalry. Essex has javelin armed, spear armed, axe armed, and heavily cavalry. Some are naked. Obviously those poor guys must have had Mussolini as their quartermaster.

My idea is to leave the less disciplined German or Celt tribes as 6 men per group. So our enemy would have a Chief, a hero, and two sub-chieftains. They would have 6 groups medium infantry that may not form a shieldwall. They are rated as warriors. They have an additional 2 groups of levy troops armed with shields and javelins plus some hand weapon. Again no shield wall. The javelin armed troops may throw their javelins before they charge. They have one group of skirmishers (4 men armed with with either bows or slings). They also have two groups of skirmish cavalry armed with shields and javelins.

Ideas, Frosting and other nonsense:
In order to reward the performance of our little lead troopers, lets look at the awards presented to Roman Troopers.

As a bravery medals, the Romans gave soldiers torcs (worn on the chest rather than neck), Armillae (arm bands), phalerae (early medals in the form of gold, silver or bronze discs worn over the armor. About 4" in diameter or so), hasta pura (a small silver spear awarded for saving a life), vexilium (a miniature silver replica of a infantry standard) and a cup (probably bronze/silver or Gold). Also several different crowns could be awarded for service. This gives us some trinkets that our Tribune could be awarded out to our lead troopers.

Wikipedia has a nice picture of some phalerae. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalera_%28military_decoration%29

A renactor site shows a centurion with some torcs above some phalerae. See: http://www.legionxxiv.org/centurionpage/

Also a unit could be awarded phalerae as well as individuals. So the signifier would add them to his standard. The greater the decoration, the larger the unit pride.

Anyway, this is just some random thoughts.

15mm Dux Britannarium Miniatures from Peter Pig

I was just stuck on a late night work call and decided to take a look at the latest offerings at Peter Pig. They have expanded their Viking range greatly and have released their first pack of late Saxons. There is lots of useful stuff in here now.

First up is the Longship. They are offering two separate boats for £9.50. These would not have been hugely different from the ships the early Saxons would have ventured over to land along the Saxon shore with. The differences are one has a mast raised and the other does not. The ships come with a choice of one of six figureheads. The one with mast raised has a steerman as well. The one without the mast comes with 14 men rowing. These fellows come with separate heads and Peter Pig is giving you 16 heads to choose from. I need to pick up one of these.

Picture taken from Peter Pig's Website.

Next up is pictures of all of the casualty packs. In a previous post, I had complained that the casualty packs did not have pictures. I ended up with the "A Bit Dead" figures and not having what I was looking for. Now all are nicely photographed so you can see what you are getting.

The two new packs that are on my must have list are the "27. Vikings carrying loot" and "14. High value plunder (gifts from God)". These would be great to include in a game where Saxons have successfully plundered a building and are trying to get away. They also have a set of male, child and female captives but I am less interested in those. There are also a pack of monks that could be interesting as civilians but they are also lower on my must have list.

The mounted vikings are another interesting pack and could work nicely as mounted Early Saxons. However, I am not sure how well they would mix with my existing Splintered Light Early Saxon Cavalry. Besides, you just do not need that much in the way of cavalry in Dux B.

Anyway, my Peter Pig shopping list just got longer with these new items. Or at least, new to me items.

More distractions - Ancient Rome

Having been thoroughly entertained by the Jack Ludlow series on the Norman Conquest of Italy, I decided to give his Republic series. I am now well into the second book. It has been very entertaining thus far. While this is set during the Republic Era of the Roman Empire, it had the wheels turning in my head.

I have wanted to do a campaign game featuring Imperial or Late Imperial Roman troops. Something set on a border somewhere. Most likely somewhere on Hadrian's Wall or the like. Similar to my previous thoughts of a Norman campaign, I started thinking about this as well instead of focusing where I should be. On that note, all pictures are ready for the book. Waiting on a forward from a friend and I am ready to release the CSIR supplement.

What scale?
Well, like everything else I am doing, 15mm. In particular, I am looking to pick up the "big men" from Eureka Miniatures. The Optio, Centurion, Primus Pilus , Mounted Legatus, Signifer and Cornicea figures in particular will be Eureka minis. For the whole of the men, I am looking at trying the Rebel Minis Legionary and Auxiliary figures. And lastly, the Corvus Belli scorpion and mule team figures.

What would this look like?
Well, that I have no idea about. I was looking at a number of web sites for what would be the garrison of a Roman Milecastle on Hadrian's Wall. That answer seems rather flexible. It seems that the barracks within a Milecastle would vary from 8 men to 32. This is interesting as 8 men maps to a Roman Contubenium or tent party. This was led by a Decanus or file leader.

A Roman Centuria was formed around 10 of these Contubeniums or 80 men. They were led by Centurian and his second in command - a Optio. Each century had a standard bearer (a Signifer) and a musician (Cornicea). This gives us just 2 fellows that qualify as a Big Man in game terms for a body of 80 fighting men. This does not work out too well for Dux Britannarium. However, there were others that one might consider. Within the ranks, there was some room for upward mobility. The lowest of the low were the recruits (Tirones). These were newly recruited troops in the first 6 months of their service next were the Milites Gredarrii or ordinary troops. It seems that there were two career paths after this. First there was the route of the immunis who provided some of the skilled craftsmen and clerical workers for the army. In terms of soldiering, there was promotions in pay. There were those that received pay and a half and those who received double pay. But for purposes of a game and a trooper who would be useful in the chain of command for a body of 80 men. This could be found in the Tesserarius or guard sergeant.

Dux B used groups of 6 men as the basis of a group. To make this work for Romans, lets think about making each group a single tent party or Contubenium of 8 men. It seems that the tent party was the division in which postings were made. For instance, it is supposed that the garrison of a milecastle tower to either side of the milecastle was 8 men. The possible garrison size of the milecastle itself is either 8 or a multiple of 8. Easy enough but that still is not a very cool looking game to have a single block of a century out in the field against a barbarian horde.

This poses the problem in that it seems that Legions had a fairly homogenous units within them. A normal infantry Legion was made of of 10 Cohorts. Each Cohort was made up of 6 legions. Just to muddy things up a bit, the first Cohort of a Legion was double sized. The Legion did have a artillery unit of 30 pieces of artillery in addition to the scorpion that was assigned to each century. The legion also possessed a tiny cavalry arm of 300 cavalry with it as well. Still that gives us no archers, no skirmishers and no light infantry. I want to play a skirmish game not an army based game. So how do I get a variety of troop types on the table and still be historically accurate? The answer is, I don't really know. But there is this.

It seems that Rome would create adhoc formations called Vexilations. Here troops would be groups together from various legions and posted out to the frontiers to deal with problems. One example of this is a Vexilation of Legio X that was sent to Jerusalem to deal with the insurrection of the locals. Only a portion of the legion was sent. In other places, cohorts of legions were sent out to far flung posts to occupy the border forts and pacify the populace. Could a Vexilation be formed by units from multiple legions including Auxiliaries to form a "combined arms" force that is usable by a skirmish wargamer? The answer is maybe. I have not found anything that proves this was not done (again, that is based on a couple hours of Google searches and not serious research).

So lets return to our Milecastle. The Milecastles were typically tended by Auxiliaries rather than regular legion troops. Between the two towers and the milecastle, you had possibly just over half of a century guarding a stretch of wall about 1080 yards long. It is unlikely that just one century would be assigned to the milecastle. The rest of the force would be based back at a fort that would house around 480 infantry and 120 cavalry. That is interesting as the fort offered cavalry as well as infantry. The fort would not have enough room for an entire Legion. Instead it can house only one Cohort yet it also housed cavalry. This is of course based on a couple of forts in England behind Hadrian's Wall rather than any searches beyond this one small border of the Empire.

The 120 cavalry would equate to four turnae of cavalry with each turnae consisting of 30 cavalry troopers. This would be less than half of the cavalry contingent that would be part of a Legion. This suggests that it is likely that if one cohort would rate almost half the cavalry of a full legion, this is possibly a mixed legion fortification. Well, at least in my imagination. Proper historians out there are probably rolling their eyes.

So what would our little fort consist of? The wall itself was manned by Auxilliaries as noted before. So most of the fort would probably be some form of Auxilliary troops. So of 6 cohorts, say 4 are Auxilliaries. Of those two are infantry and two are archers. The remaining two centuries would be regular legions or the heavy infantry. Likely the cavalry would have been a homogenous group rather than from several different cavalry legions so they would either be Auxiliary light cavalry, Auxiliary heavy cavalry or Regular legionary heavy cavalry. Of artillery, you would have the scorpions from the various centuries plus probably some engineers present with some other assorted onagers and the like.

This gives us an interesting mix of troops to tinker with. So our little vexilation in the fort supports one or more milecastles. They are all connected by roads. The milecastle guards a gate to the other side of the wall that allows commerce to pass between the tribes to the north and the pacified tribes to the south.

What does our Dux force look like?
At the moment, my thoughts are still forming. The force represents a force being sent out to interdict a tribal revolt north of the wall or to block a force that has crossed the wall. The whole force would be lead by a senior centurion. Two groups of regular legions as the Heavy Infantry/elites. Rounding out the force would be three groups of Auxiliary Infantry/Warriors and one group of archers (subdivided into 2 groups of 4). The force can be supplemented by cavalry or a scorpion.

More to come later.

Distractions and Welcomes

My apologies for this post. It is rambling. It is disjointed. But it is some thoughts that I am putting together for a potential project.

On someone's blog recently they mentioned Jack Ludlow's Conquest series. Well I picked up the audio books and have become hooked. Not a good thing at the moment with a scenario supplement to finalize. Anyway, this got me to thinking. The Norman conquests could make for a great game of Dux Britannarium. Each player would be a Baron controlling a base set of forces. This set me off to figure out what the Norman organization really was. It seems that a cavalry convoi was at least 5 men but could be up to 50. It seems multiples of 5 was the magic number. Usually they attempted to train in groups of 10 advancing in two lines of 5. Well, this is what I have gathered from Wikipedia and other online sources so far.

Anyone have any idea what the foot contingent would be like? Lets say our Baron has a conroi of 10 heavy cavalry/milites. How many other troops would they have?

What troops would there be? Well the Miles/milites are the heavy cavalry. Then there are the VAVASSEURs. These are typically teen children of nobles learning the skills of being a milite so they would be essentially more milites. Somewhere the foot soldiers/pedites have to come in. First off would be the heavy infantry or SERGENS. They would be equipped similar to the milites but without the horses. Next would be the ARRIERE-BAN or medium infantry. Helmets, shields and spears would dominate this groups as well as archers. These would probably be closer to a levy class of troops.

So that gives us an idea of what would be available. But how many would a Baron have? Great question. I have no idea. The Baron would be granted land by his overlord or the King/Duke/Count. He in turn can have others who he would give a knight's fee (fief) too. These men would owe him 40 days per year of military service. Well of a 365 day year, 40 days of service when most of that would be eaten up just going from place to place does not seem... very promising. Surely these guys had better than that. Well, yes they did. It seems that the baron would have his own familial retinue. No, this is not just the Baron having a large number of sons or other relatives hanging about in armor (though that was possible). These are a paid force on permanent retainer by the baron. It seems that unlike modern mercenaries, these men were VERY loyal to their baron. So, that gives us an idea. We can use the Briton list from Dux Britannarium. So that is 1 group of elites (milites). Then two groups of Warriors (SERGENS) and three of levy (ARRIERE-BAN). The milites can be mounted or not.

This little unit would represent the familial retinue of our Baron. But the numbers seem to be wrong. Well that can be fixed. The base size of infantry is groups of 6. That should still work. For cavalry, we will increase the Norman cavalry to groups of 5. This way they can attempt to perform as they did historically. The Milites can be either mounted or dismounted troops.

For the Feudal troops, the available forces would be variable. A knight's fee (fief) can be subdivided as well. One source listed that 1/10th of a knight's fee would equate to 8 days service of a single sergen. For the purpose of the campaign, the Baron would have 20 knight's fees that he would hold. His feudal servants would not be available for every battle/skirmish that the baron wants to fight. Since they only owe 40 days of service per year, this works out to one or two battles/skirmishes that they can be called on for the whole year. In addition, they can send cash instead of showing up for service which would enable the baron to hire out replacements.

So, of the 20 knight's fees that the baron has available, the baron would have to wisely choose how to use these. Plus, his feudal servants potentially could defect to another lord. Creating more problems than they were worth. In fact, part of the Baron's actions may be to squash unruly subjects as much as fighting an enemy.

Which brings us to our next point, what is our Baron actually trying to do? Well, lots of things. Lets give a place and a time to this. 1067. Our Baron is one of the ones who accompanied William over from Normandy and was made a baron and given land. He has been there long enough to set up a Motte & Bailey fortification for himself. The fortifications sport a wooden tower and not a true stone keep... yet.

OK, but who does he have to deal with? Well, remaining independent Saxon or Welsh lords. Rebellious vassals. Calls by his liege lord to fight. Any number of things. All the makings of a decent campaign game.

Good enough. But what makes the Saxons or Welsh different from the Normans? Well, the cavalry of the Welsh and Saxons would still be based on 4s rather than 5s. Other than that, I have no idea.

How would I look at pulling this off? Well, Splintered Light, Khurasan, Baudea and Donnington (casualties) would be my miniatures of choice. Mostly Splintered Light, I think. Sgt Major miniatures also has some nice looking Normans but they lack Medium infantry.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

And Now for something different.

Welcome to the newest followers: Kaph & Rosbif. I could not tell by Kaph's profile if he has a blog but Rsobif has an excellent blog - Monsieur le Rosbif & Johnny Frog. Stop on by and check it out. Kaph, if you have a blog, let me know and I will post it up here.

New Toys!

Each time a package comes in the mail, I see myself in the scene from Toy Story 3 where the large group of toys greets the newcomers to the preschool. "New Toys!"

The postman brought in my latest ill gotten gains from the internet. First off is a Peter Pig Order.

I purchased lots of dead figures. First up: dead Italians. These all look fairly generic with most lying on their backs. There are two laying on their sides. The equipment is almost generic enough to be used for any WWII army. Very happy with this pack. Given my penchant for wanting to play Italians, I may need a few more packs.

Next is some dead WWII Russians. These have three figures with PPSH submachineguns. That seems like an unlikely number of dead guys with SMGs out of a packet of 8 figures. There are only two with Mosin Nagant rifles (the long model 91 and definitely not the carbine version). The remainder have had their weapons stripped away by someone looking for additional gear (or so it seems to me). Everyone is on their back except the two with Nagant Rifles. Still a good purchase.

Next up is the new Viking range pack 9.19 - A Bit Dead.

These were not pictured on their site so I bought them sight unseen. At first I thought I bought the wrong pack as almost all of the miniatures are still standing. The closer I looked at them, I realized what I had. These were minis that had suffered fatal wounds but not yet succumbed to the wounds. It is an odd assortment. There are three fellows who have a pair of arrows jutting from their bodies - one in the neck and one in the chest. The guy has one hand on each arrow and is either attempting to pull them out or keep them from wiggling. I have no clue what to do with these guys. In Dux Britanarium, the skirmishers have proven themselves to be deadly in my games but not enough to turn folks into pin cushions like these poor guys. The next three all look like they are advancing with sword in hand and crouched. They have a splintered shield which looks cool. It took me a while to find their wound which was a large axe buried in their backs. I fail to see how this guy is still able to stand. I may attempt to remove him from his base and post him flat on the ground. Also might try to remove the axe from one and just use him as a big man as it is a nice figure. The last two are the gems of the pack. They are on their knees with a spear poking through their bodies. Now these two are useful casualty figures. They will definitely be on my table to mark the falling of my Saxon Elites. The two kneeling guys appear to be in Chainmail. The arrow struck fellows have some kind of padded armor and the three axe slain have no apparent armor. This pack has a bunch of character and for the Peter Pig Longships rules, it probably makes great sense. For casualties for Dux Britannarium, not so much.

My last purchase was some Cowboys. I picked up a pack of dead gunmen from the "Hey You in the Jail" line. There are perfect for what they are - dead cowboys laying in the street. They will be used in playtesting of the "Tin Star" rules from Lard Approved. Fun rules. I also grabbed the Sheriff personality figure. I have the Bad Bob figure already. These are nice as they come with a mounted figure, a standing figure and a dead figure. I was disappointed that the sheriff is also carrying a double barreled shotgun - just like Bad Bob. I was hoping for a pistol. The casting is very nice. You can clearly make out the tiny sheriff's star on the figure's coat. His deceased form has him laying on his stomach with his shotgun across his back. Huh? How did that happen? Did he throw the shotgun up in the air when he got shot? To make things more interesting, one hand is behind his back. Maybe the sheriff was doing a trick shot behind his back when he was killed? Other than being goofy looking, I like the figure pack. This one gets 4 of 5 stars.

Other than my procession of the dead, I also picked up a wonderful small chapel from iron Clad Miniatures.

As you can see from the Italian officer next to it it is a small thing but just the deal for a small village. I was happy with the building and it will one day make a nice addition to my east front terrain. Hopefully, I will have some better pictures of painted stuff the next time around.

More Dux Dead

I received my first casualty figures today from Sergeant Major Miniatures. These are nice figures and as I mentioned earlier, this is useful for the Saxons. Not so much for the Romano-British.

These are straight from the bag they came in. Five are in chainmail and three without armor. This should cover a couple of warriors and elites. I want to get some of the Pict casualties next. They could work for skirmishers on both sides and for Romano-British levy (possibly). After that, the Peter Pig Minis are next.