Late Knight Progress

The Britcon later knights are mostly finished, just a little snagging and basing to do. I'm agonising a little about the basing. Firstly, my mounted units are 18 strong so a dismounted unit of foot should have 18 or fewer minis, less than I'd usually put in unit- I'll probably go with 3 bases, just 6 to a base. Secondly, I suspect that at least half the minis should be less well armoured coustillier types, probably forming a second rank. I need to see if I have anything suitable in the "reserves", or I might just leave the task for the next unit. I'd welcome thoughts on this.

This week TtS! For King and Parliament is up against Hail Caesar on Ken's Yarkshire Gamers World Cup of Historical Wargames Rules tournament on Facebook. Will our niche set, printed mostly in black and white in a hard-on-the-eye period font, and packed with c.17th woodcuts, prevail against the glossy leviathan, like David did against Goliath? You decide!

Last week, To the Strongest! saw off Saga in round one and will be pitted against Black Powder in a few days time.

This week I shall mostly be finishing lists for the next iteration of the TtS! Medieval Army list eBook in Early September. It looks like there will be five new lists: Daylamite Dynasties, Bagratid Armenian, Rshtuni Armenian, Tulunid and Iqshidid Egyptian and Georgian. As you can see, I'm trying to polish off the outstanding lists, which mostly fall in the Western Asia chapter.

Late Knights

The Britcon tournament is coming up like a train, and I realised that I urgently need a unit of dismounted knights for my army. Luckily, I found 20-odd prepped minis and am doing a rush paint and base job on them. Knights in full plate are relatively easy to paint, essentially inking over a steel primer, then faces, leatherwork and the wooden bits of the weapons, ink again and highlight the metal. I'm going to leave these as fairly generic later knights, later I'll build a few command stands, and I'll also do some specifically Burgundian knights.

Herding Cats

I'm currently working on a Parthian army, but I've been enjoying the build stage (maybe it's the plastic glue fumes) and may be overdoing it. I have around 60 assembled and primed, so far, against a target 80. They are a mix of Gripping Beast plastic and Aventine riders on GB horses. Most will have steel horse armour, some will have bronze and some (the grey-primed) a fetching red. I hope to have at least 40 ready for the TtS! Open tournament in Edmonton on Saturday 13th October.  

Today I released the latest version of the TtS! Ancient Army List eBook; a bumper edition with two new lists and loads of updates with a lot of background material. It's turning into quite an encyclopedia- 164 lists, 331 pages long. I've already started work on the October release, which is going to be a Late Antiquity Special with lots of material about the Goths, Franks, Saxons and Vandals. If you've previously purchased the lists you should have received either a copy or a download link, if you've not yet purchased it, you can find it here.

In other news... my friend, the talented military historian Brent Nosworthy is pleased to announce the availability of an uncorrected, unedited beta version of his latest book, The Advent of Linear Warfare: Circa 1580 to 1648. This book traces the evolution of linear warfare first through the Spanish/Italian phase and its continued development next by the Dutch during the Nine Years’ War, then under Gustavus Adolphus’ leadership during the Polish-Swedish Wars, before assuming its final form under French leadership when they entered the Thirty Years’ War. It is available for free in PDF format for everyone who subscribes to Nosworthy’s Encyclopedia of Battle Tactics Patreon Page. Subscribers also have access to an ever growing number of highly detailed articles that analyse tactics and grand tactical issues during the age of muzzle loading small arms. I recently subscribed- got the book- less than three quid a month, money very well spent! You can find it here. 

Here are some Saleh Early Imperials that I need to finish off to complete last week's units. I am trying something a little different- grey primer and a white spray highlight from the front, as getting the shields properly smooth and white has proved to be both challenging and time-consuming.

Finally, some of you must have already encountered Yarkshire Gamer's World Cup of Historical Wargames Rules on Facebook. I say this with some confidence, because both the TtS! rule sets have made it through to the second round, where To the Strongest! is currently pitted against Saga, and For King and Parliament will shortly be head-to-head with Hail Caesar! It is an extremely silly idea to compare sets from different periods against each other, but at the same time a whole lot of fun. You can vote for TtS! or, indeed, any of the other rules systems (there is some really high-calibre opposition; not least Saga!) here.

Black Shields

Here are a couple of work-in-progress shots of the black shielded-twins of yesterday's yellow shields. again I've extended the transfers (which are designed for the slightly smaller Perry shields) to the edge of the shields. These give a rather more sombre appearance to the unit, by comparison with yesterday's jolly yellow shields. I still need to detail the minis, themselves.

 

Yellow legion progress

I'm making some progress with the veteran Saleh minis, which will be part of my 2024 Salute game. Yesterday, now I have my trusty painting light* back, I extended the lovely LBMS shield designs to the edge of the shields. A careful job, but well worth taking care with it as the shields dominate the unit. I need to highlight and ink all the minis, but I think I might ask Shaun McT. to paint 24 more all in red tunics and then mix them together. I prefer red for Romans.

*My painting lamp is a Serious Readers lamp. I can't recommend them too highly, although they aren't cheap. Mine gave up the ghost after 10 years- they repaired and upgraded it to LED, and it's good for another decade or so.

Yesterday I was delighted to read that both To the Strongest! rules and For King and Parliament made it into the group stage of Yarkshire Gamer's World Cup of Historical Wargames Rules- many thanks to anyone who voted for them! It looks like there will be more votes to come in the coming days. Here are all the contenders, some great games there, of which I've only played three, including my own two sets! I'll make a personal resolution to try some of the other systems after the summer.

Wofun II

Last night we played a very entertaining game at the London Wargaming Guild Guild in Seven Dials. This time we pitted some of my newly-acquired (and very portable) Wofun Caesarians against a Wofun Gallic army. It was a very interesting game because the two armies are quite asymmetric, the Gauls having 3 hits and a hero each, whilst the Romans have pila, a better save and greater manoeuvrability. In the end, it was the latter feature which told; as the lines broke up, numerous warbands were successfully "civilised" by Roman flank attacks. Son'n'heir came as bag carrier and co-general, this photo must be from one of the other players.

There was a cracking Romans vs. Carthaginians game going on the next table; the Carthaginians eventually flanked the quincunxs and prevailed.

In other news, there's an interesting "World Cup" poll of historical wargames rules on Facebook here. It is well worth a look; it's interesting to see how many historical sets there are about- also to encounter some old friends like "Science vs. Pluck or Death to the Mahdi!", still popular after all these years! It has also been very pleasing to see how popular the TtS! games remain (particularly as I'm currently making steady progress on Renaissance, my "difficult third book"). The first round might have ended by the time you read this.

Lastly we popped into the China Missing Century exhibit at the British Museum. This was a nice little show, and worth a visit. There was some material of interest to the wargamer, they had this nice flag, for starters:

Also a matchlock rifle, a super painting of 1820's Manchus fighting insurgents, uniforms and more.

Test Ostrogoth Lancer

 

Recently I've come to the conclusion that I need some portable armies that I can take to wargames clubs or carry on the train, to tournaments. These will need to be primarily plastics, for reason of weight and toughness. Luckily I've started to find some plastic sets I like.

I've bodged together a test figure from a Gripping Beast Parthian rider (there's one spare per sprue), with a Parthian head on a Wargames Atlantic horse and with the plastic spear replaced with a slimmer metal one. I want to have most of my projected Ostrogoths on unarmoured horses. I think it came out pretty well. Unfortunately, I don't like the WA horses very much. There's something a little "off" about their build and the poses of their legs, so I'll probably use GB Goth horses instead; it's not worth spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar.