Crusades reloaded

Hi all,

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and Santa has brought you all the shiny toys you'd hoped for. For me it was great - the festivities, but also the addition to the lead- (and book-) mountain.

Chief among the presents was a new supply of Perry Crusaders, and this gives me the reason to talk about one of the projects I have worked at during the "quiet" phase of this blog between May and October. I was considering rebasing and enhancing my Crusader army for quite some time now, but with the mass of new rules and the lack of a real favorite set it was hard to decide on a basing system.

My Perry Crusader knights attacking

 
The most flexible variant of course is the DBx-basing scheme that is compatible with all but skirmish systems and has a 6cm front for 28mm figures. Yet the 4cm depth for mounted always requires some squeezing and 4 figures to a base is not as visually impressive as I'd like. The 12cm front of Impetus on the other hand can look very impressive if furnished with enough figures, but you need a large playing field and indeed tons of figures if you want to play anything else but impetus.

I've tried several options and came up with this one finally: 8cm front. Essentially I double the standard DBx/FOG-base-sizes for 15mm, so I can play DBx with them as well as any other system like FOG, Hail Ceasar, Dux Bellorum, Impetus and others. The basing system gives me 6cm depth for horses and 3cm for heavy infantry - and thus it very conveniantly solves the depth-problem for mounted bases:

My Perry Crusader general with his loyal Syrian bannerman

For specially trained horsemen (knights superior or cavalry superior in DBx-terms) that fought in dense formations, I'll put four figures on a base:

Military Order Knights - again all from the Perry Crusader range

 For infantry the increased width and depth gives room for some limited diorama-building and story-telling. I double the figures required for DBx - give or take one or two figures.

Two bases of Crusader Spearmen - some Perry, some Foundry, some Magister Militum

This system is visually attractive, especially "en masse": The five bases of spearmen you have in your Crusader DBA army really does look like - well, not an army yet, but more than a few figures at least.

5 bases of spearmen - mostly from the Perry Crusader range

And this is the complete DBA-army: 12 bases (5 spear, 4 knights, 1 bow, 2 crossbows). Now I'm going to treat the Syrians the same way and test the new basing scheme wth a game of DBA. I certainly won't rebase my extensive ancients collection, but if it all works out well I may define the scheme as my standard for the medieval era.

I wish you all the very best for the new year and thank you for your continuing support and interest. Take care and see you in 2014,

Tobi.

The Andalusians are ready to march

There's nothing like an upcoming deadline to speed up the work :-) 

At our next big club event AttritiCon which will be held in two weeks I have the honour to stage an El Cid - Impetus game with Christopher aka Axebreaker, known near and far for his beautiful armies. Just take a look at his fabtastic El Cid army and you will understand why to say I'm under pressure to present something adequate really is quite an understatement. 

Thus I have started to base and paint an Andalusian army that was for a long time in my mind and in my cuppord but for some reason or the other had not seen the light of day yet. Today I'm glad to say that it is finished. Have a look for yourself:

Impetus Andalusian Cavalry (figues by Musketeer, Gripping Beast, Artizan, Black Tree and Crusader)

 

Impetus Andalusian Infantry (figues by Musketeer, Artizan, Gripping Beast and Black Tree)

I have already written what there is to say about this army here, so this time I'll let it suffice with the army list and some more pictures. All together it is a 400p army consisting of two commands:

 

Command 1 (Horse): 227 p

1 Expert Commander (C-in-C), attached to CM below 30 p

4 Andalusian Cav CM 92 p

1 Mercenary Knights  29 p

1 Banu Birzal CM  30 p

2 Andalusian CL with Javelin 46 p

Command 2 (mainly foot): 173 p

1 Expert Commander (not attached)  20 p

2 Javelin Skirmishers 24 p

3 Andalusian Foot and Archers fielded together as large units  75 p

2 Mercenary Light Horse with Bow  44 p                                      

 

 

 Now all I have left to do is learn the Impetus - rules... And, ahem, finish some other figures I'll need for the event. But more of this later.

All the best to you, take care and thanks for your visit,
Tobi

Dux Britanniarum Part 2: The Saxons

I hope you all had a good start into the new year, and may it be a happy and healthy one for you and your Dear ones. With us the start into 2013 was not a smooth as we had wished for - nothing serious, but our little girl had her first "big flu" and both my wife and I have fallen sick in turn, so it was a nice little sick bay around here. Well, now we are all better and ready for a late start into the new year.

It's been a while since I have shown my British force for DUX here, so as first blog entry of 2013 I'd like to show you the progress on that project. First, I have finished the British commander together with his champion and a standard bearer - as no standrads are required in DUX, he's just there to give flair and maybe to be removed as a marker for a wound given to the big man.

The DUX himself (original figure from the ruleset-release) with his Champion and Standard Bearer (both figures by Gripping Beast miniatures)

Next there are the Saxons: The gruel and bloodthirsty warleader with his champion and standard (yes I know, the christian symbols don't really fit in with the hammer amulette - but I liked this flag very much, and just look at the man: Isn't such a villain apt to use all advantages he can get? That probably includes being not overly choosy in religious matters...)

The Saxon high command - all figures by Gripping Beast, both the champion and the flag-bearer painted by Jake Hallam

And here we have the rest of the hairy horde: Three units of warriors with their captain (on the left)...

Saxon warriors - all figures by Gripping Beast (except for the one chap on the right, he's from Musketeer), all buildings by Grand Manner

...two units of elite hearthguards, the finest fighting men of northern Germany (and very fine figures, too - a real pleasure to paint)...

The hearthguard and their black captain (left). Figures are a mixture of Musketeer Miniatures and Gripping Beast. The chap with the green shield and the beautiful horse-freehand on the far right was again painted by Jake Hallam.

...and finally a few skirmishers.

Saxon skirmishers - all figures by Wargames Foundry, the two bowmen were painted by Jim Bowen

I've already played some games with those armies, but as a few figures have not been finished until now (and had to be replaced by stand-in vikings) I didn't take pictures of them before. But now that they are ready, I really enjoy having them. And I plan to use them as often as possible - thus I'm going to use them in my cunning ploy to infatuate my fellow club members to play DUX (a rule system I really can not recommend highly enough). Well, let's join the fight!

Next in line on my painting desk are a few finishing touches to several SAGA-armies, then I'll take up the task of transforming DUX into new eras. Best regards and thanks for your visit,

Tobi

Dux Britanniarum 1: The British

As you can see from the title, this fantastic new rulesystem from TFL has really hit home with me. I was no fan of their rulesets before as I'm not gaming modern warfare, and while I am interested in the Napoleonic era which they cover with Sharp Practice, the low production quality of this ruleset has prevented me from buying it (yes, I am that boring coffeetable-type of wargamer, sorry).

But with Dux Brit, not only the production quality is very appealing, but the rules work quite well and are really a very pleasant change from your usual "line up and fight" - game. I like the idea that you rather withdraw to be able to fight another day instead of storming the impossible hill or a bridge too far because its either that or quitting the game. A continuing background flow without the need of a real campaign is an idea that I really like to try.

So, I need figures. Now. And so I went into rebasing - using the flexible system I have written about in my last post. And my British army is already finished:

A birdseye-view of the complete British army

  

From left to right: The Dux and his household troops, a few skirmishers and two units of soldiers with their captain (all Gripping Beast Miniatures except for the DUX which is a Foundry figure - and signed by the Perries on its base :-)

The levies and their leader (all Gripping Beast figures)

A close up shot of the levies - fighting poorly does not mean you cannot dress the part...

 Still missing is a suitable Champion figure. Also, I'm going to paint and use the official Dux-figure. The hairy barbarians are also coming along nicely, but here I not only have to rebase them but also paint many of them anew- so give me just a few more days. Here is a little teaser:

The Saxons attack the British shieldwall (figures by Gripping Beast and Musketeer Miniatures)

Have a nice evening, take care,
Tobi