Early Imperial Roman 2 auxiliary infantry AHPC post

Here we have a unit of auxiliary infantry from Newline,  like my previous post they came from an I'll considered bid on Ebay, coupled with a desire to get a bargain! I largely avoid Ebay now but with my need to mobilise a Roman army these lead reservists have been called up.
I didn't think I'd had them that long but I now realise I've moved house twice since I got them plus my daughter was in primary school and I am now taking her to look at universities as she is doing her A levels,so I think they qualify for this location!

Newline  figures seem a little simple and plain in their unpainted state but I think come up quite nicely with the application of paint,certainly enough detail and frankly not too much!
They was something of a throwback to the past as these chaps were bought primed in white and I've had to adapt,  I know with contrast paints white primer is making a comeback but it's still a little weird to me!
Plain shields on these, maybe the next unit will get a bit of decoration.
Next up some more dark age types.
All the best
Iain

Dux Bellorum 3 battle at the ford AAR

With  most of  2 armies painted for Dux Bellorum,  it seemed like a good idea to have a go at a game.  We set up battle at the ford ( one of the scenarios from the rulebook) we placed a river, a road ( to indicate where the ford was) some bog and a load of trees. Everything is measured in base widths so as I have used impetus sabot bases its 120mm.
The Irish army didn't have as many units as the Saxons so they had various add ons to bring them up, the Saxons were also a little short ,in the end the Saxons had a unit of nobles who were veterans, the Irish had that, a stampede and an extra leadership point per go.
I let Des chose which army he wanted, (he went Saxon as he was standing next to them) and we set up and got going ,both armies were made up of warriors, there are different unit types, warrior ,shieldwall, skirmisher and  various mounted types.
To start with we had no real idea what we were doing  so I took my leader and companions across the river followed by the rest of the Irish force( I'd rolled and ended up being the aggressor so Iwent first). Des (as the repellor) responded with his troops and we were in action rapidly, slightly hemmed in by terrain, not having given my leader and companions enough leadership points  they rapidly went down in cohesion points and we ended  up slugging it out as Stew pointed out we might do!  Eventually I managed to grind him down, as he lost units he lost leadership points which he then needed more and more which I thought was a good way of simulating gradual lack of overall cohesion of a force taking casualties.

  There are optinal rules to limit the amount of leadership points you can use for defence which I think are probably worth doing and I want to paint up some other unit types, shieldwall, skirmishers and the different mounted types, we both enjoyed it and Des has gone off to build his own army so I think we can call the game a success at least in the short term!
All the best
Iain

Early Imperial Roman 1 Newline onager

Last September I went to my first tournament, knightsfever in North London to play To the strongest! With my Italian wars figures as Venetian condatta as the armies had to be medieval (mine were pretty late medieval!) I have to say I really enjoyed it, it was a great learning experience and I managed to not lose every game!
 I wanted to have another go this year,the only slight  problem being that the theme is Rome and its enemies and I have neither, plus the tournament is in June, so three months earlier!
As I didn't have a Roman army I thought I'd better get some, I picked up an army box of warlord plastics in their post Christmas sale and then remembered that some years ago I picked up a couple of DBA armies back when I bought things on Ebay, put in a low bid and if no one else bids you get a bargain that you don't really need!

Well now was the moment I needed them, here is a newline Numidian onager ,I've painted the crew as Roman's in tunics with their shields and helmets stacked against their pila ( those bits came from the warlord plastics sprue)
The PVA is still wet but it's going to do!
So the onager or wild ass is a stone thrower next up will be some auxiliary infantry and I have at least one unit of legionarys painted in 1980!
All the best
Iain

Dux Bellorum 2 Irish Queen and followers AHPC post

Here we have a dark age Irish queen, let's call her Maeve? Together with 9 odd  fellows  they form a companion  unit for Dux Bellorum.
Then we have two more units( 20 Black tree design figures) based on the illustration of a Dal Riata warrior  in Osprey's  Arthur and the Anglo Saxon wars, probably my favourite Osprey . The colour for the queens clothing came from the same illustration.
Next up 10 naked Black  tree design Celtic warriors, not sure if they really existed in Irish or Pictish armies at this date but,hey they were cheap and nice sculpts and that's generally how I create my army lists!
10 more Irish warriors from a variety of manufactures, ebay and black tree design.

A load of these started off as Picts which I have press ganged into the Irish force, the Pict force is  following along  somewhere behind in the painting que and should turn up shortly.
 I  need some skirmishers and some light horse to finish off the Irish but that will be a while as I haven't assembled them yet, let alone  primed them!
The queen is from footsore figures and came free with an order of Romano Brits (which are way down the painting que) the other command stand figures are Black tree design Picts command plus sundry ebay types to make up the numbers
The shields were fun to paint in various Celtic patterns after the rigid pagan English. Next up first unit of a new ancient army!

All the best Iain

Terrain 11 it's all Ray's fault! The walls of Florence 1500

So Ray of the "don't throw a 1" blog is very good at covering shows and supplying copious photos, a year or two ago there were photos on his blog of a demonstration game with a renaissance city and a number of people said
" oh we could do with one of those" and  I made a comment saying I could do with one of those castles, "castles what castle?" Says Ray.
The castle in question is actually a toy castle I bought from Debenhams before they went bust, £13 and I have already posted the keep as terrain 6, I first saw this castle on the blessed Mr Awdrys 28mm Victorian warfare blog. When I say I bought it, actually my nephew bought it on my behalf as he was passing and then decided it was such good value he'd get one for himself too!
Unfortunately he realised that he didn't have room in his flat for the whole castle and just wanted the keep, so he gave me the walls and so I decided, I know I'll build a renaissance city! I didn't want a  city with slopping walls, really I wanted late medieval to suit 1495-1530 ish.

I wanted  Florence!

So starting with the pair of toy castle sets I needed to add a thickness as the step supplied with the castle was insubstantial. I had a redundant flush panel door which I ripped down with a skill saw and then cut to the right widths with a cross cut saw. In the ends of the cut down doors I filled them with sawdust and pea and gravel so that when I needed to add collapsed wall pieces it would look like a cross section of the wall. I also wanted all the pieces to be modular so that the towers could act as corners, which is why I didn't add any doors, in addition I had to fill in the large arrow slots but I think that works fine.  I was going for Dubrovnik style limestone (as Dubrovnik is a renaissance walled city designed by an Italian)

Apart from the Mediterranean church ( subject of a previous post) the buildings are work in progress of tt combat mdf Venetian buildings that I am coopting for more general Italian,  they're still wip because I want to add pitched tiles roofs to them as flat roofs are great for carnival (tt's game ) but not really correct for period. Still overall feel is pretty good and I look forward to a siege, maybe Rome 1527?

I'd be happy using it as a French city,100years war and with a change of internal buildings I can use it for ECW too,I just need a  bigger table! So it's all Ray's fault, thanks Ray!

Best Iain 

Flodden/ Irish 1 AHPC post

In June  my daughter bought me some Perry Irish figures from their War of the Roses  range for my birthday.  I'm planning on using them as Highlanders for Flodden as I appear to have enough renaissance figures for the Italian wars ( never!) and I want to deploy them elsewhere,  if I sort out some Highlanders and use my WOTR figures for the English ( with appropriate early 16th century command ) I can use Swiss for Scots and I'm good to go
This post is if you like a test with one of the Perry figures, a sword wielding ECW  Highlander from Foundry, an Old Glory Irish archer and finally a lightly converted Ral Partha Viking that,wait for it, I bought in 1977 to play basic D&D as a kid,there I've said it!
Well him and his two identical companions, cost the princely sum of 25p for the three of them!
He wasn't much use as a  henchman, chainmail and double handed swords didn't figure that much, he's been knocking around in a box  for over 40 years but finally he has had the horns cut off his helmet (it was the 1970s!) and been painted up as a gallowglass (scots mercenary in Ireland,or better equipped highlander)
Lovely sculpt and I think the disparate figures work well together

 Perry

 Foundry

 Old Glory

 Ral Partha

All together, and there should be more to follow during this challenge. 

So 4 28mm figures for 20 points
30 points for Millsy's millpond
 30 more for the geriatric scandahooligan
So a total of 80 points!
All the best Iain