Dux Bellorum 6 Last unit of elderly Pagan English

Here is the final unit of pagan English for my Dux Bellorum army.
These  are a mix of a final Black tree design that I found after I'd painted all the rest ,a couple of Ebay purchases and seven figures from the 1970s that were painted in enamels, Ral Partha and Asgard and were regularly used as characters and non player characters in D&D games.
I've given them a wash ,touched up the metal here and there and painted the flesh in my usual elf flesh which I have almost used up,bit worrying as I think GW stopped making it years ago and I haven't found a good substitute yet!

I've painted the shields to match the rest of the army.  They're not  terribly kosher as they're mostly Vikings or Varagnians but it uses up some figures that have spent 40 years sitting in various cardboard boxes in various lofts and finishes an army off!
Oh and I  know I'll have to finish the sabot bases off at some point!
All the best
Iain

Napoleonic 3 French Dragoons and a bit of damp real life !

These are 12 Perry plastic French dragoons which have taken a long time to complete.  This is the  first Napoleonic post since 2017!
I've just called them done ,they're okay but I'm going to have to adjust my technique a bit to get a nicer finish on future napoleonic cavalry, what I  normally do worked on the line infantry but doesn't quite for cavalry.
They're in the 1812 onwards uniform but I'll be using them for the 1809 campaign as no one else was making plastic French dragoons for the earlier period and the overall silhouette says French dragoons to me!
No flag until after lockdown.  I wasn't going to do flags for the light cavalry, having looked at French cavalry on Chasseur's splendid blog I will follow his example and not give flags to any of the cavalry units in the future, it will only be this unit that has them!
I'll probably also use them against nephew 1s Brits in Spain and nephew 2s Russians, hes painted his Russians and is breathing down my neck so there should be more Napoleonic French, cavalry and infantry down the line.

 More Napoleonic troops in the que but they will be a while, probably more Dux Bellorum up next!

So on Monday evening this happened, all the water from the boiler/central heating system poured out of the light fitting into the living room, in the bottom drawer of the plan chest/ coffee table is where I keep reference books and rules relating to what I'm currently working on. Bit of an impact on productivity and blog visiting!

Drying out some of the reference books.  I've stripped the ceiling luckily I've still got a dehumidifier and I'll redecorate next week, I've isolated the pipes,  so no central heating, no boiler,but that's okay  as I had an electric shower installed under the stairs and it's  nice and warm now ,so we can sit it  out until after lockdown, ah how we've laughed!

All the best Iain 

Dux Bellorum 5 Pictish skirmishers

Here are some Pict archers for Dux Bellorum ,again almost finished at the end of the challenge, finally done now.  They're a skirmish option in Dux Bellorum, so they'll be in units of four,I  need to come up with a couple more figures, well three more as a spare Pict leader has snucked in as he was finished, he might well get press ganged into a Welsh army in the future.
The figures are primarily Black tree design with additional unknown Ebay types to make up the numbers.

14 x figures not quite enough for four units of four,plus one is going to go off and start another army but I intend to insert some additional Celtic archers from a somewhat later period and hope no one notices ( they'll be in the background, out of focus, it'll be fine!)

I've got some more Dux Bellorum lined up together with various other periods and I really need to get some Romans done! Next up probably wont be hairy psychopaths from the Celtic fringe,probably!

All the best Iain 

Irish/Flodden Highlanders 2

So continuing on from the Analogue challenge I have 21 Irish or Highlanders for Flodden.  They are a mix of Perry ,Old Glory( which I got off of ebay the seller kindly included extra ones he'd chopped the heads off of I have replaced these with spare Perry plastic Ansar heads)and some old re purposed Ral Partha Vikings. They seemed nearly done on the last day of the challenge but clearly I was well off!
To be fair even though I'm no longer working I've had less painting time than when I do work as I'm seemingly repainting lots of the house before digging for victory in the garden!

There will be some more for this project to add to the ones done in the challenge. 

So not Romans but maybe soon after various other bits and bobs.
The flag carrier is waiting for all this quarantine stuff to blow over and then I will resize and print a flag from Ray's extensive Flodden flag collection over on his excellent Don't throw a 1 ! Blog.
I'm currently working on converting plastic Ansars to kerns and plastic gripping beast plastic Vikings and Perry medieval French infantry to gallowglass, bashed together you get a nice axe, chainmail/padded look with the right helmet.
Until then probably more Picts!

All the best
Iain

Dux Bellorum 4 a pile of Picts! AHPC post

The aim for this challenge was to produce at least the core of a number of armies for Dux Bellorum (other dark age rule sets are available!) I  have largely succeeded with playable Irish and Saxon forces. Now it's the turn of the Picts in the shape of four units of ordinary warriors.  These are mostly from Black tree design, although they don't seem to be doing them anymore which is a pity as I really like the sculpting style plus a half dozen unknown from Ebay.

This gives me the core of a  Pictish force and post challenge are the Late Romans and the Romano British, rather more cavalry!


All the best 
Iain 

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