Book Review: Battles of the Dark Ages by Peter Marren

In an attempt to inspire myself to finish off my Saxon warband for our planned Bloodeagle campaign I have been reading Battles of the Dark Ages by Peter Marren.

The book covers most, if not all, of the important battles that took place in the British Isles during the Dark Ages (covering 410-1065AD). The writing style can be a little dry at times, but it is fairly easy reading and goes into some depth on the more important battles.

The book gives a good insight into the political and military history of the British Isles through the period, with plenty of interest to the Dark Age wargamer.

There is a Gazetteer at the back of the book which lists nearly a hundred and thirty battles from 410-1065AD. If that doesn't give game possibilities, nothing does...

I would say that I feel the author has spent a little too much time researching the locations of the battlefields and could have gone into more depth on the tactics and strategies used. Afterall, the book is called Battles of the Dark Ages, not Battlefields of the Dark Ages. However, as the "Dark Ages" are called that due to the lack of information, I understand that there is not much detail to base the book on, and looking at the actual battlefields is useful for attempting to work out how a battle was actually fought.

On the whole, a good and useful read.

Note:-

I have just noticed that the blog passed the half million pages views mark sometime last month. Now as I haven't been posting very much recently I am very thankful that the blog still seems to be drawing quite a bit of interest. I will try to post more regularly over the coming months.

Laser Cut Dark Age Village

One last post before I venture forth to Carronade (Falkirk) on Saturday.

We have been preparing for a game of Blood Eagle (or possibly Saga eventually) for a while, my Saxons are assembled and undercoated, and Del and Jeff are both just about ready. To prepare the terrain I decided to build a village.

As usual, I turned to laser cutting to design the main structures, but I wanted to step up a notch for the thatched rooves. I have seen towels used very effectively, but I have already got a Japanese building from 4Gound that uses "Teddy Bear Fur" and I really like the effect. A quick visit to Hobbycraft got me a metre of teddy bear fur, so I was all ready to go.

Several years ago I designed a fantasy barbarians hall. The basic shape of the building matched that of several Saxon meeting halls that I have found reference for online. So I used that as the basic building but removed most of the "fantasy" styling and ( as the roof lifts off ) added a raised rectangular firepit.

I decided to design at least two different houses, as clearly, in reality, every Dark Age building would have it's own individual peculiarities, so a whole village with the same building design would look a little unrealistic.

Once again, taking my design from online photo reference I found that a lot of Dark Age houses have the thatch going all the way down to the ground. I think this gives a distinct styling which pins it down to the dark age period.

The second design is a more familiar one with the more standard small building shape.

Once I had laser cut the kits, I assembled them and set to with the teddy bear fur. I cut it slightly larger than needed and then applied it to the models with PVA glue. Once in place I used watered down PVA, with a drop of washing up liquid added, to soak the fur and "comb"  it with a heavy brush into the correct position. I let it dry out for a couple of days and then trimmed it to shape.

I have decided that I am going to sell these buildings, as fully assembled pieces, at Carronade in Falkirk this Saturday. I will sell them individually, or if anyone is really keen I will do a deal on the whole village...