Footsore Late Roman Sagittarii (3)

A little work of the Bank Holiday weekend has finished these eight off.

Of course to be properly effective I think I probably need another four...

Now back to the spearmen.

Musketeer Late Romans

After quite some time forlornly staring at me from the fringes of my painting area I finally cracked and picked up some of the Musketeer Late Romans and applied a little pigment.
Quite pleased with them.

Wonder if I'll finish the unit before I get distracted..?

Musketeer Dark Age Warrior

This fella has been half-finished on my painting table for months now.
So I finished him off

He's technically a Goth from the DAG08 Infantry Command pack, but he'll be doing duty in my Saxon or Late Roman forces as a hero (though he's not beardy enough for a Saxon, and too long haired for a Roman)

The rest of the pack I painted up a couple of years ago for the Y Gododdin game
Lovely model and a pleasure to paint - I'm picking up some more Musketeer Dark Age models at Salute.

Musketeer Miniatures Saxon Archers (4)

I finished these in time for the gaming day, but didn't get round to taking any pictures.

Here are eight of them on the movement tray they spent most of the games on

And here are a few singles

As I was painting these I had a moment of realisation as to where Musketeer Bill had drawn his inspiration

 Or possibly...

So we have Parfitt/St Hubbins the Archer

Rossi/Tufnel the Archer

And Lancaster/Smalls the Archer

Of course whilst painting these I watched the excelent Quo documentary on BBC4, and so had to paint one of them up as the elederly leader based on Alan Lancaster as he is now

And finally a group shot

Musketeer Miniatures Saxon Archers (3)

Almost finished now.
Just some basing material to add and base edges to paint.

Musketeer Miniatures Saxon Archers (2)

Some more work on these fellas.
I do love Bill's sculpts, they're just so easy to paint.
Base coats, wash and re-highlight with basecoat in the main, though the leather has had a coat of Citadel Chestnut ink, which seems to have gone on a bit thick this time.

I've stuck to a limited palette of greens browns and off whites.
Bit more work to do, but confident they'll be ready for the big day on Sunday

Musketeer Miniatures Saxon Archers (1)

So having mildly (and inadvertently) besmirched the Musketeer Saxon archers in a previous post I thought I'd actually show how they go together.
And the answer is, really well.

Cleaning up was simple - very little flash and minimal mold lines - a few minutes with file and knife soon got rid of everything

The hands are separate and gripping the bows, this means they can be cast separately from the bodies, allowing for better casting, and with bows and hands as a single piece thus avoiding the "claw grip effect that you sometimes get with separate bows. My worry was that the hands would then be very likely to detach from the bodies. however as you can hopefully see the hand casting comes complete with a built in pin to enable secure location, rather than the weak "pimple and dimple" design that some other figures have in these instances.

Of course the vagaries of the casting process mean you can't have deep drilled out holes in the arm to receive the pin, but there is a locating mark on the wrist and a minute or so with a pin vice soon has a hole prepared. Then simply glue and slot home.

Next step was to glue them on to GW slottbases.
Were I starting this army now I'd probably use either Renedra plastic bases  or Warbases MDF ones, but when I began I worked for GW, so I lived in land where such bases grew on trees and we could all indulge in freebasing.

After that I apply a modicum of filler mixed with a little sand. Again if I were starting now I'd probably just use sand, but some of the early historicals I began with had quite thick bases and the filler helped blend them in a little. The bases on these are nice and thin so it's not really necessary.

Next step in prep is to apply a little PVA glue in patches and then sand over the PVA, just to break up the texture.

Finally I sprayed them all with Plastikote Chocolate Brown spray and neglected to take any pictures.
They were then packed in my bag and taken to Swindon - you can see a blurry image of how I started on them here.

WAB Age of Arthur Battle Report

The Saxons and their Romano British paymasters assemble

With Scrivs' Age of Arthur event less than two weeks away my chum and I convened for a game of WAB by way of warm-up/attempt to remember the rules.
As we'd neither of us played WAB for around six months, nor AoA for even longer (or ever in my opponent's case) we went with a simple 1600pt pitched battle affair.

My army included a unit of Gedrith, two units of Duguth, a smaller unit of Geoguth and an allied unit of Milites, together with my not yet finished archers. I also took an assortment of characters, possibly slightly more than permitted.
On the Welsh side of the table stood a big unit of Teulu, another big warband unit, two units of cavalry and a smattering of skirmishers.

The Welsh form up

The battle took a while to get going, my advance was slowed by the screening archers (who, predictably, failed to shoot anything) whilst the Welsh were stymied by deploying their cavalry behind a unit of close order warband.
I think my opponent was also wrestling with the nuances (or lack of same) of early Dark Age warfare. More used to the subtle manouverings of the Andalusians he failed to simply point his big unit of double hard warriors at the middle of my line and deliver his general to where he could do most damage.

 As dawn breaks the Saxons advance. Quite slowly.

 Steady chaps. Let the hairy blokes do the fighting

 'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we...

 Sneaky Welshies hiding in the woods

 Big, slow warband. Note cavalry trying to get past

Sneaky Welshies leaving the woods to chuck stones

Eventually however, the battle lines crashed together (my archers, inevitably, being swept aside) and the real work began. A challenge between our generals demonstrated once again that Welsh fury (and WS6, 3A) beats Saxon power as my general was brutally cut down before he'd unhitched his buckler. However Saxon steel (and a flank charge) ruled the combat (just) and we settled down to grind, despite the death of my general causing a smattering of flight.

 Let the taunting begin

 First battle for the archers - inevitable outcome

 Steady chaps, steady...

 Wallop!

The scrum begins

On my left flank the Duguth eventually charged the Welsh warband, but came off worst and were cut down down, whilst the Geoguth were humiliatingly run to ground by skirmishers.

 Saxon bucklers, not enough to make the difference.

 Round two hundred and fifty of this combat

 Some substitute Norman cavalry sneak around the back

The Welsh general begins to run out of bodies...

Fortunately, in the centre, numbers eventually told and despite a late charge by the Welsh cavalry (which actually gave me more combat resolution) my foes broke and fled as the game ended.

So what did we learn?
That Welsh generals are proper frisky.
Subtle manouvering is not the name of the game
Cavalry are a bit bobbins
WAB and this supplement gives a great game of soldiers.

So another evening well spent.
Just got to finish the archers off and tweak the armylist a little (I think the Geoguth may be better as two skirmishing units of nine models to go and monster opposing skirmishers than a ranked unit of sixteen).
Apart from that I'm raring to go for the event