Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #8 More Challenge Studio Projects.

It has been a while since I posted any of the AHPC submissions on the Fawcett Avenue blog. My anti-virus program keeps preventing me from logging on due to detecting malicious URLs on the site. I am not sure was is going on, but it seems that I am still able to post, so here goes.

First up are two 28mm figures of William the Conqueror and his brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux, that I picked up decades ago which then languished in a drawer until now. If I recall correctly, these are some early sculpts from Gripping Beast, but if anyone recognizes them, let me know. I am not planning on painting up a Norman army in 28mm as I already have one in 15mm, but plans can change. They seemed appropriate for the movie, 'The War Lord'.

 I mounted them on fender washers which are the same diameter as the Games Workshop cavalry bases, and then used some spackle to get a smooth transition between the figure's base and the washer. As with all my other figures, I glued some fine sand to the base with PVA, and then primed the figures black with an airbrush. I used Vallejo acrylics to paint them, along with some Citadel washes, primarily on the horses.

 

 

 To go along with the figures I built a tower that was inspired by the one that features in the movie. I had a thick cardboard cylinder in my terrain building hoard for years. It measured 5.5" high with a diameter of 5". I didn't think that was tall enough to be Chrysagon's tower, so it was augmented by three layers of 1.5" thick blue styrofoam, plus a layer of thick cardboard to form the floor at the top to give a total height of 10". I originally thought I would clad the entire structure with stones cut from more blue styrofoam, but it was taking too much time, and I only did as far as the top of the foundation, as well as the stones around the windows and the door. The rest of the 'stones' were made using self-adhesive address labels that I cut into smaller lengths and stuck on the cylinder with slight gaps in between. It's a technique I used when I refurbished a Vauban style star fort a few years ago. The floor and the door are coffee stir sticks, and the iron banding on the door is made from strips of thin card. Once everything was glued and pasted, the whole thing got painted with black latex house paint, followed by a dry brush with medium grey paint and a final dusting of light grey. I used acrylic craft paints for the brown on the floor and the door, and a green wash on the stones of the foundation. All in all, it was approximately eight hours of work to get it to this stage. At some point I need to build a dedicated ramp and/or bridge to get up to the height of the door, but that is a future project. If I build one of these again, I am going to get a Proxxon hot wire cutter first. 

 

  Next are some old school Miniature Figurines which I have painted up as the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 79th Cameron Highlanders. The Fusiliers were a gift from a student who had gone to England on holiday and brought back a box of 'toy soldiers'. The paint job was pretty sketchy, including painting the drummer in reversed colours, something that 'Royal' regiments didn't do. The Highlanders were picked up at Keystone Hobbies in Winnipeg back in the early 1980s, and at one point I thought I would do a small diorama with them. So the sketchy paint job got stripped off, and then all twelve minis were primed black with an airbrush before painting them with Vallejo acrylics. The Fusiliers were quite easy compared to painting 'Cameron of Erracht' tartan and diced hose on the Highlanders. Once they were painted, I mounted them on 40mm x 60mm pieces of Masonite and completed the ground work.

 

 

  The last set for this submission is 'The Hero's Journey' starring Aragorn as he progresses from Ranger to Captain, and finally to King in 'The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King'. The figures are three different versions of Aragorn done by Games Workshop depicting him in the Attack at Weathertop, at his encounter with the Army of the Dead, and before the Black Gate. 

 Thanks for stopping by. More to follow.

 

Byzantines vs. Normans WAB Battle Report

Some time ago Conscript Greg told me he was planning a trip back to Winnipeg, and wanted to set up a game. "What would you like to play?" I asked. The answer was Warhammer Ancient Battles with Greg's Byzantines against my Normans. Wow, what a blast from the past! And a couple weeks ago Greg was here with his beautiful Byzantine army and we played a game of WAB - here is the report!

Greg proposed the battle of Montemaggiore, 1041 as the scenario. Basically this was a pitched battle between the Byzantines (led by their Catapan, Michael Dokeianos) and the Norman/Lombard rebels led by William "Iron Arm" d'Hauteville. The place of the battle was near Cannae, itself the site of not only Hannibal's victory over the Romans in antiquity, but also of a Byzantine victory over the Normans some 20 years earlier. The Normans had been mercenaries in the employ of the Byzantines and served their masters well, but the factions had fallen out over (what else) pay, and William et al decided that seeking their own destiny was preferable to serving under the penny-pinching Byzantines. So Dokeianos seeks to put the Normans in their place and re-establish the authority of his own boss, Emperor Michael IV (the Paphlagonian) over southern Italy, once and for all. 

Greg and I each created army lists of 2,350 points (nice round number eh?) - a sizeable battle by WAB standards, but Normans and Byzantine troops (especially Normans) can be crazy expensive - a Norman mounted knight is something like 35 points! Above you see some of the Byzantine host.

More Byzantines.

Some of their Norman opponents, seen from behind the Norman lines.

Very annoying Turkish horse archers in Byzantine employ. Hope they got paid in advance.

Byzantine heavy cavalry.

One of the Norman mounted milites (knights) units, screened by skirmishing archers. 

Opening moves, view from the Norman table edge... the Normans fielded three units of mounted milites center left, center, and in reserve at center), three of dismounted milites (two in the center and one at far right), a unit of skirmishing archers (at left) and one of skirmishing crossbowmen (barely visible at far right). 

A sturdy unit of mounted milites (containing William Iron Arm and his younger brother Drogo, the army standard bearer) stakes out its position, waiting for the other mounted unit in support to arrive. 

It faces off against the Byzantine heavy cav unit. Typical of the Byzantines, it incorporated a rear rank of archers that continually loosed off arrows. Super annoying.

The kataphractoi advance in support. Even scarier than the heavy cav, these guys rocked a 2+ save on their barded mounts, PLUS had archers in the rear rank!

Action shot here from behind the Byzantine line. Byzantine skirmishing javelinmen are about to get swept by the main unit of Norman mounted milites who crash into the heavy cav (center). After a (brief) moment of consideration, the second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh of Eu) charges the Varangians to the left.

How wouldja like to see this coming at you! Norman milites are super-scary - good saving throw of 3+, lances give +2 S on the charge, and most terrifyingly of all, "Ferocious Charge" ensures that as long as they win the combat in which they charge, the enemy automatically fails their morale check and runs. And this includes counter-charges against enemy cav who charge the milites!

And that's what happened - main milites unit evaporated the Byzantine heavy cav, swept through and reforms to charge to their right. Second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh) ran over the spearmen facing them, took two turns to blow up the Varangians (they were Stubborn so Ferocious Charge only works half the time) and swept on into the spear block behind.

Meanwhile over on the Norman right flank the axemen get stuck in.

Propaganda shot for "Byzantium Today" - this was about the only part of the battle that went right for Greg. His kataphractoi absolutely levelled a unit of dismounted milites spearmen but in doing so, took themselves out of the main fight... just as well for them, they could legitimately disavow all knowledge of the disaster unfolding behind them. 

And with that, we called the battle as a Norman victory - even though the axemen on the Norman right would likely be overcome by the large Byzantine spear units it faced, the Byzantine centre and right flank had largely evaporated. While the scary kataphractoi still were hanging around, they were only one unit and there were still three Norman knight units milling about in the Byzantine backfield.

This result certainly wasn't inconsistent with the historical one - although outnumbered by the Byzantines, the battle was a Norman win, attributed largely to the fighting prowess of their heavy cavalry. In WAB, these mounted milites are indeed game-breakers - 3+ save, +2S on the charge with their lances, and most importantly, Ferocious Charge. They are a point-and-shoot weapon though - while they're likely to take out whatever they hit, it'll take them awhile to get themselves oriented for another assault. Of course it's best if you can wipe out the first target and sweep forward into their supporting unit, as happened both at the real Montemaggiore battle, and on our tabletop.

I'm thankful to Greg both for proposing the WAB game and for bringing his beautiful Byzantine army all the way to Winnipeg. The game looked fantastic and was super-fun to play; WAB (and its inspiration, Warhammer Fantasy Battle) were long-time favourites of our group and it was great to get back to some square-based wargaming. Hope we can do it again soon!