Sabots for Dux Bellorum

Some of my 25mm Late Dark Age Vikings on a sabot base.

I was originally planning to do some 10mm armies for Dux Bellorum, but when my friend Ian recently bought a load of 28mm plastic Early Dark Age figures and said he was going to base them individually on 2p coins but also group them on sabots for playing Dux Bellorum, I decided to get some sabots myself so I could use my 25mm Late Dark Age armies.

Long, long ago my Vikings were based for WRG Ancients but more recently I rebased them individually for Lion Rampant.

To be honest I didn't use to like the idea of sabots and I'm still not keen on movement trays, but I now appreciate their utility and might also start using them in Rampant games too. I don't personally find moving lots of individually-based 28mm figures a burden, but some people like to speed things up.

The sabots were supplied by the nice people at Products for Wargamers.

Dux Bellorum: The River Battle Scenario

The Dux Bellorum Shooting query featured in my last two posts absorbed our attention but didn't actually stop our game because the only shooting was from a hill and all targets were completely in arc...

We were playing the River Battle scenario which has a river running across the table and a ford towards its centre. The object of the game is to be nearest to the ford at the end of the game or to rout the enemy before that. Unfortunately, no game length is specified but as this game was essentially a rules refresher we decided to just start playing.

I chose Late Romans while Ian had Early Saxons. The armies comprised:

Saxons

1 Mounted Companions
1 Noble Riders
1 Noble Warriors
5 Ordinary Warriors
2 Foot Skirmishers (Bow)

Romans

1 Mounted Companions
1 Noble Riders
1 Cataphracts
2 Noble Shieldwall
2 Bow

As expected, Ian ended up as the Aggressor while I was the Repeller. It's not a good idea for Shieldwall units to to attack into rough ground so I formed a plan to block rather than occupy the ford, at least initially.

As Repeller I was able to place two additional pieces of terrain. I chose hills and placed these either side of the river overlooking the ford, so I would get use of one of them regardless of which table edge Ian chose. Sneaky or what?

The armies deployed. The 28mm plastic figures are Ian's and only recently acquired. They were undercoated in two contrasting colours so they could be used in the game. I like these figures!

 The armies advance towards the river.

The Romans Bow gain the hill as planned but the Shieldwall troops didn't quite reach the river. At first I thought this was a failure but it turned out to my advantage.

The barbarian Companions characteristically but rashly attack across the ford.

3:1 is not good odds and Ian's Companions are severely mauled and withdraw. Had I been more up to speed in playing the rules I should have interrupted this retreat and finished them off.

More fodder for the Roman meat-grinder. (The cavalry have not yet been properly fixed in their bases and were prone to falling over - they are not casualties).

 

They keep coming...

...but there are less and less of them...

Thanks to my Bow, local superiority on my side of the crossing and good dice, Ian's units were getting chewed up one by one and he conceded the game.

Ian could simply have occupied the ford without attacking thus fulfilling the victory condition. I would then have been forced to attack at a disadvantage, but I would gradually have chipped away at the occupying unit with my Bow. Whether that would have worked would have depended on the game length so that really needs to be set.

Anyway, apart from our one big, seemingly resolved, rules query, the game flowed smoothly and we were pleased to be playing it again.

28mm Dark Age scenery

Adrian's Walls: wattle pens and fences

I already had the usual range of wargame scenery - passable cloth, trees, hills, rocky ground and rivers, but for playing Landwasters and Raven Feeders (Dark Age extension of Lion Rampant), I wanted to add some 28mm scenics of a specifically Dark Age character. OK, my last century vintage figures are 25mm but things have moved on.

I found two sources to help set the scene. Firstly, some wattle pens and fences from Adrian's Walls. I now prefer to avoid resin for larger pieces because of the weight, but resin gives smaller pieces some stability. 

The sets are not cheap but they are high quality and come ready-painted. The animal pens are particularly impressive - you can almost smell the dirt. There's one in particular I wouldn't want to fall into.

4Ground Saxon/Medieval dwelling

For buildings, however,  I avoided resin and turned to MDF,  specifically the ready-coloured Saxon/Medieval buildings from 4Ground. These need to be stuck together, including the teddy bear fur thatch, but don't need to be painted.

I've now completed both buildings. These are the first laser-cut building kits I've tackled. The instructions were clear and the parts fitted perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised by the finish and the level of detail. The kit was very quick to make, indeed, the main walls need to be constructed in toto before anything dries.

4Ground Saxon/Medieval hovel

The experience was far better than I expected and I will certainly look at 4Ground buildings for other scales and periods.

Repurposing my 25mm Vikings

Back in the days when I played 25mm WRG Ancients it was common to raise a discrete army of your choice and to pit it against the armies of other players. These match-ups were usually unhistorical, and one's opponents were often WRG super armies like Seleucids and triple-armed Late Romans. This left me with a couple of isolated armies which haven't been used for decades.

I offloaded my Later Greek Hoplites years ago and I'm planning to sell my Sassanid Persians, but I thought I'd repurpose the Vikings. Although the army would be relatively small for a game like Impetus, it will comfortably stretch to two skirmish-level warbands.

I had originally thought of using Saga, but I'm now more likely to try Landwasters and Raven Feeders, the official Dark Age variant of Dan Mersey’s Mediaeval rules, Lion Rampant. Some people have criticised Dan’s rules for being too simple, but I’ll live with having fun and finishing a game, or even two, in an evening.

When I first started collecting this army there weren't many multi-pose packs about, so I bought figures from different manufacturers and ranges so that every figure was unique. This mixture will now work to my advantage. The unarmoured infantry are pretty generic anyway, while the more stylistically-specific armored figures should split well enough into typically Anglo-Danish and Viking forces, though I do have some doubts that they would have been very distinguishable by the 11th Century.

The Lion Rampant Mediaeval categories readily translate into Dark Age types. OK, I’m aware of armour development, but this is a game not a scientific simulation, and the important thing is 'relative' difference.

These are the Mediaeval game categories and the Dark Age types I will have:

Foot Men-at-Arms
Anglo-Danish and Viking Huscarls with two-handed axes.

Foot Serjeants
Armoured spearman - Select Fyrd or Viking Hirdmen.

Foot Yeomen
Unarmoured spearman - Great Fyrd, and Viking Bondi who will be additionally armed with mixed weapons (i.e. will include archers).

Fierce Foot
Viking Berserkir and Ulfhedhnar.

Bidowers
Anglo-Danish skirmishers and Viking scouts with various missile weapons.

Next step is to take the figures off the old bases, throw away those afflicted with lead rot and then rebase the survivors on 2p coins. For skirmish games I really don’t like the look of rectangular bases, and I’m not keen on movement trays either. If I’m short of figures I can press some half-painted ones into service as I have plenty of those in the lead mountain. These were on my workbench over twenty years ago, but were packed into a box when I moved  house and have not seen the light of day since. I'll post some pictures when I've reorganised and rebased them.

Bad hair day for the Vikings

Hairy

After playing a game of The Crescent & The Cross I was thinking about resuscitating my 25mm Vikings for Saga or even Dux Bellorum. This was an army that was literally packed away some 20 years ago and never opened since.

Anyway, on opening the boxes and picking out the polystyrene chippings used to pack them, I discovered that some of the figures had become considerably 'hairier' owing to a nasty instance of lead rot. Some looked like iron filings attracted to a magnet while others had crumbled to dust. Happily, the vast majority are in perfect condition.

Crumbly

As the figures were recruited from a large variety of different manufacturers I don't know which ones rotted, and as the ranges are so old it's water under Stamford Bridge in any event.

AFAICR all these figures would have been undercoated with a polyurethane varnish stained with Humbrol enamel matt black, painted in Humbrol matt enamels and then given a sealing coat of varnish.

That was my standard approach for 25mm figures in those days and I've never seen this problem with any other armies.

Dux Bellorum

Back in October of last year I played a couple of games of the popular Dark Age rules, Dux Bellorum, and really enjoyed them. By now you'll find lots of  DB reviews and AARs elsewhere. I've included some game photos here, but they are just for decoration as what I really want to talk about is aesthetics. The rules are very period-specific and one of their major appeals to me is the look of the armies. DB is one of those games which requires relatively few bases (phew), but they can be big and dioramic (huzzah). Think DBA on steroids.