Some Cataplana reinforcements

Still in a painting desert frame of mind, but had a few spare Medieval figures lying around so decided to give Cataplana a few reinforcements.

It is literally a matter of using what was lying around. The rank and file riders are MEC9, the horses should normally be ridden by knights and the standard is Byzantine!

But after, they are meant to represent a mythical/imaginary nation that existed at least 10,000 years ago...

The officer is MEC4, Mace, crested helmet, unbarded horse. I just happen to have given him a sword.

MEC2, Knight, plain basinet with banner, unbarded horse. No one said I had to use a Medieval banner...

MEC9, not a knight though riding a knightly horse. It's fantasy...

A skirmish in the desert

 I've got quite a few Cataplanan and Vanha figures that have not yet tasted blood. Seemed like they deserved a chance. In this battle, the two sides are fighting for control of a desert oasis.

As a starter, few words on rules - usual make up as I go along to a certain extent. Everything moves at 8" except light horse (riders on -1 as far a combat goes).and flyers at 16"

Units fight as units or detached elements - as a unit, roll one die for combat, etc, treat each detached element as separate and rolls their own die. Detached elements have to stay within sight of main body.

Foot archers have a range of 16", horse archers and elephants 10". Ignore losing result if opponent not firing back.

Combat factors as per HoTT.

Beasts and elephants have a fear factor. Units attempting get within 4" of  a beast or elephant unit roll 1 die, roll 1 and must stop at 4". Beasts and elephants do not need to make this roll. Roll 2 1s in a row and a unit will not advance against that beast/elephant unit for the rest of the game! Incidentally, rather than beasts I should have made clear this includes things like flyers, dragons and other non-human elements.

OK, That's a basic outline. So the game:

The battle after the first move - nothing much happening yet and it's easier to take a photo with the armies closer to each other. The Cataplanans have sent the Griffons to occupy the oasis. Note that the Cataplanan pikes are being treated as a single rank! It just looks better having them on double depth bases.

Second move and things are getting sorted a bit. Both sides were set up with the infantry directly facing the oasis and cavalry, etc, placed on the flanks. In this case the Vanha left flank ended up outflanking the Cataplanan right. Because of this the Cataplanan right flank is being slightly refused.

A very slightly different angle... gives a slightly better perspective of the foreground showing the Vanha light horse outflanking the Cataplanans.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the first effect of that beasts rule... the Vanha foot rolled to see if they would move into contact with the Griffins and decided against it... they rolled a 1.

I'm leaving the post at this point. Next post will start with this round's firing.

A couple of griffins.

In one of my shotgun periods. I've undercoated a couple of units of Burgundians, getting round to finish some Nemidian knights in a vaguely Tuetonic Knights scheme, got some Turanian cavalry undercoated, and finished a couple of griffins for my Cataplanan army, plus there's a couple more griffins cast and ready....

I'm trying out different colour schems on these. I've never been sure how to paint things like this!

A bird's eye view seems appropriate for these!

Of the current two, I prefer the lighter brown. The grey head and inner wings were originally going to be white but it didn't look right! I think it's pretty obvious that decorating bases is not one of my strong points.

Cataplana Guard Cavalry

Not exactly replacements, just extras with an undamaged standard.

 

They seem to have turned out OK - the basic orange/green with yellow cloaks works better than I expected. On this unit, the helmet crest is a green dragon - next unit I'll probably do either a red or orange dragon!

Not sure why I painted eyes on the king. I don't usually, except for the Admins figures I've been painting. They don't look bad on the figure - certainly better than on the photos!

Anyway, that unit represents the last painting session of the year. The tree goes up soon covering my painting desk.

Other news, I sent a couple of 12" moulds to Pete Brown (the Mouldmaker) in Nottingham by 1st Class 24hr Tracked... hopefully so that he can cast the figures off  them them and put some of them on 9" moulds so I can cast them. Current Tracking situation for this 24hr delivery service? See below!

Tuesday 29 November 2022

03:35

Item Received

Sheffield MC

Monday 28 November 2022

18:39

Item Received

Peterborough MC

Saturday 26 November 2022

13:05

Item Collected

Wisbech DO

Thursday 24 November 2022

22:14

Sender despatching item

 

A Cataplanan standard bearer

 A new one... the standard tends to snap at the base. That happened to my other one, they don't cast well so when I got some to cast OK I snapped at the chance!

SS26 Aquiland mounted standard bearer painted as Cataplana standard bearer.

Cataplana is roughly related to Portugal as regards colours/myths/etc.

The strange looking cockerel motif  is pure Portugese...

I've got quite a few I bought over there... They make useful additions to the army. My son Steven recognised that they are also the symbol for Nando's - I hadn't noticed it!

My original standard bearer. As you can see, it needed some work!

 

Another component of a Cataplanan army are Griffons. There are still one or two colonies left in Portugal though rarely seen Useful as fliers, especially as they would probably have been more common in the past.

Cataplanan pike phalanx

 

The Cataplanan army has been sadly neglected in recent years. I've therefore just increased the size of the pike phalanx from 1 battalion to 3...

The new battalions are basically the same as previous units except I've just left the bases plain, no filler.

 

Next priority will be to add a couple more xbow units.

'There are Demons invading from the South'

I've been neglecting my Fantasy armies recently. Cataplana has a lot of unpainted figures and unbased chickens, other armies have never even been used...

So a Demon invasion of Catalpana seemed to be a good idea. I've used my usual system of marking moves by quickly growing a forest on the battleground!

Cataplana army includes a Griffin and some chickens as Flyers. The infantry are bulked out with a load of Irregular Landsknecht.Demons mostly Garrison 'conversions' and various (Reaper?) demons.

First move mainly Demon Flyers using their speed to start outflanking the Cataplanans.

As this develops, the Cataplanan Flyers join forces and head to meet the Demon left flank Flyers. Move 3 sees the first casualties and the right flank flyer has run away.

By move 4 the Demon Flyer General has engaged the back of the Cataplanan left- that flank is looking a bit wobbly.

Meanwhile the Demon centre and left are taking casualties.

The position at the end of move 4.

The mercenary pikes formed up to help close off the Cataplanan left as the Demon Beast centre is gradually giving way.

Getting messy as three separate battle develop. The Flyer general and that Flyer that had previously run away but came back are starting to make their marks in the rear of Cataplanan units.

The Demon centre starts to collapse...

Followed by the Riders and remaining Flyer...

New battle lines forming as the Catalaplanans swing round to face the Demon army.

A few more skirmishes...

But it's obvious that the Demon army has lost and it withdraws from the battlefield.

Cataplana army Review(ish) 2019

Both Cataplana and Vanha have been neglected recently. However, the current sorting/cataloguing process has again brought them to the fore...

This is the current army including a load of figures  that needs basing.

The basic human element needs beefing up a bit still. There are some unpainted infantry lying around somewhere as well as some Teutonic knight types that could act as a religious order.

Must be about 3 years or so since I bought these. They should have been based by now but soon after bringing them home they were misplaced... and I've just found them again.

I originally thought that the Galo de Barcelos was Gallo de Barcelona - pity, if it was it would have opened the door to Faulty Towers jokes.

Originally I was going to use Garrison griffins but....

These ones work and come ready painted.

On a cruise last year and picked up these somewhere in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition seemed like another useful type - wizards rather than clerics?

So, lots of work to do but admit I really like this army. As a sort of Atlantean type army it predates Christianity by a few thousand years - but then, the Vanha figures aren't exactly in the right time line for Muslims - so really need to find a believable back story for military orders and the Inquisition. Can't see that as a major problem though.

Cataplana Republic reinforcements

One problem about the army of Cataplana is that it's quite small.

 

Especially as it's main enemy can field this lot:-

So, in a recent visit to Portugal (the modern name for Cataplana) I bought a few reinforcements. Actually, I might have gone slightly over the top...

 However, there's more. It seems that there are still a few griffons left in Portugal, so assuming that they were more common in the past I'll be adding a few to the army. By a happy coincidence Garrison made griffons - I'm going to have to go through things and see if I've got any cast up.