Anglo ~ Saxons & Some Familiar Northern Fantasy Riders

The rebasing continues and this time it's my Anglo-Saxons (or generic Dark Ages if you prefer). Once again these figures were all on individual bases which made them difficult to use in large battle games. Even when put onto sabot bases mass amounts of singe figures are hard to manage as far as I'm concerned and I think they'll be much easier to manage as they are now based.

I also rebased my "Somewhat Familiar Northern Fantasy Riders." Until such time as I increase their numbers they should work well with the Anglo-Saxons to create a pseudo-dark age fantasy host.

There are 14 bases of heavy warriors: 7 bases of armoured thegns, 6 of fyrd and one of huscarls. There are also two bases of javelin armed light infantry (allied Welsh or Irish) and three skirmish bases armed with bows. This isn't a huge army but it is made up of about 200+ figures. The host is deployed with the thegns in the front line and supported by the fyrd in the rear. The kings' huscarls are also to the front, armed with Dane axes and supported by the kings own household thegns. 

To lead the host is King Ætholguy the Seeker, the heroes Ælefroth and Wilfred. There is also a priest and a handful of lesser heroes (see below). Ætholguy the Seeker features throughout this blog and is a name I chose for the very first warlord when I played Saga many years back. He has lead many warbands and fought larger battles over the years and it's about time he got elevated to the throne. Long live King Ætholguy the Seeker!

This is the right of the shieldwall. You can see the front rank of thegns and the fryd at the rear nice and clear. This host has only a few missile troops deployed as skirmishers. Their main strength lay in a solid shieldwall and little else. I have been thinking what kind of fantastic elements I can add to the army to create a fantasy version but I haven't come up with anything suitable at this stage.

You can see the kings' axe wielding huscarls standing right behind him in the image above. I actually had 14 Dane-axe figures so I decided to put all of them onto the base. It makes the unit look very big, heavy and tough.

The left of the shieldwall with the light infantry allies. I decided to keep these lighter troops on single bases and use sabot unit bases as I did with both my elves and orcs. If I want I can put only 4 figures onto a sabot and create another 4 figure unit is needed, but I prefer the 6 figure look. These figures are actually Wargames Atlantic Irish. 

Whilst on the subject of figures: the figures used here are from all over. The main bulk of figures are Gripping Beast but there are many figures from all over including, Eureka Miniatures, Footsore, Saxon (now defunct), and others.

Some extra heroes to add to the mix, and to go where they may be needed.

And here are the "Somewhat Familiar Northern Fantasy Riders," that might or might not hail from the lands of Rohan. These are my cheap-o "I'm not paying out a fortune to GW" fantasy rider. They are actually Goth Noble Riders from Gripping Beast. They look the part but they have a very limited range of poses (as do all Gripping Beast cavalry).

Visually they don't really fit with the Anglo Saxons but for the sake of creating a nice big host they can work together until I make something better. This is two  boxes so another couple of boxes would double their number an look pretty impressive. I think the Wargames Atlantic Gothic infantry would make good foot troops to supplement the horse.

One thing I don't have is Rider Leaders and I'm finding it difficult to find any suitable figures. These riders are 100% fantasy and bare very little resemblance to the historical Goths, so they need suitably impressive leaders and heroes to command them. I'm even considering GW options!!! (Gasp!)

You may note that I only put 4 riders to a base and that these bases are not as deep as my other cavalry units. I did this because I intend to make them heavy cavalry but not as strong as the armoured elf knights or orc boar riders. Heavy riders more in the vein of Roman equites.

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And that's it for this post. I'm contemplating which army to do next. I'm looking at either my woodland forces or undead. I'm undecided at this time. I also need to play a game of Midgard. But finding the time is proving difficult at the moment.

Thanks for reading,

IanKH

 

 

War of the Roses ~ Re-Basing and New Troops

As mentioned in my previous post I took a lot of time out to rebase a whole bunch of figures. Part of this included re-basing all of my Lancastrians for Never Mind the Billhooks. This came about because I originally based my army for Hail Caesar but everyone at my club uses Billhooks for WotR's, so I decided to conform. Whilst I was at it I also took the time to make a whole bunch of sabot bases.

In doing this re-basing the units in my army grew in number because each unit went from 15/16 figures to 12 figures. I originally had 14 units - bill & bow, dismounted knights, pike, plus handgonners and mounted knights. This has now grown to 20 units with the inclusion of the new unit of Hobilars below.

My Henry VI and the Margret of Anjou bases are not really command bases for purposes of Billhooks they are more like vignettes to add a bit of colour and interest to the proceedings and to show the possible position of the monarch.

Because my bill and bow units had more archers than billmen I ran into a bit of a problem with filling out the units. I had the option of painting more figures or just amalgamating units. In the main I decided to amalgamate, although I did need to paint up about half a dozen figures to fill up some gaps.

Then there's these fellows below: They're left overs. I can't let them go to waste and I still have plenty of figures still on the sprue so I think they might be the starting point of a potential Yorkist army. 

Last but not least is my newest addition to my Lancastrians (most likely the last unit to be added). So here we have some Hobilars - Light Horse. Sometimes known as Prickers. This type of cavalry are very useful for getting in the enemy's flanks and rear areas by with their ability to move with flexibility. Once again the figures are Perry Miniatures from their WotR's plastic range.

I could have painted them with pretty subdued colours but I decided to paint them in a variety of panoply based on the retinues I already have. They came out pretty nice and add more colour to a pretty colourful army.

And that's it for now!

Bye.

Medieval May ~ Lion Rampant Battle Reports

 A few few days back at our last club meeting we celebrated the start of Medieval May with a couple of games of Lion Rampant. My friend Mike and I brought out our Imaginations Medieval forces and fought for glory, reputation and renown.

Game 1

The first stouch was just a basic clash. My Hemmingaetic League (modestly named after myself) and Mike's Knights of Noirebrûler (that's Blackburn to us uneducated peasants).

Above: Bishop Eisenwurst leads the forces of the H League, whilst below: some pathetic knight leads the Noirebrûler scum. We rolled our Leader Qualities. Mike rolled Strong (Re-roll one failed To Hit dice). I rolled Sly for Eisenwurst (he can get out of challenge because he's a slimy turd).

Early on The Noirebrûler knights charged. Earlier some arrows were let loose and the Noirebrûler archers hitting my foot sergeants hard (6 sixes on 12 dice!). However, this charge didn't go to plan and my knights won the fight.

On the flank I sent my mounted sergeants through some woods to come up on Mike's archers. They were on a hill this improved their armour rating and helped them hold their ground. As a result my heavy cavalry retreated and became Battered.

A band of halberdiers attacked my crossbowmen. The crossbows had already taken a couple of shots and worn down the heavy infantry. From experience I paid the cost for parvises and this proved to be a good choice because they managed to stand their ground and inflict losses on the halberdiers causing them to retreat. The Noirebrûlereans then failed their Courage Test and fled the field. Hooray!

This lead the way for my spearmen to advance. In fact both of our spearmen advanced and looked at each other with trepidation. I don't think they got into combat with each other. I'm not certain but I seem to remember both sides just staring each other down.

"Who you lookin' at?

'Who us? 

'Yeah you lot...

Nuffink. We're just standin' around."

There was another clash of armoured knights in the centre with the Bishop's men coming out on top. Only the Leader of the Noirebrûlereans remained and he was forced to retreat.

The brave Knight of Noirebrûler then failed his Courage Test and was last seen fleeing the field followed by his archers and leaving is spearmen to their fate.

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Game 2

This time we used one of the scenarios in the 2nd Edition Book. The one with and objective in the centre. The objective we decided on was decided, whereupon a mystical voice cried out:

"He who pulleth this sword

from this stone and anvil shall

be the true King of Medieval May!"

We both swapped out our forces. I opted to get rid of the heavy mounted sergeants (4pts) and also ditched the pavisers for my crossbows (2pts). Instead I took a unit of Foot Knights (6pts). We rolled our Leader Qualities: This time around Mike rolled whatever it is that makes him only able to be hit on a roll of 6 when in a Challenge. My commander Freidrich von Flintenstein rolled a 2 (Forgettable but with a fine moustache!)

Above: Freidrich von Flintenstein the Forgettable looks toward the holy relic of True Kingship.

We both jockeyed for position and this time those scheming  Noirebrûlereans sent a band of mounted archers around my flank. I didn't realise, at first that they were archers so I drew up my spearmen into a Schiltron formation thinking they were going to charge.

In the centre my foot knights approached the holy relic but stopped in reverend awe as they gazed upon its majesty (either that or they failed their Activation).

The Noirebrûlerean Knights didn't waste any time and charged as soon as they could thinking to quash von Flintenstein and his holy warriors and drive them from the field.

The Hemingsaetic knights counter-charged but got the worst of the fight and were forced to retreat from the onslaught of their enemies. At least they passed their Courage Test so they did not become Battered.

Meanwhile, the foot knights got over their reverence and slogged up the hill to the monument only to find Noirebrûlerean spearmen trudging up the opposite slope. This was going to come down to swords and stout hearts!

In the centre von Flintenstein the Forgettable led his knights into the fight again and evened the odds against their foe. This gave the Hemmingseatic spearmen the chance to charge home and try their luck. 

The Noirebrûler knights failed to counter charge and the fight was a draw (both losing one figure) so the spearmen retreated Battered and, for the remainder to the battle stood around whilst enemy archers slowly picked them off at short range. But they had further weakened the enemy knights.

The archers on the flank were doing little but were witling away at the schiltron which prompted them to break formation and advance on the horsemen.

In the woods beside the shrine a group of vagabonds lurked. The looked mysteriously like that Robin the Hood fellow you may have heard about. They were causing a nuisance so I diverted my crossbowmen to deal with them (seen advancing in the distance).

Yet another clash of knights in the centre brought victory for von Flintenstein's holy warriors but because the sole remaining Noirebrûlerean knight (the commander) retreated they were forced to charge the spearmen on the hill (due to the Wild Charge rule). Not surprisingly they were forced to retreat with the loss of another man.

Seeing the riders retreat back down the slope the foot knights charged home and defeated the spearmen who then failed their Courage Test and fled leaving the knights in possession of the sword in the stone.

Again Wild Charge took precedence and the armoured knights clashed again. This time the last of von Flintensteins men were killed leaving only the two leaders facing each other.

Not wanting to face the Hemmingsaetic spearmen Mike's horse archers made a last minute dash around the flank to be met with a hail of crossbow bolts (which were ineffectual anyway).

The Noirebrûler commander decided to issue a challenge seeing that he had the advantage of me having to roll 6's to hit him. He would be hitting my chap on 5's and 6's.

We rolled 3 dice each.

Freidrich the Forgettable was hit once.

But he hit the Noirebrûlerean twice (I rolled two 6's) and the foe was worsted.

In celebration the Fredrich von Flintenstein the Forgettable charged into the enemy archers laying several of them low and scattering the rest! 

'Twas a glorious victory for the forces of the Hemmingsaetic League.

"O frabjous day. Callooh! Calhay!"

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Conclusion:

It was a good start to Medieval May. Both Mike and I started medieval when Lion Rampant first came out. The idea being to build large forces for Hail Caesar but to start with LR so that we could get some troops done quickly, get them on the table and have some games. We're using the same plan for Medieval May (a concept new to our club).We've started with LR and we'll conclude the final meeting in May with a big Hail Caesar bash. This coming weekend it's a moderate HC game followed the next week by some Lion and Dragon rampant action.