Dux Bellorum Romano-British Mounted Companion

Despite still struggling with the intermittent effects of man flu (cough, sneeze, urrgh) and really needing to get some new brushes in (points would be useful), I was determined this morning to do some painting as my output had dropped off to zero since the start of the month.

Sitting forlornly on the workbench were the last three figures to complete my Dux Bellorum Romano-British army - the Mounted Companion unit, so I decided they would be the victims!

Two of the miniatures (the "Arthur" figure and the standard bearer) are West Wind, the spearman is from Gripping Beast.

I still need to do the sabot base but am feeling a bit pleased with myself in that I have finished the first of the three planned armies. I must schedule some time for the Saxons next...

(Saxon Month) Beowulf of Barkynge

Well "Saxon Month" has been an unmitigated disaster with just 24 miniatures undercoated. However, I was determined I would paint at least one bloody Saxon this month and here it is...

The miniature (IIRC) is a Musketeer Miniatures one given away free to attendees at Warfare a few years back. It is an excellent miniature, simple but effective posed charging forward.

It occurred to me that as well as serving with the Saxon army in Dux Bellorum this particular miniature could well do as a proxy for Beowulf of Barkynge in an updated Thane Tostig campaign if I decide to make Tostig's band out of historical rather than fantasy figures (and given they are Saxons it would make more sense to use historical Saxons rather than fantasy humans).

Dux Bellorum Romano-British Noble Riders

It's my birthday and I'll paint if I want to...

Another year older but certainly not another year wiser I managed to grab some "me time" today and finish the Romano-British Noble Riders for my Dux Bellorum army.

The miniatures are all West Wind except for one Gripping Beast. Whilst I understand all the reasons why West Wind sell in blisters of two and eight, it is a pain when you want nine! Luckily Gripping Beast sell their miniatures individually so I was able to make up the shortfall.

When painting I used a similar palate to that for the Shiedwall with the inclusion of a couple of richer colours on the assumption the cavalry would be a bit richer than the puddlesplashers and have some more money to spend on finer cloaks etc.

With the shields I decided not to paint uniform designs as I had with the infantry, but kept the shield colours to black and white to ensure some unit coherency. There is no historical basis for this but it looks good.

Birthday presents did not include any new toys (although I was given some money to buy some more Chaco War planes) but did include an interesting "Helping Hands" tool, a combined magnifying glass and clamp device that should be useful for painting fiddly things. SWMBO bought it off Jewellery Maker so it obviously has "other uses" and I will need to make sure it is not borrowed on a permanent basis (like my tweezers!) I also received James Holland's book on the Dam Busters so that should be an interesting read.

June is... Saxon Month!

Yep, as promised June is Saxon month!

Ok, not THAT Saxon, more this type of Saxon...

Given the amount of real world work coming my way the Dux Bellorum project is being stretch over May into June with the idea being to paint up the Saxons this month. Unfortunately for two weeks of the month I am away from home so it is going to be a push but if you don't set the bar high and all that...

(Dux Bellorum Month) My Dux For A Horse...

The Romano-British Noble Riders are progressing nicely but are unlikely to be finished by the end of Dux Bellorum Month. :-(

I have, however, finished and and based the 12 horses for them and the Mounted Companion base. The models are mostly West Wind with a couple of Gripping Beast. I don't have a standard method when it comes to painting cavalry, sometimes I glue the rider to the mount before painting, sometimes I paint them separate, there is no method to my madness!

Painting wise my techniques have changed over the years. For a long time I undercoated in an enamel brown before heavily painting oil paint over then wiping most off with a sponge. Very messy, takes ages to dry, but gives a nice result.

These days I just undercoat black, heavy drybrush a dark brown them drybrush with a lighter brown. The brush is fairly loaded so to avoid the end result looking chalky. I try to keep the lower legs dark and sometimes wash with black ink before painting socks, hooves, manes and tails.

They won't win the Grand National but they look okay and don't detract from the rider (which hopefully you will see tomorrow once I have finished painting the riders and brushed the loose flock off the horses!).

(Dux Bellorum Month) Romano-British Ordinary Shieldwall III

I managed to finish the final Ordinary Shieldwall unit for the Romano-British Dux Bellorum army last night...

This base includes some command figures. This is not relevant in Dux Bellorum terms (each base is an individual unit which can be combined or operate separate from the others), but will be necessary for other games such as Warhammer.

The miniatures are all Old Glory this time. Whilst not as nice as some of the others on the market, they paint up ok, the command are very characterful and they paint up pretty good.

Here is a photo of all three bases side by side. Sometime I need to make up a 6 x 4 movement tray for a combined 24 figure unit in Warhammer type games...

(Dux Bellorum Month) Romano-British Ordinary Shieldwall II

The second Romano-British Ordinary Shieldwall unit is now finished...

Not a lot different from the first. The front rank (below), like the first unit, are all West Wind (nice figures these).

The rear rank (below) are Old Glory, except the figure on the right which is one of the new Gripping Beast plastic Dark Ages Warriors. This is a very useful box and I'll do a proper overview when I get the chance.

I need to finish off the shields on the third and final Shieldwall unit this evening which I hope to do after Dad's Taxi duties...

(Dux Bellorum Month) Romano-British Ordinary Shieldwall

I managed to finish the first unit of Romano-British Ordinary Shieldwall for Dux Bellorum this morning.

The miniatures are a mix of West Wind in the front rank and Old Glory in the rear.

The Old Glory miniatures (above) are slightly smaller so I had to raise them with a sliver of plasticard inbetween the slottabase and the miniature base so they looked ok with the West Wind miniatures (below).

I wasn't too sure on whether the shields should be uniform in design or not. It does look a bit weird for Dark Ages miniatures, but it helps reinforce the Roman heritage so I went with it, painting an early Christian design on a white background (hopefully it does not look too crusaderish).

Two more units to go, before I can crack on with the cavalry...

(Dux Bellorum Month) Bowmen Based

Having come up with a multi-purpose basing solution last week, it is now time to put it into practice. First up are the bowmen and as discussed earlier because the unit base is 80 x 40mm the base required a pseudo-sabot approach to fill the gaps.

Here is the finished base adorned with some rocks, tufts and flowers...

Here is the base without the miniatures (I need to give the inside another coat of brown but will do this when painting another unit).

Here is the base with just the rear rank miniatures in place...

On with the warrior units now, the Gripping Beast order has arrived so I now have all the miniatures I need for the Romano-British army, I just need the time...

(Dux Bellorum Month) Enter the Beast!

After some internet browsing I think I have come across some suitable riders for the Irish army, Griping Beast's Scots-Irish Mounted Ceithern. Of course it would be stupid to order just one pack of miniatures... ;-)

Gripping Beast Mounted Ceithern

Looking to maximise the postage I have also decided to order a couple of Romano-British cavalry to fill the gaps and a box of the new plastic Dark Age Warriors.

Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors

I don't really need the Dark Age Warriors but as I already have the Gripping Beast plastic Vikings and Saxons insulating the loft I am considering using them to raise Late Saxon and Norse Sea Raider armies for Dux Bellorum. Each box should provide pretty much all that is needed, but the unarmoured generic Dark Age Warriors will fill any requirements for skirmishers, bow, unarmoured spear etc.

(Dux Bellorum Month) Romano-British Bowmen

Despite the lure of a hot sunny day I slaved over a hot painting desk to crack on with the first Dux Bellorum figures! ;-) Ok, truth be told I popped inside occasionally from some R&R in the garden to paint the six Romano-British bow (the hot weather was a boon as I took the miniatures out to dry in the hot sun!)

The miniatures are Old Glory, they're not going to win any prizes and a couple of the faces are down right ugly (though as SWMBO said, perhaps they were ugly people!)

I haven't finished the movement base yet but the figures are done.

(Dux Bellorum Month) The Inevitable Basing Conundrum

I am sure wargamers spend as much time pondering how to base their wargames figures as they do playing with them. Dux Bellorum is one of those cases in point as basing is not that important as long as they have the same widths (which is also the measuring unit in the game).

I had decided I wanted to get maximum use of the miniatures in other games with Brytenwalda being a skirmish game I fancy trying one day. Figures for that are individualy based.

Logic dictates then that sabot bases are the way to go, but how to base the individual miniatures? Some people use 1 pence pieces, some 2 pence. Looking at the models, the Old Glory would go on 1p's, but not the more dramatically posed West Wind.

To thrown an additional spanner in the works I decided I would also like to be able to use the figures in fantasy games such as WHFB as they would make for good fantasy humans (that effectively ruled out the round base in sabot option).

And of course it would be useful to ensure they could be used in Dux Britanniarum if needed!

After a lot of procrastinating I came to a decision! :-)

WHFB dictated that the infantry needed to be based on 20mm x 20mm squares and cavalry on 25mm x 50mm. I had decided that Shieldwall elements would have eight figures and cavalry three so an 80mm base width was the obvious size. Inspired by the sabot idea I decided to create mini-movement trays for the figures. Infantry ones are 80mm by 40mm, cavalry 80mm by 50mm.

For eight miniature infantry units the figures drop in the base. for four or six figure units I intend to drop in empty slotta-bases (maybe with a rock or discarded shield on) to fill the gaps. For the bow above I have cut one slotta-base in two to add some variety.

For the cavalry I inserted some 2.5mm wide plastic rod in between figures to ensure the base width is 80mm not 75.

Overall I am quite happy with this solution, it seems to answer all the issues I considered and allows the miniatures to be used in a variety of different types of game going forward...

(Dux Bellorum Month) The Irish Army

To be honest out of all the armies in the Dux Bellorum rulebook, the Irish would probably have been bottom of my list, but I was given a pile of miniatures so it would be churlish not to paint them...

The Irish Army looks like this:

Foot Companion - 1 unit (6 miniatures)
Noble Warriors - 4 units (6 miniatures per unit)
Ordinary Riders - 1 unit (3 miniatures per unit)
Foot Skirmishers - 4 units (4 miniatures per unit)

I don't have any miniatures for the Ordinary Riders and need to hunt down something suitable...

(Dux Bellorum Month) The Saxon Army

From out of the east, across the sea they came...

The Dux Bellorum Saxon army looks like this:

Foot Companion - 1 unit (6 miniatures)
Noble Warriors - 3 units (6 miniatures per unit)
Ordinary Warriors - 4 units (6 miniatures per unit)

I've not gone with the Shieldwall option as I wanted my Saxons to be more of a raiding force than a proper army. I probably could have done with some Noble Riders but didn't have any suitable figures.

(Dux Bellorum Month) The Romano-British Army

I managed to grab five minutes today to hunt down the Dux Bellorum armies (not where I thought I'd left them!) and split them up into three. I also found a couple of packs of Old Glory Carolingians amongst them!

The Romano-British army looks like this:

Mounted Companion - 1 unit (3 miniatures)
Noble Riders - 3 units (3 miniatures per unit)
Ordinary Shieldwall - 3 units (8 miniatures per unit)
Bow - 1 unit (6 miniatures)

Army composition has been driven by what I had miniatures wise rather than any great tactical nous on my part.

I am short one miniature for the Mounted Companion base, one rider for a Noble Rider unit and one Shieldwall foot. Rather than get too anal about this I am thinking that I should not worry that the bases don't contain the exact number of figures as long as it is clear what they are.

May is... Dux Bellorum Month!

After a couple of months in the twentieth century it is time for a change of pace and set the time machine to the Age of Arthur!

I've always wanted to do the Arthurian period ever since I saw this wonderful picture by Richard Scollins in Military Modelling back in the eighties.*

I picked up a few packs of Foundry Arthurian figures a few years back and the excellent WAB book but it was really too big a project, even if the Romano-British would make for excellent fantasy humans as well.

Mike Baumann donated a box of Old Glory Arthurian figures to the cause a couple of years back but it was the publication of Osprey's Dux Bellorum last year that proved the spur.

The game only requires armies of around 50 miniatures a side so I dug out Mike's figures to see what I had and what I needed to get to finish them off. Luckily West Wind had a sale on so I was able to fill the gaps quite easily. Unfortunately due to pack composition I am the odd figure short here and there but I am sure I can find some spares or proxies.

So I have a nice pile of unpainted white metal, enough to make a Romano-British army, a Saxon army and an Irish army. The target this month is to finish at least two of them...

* Richard Scollins is a bit of a pain on this front, I always had a niggling urge to dabble in the American War of Independence after he did some fantastic illustrations for an article on Guildford Court House - I am NOT looking at the Perry plastics though, honest!

Dux In A Row...

No doubt you are all aware that Osprey have started releasing wargames rules in the Osprey MAA book format, one off stand alone titles covering various periods, kicking off with A World Aflame (for the Inter War period) and Dux Bellorum (for Arthurian Dark Ages). As a rules addict and because Amazon had a 30% off offer on I picked them up.

Dux Bellorum has grabbed my attention more than I suspected it would and I'm lining it up to be an early 2013 project. The reason for this is that the game doesn't require loads of miniatures (forty or fifty a side would seem ok), if I used sabot bases I could also use the miniatures for other games such as Brtyenwalda and the rules themselves seem like they could be quite fun. I like the way that Leadership Points can be bought at the expense of troops and the fact that measurement is by base widths (so how you base your units is up to you - I am pondering using the GW LOTR sabot ones).

This could also sneak in under the "no more new projects" rules as I have a few packs of old Foundry Arthurians somewhere and some Old Glory figures given to me a while back. I had planned to use them as fantasy humans alongside with the plastic GW Rohirrim but they could do double duty as fantasy and historical.

On more immediate projects I have gotten back on the horse today and put some paint on some more Athenians so hopefully some new painted stuff soon...