Hold the Pass - Augustus to Aurelian

Yesterday's meeting of the Devon Wargames Group was a buzz as we had four games up and running together with over twenty members in attendance.

Not only that but I got to play my first game with the new Romano-Dacian collection using a scenario from the Warlord Games Scenario book which sees a Dacian force blocking a mountain pass before a Roman supply column.

Having been away this week in London, I still needed to add one more unit to the collection and was thus getting my Praetorian Guard cavalry finished yesterday morning, literally an hour before they went on the table.

The game also featured the first two of a collection of wagons and crews I got recently from Colonel Bill's wargames supply depot, and they looked really great alongside the troops.

I intend to put up some close ups of these models a bit later but in the meantime you can see the game and read about the result on the Devon Wargames Group club blog

Devon Wargames Group - Hold the Pass, Augustus to Aurelian

Dacian Light Infantry, Artillery and General Officers

It was back in mid June that I last posted on progress with the Roman-Dacian collection, mainly down to my focus on getting the first units pulled together to run my first game with them at the Devon Wargames Group 'Clotted Lard' event to be held in September.

Dacian Warband Host and General Officer

As the weeks get ticked off and my intent to run a practise game or two in August to test run my scenario plan I have focused as much time as I can on the painting desk to help deliver the project.

So the last post left off with four warbands and a general officer completed. I had hoped to get another two warbands done but with work on the Saxon/Viking collection earlier in the year that seems unlikely now and so I decided on getting the balance of the Dacians finished before turning to the Romans.

So first up we have four units of Dacian skirmishers or light infantry armed with javelins and bows.

The stat card for my Dacian archers, with an explanation of their meaning below

These chaps will operate in 'tiny' units as defined under Augustus to Aurelian which equates to eight figures in each.

The examples of my unit cards, that I have created for player reference, details the effectiveness of these units.

Thus in combat (1/2) or shooting (1/4) the unit gets to roll one d10 with a Combat Attack Factor of 2 or a Shooting Attack Factor of 4.

The table below illustrates the use of these factors with a shooting factor of 4 using that column against the armour of the target, showing the less than or equal to D10 score required to obtain a hit.

The table is also subject to adjustments in column shifts left or right according to factors that could influence the attack be that range, movement or, in a combat situation, factors such as attacking from the rear or flank etc.

Other factors on the card show the 'Outlook' which is a simple measure of the unit's training affected by size (these units represent about two hundred men), with tiny units such as these often being quite low at 2 which means that when two casualties are inflicted on them they will become 'shaken' and all the problems that that term implies.

The rating of 5 is a measure of the units morale and is the number rolled against with a d10 requiring an equal to or less than result to pass reaction tests

Finally we have a movement rating of 6 which is six inches, a little bit quicker than most formed types which usually come in with a five inch move.

My Dacian skirmish bands are using the 28mm figures in the Warlord range which I think offer a nice ready mix of poses and suitably irregular looking warriors.

Following on from my previous post showing the Dacian warbands with my first commander, I have added another three command groups on foot.

These figures are from the Wargames Foundry range and I picked them up on our recent visits to the shop on our last two trips to Partizan.

The Dacian banners posed a bit of a challenge but I managed to find some suitably looking designs from the Veni Vidi Vici range supplied by the nice people at Magister Militum

https://www.magistermilitum.com/type/decals-shield-transfers-tank-markings.html

The figures work well with the Warlord range and I intend to add a standing and mounted King Decebalus group to finish off my command teams.

Finally to complete my Dacian force I have put together two Scorpio bolt throwers which should help to convince any Roman commander not to linger too long before moving into combat.

With shooting factors similar to the skirmish units, the Scorpios offer the Dacian commander a chance to start picking away at formed Roman units at a much greater range, up to a maximum of 36 inches, which could have any Roman unit caught in the open forced to endure several rounds of annoying fire.

Probably even more annoying to the Romans is that a fair proportion of these weapons were likely manned by Roman deserters using technology supplied as part of a rather badly negotiated peace treaty.

Again these figures hail from the Warlord range and though limited with just the two poses of figure make a nice addition to any Dacian force.

I decided to liven up my scorpio models by adding some taught bow strings made from brass rod to imply the death dealing missile about to be launched.

The way I like to build new collections of figures is all about getting a suitable group of representative units together to allow me to start playing sooner rather than later and this initial group of Dacian units is about a quarter of what I intend to build but form a good core to develop some smaller games around before getting to a position to turn out some much bigger games.

So with this post I will leave the Dacians and turn my attention to the units I have added in recent weeks as part of finishing off a suitably sized Roman force to take them on with.

I am off to Chester or should I say Roman Castra Deeva at the weekend, home base of the XX Valeria Victrix Legion and the final major Roman base visited after trips to York and Caerleon, home bases of the other British legions reported about here on JJ's.

So that would seem like a good time to start showing you the additions to the Roman collection along with posts about our trip and another really interesting visit we made to the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire a few weeks ago.

Dacian Warband, General Officer and Dacian Host

 
Well I'm back refreshed and recharged after a sixteen day break in the Ionian Isles, principally Corfu and Paxos, where a healthy bit of sun, sea and great Greek cuisine has helped set me up for getting stuck into my current projects.

Knowing that my sojourn would mean an enforced break from the painting table I was very keen to get the desk cleared of work before I went away and thus I literally finished the fourth Dacian Warband together with my first commander the day before we flew out and thus had no time to bring you pictures of the collection too date.

 
So here is warband number four, and marks the end of the current work on Dacian heavy infantry, but one that gives me a clout to the small Dacian force I am planning to field in my first game with these chaps using Augustus to Aurelian.

I am starting to think of these units in groups of two warbands forming a regiment of about 2,000 men from a local tribal area and to mark their association I am looking to colour code my draco standards, with eventually six regiments able to take to the table against the hated forces of Rome.

Of course each of my Dacian hosts will need a commander and I thought I would get on with painting up the first of these to command my heavies.

These two mounted figures are from the Wargames Foundry range which really work well with my Warlord and Victrix figures and will enable specific gaps in the other ranges to be filled.

I aim to model another command group using these same figures but with some suitable head transplants to allow me to model King Decebalus and his guard either mounted or on foot.

No one seems to offer suitable Dacian decals to go with the banner carried by the chap on the left so I ended up jury rigging it with some suitable decals I had in the spares box.

It is not perfect by any means but seems to work when viewed amongst the Dacian horde.

Talking of hordes, I thought you might like to see the effect I am trying to create with these large units and hopefully a terrifying spectacle for my Roman commanders to deal with.

I think en-mass with a sprinkling of archers and javelin-men, not to mention a few Sarmatian cavalry units, oh and don't forget a few scorpion bolt throwers for good measure, the Dacians should give my Romans a good run for their money in most table-top encounters.

Speaking of archers, javelin-men and scorpions, guess whats up next on the planned unit shots, before we turn our attention to the bringers of Pax Romana and civilisation.

Lots of stuff to come on JJ's with trips to Wargames Foundry, Stoke Field and The Ridgeway to report back on, plus some work I have done with the chaps over at Stand to Games putting together a scenario book to accompany 'Over the Hills' Napoleonic rules.

Over the Hills is a fast growing Napoleonic rule set with a thriving community of players set now to  be joined by gamers like me interested in the AWI with the successful funding announced this week of their next addition to the rules family and the publication of 'Rise and Fight Again'.

In addition to Over the Hills I am working on putting together my files for another great set of rules I like to play here on JJ's, namely Carnage & Glory II, which I am planning to make available to compliment the work on the OTH book and enable C&G players to easily adapt the scenarios to their preferred rule set.

More anon
JJ

Dacian Warband, Roman Auxiliaries, Reinforcements and Games

Following on with work on the Dacian army for my planned first scenario I have now added a third warband to the force which is starting to look quite formidable even at this early stage.

The painting experiments are also ongoing with a few more new citadel colour options explored with this unit with that rather fetching powder blue number worn by the falx wielder in the front rank.

The unit of auxiliaries in the next picture is not by chance as it links into the next job that I can't say I was looking forward to which was to re-base the units Tom and I constructed a few years back on to my preferred options for Augustus to Aurelian.

Thus I now have four cohorts, two green shield and two blue of the Warlord auxiliaries based up for the new collection.

The good thing was that I managed to salvage quite a bit of the basing materials which were transferred on to the deeper bases you see in the pictures.

The Warlord auxiliaries don't suffer from the stunted development that their legionary offerings suffer from and will mix in quite nicely with the Victrix part of the collection.

Talking of Victrix, the bulk of my two Roman armies turned up today and this is what fourteen packs of Legionaries and Auxiliaries look like together with sufficient shield decals to kit this lot out in time.

The aim will be to build the forces for the Trajanic invasion project and then to double it to allow for some Roman versus Roman options.

As well as getting the next Dacian warband on to the painting desk, work continues with the terrain to accompany the figures and regular followers of the blog may well remember seeing this marching fort unveiled in France a few years ago as a birthday present from Carolyn and now finally getting my attention .

All the pieces have been cleaned up and undercoated and then had a coat of the chocolate brown applied together with a few Warbases mdf ladders to the gate and towers.

The Romans spent a lot of their time in Dacia as elsewhere building these kind of defences during their military campaigns and I know this will appear in a few scenarios I have planned.

It can also double up as a barbarian defence and may also appear as a Saxon burgh when required.

Hopefully the Roman tents of which I will be getting a few more should help to define which side is using it at any given time.

Finally Steve and I have been spending the last few Tuesday evenings getting to grip with each others board game collections and a few favourites have been played including Richard III, Julius Caesar, East Front and We the People.

Tonight we are going to try a new game that I got hold of, and one that keeps the Roman theme, namely Imperator from Vae Victis.

I picked a copy of this up a few weeks ago and got the map laminated and ready to go as seen below so we will be playing the First Marcommanic War scenario tonight as we get our head around the French translated rules.

I'm off to Spain on the weekend and am hoping to get some much needed sun shine as well as visiting an interesting Peninsular War battlefield so will have the computer on hand to post about the visit.

Dacian Warband

With all the Xmas Game AWI, Dark Ages and Dad's Army stuff done and out of the way I can now focus on the Dacian Wars and putting the collection together to stage my first game using Augustus to Aurelian.

This is the second Dacian Warband completed to go with my Cap-Wearer boys finished way back in October last year together with my fist cohort of Victrix Legionaries.

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/dacian-cap-wearer-warband.html

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/roman-imperial-legionary-cohort.html

Peter Dennis' artwork on the box cover of these Warlord Dacians really captures the ferocity of the Dacian charge and I really think the miniatures achieve a similar portrayal with swords raised and the warriors in full charge ready to slam into that wall of Roman shields.

As I am constructing these units I am constantly thinking about what I want them to represent, and by that I mean what I define as a cap wearer or noble warband or falx armed or medium infantry type.

I am not totally convinced that the Dacians would have organised themselves in that way and however they did organise themselves I am pretty sure the Roman cohort commanders wouldn't have noticed or cared much, with one large bunch of hairy aggressive barbarians looking pretty much like another

However as wargamers we love to differentiate our units and add that variety that is as they say "the spice of life" and so I will have cap wearers, falx and 'vanilla' warbands as options. However only the Dacian commander will know which units are which by the cunning use of numbered bases similar to my approach with my Napoleonics to keep all my historical units from getting mixed one with another.

So where is this project going and how can you expect to see it proceed? That was a slightly rhetorical question by the way, because you will have seen my thoughts on planning this project over the life of the blog.

However plans change on first contact with the enemy and this plan is now in full contact and I am getting my head around lots of new experiences, such as a new palette of colours which I am busy constructing my own set of triad colours and noting them in the JJ master painting notebook.

Not only that but plastics offer the wargamer loads of opportunity to build unique looking units that metals don't offer. I know some wargamers don't like that choice, but as a plastic modeller in my youth I love the flexibility and chance to scratch build and adapt, adopt and improve on the original figures.

However learning what you can and can't do with figures takes time that works its way into the project as a whole and I like to know how long it will take to bring a Roman Cohort or Dacian Warband to the table which at the moment is taking a week and just over two weeks respectively.

Knowing the time-line for unit construction then leads to the next part of the plan which is to play games as the collection grows.

I now have a scenario and selection of units in mind that is aimed at getting these chaps on the table in September which will see another four warbands added to the two already completed plus some Roman cohorts and a selection of smaller light infantry and cavalry units.

Not only that but I also need to put together my collection of 28mm terrain items ready to create the stage for the actors to play upon.

So that's where things are at in March 2018 and the third warband is on the desk primed and ready to go but I had great fun putting these cameo shots together depicting this second warband going up against my Victrix Romans.

Just multiply each side in this lot by about ten with other assorted stuff running around the table and it should give you an idea of the look of these future games.

So for those about to ask what figures and other stuff am I looking at here, The Dacians are from Warlord Games box set, the Romans are from Victrix and my new mat is from Tiny Wargames

Next up Roman Villas and English Civil War battles in the Cotswolds and me getting another drubbing at Maurice.