Redcoats, Royal Artillery, Plains Indians, American Cavalry & Scatter Terrain

The last month to six weeks has seen a complete change in my usual routine, in terms of painting figures for projects, but that was always in the plan, however I am looking forward to getting back to the norm.

With loft clear-outs and wargaming room changes and now a dedicated bout of 28mm terrain building I am really looking forward to getting back to the Romans and Dacians, which hopefully will include a game or two on my new table set up in the not too distant future.

Needless to say the figure painting and blog updating have been affected by this extra activity but to make up for my absence in the 'blogosphere' with regular posts showing newly painted warriors I thought I should give you a double whammy of 'wargamers porn' in the run up to Xmas.

So this post is featuring work I have been doing of figures for my old mate Steve M and his very big FIW collection for Muskets and Tomahawks, Donnybrook or Sharp Practice II with some British General Officers, a 60th Foot Colour Party and some Royal Artillery gunners complete with a couple of six pounders.

In addition we have our annual big end of year game at the Devon Wargames Group this weekend in honour of a former member, Gus Murchie in which we will be riding out west with the 7th cavalry and dealing with injuns and so I have put together some figures for that game that I suspect might be going to a new home afterwards.

Steve's British Seven Years War figures are a follow up to the 60th Foot I painted for him a while back in July last year and you can see them in the link below and other units I have done for Steve's collection in the label 'Muskets and Tomahawks' in the right hand column.

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-60th-royal-american-regiment-of.html

The figures are in this case a mix of Wargames Foundry and Galloping Major (Colour Party) which seem to compliment each other really well.

http://www.gallopingmajorwargames.com/

The colours are of course the excellent range from Graham at GMB Flags and I have no hesitation in recommending them to really finish off a project having used them here and on nearly all my own 18mm Napoleonic miniatures. The really nice finials and chords are from Front Rank and just complete the look perfectly.

In the background to these pictures can be seen the latest addition to my growing 28mm terrain collection being put together specifically for my Romano-Dacian project but standing in equally well for giving a hint of North America in this case.

I have had a lot of fun messing about with tree bark, stones from the garden and more scatter material than you could possibly shake a stick at.

Simply put it is like basing figures but on a much bigger scale and those rocky outcrops and tree bases are off to get sealed with my 50:50 PVA:Water spray as soon as I have finished this post, so that shows you how new they are.

The British General Officers are from the Foundry Seven Years War range and will work perfectly for Steve's FIW collection looking very pugnacious and determined.

To complete the Seven Years War section of this post we have a regiment always close to my heart as nearly all my close relatives have served in the last century as part of the Royal Artillery and here they are in their original blues and buff of the early period of the regiment.

I particularly liked the officer and loader with ball in hand again looking very determined and ready for battle.

I hope you like them Steve, happy Xmas and see you on the weekend.

Next up are the other figures I have been working on in between the other activities and ready for the fray this weekend at club.

These ten US cavalry figures have been sat undercoated in my loft for about the last twenty years alongside the seven Plains Indians I did paint up for a game I have completely forgotten about at the club.

Don't ask me what make of figures they are, possibly Old Glory, but I don't really know as I bought them years ago and dug them out to get ready for this particular club game coming up.

This theme is not really my bag and I can see these figures going as I say to a new home after the game as I am unlikely to add to them, but I had a lot of fun researching them to get them ready for this weekend.

They certainly are full of character and I have painted them very much in a Hollywood filmic style rather than the more likely bedraggled scruffy campaign look that manikins from various American museums and the period photos from the time would suggest.

The Indians as I say were painted a long time ago when my technique was still very much developing and so make an interesting contrast between how I painted then and now. That said I decided to just 'tart up' the bases a bit with a wash and dry brush and leave them as seen for tomorrows game.

Anyway its back to the terrain building and the next set of figures to go on the paint stick should be some Sarmatians, so that should be fun.

King Decebalus, Warband Five and Roman Archer Cohort

Another update on progress with the Romano-Dacian collection with additions to both the Roman and Dacian forces.

First up we have King Decebalus which is a conversion job using the Wargames Foundry mounted Dacian commanders but with my lead figure getting a head swap with a Warlord Games helmeted head to create the look of the great king.

The king is accompanied by his standard bearer, again using the Veni Vidi Vici decal set BB3 from Magister Militum which offers some Greco-Thracian designs that may well have influenced Dacian designs given that there was a lot of sharing between the neighbouring cultures.

I was really pleased with how the head conversion turned out in the end and the horse is a particularly nice model which benefited from a suitably stand-out dapple-grey paint job.

The picture in Radu Oltean's 'Dacia The Roman Wars Volume One' was the inspiration for this group.

Next up, my Dacian host continues to grow, as does my knowledge on what works with these figures and possible conversions and range mixes.

This is the fifth thirty-six figure warband created and leaves another eight to go which should make an impressive show when on the table en-mass.

I mention conversions and range mixes as this is my first group to mix Warlord and Wargames Foundry figures, plus I have been doing a bit of cutting and swapping out of hands and weapon arrangements to help create a more varied look between my different bands.

I mentioned in my post covering the first game using the collection at the DWG meeting a month ago that I was using tokens to indicate each time the warband used a brave warrior to add to their combat score in a hand to hand battle and that I intended to replace them in time with suitable figures.

All my warbands now have two figures attached to indicate their allotment of brave warriors and they can be removed one by one as they are used.

The individual figures will also come in handy to do some skirmish games with the collection as well.

I was really pleased with how nicely the Foundry figures broke up the Warlord look and I intend to add more to each unit as I go.

I am also thinking about mixing in some casualties to add yet more interest for the eye to catch.

The Romans also got some new units added with another two groups of skirmishing archers and slingers together with a Cohortal command group for my archers.

The inclusion of a centurion, optio, standard and musician enables two skirmish groups of auxiliary archers to be combined into a cohort to fight on table as another formed unit.

Roman Archer Cohort with four figure command group added in the centre

Of course even those these guys are armoured and carry short swords they don't have shields and were not designed to mix it with warbands or equivalent heavy infantry.

That said, it seems the Romans found a use for these combined archer cohorts to be able to deliver a significant amount of arrows onto a particular target when the fighting tactics required.

Specific examples might include Germanicus' battle at Idavisto vs the German tribes under Arminius where the archers were used in strength to break up the charge of the Germans before being met by the Auxiliary spearmen.

Likewise Arrian's tactics against the Alans positioning archers behind in-depth cohorts of legionaries to receive the charges of the cataphracts whilst firing volleys of arrows into them overhead.

Augustus to Aurelian facilitates the use of these combined formations and the cohortal acies that allow units such as formed archers to fire and retire behind their supports.

An archer-spearmen combined cohort ready to deal with Vince's Parthian horde

So there we are onwards and upwards towards getting a largish game up and running for Xmas

If you would like to see my thoughts about the collection, some of the books and materials I am reading to inspire and develop my thoughts about the games I want to play using them then I have put together a short video clip looking at these and some other units from the collection so far.

Lots to come on JJ's this month with a report on Clotted Lard, the Lardy Day this weekend at the Devon Wargames Group meeting, then I am off next week on another two day walk with Mr Steve along the border with South Wales taking in Offas Dyke and the Three Castles, then next weekend we are off to Colours which is always fun to do and report back on

In between I have another book review planned plus more on Chester and Roman London and maybe a few more figures painted up to talk about.

Roman Infantry and Commanders

As I write this post I am sat in the centre of Roman Deva, now known as Chester and the former base of the XX Valeria Victrix, victors over Boudica at the Battle of Watling Street, so what better time than to introduce the latest additions to my Roman force.

With the core of my Dacian force put together it was time to look at adding some additional punch to my Roman force.

Roman punch doesn't come more emphatic than a cohort or two of legionaries and my force now has two with the addition of a second consisting of the Victrix attacking legionaries.

More animated than the standing cohort, these chaps are shown thrusting with gladius, punching with scutum and preparing to let fly with a volley of pila.

Roman Imperial Legionary Cohort

I really love putting these figures together which offer loads of options to vary the look of each unit and make them unique to your force, not to mention, buckets of detail to get a paint brush around.

In time the plan is to build fourteen of these cohort groups so we can do some big table games of Roman vs others or Roman v Roman.

These cohorts come in three flavours using Augustus to Aurelian (AtoA). If you want to compare them with the Light Dacian units you can see their stats in my previous post

 Dacian Light Infantry, Artillery and Commanders

The first option is the occasional 'untried' cohort, trained in which end of the gladius to use but not yet tested with looking down the 'nasty end' of a Dacian warband.

AtoA Combat Table used for shooting and hand to hand

As explained in the previous post the combat table in AtoA is used in both hand to hand and shooting calculations and works by finding the indicated combat or shooting factor across the top to find the column you are working with. Then simply read across the target's armour rating to find the basic score or less on a d10 needed to cause a casualty. Any additional factors simply move the column left or right.

As well as getting to lob their pila as part of the combat calculation, these chaps get to roll 2d10 on the combat table with a factor of 3 meaning before any additional factors have shifted columns right or left they cause a casualty on a 6 or less on each d10 rolled against unarmoured Dacians, which most of them are.

The pila are, as you would expect, nasty, effectively allowing the cohort to roll 4d10 on the first round of combat only and they ignore the target being shielded. If the combat should drag on into subsequent rounds, they then get to work with the gladius which adds a further d10 to their Combat Attack roll, bringing it up to 3d10 from then on.

With an outlook of 3 they can't afford to take three or more casualties themselves so rely on getting the combat won quickly or getting themselves replaced by a follow up cohort in the second line; and with a Rating of 7 they are pretty good at performing reaction tests when required needing 7 or less on a d10 before adjustments.

If you also note their 'Drilled' and Triplex Acies' qualities, it makes it much easier to pull these chaps in and out of a combat, replacing them with fresh cohorts as and when required.

The bulk standard trained cohort, with a modicum of combat experience among the centuries just adds to the concerns of any Dacian commander by improving the odds in terms of causing casualties on the enemy by another 10% on each combat and shooting attack, whilst also gaining a more robust reaction profile.

The hardened, probably veteran, cohorts are even better and if forming a first cohort with an additional 350 or so legionaries would add another d10 to those combat factors with a Rating that means they don't know when they are beaten.

As well as infantry reinforcements I needed some commanders to lead my troops in the upcoming game so put together another four command groups, with a mixture of Wargames Foundry and Warlord general officers.

With the Emperor Trajan foremost among Rome's warrior emperors I was keen to use the Foundry offering, here mixed in with figures from their Suetonius Paulinus group.

Paulinus ended up (centre) as a mounted Roman Legate accompanied by his Primus Pilus.

The two on foot general officers (left) were taken from the Trajan group and added to one from the Paulinus group to make a suitable mix of narrow and broad stripe tribunes as another command group.

Finally on the right I used the Warlord charging cavalry commander, another tribune, indicated by his purple helmet crest and saddle furniture accompanied by his fearless war-pooch.

These command groups will I hope, be soon added to with the forthcoming offerings from Victrix which I am eagerly anticipating.

Last but by no means least I have added a couple of Auxiliary units in the form of these skirmishing archers and slingers.

The western archers can be combined into two units of eight to form a sixteen figure formed unit rather than the smaller skirmish one seen here, allowing them to fire massed volleys of arrows and if necessary defend themselves with their armour and gladius short swords.

When used as skirmishers as here their added weaponry and armour makes them formidable against other skirmishers in combat should the opportunity arise.

The slingers are definitely a skirmish unit only as their lack of armour does not incline them to getting in, up close and personal, much preferring to bring their skill at arms with sling and bullet to bear and at range.

Slingers have the benefit of negating shields used by the target as the sling bullet was not easy to see in flight and thus known to cause casualties on first shots because of the target being unaware of the bullets until the first casualties went down.

Both these groups of figures are from the Warlord range and come with a nice amount of detail in their sculpts if very slightly diminutive to the Victrix legionaries, which may in time cause me to bolster their ranks with slightly bulkier offerings from Aventine and Black Tree.

To give these chaps a bit more of a Roman character I decided to give them a commander indicated by one of their number being clad in a suitably red tunic.

Next up travel reports from Mr Steve and myself, plus more Roman additions to the collection.