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

Rise and Fight Again - AWI Rules on Kickstarter

As a keen 'horse and musket' wargamer, I not only enjoy the Peninsular War and the wider Napoleonic era, but also have a keen interest in the earlier American War of Independence where many of the tactics that the British army developed in the later conflict first saw there first incarnation.

This development has been looked at here on JJ's with the games and rule-sets we have used together with key books covering the period.

One set of rules that has figured largely here on the blog has been Over the Hills (OTH) for Napoleonic games developed by Adrian McWalter and Quinton Dalton now of Stand to Games.

Having worked with the chaps on putting together a scenario book for the Napoleonic rules (more anon), I was also privy to the early incarnation of the AWI set 'Rise and Fight Again' which takes the basic system of fatigue as covered in my review of the rules and gives the whole thing an American War of Independence twist to recreate the aspects that made the AWI quite distinct from the later period.

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2016/10/over-hills-napoleonic-rules-play-test.html

I really like the use of the fatigue mechanic used in OTH to assess combat ability and readiness to fight and the basic concept is easily adaptable to other periods with the addition of factors specific to the period being modelled.

If you are familiar with OTH system and the games it generates then you will quickly appreciate its application to the AWI, either way, the chaps have put up a really useful explanation of how the new rule set will be structured, the concepts carried over and the changes incorporated to this rule book based on the learning gathered from OTH.

If you are interested in gaming AWI battles and like the concepts this rule set incorporates then like me you will be interested in this Kickstarter campaign and keen to get a set of the rules.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1718486616/rise-and-fight-again-the-american-revolutionary-wa

Spanish Air-force - CASA C-101

CASA C-101

Whilst out enjoying the delightful weather in Spain just recently we were treated to an impromptu air display by the Spanish airforce who have a base nearby for fast jet training.

The Spanish airforce use the Spanish built CASA C-101 for training their jet pilots which is the equivalent to the the Hawk jet trainer used by the RAF in the UK.

Having been coming to this part of Spain for the last sixteen years these chaps are a familiar site in the skies together with individual aircraft practising 'circuits and bumps' otherwise known as take-offs and landings and intercepts out over the Mediterranean coast.

Back home in the UK, the RAF Red Arrows team make Exeter their home base in the summer as they tour the various air displays around the country and so we are very familiar with seeing their routines as they warm up for each season over the skies of East Devon.

However the Spanish airforce like to do it a bit differently with the occasional low level, un-manned passes designed to keep unwary tourists on their toes!

Spanish Wildlife 2018

Black Winged Stilt 

As well as visiting the battlefield of Castalla which is just up the road from our place in Spain, Carolyn and I took time to enjoy other sites and just 'chillax'.

Regulars here on JJ's know I like to bring you pictures of natural history as well as the military stuff and often it is very easy to combine the two whilst wondering about the countryside looking at battlefields.

This part of eastern Spain has long stretches of beach bordering the Mediterranean interspersed with salt flats and reed beds providing excellent habitat for a wealth of wildlife and bird life in particular.

Some of these creatures are often seen only with fleeting glimpses as they dart in and out of cover or not seen at all but only heard from the depths of the reeds.

Ideally if I were taking more time and the facilities were available the best way to capture pictures of the more shy varieties would be from a hide, but we were just walking and enjoying the weather and I was keeping the camera to hand should something wonder across our path.

These beautiful black winged stilts announced their presence by giving their high pitched call and circling the area we had walked into trailing their long legs behind them in their somewhat ungainly flight style, only to land in a pool a bit further along our path, which enabled me to get these pictures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-winged_stilt

These birds are an infrequent visitor to the UK and I had never seen one in the wild before now, but they have a wide spread coverage around the globe stretching from southern Europe to Australia.

One of our favourite places to walk are some nearby salt flats with their shallow white banked lagoons being the favourite habitat of a wealth of water birds including flamingos.

I am instantly taken back to Alice in Wonderland and surreal games of croquet every time I see these elegant and yet ungainly creatures.

I am thinking the next bird seen with its distinctive stocky shape and stumpy red legs picking over shore line debris is a Turnstone but I am open to correction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnstone

We get lots of Shelducks in the Exe estuary back home but it was nice to see this large esturine duck in sunny Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_shelduck

As mentioned at the top of the post, the coastline here is a mix of beach, reeds and salt flats and the path opened out on to a warm but blustery Mediterranean with boats out on the briny and a distant look at Torrevieja.

On our walk back to the car I caught a fleeting glimpse of an LBJ, known in bird spotting parlance as a 'little brown job' which after I managed to get the camera on it before it scuttled into the undergrowth turned out to be what I think is a Calandra Lark but again I am open to correction as I am far more familiar with UK than Spanish bird-life which is still a work in progress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calandra_lark

Can you see him?  - The Lark's camouflage doing it's job with only movement alerting you to its presence