Sunday 20 December 2015

Arab-Indians v Siamese DBM 400 AP

A Hard Fought Victory Over Siam

Bob McD at Essex Warriors wanted to try out a new army configuration and cheekily asked me to use my Arab-Indians. I had lent them to him for a game back in Oct 2014 [see that blog entry]

I had never used them before so didn't really have much memory of the list I wrote back in 2014 as a design exercise. My list was based on the DBMM version.

3/38 Arab Indian [MM List] 901 AD – 1206 AD [V3]

Dry Ag 1. W, Rv, Wd, E, RGo, D or G, Rd, BUA
[S, Rv, Wd, E, RF, D or G, Rd, BUAf, F]

Command 1
1 x Ghulam CinC Reg Cv S 30 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Bw O 16 AP
8 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 24 AP
4 x Hindu blades Irr Bd F 20 AP
4 x Hindu javelinmen Irr Ps S 12 AP
1 x Elephant Irr El O 16 AP
2 x Camp followers Irr Hd O 2 AP
24 E/21 EE/7 D [120 AP] [25%=5.5 EE]

Command 2
1 x Ghulam sub general Reg Cv S 30 AP
3 x Khurosanian cavalry Irr Cv S 27 AP
4 x Arab cavalry Irr Cv O 28 AP
4 x Sindi cavalry Irr Cv I 20 AP
8 x Arab infantry Irr Sp I 24 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Ps O 8 AP [may support Arab infantry]
1 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 3 AP
25 E/23 EE/8 D [140 AP] [25%=6 EE]

Command 3
1 x Ghulam sub general Reg Cv S 30 AP
3 x Khurosanian cavalry Irr Cv S 27 AP
4 x Arab cavalry Irr Cv O 28 AP
4 x Sindi cavalry Irr Cv I 20 AP
8 x Arab infantry Irr Sp I 24 AP
4 x Arab archers Irr Ps O 8 AP [may support Arab infantry]
1 x Hindu archers Irr Bw I 3 AP
25 E/23 EE/8 D [140 AP] [25%=6 EE]

Army Baggage
6 x Baggage Irr Bg I 0 AP

Army [400 AP]

74 E/67 EE/33.5 EE to break

After looking at the army list for the Siamese I had a sinking feeling that my game will be over very quickly due to Bob's army being made up of Irr Wb F and El O which I thought was a huge mismatch. After rolling for Aggression I ended up as the defender and placed three areas of 1 FE Boggy RGo. Bob elected to place a 1.5 FE Wood which fell in his central sector and nicely split the table into two halves for him and would have made it very difficult for me to redeploy. Because I was defender I had to deploy first and this allowed Bob to get the perfect match ups with each of his four commands.

Bob's army was organised as follows:
C1 - 22 E/22 EE/8D [25%=5.5 EE]
C2 - 22 E/22 EE/8 D [25%=5.5 EE]
C3 - 17 E/14 EE/5 D [25%=3.5 EE] Ally 1
C4 - 12 E/10.5 EE/3.5 D [25%=3 EE] Ally 2
Army - 73 E/68.5 EE/34.5 B

After much slow advancing Bob managed to get into contact with my left flank - the CinC and was slowly ruining the infantry command of mostly Irr Bw I, Irr Bw O, Irr Bd F and the sole Irr El O. Luckily before he had managed to get into contact I had killed a single Irr Wb F to my rather unlucky bowfire and the elephant took out a pair of Irr Wb F. I didn't realise it but those few casualties would become crucial at the end. On the opposite flank I charged my Irr Sp I into his warband and after recoiling the first combat managed to kill four elements whilst my mounted arm managed to hold on against his supporting elephants. His micro ally command 4 became split up and due to a poor PiP dice roll ended up charging forward against my central commands spearwall. With another round of combats Bob broke my CinC's command in the same bound as I broke his CinC's command. This meant that Bob was nine elements away from breaking whilst I was ten and a half elements away from breaking. In my bound I threw a pair of Cavalry onto the end of his elephant line which consisted of the two elephants from his micro command 4. I then threw my spearwall onto his disorganised warband getting a double overlap on one element and a single overlap on the adjacent one. All I needed to do was win the Cv v El combat roll to kill his end elephant and by doing this would also take out that commands elephant general. Fortunately for me I rolled higher despite Bob having 1 CF factor higher than me. This left me needing another one and a half elements to break this command and with these the Siamese army. This time my luck didn't fail me and I killed the two warband to break the command and with it the army. As my spears were irregular I had to follow up which meant I had another double overlap on the other warband from this command and I also killed another two of these. We completed the remaining combats to get the final casualty count to get the final score. The game then finished with me winning 7 - 3 which when taking into account the % losses [37.31% - 100% = 62.69%] worked out as 23 - 9 VP BHGS score.

I am not sure if I would rearrange the command structure in light of this game but this was probably one of the hardest matchup I could have hoped to get so was quite pleased to have survived long enough to snatch victory at the end. The lack of terrain for my archers was one of the hardest issues I had unless I had elected just to sit back on the left flank and give Bob the game initiative every move. It might have been easier for me had I swopped the Sindi Irr Cv I out of the sub generals commands with the Irr Bw I Indian archers in the CinC's command to give all three commands some archery options.

Below are the pictures I took during the course of the game.





















Friday 18 December 2015

Cutting Project Lead Mountain Down To Size

Another Batch of Mounted Knights


Well I have just finished off some more mounted Feudal/Medieval Knights. Some of them were refurbished figures, retouched, added details and new basing whilst the rest are all brand new.

Naismith/Roundway refurbished Medieval Knights rebased as wedges


Superb Quality refurbished knights rebased for very Late Medieval Kn S/I Wedges


Free Company/Condotta Knight Generals


Condotta General for Ghibilline Faction


HRE Knight General With Browned Steel Effect Armour 1400+ AD 


Minifig Late Knights painted as Duke of Milan 1450+ AD with Blackened Steel Armour 

Showing off because I am very wealthy Condotta Knight General with Gilded Armour


HRE Commander Knight for 1200 AD- 1400 AD


Last of my unpainted Norman Knights finally finished off after 20 years


HRE Command Element for 1050 AD - 1200 AD




Saturday 12 December 2015

Photography 101- Or how not to take crap pictures

How to make a Simple and Free Lightbox


Photograph 101 - or how to take pictures without spending a fortune on specialist equipment. Take a sturdy double skinned large cardboard box. Carefully dismantle it. After deciding which panel will be the bottom cut this into a trapezoid shape. Fold the excess rear panel around the sides. After removing the redundant sides use them to create new side panels.Use a stapler to assemble the whole thing as per picture 2. Paint the insides with a couple of coats of cheap white paint or emulsion and leave to dry. I used the remaining left over bits to use as a temporary roof which stops external above lighting from interfering with the colour balance.Place your figures inside the box and take as many pictures as necessary until you get your camera settings right to take decent in focus brightly lit figures. Took me an hour to do including painting the insides twice to get a decent finish. All the non gaming pictures taken on my blog are done using this box set up.





Wednesday 9 December 2015

15mm Minifigs 482XC Burgundian Gendarmes d'Ordonnance

15mm Minifigs 482XC Burgundian Gendarmes d'Ordonnance

Having sorted through yet more unpainted figures as part of Project Lead Mountain I found I had 42 x 15mm Minifigs 482XC Burgundian Gendarmes d'Ordonnance to paint. Originally purchased as a now long abandoned attempt to create the One True Army. I purchased the figures over 20 years ago and they have sat in a draw since then slowly being raided for bits and pieces to create other elements for different armies.

Having looked at the castings I realised that just because it says Burgundian on the wrapper doesn't mean they have to be used for this army. By the later part of the 15th C the master armourers of Italy were selling their plate armour all over Europe to whoever could afford it. So below are the 42 finished castings to illustrate that despite being really old sculpts they paint up very nicely and are suitable for any High Medieval or Early Renaissance army.

I painted them in batches of nine using different metallic armour trims, gold, silver, bronze and copper so I could create four groups of three elements. I also used the same lance colours within each group so I could create three groups of four elements depending on how I devised my army lists and commands.


Blued Steel Men-at-Arms for use as Rich Superior Knights 


Gilt Trimmed Armour


Silver Trimmed Armour

 


Bronze Trimmed Armour



Copper Trimmed Armour



Blue Lances Grouped Together


Green Lances Grouped Together

Yellow Lances Grouped Together


Some of the online experts didnt like my blued steel knights. They have said its far too light and should be nearer to black [rather like modern guns are] well I guess the application of science doesnt lie? I might do some nice brown coloured knights next?