Delhi Sultanate Crashes Out Against Medieval Vietnamese

Delhi Sultanate Crashes Out Against Medieval Vietnamese

One of the club mates wanted to try out his new "pseudo" Medieval Vietnamese army today. 

He threw together all and sundry to put the army on the table and if you didn't look too closely at least it was based correctly. I don't have any far eastern armies and since I am still gaining experience with my Later Muslim Indian army I said I would use this again. We used 400 AP and DBM v3.3 rules. We both were Ag 2 and I rolled 5 to Bob's 3 meaning I invaded. Since I have some naval elements I choose to dice for a Waterway, which I got. There was no weather effect. Upon reflection I should have waited until the third terrain phase rather than use the Waterway.

His army was organised as follows:

Command 1 - CinC Regular

16 E/16 EE/ 6 D [25% = 4 EE]

Command 2 Regular Sub-general

16 E/16 EE/ 6 D [25% = 4 EE]

Command 3 - Irr Sub-general

16 E/15.5 EE/ 5.5 D [25% = 4]

Command 4 - Irr Sub-general

16 E/15.5 EE/ 5.5 D [25% = 4]

Army Totals

64 E /63 EE/31.5 B

To break the army I only needed to break two commands and an odd element but it wasn't to be. Despite a series of poor combat throws I eventually managed to take down 13 EE from his army but they were spread over all four commands. I had a bad run of combat dice which lost me the right flank command and a double overlapped Irr Bw I died the next bound to break the second command and with it the whole army. The final score was 10 - 0 to Bob which converted to 30 - 2 BHGS.

I wasn't too upset to lose as I need to gain more skill coordinating this army.  I did feel a bit annoyed that I had two 1's on the trot with my Cav S against his Reg Bw I which was what broke my command as I only needed to equal his score to take out the archers and with it that command. 

But you cant win them all! We played for a total of 4 hours 30 minutes until we got a final result.

I think his list wasn't best organised due to the lack of any cavalry and four equal sized commands but we each play our own game style. 

My army sits in the box ready and waiting for the next game.

Here are a series of pictures taken through the game.

Delhi Sultanate Crashes Out Against Anatolian Turcoman

Not a Good Day to Invade Anatolia

It was our club AGM and I needed to throw together an army at short notice for a game.

I used my Delhi Sultanate list and ended up fighting against an Anatolian Turcoman MM2 list

This army has a lot of very tough troops that are difficult to kill but also lacks the usual killer troops found in most armies.

My opponent took loads of Irr LH S and Cv S plus Ax O and Ps O.

I invaded and there was a Strong Wind blowing in my face.

We fought long and hard and after about 5 hours I finally lost a command to his superior numbers.

Apart from hard flanking a couple of Ps O and getting my Irr Bw I into range which allowed me to take out a LH S and a pair of Ps O his army was almost invulnerable.

When he rolled a 1 I rolled a 1 yet sods law meant when ever I rolled high so did he!

I eventually managed to get my elephant into combat and killed a Cv S but two bounds later it was surrounded and swept away.

Eventually I just ran out of luck and the Bd F and Ps S were overwhelmed by superior numbers. we ran out of time and the game ended 7-3 which converted to 21-11 due to my much higher casualties.

Anatolian Turkoman is certain not an army I have ever seen used before and given its dreadful command structure certainly not an army I would have expected to have ever seen across the table. It was a refresher game for him having not played a game of DBM for a very long time. He had a few issues getting to grips with the DBMM2 lists and made a couple of writing errors in his list which I helped sort out before we started. 

In a strict time limited game I cant see it actually managing to achieve much as the two internal allies are a liability in case they turn out unreliable and unless the owning player throws caution to the wind and just charges forward as fast as possible its likely to end up delayed and delayed until the clock runs out.

A few pictures of todays game

Bohemian Mercenary Foot Crossbowmen Reg Bw X/I in DBMM

Bohemian Mercenaries for the Med Germans

With the publication of the DBMM revised 2nd Edition army lists last September we were all surprised to see that Phil Barker had introduced a new troop combination in two lists. These are Bohemian Mercenary Foot Crossbowmen Reg Bw X/I double based elements for use in the Medieval German and Hussite lists. In the latest version of DBMM v2.1 rules this is an illegal troop combination as it is in DBM. WRG and Phil have not yet responded to confirm if this is a mistake or explain how this new troop combo is supposed to work in DBMM. They are actually very attractive looking troops for the later 1400's and since I have a pile of left over spare figures in Project Lead Mountain I decided to create sufficient elements to use in the Med German list.

The front rank are Roundway castings. http://naismithandroundway.co.uk/product/clipeati-heavy-infantry/ I filed off the shields as far as possible and glued a mix of now discontinued Corvus Belli Pavises to the fronts. The rear ranks are Minifigs which despite having the figure code 67X are actually the 1st Generation Renaissance figures which were remastered some years ago so are no longer available. Dave Ryan may well reintroduce them into the range having obtained a single pack of castings at some time in the future under a different code. UPDATE they are now available as Code 967X [06/03/17]

Due to there being no common consensus on how to operate these figures within the rules I adopted a different ploy when I based up the figures [more on this below]. Each Pavise is decorated with an historic coat of arms from Bohemia. I created twelve elements to be used as six double bases. 

Due to my needing more Regular crossbowmen I decided that I would mount the elements singly and use masking tape to temporarily join them together when needed. This means I have eight elements of Reg Bw O to use at any time and another eight elements of Reg Bw X when I need them and saves me from painting up single elements of duplicate figures when removing shooting casualties.

Project Lead Mountain 21st January 2017

Project Lead Mountain Update 21/01/17

As part of the ongoing update to my figure collection I am refreshing and rebasing some older figures that I have because their basing style was so old fashioned it ruined the figures. It also allows me to retouch and improve the figures I painted many years ago to a higher standard.

As I rationalise my collection parts of it are ending up on EBay to hopefully find a new home and get some use. I often paint up figures and only ever use them once or twice and then paint up new figures that I like even more which means the older figures never get any use.

This instalment from PLM only contains refurbished and rebased figures.

The first batch are twelve Foot Crossbowmen with Pavise on their backs. They are Tin Soldier MA10 Castings http://tinsoldieruk.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=186_206 I have repainted the Pavise with various Italian Cities Coat of Armes making them suitable for most Condotta or later armies or for use as Mercenaries in many other European armies. They are surplus to requirements and will be going onto EBay in due course.

These are Roundway castings but I am unsure of the figure code. I painted them up as generic mercenaries or Civic Militia many years ago. Putting them on new bases has made all the difference and they will sit in reserve for when I need more than the normal number of crossbowmen.

I think these are Essex Miniatures but I cannot be sire as there was no code on them. I obtained them many years ago in a Bring and Buy and they started life as two elements of Reg Bw O. Since I needed a four more Psiloi Crossbowmen I unbased them, repainted their leggings to match and made them into four element of Reg Ps O on new bases.

Ancient Spanish Ally Contingent Finally Finished

Last of the Spanish Finally Done

Project Lead Mountain rumbles on and I have finally completed another small part of it. Back in 2015 I blogged about completing my Spanish Ally Contingent to use with my Polybian Romans http://drewjarman.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/15mm-dbm-spanish-allied-contingent-misc.html

I still had 32 castings left over to enable me to field all three types of allies depending on what I though was suitable. They are new Essex Castings MPA109 which were resculpted a few years ago. http://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/collections/15mm-ancient-macedonian-punic-wars/products/mpa109 This meant that I had been left with not being able to get the older castings that I wanted so purchased 4 packs of the new one not realising they had changed. They are very nice sculpts and were very crisp and had very little flash.

I didn't want them to be particular distinctive as that meant that I would not be able to swop them around depending on the Spanish tribe I was fielding. I ended up making eight elements of Irr Ax S and four elements of Irr Ps S with the spare eight figures left over.

Eastern Franks in DBM

Eastern Franks - Filling Out The Missing Elements

As part of Project Lead Mountain I am finally starting to finish off the missing bits of lots of armies I have including morphing armies into other lists. I have a Norman army which I first used under DBM v1.1 and gets a run out once in a while. It can double up for Eastern Franks of course. The DBMM list includes a 4th Irr Sub-general which represents the contingent Edward the Confessor supplied on 1049 AD. I have already painted up his contingent see my blog entry http://drewjarman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/project-lead-mountain-bit-and-pieces.html for some pictures. 

The list requires that for every element of Irr Bd S I take I must take an element of Irr Bts S. So I cast around for suitable boat models and found that Navwar make a Saxon ship in 1/1200th scale Code AGS22. Since they are very small I ordered four packs [2 per pack] and mounted 2 models to a base. The paint job is very basic but they do the job quite well.

I still have 24 elements of Donningtons sword armed Milites to paint for the Swabian Irr Kn I that form a large part of this army.

Bohemian Pavise Protected Crossbowmen

Bohemian Mercenary Crossbowmen

Back in September 2015 I needed to make up some Regular Bw O Pavise protected crossbowmen at short notice. Rather than spend ages doing them I took some already painted crossbowmen that were based up as Irr Bw O and decided to refresh and rebase them and put plain painted Pavise in front of them as a quick fix. I blogged the result back then. They were only ever going to be a stop gap fix. I have now managed to paint their Pavises properly according to a large design sheet I found of Bohemian shield designs. The figures are Essex Miniatures and the Pavise are from Tin Soldier. I am very pleased with the final effect and am glad I bothered to make the effort to do them after 16 months. This means I will now need to start selling off more figures as I decide what to keep.

How they originally looked.