DBA War of the Roses Lancastrians (10mm)

After neglecting this blog for the better part of a year, here is a new post at last. This is my recently finished 10mm Lancastrian War of the Roses army for DBA. I chose to do Lancastrians because I figured everyone else would be going Yorkist so they could field the Kingmaker.  The infantry and artillery are by Pendraken, the knights are a mix of Pendraken and Magister Milletum. Flags are by Freezywater; they are 15mm scale, but look okay to me with 10mm figures, and I couldn't find the flags I wanted in 10mm anyway!

I started painting these guys about a year ago, in preparation for a War of the Roses-themed tournament at Millenium Con last November.  They were only half-finished at the tournament, which probably accounts for my lacklustre performance.  I finally completed the army in March of this year.

First up are two pics of the entire army:

I based the figures on Warmaster bases, and pretty much in a style consistent with that game, though still usable for DBA.  So each infantry stand has a dozen figures on it, the knights have six, and the artillery element is equivalent to two Warmaster bases.  I might at some point paint additional infantry stands to make Warmaster units of three bases each.  The army presently has three units of billmen, and six units of longbows, so if I paint up six of the former and three of the latter, I'll have a total of three Warmaster units.  I could similarly add a couple half bases of knights to create two Warmaster knight units, and the artillery is already the right size for Warmaster.  Adding more billmen would also allow me to field them in the DBA army in lieu of the knights.

I divided the infantry into three different retinues or contingents, each from a different, important Lancastrian leader.  I don't think the three I chose (Exeter, Beaufort, and Roos) ever actually fought in the same battle, however.  The first is Lord Thomas Roos's retinue.

In each contingent, the lord's standard (the long one with rounded tails) is carried by the billmen, while one stand of archers carries a square livery banner.  However, I didn't have a livery banner for Lord Roos, so his archers are accompanied by Roos's personal banner.  This is a bit unusual, but leaders sometimes deployed their personal banners separately from their persons, so as to confuse the enemy.  A good explanation of the different types of banners can found here.

Next is the contingent of Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter.  I made him the general, since he had a distant claim to the throne. This is reflected in his coat of arms, which is displayed on Holland's personal banner, carried by one of his knights.  His archers have a livery banner, which simply depicts the livery colors of white and red, and one of Exeter's personal badges, a spike of wheat.  Small versions of the badge would often be worn on the liveried troops' surcoats, however, I didn't attempt that detail with 10mm figures!

Another shot of the Exeter lads.

The final retinue is that of Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.  The Beauforts were particularly staunch Lancastrians.  The scandalous rumor as to why recites that Henry VI's heir was in fact a Beaufort.

Again, in a defensive formation.

Finally, here are a couple elements which don't belong to a particular retinue: a company of mounted knights, and the artillery.  The artillery were presumably mercenaries from the continent.  Although such troops probably didn't wear livery, I have painted them in a burgundy and yellow scheme, because (1) it looked better than random colors, and (2) it's possible a mercenary company would have gone for a consistent look in order to improve esprit d'corps.  I put the knights in a wedge formation purely because it looks cool.

I'm looking forward to trying out this army with the new DBA 3.0 draft rules, because blades and bows have undergone some significant changes under the current draft.  And maybe they will win a game, now that they are fully painted!

TMP 15mm Sci Fi Vehicle Swap

Here are a few rather poor pics of my contribution to the latest exchange on TMP.  This is an Earth Force IFV by Rebel Minis, available here: http://www.rebelminis.com/earthforceapc.html

15mm Sci Fi Figure Exchange on TMP

A couple dozen TMP members are doing a blind swap of painted 15mm Sci Fi figs. We're supposed to trade a squad of five figs. I decided to use a spare pack of GZG Phalons I happened to have. Since they came in a pack of eight, and these are the only ones I have, I'm sending all eight instead of the requisite five.

These sculpts predate the current 15mm boom, and once were some of the few 15mm aliens available. They are still available here.

DBA Han Chinese, with Scenery

These are the Spear and Psiloi elements for my still in-progress Han Dynasty Chinese army for DBA. The figures are 15mm scale, and are all Black Hat (formerly Gladiator, and originally by Metal Magic). 

The Han dynasty came immediately after the Chin dynasty,which is famous for the terracotta army.  These four elements represent a third of the entire DBA army, the remaining elements being heavy cavalry, horse archers, and crossbows.

Most people paint their Han Chinese like this plate in the Osprey book:

This plate (and a couple others in the book) are apparently derived from figures from the Yangjiawan terracotta army.  Like the more famous Chin dynasty terracotta army, it is a collection of terracotta soldiers, discovered in a tomb.  Unlike its more famous predecessor, which was buried in the tomb of the Chin emperor, the Yangjiawan army accompanied a military official and his son into the afterlife, not an emperor.  Thus, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Yangjiawan figures are smaller than lifesize, being only 50cm tall.

Although the Osprey book depicts the Han army in fairly uniform red, the actual terracotta figures were not very uniform. 
However, their palate is somewhat limited--mostly red, black, and white or cream.

I wanted to depict an Imperial Army, not that of some local potentate, and so proceeded to take some interpretive license.  I kept the palate of red, black, and off-white, but used black exclusively for the spearmen's coats because that was the Imperial color in the early years of the Han dynasty.  This is admittedly quite speculative, and it's more likely that they would not have all worn black in real life.  The Chin terracotta army, from just a few years earlier, wears a wide variety of colors, without any apparent uniformity.  Accordingly, I tried not to be entirely uniform, and their shirts, pants, leggings, and shields are done in various combinations of red, black, white, and off-white, following the diversity of the originals.  The archers (class as "Psiloi" in DBA) got the more conventional red coats.

Although I finally painted these guys recently, I sculpted their distinctive halberd blades out of Greenstuff more than ten years ago (the otherwise excellent figures did not include this detail).  Seeing that this (and the other prep work) was already done was a very pleasant surprise when I dug these out of storage and resumed working on them.  Way to go, me of the past!  Here's a pic of an actual "dagger axe" blade, made of bronze:

The biggest liberty I took with painting these was doing the armor in bronze.  The Han definitely used bronze extensively for weapons, and other items, but no bronze armor has been found.  The standard view is that it was probably leather or lamellar.  But bronze looks great, it's a possible interpretation, and it fits my theme of an imperial army.

The trees are homemade, using florist wire and colored flock.  They are meant to have an Asian look.  My mom helped me design and make these, and not for some school project either!  Thanks mom! 

Here's a shot of just the trees, and some of the picturesque, vaguely-Asian looking rocky crags as well.  These are normally islands for Pirates of the Spanish Main, but are rather scale-less, and work well in this context too!  I've got some other great scenery for this army, including a building and a fishing boat that my mother brought back from a trip to China, but they are packed up at the moment, and will have to wait for another post.

Another trench tank picture

Here's another closeup, from a different angle.

15mm Trench Tank from Proxie Models

Sorry for the long hiatus, we moved recently, and everything is still in boxes.  I just picked up a set of the new 15mm scale "Trench Tanks" by Proxie models, and thought I would post a mini review.  I've included pictures with some figures from other companies alongside by way of comparison.  I just dry-assembled the main pieces, and left off the guns and driver's hatch.

Apologies for the poor quality, I took these at night, and I can only manage decent pics with natural light.

From left to right, the figures along side are (1) "Sons of Thunder" fig by Rebel Minis, (2) a Mid-Tech Trooper from RAFM, formerly from the old Citadel Traveller line, (3) an Earth Force guy from Rebel Minis, and (4) a not-Firefly figure from GZG.

Here's a closer shot:

And from another angle:

Here's a side-by-side pic with an infantry fighting vehicle, made by Rebel Minis:

And another angle:

As you can see, it's not a huge tank, but it is "in scale" with 15mm figures.  The comparison with the Rebel Minis vehicle is interesting: the two are almost exactly the same height and width, but the Rebel vehicle is a good bit longer.

The plastic is hard, (it feels like it should take paint well) but pretty easy to cut with clippers.  These do require a bit of trimming here and there to make everything fit, but the plastic is easier to work with than resin or pewter.

The mold lines are mostly pretty minimal, with one significant exception (that isn't apparent in the pictures): one of the tracks is misaligned by about a millimetre.  This is strange, because each tank comes on a single sprue, i.e., a single mold, so you would think that either everything would be misaligned, or nothing.  I don't yet know how much work it will be to correct this, but I'm hoping that since its plastic, it won't be too bad.  UPDATE: the mold line was pretty easy to remove, using and X-Acto knife and files.

All told, these are really great little tanks, and unique among current 15mm vehicles currently available.  They've got a lot of character, with plenty of rivets and such.  And the price ($10 for three tanks) can't be beat.  Plus the shipping is a flat $3, also a bargain.

I'll be picking up some more, and looking forward to new offerings from Proxie.

Proxie Models has both a blog and a webshop:

http://proxiemodels.blogspot.com/
http://proxiemodels.com/

Pirates of the Spanish Main--Raid on the Flota

Here are a few pics from a game of Pirates of the Spanish Main that I played with my niece and nephew recently.  Rather than do the usual "grab the treasure" game, I put together a simple scenario--raid the Spanish treasure fleet!  Apologies for the somewhat blurry pics, these were shot in the heat of battle.
 

In this, I was inspired by the historical flota, the annual treasure convoy sent from the New World to Spain.  Accordingly, I put all my Spanish ships on one side, and during the game had them move fairly mechanically across the board in a group. 

I didn't make up formal rules for this, but just controlled their movements as a sort of gamemaster for the scenario.  At the same time, we each ran a small squadron of English and Pirate ships, intent on disabling and boarding the Spanish Galleons, each of which was carrying a random selection of treasure.

Here's my own squadron of English Sea Dogs moving in.  I made the islands out of styrofoam, cut with a styrofoam cutter, and covered in resin pumice for texture before painting.  I was inspired by the awesome Pirates of the Spanish Main scenery over at the Shifting Lands website.

Losses among the flota were heavy.

A pirate squadron can be seen at the top of this picture.  In the foreground, the English squadron has already disabled and pillaged a medium-sized galleon.  Unfortunately for the English, the mighty Spanish flagship Guarantor is just moving into position between the sand bars.  Next turn it started blasting the smaller English ships out of the water.

My niece won with the most gold at the end of the game.  I lost, with only one ship still seaworthy, and little gold!