Back to Work

The last couple of months in England were very busy.  Even if the gentlemen repairing my garden wall had not found a cavity under the slab on which the gaming and painting shed sits, discouraging me from entering it while they did some backfilling before resuming work on the wall, I would not have had much time either for gaming or for painting - other than for gaming during trips to Madingley Hall for the SoA convention and to Warfare.  Now I am returned to Hong Kong and am faced with unfinished projects from the summer and a large pile of new material acquired during the UK trip.  Where to begin?  

With Gareth not being able to resume the English Civil War campaign this week as he is in Vietnam, I can focus on the painting side of things.  Very much in my mind before I set out was a revamp of the Achaemenid infantry, to give them more backbone in fighting the Greeks.  At the moment I have only a single contingent of Sparabara to stand alongside the Royal Guard and it is wildly inaccurate, having twice as many shield bearers as archers when the ratio should be 8 or 9 archers to 1 shield bearer.

The Sparabara as they are at the moment : 64 figures on 16 bases, mostly shield bearing spearmen rather than a front line of shield bearers with masses of archers behind. 

From Newline Designs I have brought back two bags of 24 archers and 1 bag of 24 sparabara.  I wanted to see how the figures matched up against the current troops that are all from Zvezda.  I am happy that this can be done as there is little difference in height and the Newline men are only slightly fuller of figure.  The one disappointment was that the Newline archers in linen armour are all of a single pose, so being able to mix them with the Zvezda figures to give a bit of variety and interest to the units will be good.  I then set out to trawl through the lead and plastics piles to see if there were any other figures that could be added to the mix.  This turned up some expected additions from a pack of Caesar Persian infantry and some left over unarmored Newline archers.  It also turned up an unexpected bonus of another unopened bag of 24 Newline armoured archers - which I have no recollection of buying!  Rather than being a little short in the archer department it now looks as if I may need to get a few more Sparabara!  My plan now is to remove all the Zvezda figures from their bases and start making up units of 48 figures on 12 bases that will be arrayed four wide and three deep.  The front row will be Sparabara with a couple of command figures, the second row all archers and the third mostly archers but with a few command and sparabara figures filling the role of the gentlemen in the rear ranks of Achaemenid formations who kept the men in front of them motivated through the use of whips - or so it appears from the illustrations...

Cross section through an Achaemenid Persian formation, spara bearing spearman at the front, rows of archers behind, Gentleman with whip behind them.

A three deep formation will be greater than the two base depth of my hoplite formations, giving the Persians a fitting impression of greater mass.  I'm still tinkering with ideas as to how best to reflect the mixed nature of such units in my game rules : at the moment they are far too fragile against Hoplites, making games colourful but dismally predictable.  All this will have to wait, though, because I have decided to concentrate on two other projects for now.  The first is the Thirty Years War / English Civil War army expansion, the second is bringing the ancient naval game, Aegaeon, into full readiness.

The choice of the Thirty Years War project made itself, as three half Tercios of Spanish infantry were already on the production desk and a full Tercio prepped for fixing on painting strips.

Spanish infantry demanding to be completed

The Imperial Tercios that have been painted so far have a block of 16 pikemen and 4 command figures accompanied by 32 musketeers/arquebusiers in four blocks, one at each corner.  This gives them twice the figures of a Regiment sized unit - and an extra command strip has been painted for each Tercio so it can be divided into Regiment sized units when required.  For the Spanish Tercios, when finished they will have another 8 pikes and 16 rodoleros & arquebusiers and can be used for the early war large Tercios favoured by Tilly's Catholic League as well as Spanish forces in the 80 Years War against the Dutch.

Top down view of an Imperial Tercio.  This fits on a base 120mm wide and 60mm deep

Mock up for a large early style Tercio.  I will keep the width at 120mm, to fit with the conventions in the rules I normally use, but the depth will increase to 80mm.

While in the UK I picked up a few more packets of musketeers and an assortment of dead bodies to put on casualty/morale loss markers.  Adding up all the unpainted figures already here I now have enough infantry figures for four Swedish Brigades as well as make up figures to expand half the Tercios previously painted into early style Tercios.  That will be enough infantry for all except the very largest battles of the period.  There are also fully enough artillery, light cavalry and armed peasants to dish out when required.  The only significant lack is regular cavalry.   I thought I had enough figures for another six regiments but after sorting through find I can only assemble one complete cuirassier regiment but only part of two horse regiments.  Unless some have been misplaced, another order will be needed to complete the project.

Looking at the organisation of Swedish Brigades - in passing, I was delighted to find some very well laid out descriptions on a blog by Steven Thomas - it seems that to make a reasonably accurate representation of one of these brigades I would need a wider base than the 120mm standard.  For the purposes of playing with the Twilight of Divine Right rules, this would be problematic, so I will have to find a way to narrow down the frontage while retaining a visually distinctive formation.

Top down mock up for a Swedish Brigade of four 'squadrons'.  The pike blocks either side of the central column pikes and muskets should have a wing of muskets either side of them.  This extends the overall frontage from 120mm to 160mm.  To keep within 120mm, either the musket wings must be dispensed with, or the rear part of the central column removed so that the pike wings can overlap with the front squadron.  Neither is particularly appealing.  Perhaps I will need to reduce the width of the pike blocks in the wings to 20mm?  Another option might be pike blocks 30mm wide and only a 20mm block of muskets between them in the centre?  The overall depth is 130mm, but the fourth squadron at the rear can be mounted on its own base, reducing the depth for the other 3 to 90mm.

Unpainted TYW figures together with some 6mm Battlescale buildings and hedgerows to adorn the fields of battle.

For the second project, the main thing that needs to be done with Aegaeon is to complete revision on the rules in light of the experience gained at the SoA convention and then to test out the balance with the revisions in place.  I will continue to use mdf blocks for play testing but have now completed enough larger bases for model ships that I can start trying things out at with them as well.  For that a gridded playing surface is needed.  I don't want to commit to the cost of buying a mat at this stage, just in case more modifications to dimensions prove necessary, so will continue with a paper surface for the time being.

Eight 500mm by 750mm sheets are needed to cover the 1.5m by 2m table and provide a grid 16 squares wide by 12 deep.  The paper will be fixed to foam boards that will be hinged together so that they can be folded away easily while keeping the playing surface flat.  Rolling up the paper mats to take to the SoA convention was a necessity that required much blu-tack to keep the paper down.

Samnites, Etruscans, Mongols & Rus have all gone directly into the lead pile drawers.  I will try to stop myself thinking about them until the Swedish Brigades are in marching order and the Persians have been whipped into shape.  The only indulgence I have allowed myself is to start painting up a Roman villa.  This had been lying around in England glued up but unpainted for several years, far removed from the Roman legions  here in Hong Kong.  Now it has been united with its figures and will go together with the pieces of city wall I picked up at Warfare to provide decoration in the margins of conflicts in ancient Italy.

Parts for the Roman villa, partly painted.  They can either go together as one big complex, or can make up a handful of individual structures.  The kit, like the city wall pieces, is 15mm scale, which works well with 20mm figures on the tabletop.

Pikes glued on and only a few minor bits of paintwork to add to the first of the three half Tercios in production.  I hope to finish all three by the end of the week.