January ... Winter Quarters ... 2014 retrospective

This is apparently AoM's 250th post since reporting the Society's Shows North season began on blogger in March 2008 (so a surprising 7th birthday coming up soon).

Despite the number of posts dropping slightly (due to the manifold disappointments of V2 of FoG, we have dropped out of a number of tournament events) monthly pageviews bobble around the 3,500 mark (which isn't too bad for a special interest blog posting on average 5 times every 2 months - 29 posts for 2014) ...

Shows North attended 10 wargame shows and 10 other wargame/heritage events ...

Shows (please click on the picture for more on the event) ... 

(as part of the Lance & Longbow Society team)

(incorporating the SoA DBA Northern Cup)

(with the Lance & Longbow Society)

(a Society of Ancients/Lance & Longbow Society/Northampton Battlefields Society venture)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society/Wargame Developments)

(with the Northampton Battlefields Society)

Events

(including FoG-R, Armati, DBA and Basic Impetus)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with The Battlefields Trust and Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with the Battlefields Trust)

What a high content year!

This shift towards history/heritage reflects my personal interests as much as it does the health of historical wargaming and/or the Society of Ancients ...  That said, the drift towards 'history lite', 'minis gaming'  and Space Marines in hollywood historical outfits ('historicals' as the minis gamers call them) seems unstoppable.

On the credit side, my Montaperti game got 'best game' at the BattleDay, my flats got featured in the BFFS magazine, I took the runner up position in the English DBA Open and the Northampton Battlefields Society won a community award.  I was voted a trustee of the Naseby Battlefield Project and I got to explain the Battle of Bosworth to cricket hero Freddie Flintoff for a TV clip.

My actual wargaming has only tallied to around 80 games in 2014 (call it 3 games per fortnight) ... that's probably the lowest in 3 decades but has a lot to do with the collapse of interest in FoG/DBM ... (so far fewer 4 game weekends than in past years - and, really, I haven't missed them much) - that said, DBA V3 may encourage a pick up in interest.  Armati, for me, is now just for old times' sake and I expect my 'mainstream' ancient/medieval wargaming in 2015 to be mostly DBA, Basic Impetus and Neil Thomas's AMW ...

DBA Special III/40b Norse Viking

As promised, here is the companion army to the Pre-Feudal Scottish ... The Vikings ...

Building this army was inspired by Peter Pig's new extensive range of Vikings and Saxons and the desire to assemble them and as many equivalents from other manufacturers for a review ...

... and, with a little care and attention, I get a couple more Dark Age armies out of the exercise, Canmore's Scots and these cultural raiders ...

The V3 DBA army follows the usual formula (post 850): a solid Blade general and 10 bases of Solid Blade hirdsmen ... (and just one element tp pick and choose over) ...

The landwaster standard was made in the usual way from tissue over a foil substrate, doped with PVA and painted ...

The 12th element can be archers (Bw or Ps), Beserks (fast Wb) or Irish (fast Ax)

V3 of DBA offers slightly more choice by allowing 3 bases of substitutes from an ally (in this case Irish, Scottish or Anglo-Danish) ... that might mean a bit more variety but this is tough good-looking army as it stands.

The figures are (just under) half Piggies, the rest Essex, Donnington, Khurasan, Black Hat, Museum, Outpost, and one each from Touller, Irregular and Chariot (just to show how nicely they all mix together) ...

The camp is meant to represent the prows of some longships pulled up on a marshy riverbank ...

 

 

(detail)

(Viking DBA estuary camp: details)

Peter Pig make loads of looting and ravaging figures, so, with an Essex ship there was a lot of kit to jumble together for this piece.  It is made on clear plastic sheet rather than my usual MDF basing so any river it sits on should show through ... The guarding Camp Followers are detachable of course.

I pasted together some of the shield designs again (hand done as usual)  - sorry if they come out a bit blurred by the editing ...

They are the usual mix of Celtic/Saxon/Norse designs that seem to pass for generic Dark Age these days (and honestly I know no better) ...

It pairs nicely with Pre-Feudal Scottish or, say, Anglo-Saxon

A very enjoyable project and a nice addition to any collection.

30th November, Halesowen

WARGAMER 2014

The Society of Ancients combined with the Northampton Battlefields Society to run a stand at Wargamer in its bright new venue in Halesowen.

We took along the wargame model of the 1460 Battle of Northampton (which is only an hour down the road from Birmingham) in a display format - as Wargamer isn't one of those shows where we usually pick up volunteers for full multiplayer participation game.

I set the battle up as the Yorkist lords move their forces forward

(uncle Fauconberg at the Battle of Northampton)

There was plenty to talk about as only 2 evenings previously the NBS had picked up a Community Star award from the local residents' association in Northampton's Far Cotton and Delapre where the battlefield lies.

The award recognises the Society - and particularly its chairman, Mike Ingram (he of the excellent Bosworth book) - fighting for what it believes in: the preservation, interpretation and publicising of the 1460 battlefield at Delapre Abbey ...

(Community Star award alongside exhibition weapons from the Northampton Battlefields Society)

And I was also doing some surveying for our friends at the Naseby Battlefield Project who need to know what you would like to find in a visitor centre should you go to the ECW site (I will provide info and a link when there is an online version available) ..

If not particularly busy or intensively promoted (and the two can go together) Wargamer is a great example of a good quality local wargames show.   Lots of great exhibits from clubs and groups within an hours or so's drive and a fair mix of traders including the indomitable Dave Lanchester (Books) down from Yorkshire for the day (great support from Dave and he looked busy enough for it to have been worth his trip) ...

The show was a little easier to find than the former venue, better lit, had a bar (albeit rudimentary) and more parking ... winning all round, then.

In addition to Northampton, there were plenty of ancient games on show ...

The Cobridge (Stoke Challenge) club had this sumptuous Republican Roman Armati game.

The Border Rievers had a splendid and well captioned Battle of Mycale 

Tremendous terrain and loads of figures  ... this game was being played using WRG's 6th edition.

And The Guards of Birmingham were playing a large Hail Caesar game loosely based on Hydaspes ...

Well, add in our Medieval battle and that's some good coverage of the Society's period of remit for a local Sunday show I think.

A good diversity of style too ... 15 and 28mm ... Armati, vintage WRG and HC (and the set up for ours would have been a matrix game) ...

Other good stuff at Wargamer included ...

(WWII - Parker's Crossroads)

A couple of Renaissance games ... from Malta ...

... to the English Civil War ...

Several Napoleonics and even an interesting WWII Naval game ...

A great selection: I counted 17 games: 5 Napoleonic, 4 WWII (3 land; 1 naval), 3 Ancient, 1 Medieval, 1 Renaissance, 1 ECW, 1 ACW and 1 Indian Wars … in a good mix of scales and using everything from glossy published rules to oldies and homebrews.  

What a showcase.  There was also a Bring & Buy.

The weather was good for travelling so this was a great day for the midland wargame enthusiast (if you didn't attend this year I am sure you will want to look out for next year's show) ...

That was the last show outing for the Society of Ancients for 2014 although my own wargaming is moving on apace over the Winter break (and more special features are in preparation - so keep an eye on Ancients on the Move or just hit the follow by email button) ...

Oh ... and don't forget to renew your Society subscriptions (the majority of members still lapse with the distribution of the November issue - and that's the next one coming) ...

DBA Special III/45 Pre-Feudal Scottish

Sorry for the low level of activity here, I have been busy with a number of projects (some of which might well find their way onto this page in due course) but normal service is being restored as I catch up ...

First, those Pre-Feudal Scots that did such sterling service for me at the DBA Open ...

They are now tidied up, ready for pictures and adjusted to Version 3.   The core adjustment is that you lose a skirmisher and the Warband option goes up to 2 elements ...  anyway ...

The army is mostly Peter Pig Viking figures (with some help from Outpost, Donnington, Essex and Chariot ... plus, to make a mix, a figure each from Curvus Belli, Old Glory, Minifigs, A Touller and Lurkio) ...

I have tagged this army Malcolm Canmore's Scots .... Malcolm, of course, was the adversary of Shakespeare's Macbeth ... so an ideal opponent for your run of the mill cauldron boiling Scot.

It was Malcolm's army that removed Birnham wood to Dunsinane in the classic denouement (and I suspect gives rise to this army's core of 3Pk spearmen ... ) ...

Canmore apparently means 'big head' so I've given him a big head.  He is a Touller figure with an Outpost Varangian head (between 2 Outpost cavalrymen - the left of which has an Essex head)

The left is an old Essex one piecer with added spear and Outpost head ... the right hand figure is also Essex but with a Lurkio top half.   They match up nicely, I think ...

The Scottish thegns ... an Outpost Varangian amongst 3 Piggies ...

The core of the army.   Mindful that V3 was changing these spearmen to 3Pk, 

I chose to model them as generic Dark Age infantry with very big spears.  I deliberately did not go for shieldless schiltron types as I suspect they may be anachronistic.    These look the piece for me for 11th Century foot, and I think are fine for the 3Pk designation (but its just my interpretation) ... nonetheless, not all have shields.  Again, the shield designs are generic Dark Age with a Caledonian twist and there is the odd yellow warshirt ...

Men in skins... men in warshirts ... more Hollywood than Galwegian with a deliberate hint of wildness.   not to be taken too seriously ... Chariot wild men, a couple of Piggies an Outpost and a Minifig.   They mix well.

V2.2's useful 2 elements drop to 1 in V3 ... Corvus Belli, Outpost (with dog) and 2 New Era Donningtons ...

I made this broch-like encampment from an old Airfix (Nottingham Castle) turret ... and added a mix of junk including some sheep, a dead cow, a camp fire and a likely anachronistic kingly flag.   The army is making camp (and maybe looting ... a bit ... ) at a newly captured tower ...  There is an Outpost shaman dancing in a loincloth.   Answers on a postcard?

As an alternative I have based up some Museum monks ... the army pairs up with some Vikings, so the monks are their natural foes ... when needs must ...

This beautiful Barker Marker is actually the top half of a 28mm MDF cross from Timeline.   It was just too tall for this collection so I chopped it down (and am very pleased with the results) ....  I set it in a spiral pathway mimicking contemporary shield designs.   I have no idea whether there is any justification for this.

I had quite a lot of fun making the camp, and it views well from a number of angles.   I was particularly pleased with this guy emerging from the tower ... actually he is a PP wounded figure but the pose just seems to suit.   It is also a tremendous little figure (yes - that is 15mm!) ...

As I say, the shield designs are generic Dark Age with  some Scottish flavours ... there is some authenticity to the swirly designs North of the wall, but mostly it is generic/conjectural ... anyway, I clipped a bundle of them together so you can see for yourself.

Occasionally there's a bit of something else in the way - and sometimes the angles are quirky - but, by and large, this seems to have worked (I'll do it again for the Vikings I think) ...

So ... here is the army reconfigured for V3 ...

It was surprisingly good (came 2nd) as a V2.2 army, so I will now wait and see how effective 3Pk are in the latest version - it will add another dynamic to the now interesting and variable Dark Age infantry fight.