Kings of War - Succubi

It seems a very, very long time since I painted anything for my Kings of War Abyssals. These are the first batch of Succubi. I have about the same number again ready and primed. They've been that way for several years! 

It's also been quite a while since I used my photography display board and focus stacking software, but it seems I've not forgotten how to use it.

Blücher - Spring 1813 Map Campaign - Second Campaign turns

Having finished off all of the four battles after the first few turns of campaign movement we'd been waiting for a chance to get the next campaign turn done and then play any battles immediately after. Well that just didn't happen so we decided finally to just get the campaign turns done. This we did on Monday at COGS.

We had to remind ourselves what had happened previously in the campaign and then we managed to play through two campaign turns. In the first of these turns no battles were declared. The French pulled back from the South and decided to concentrate their attacks in the North. The allies also tried to move their forces North to head them off.

A single battle was declared by the French in the North and the remaining forces jockeyed for position. Attempts were made by both sides to stop opponents reaching the battlefield.

In the end though the French have the upper hand with a 6 corps including the Imperial Guard on the table at the start and 1 corps in reserve. The allies have 4 corps, with guard forces from both Prussians and Russians, but also two weaker corps. They have also got 5 other corps of varying sizes ready to come on as reserves.

As you can see nearly all the forces are involved in that big battle. The remaining forces in the South will not be fighting this turn.

So now we need time to actually play this huge battle. We'll need a whole day. It looks like Gerald won't be able to get to the next Dales Wargames, so we'll probably have to play it my house.

DBA 3.0 Beyond Rebasing - Part 3 : The City of Troy

 In the earlier Part 1 of the "DBA 3.0 Beyond Rebasing" articles I showed off a camp designed in the style of the ancient city of Troy. This was from a set of 3D prints from here. The set contains the camp and two versions of the city. I've just completed one of those two cities and I like it so much I think I may have to do the other one as well.

Of course I don't actually have the minis for the Trojan Wars, but I think this model will do quite well as a generic ancient city.

It's sized correctly for the DBA 3.0 rules, so I'll have to try it out at our next DBA session.

Also, here are some photos of the armies and terrain I've been making being used at COGS on Monday.

DBA 3.0 Beyond Rebasing - Part 2 : Classical Indian Army

Back when I was playing DBM with my Bactrian Greek Army I'd started to extend it by buying additional elephants and an extra chariot. These have sat unpainted for years since then. It was time to make use of them.

So my first (almost) completely new army is Classical Indian 500BC-178AD II/3a. These can fight my Graeco-Indians, Graeco-Bactrians and Skythians, so fit in perfectly. All I needed was a couple more elephants, a chariot and a couple of bases of Cavalry.

I've just finished those in time for our DBA evening at COGS tonight.

DBA 3.0 Beyond Rebasing - Part 1 : Camps and Hamlets

I've pretty much completed all the straight forward rebasing I can do as I've done all the armies I had. I am currently painting up some additional models to make a Classical Indian army, but in the mean time I've been sorting out a few camps.

I hadn't really ever built any camps before, but I did have some baggage mules and carts for use with DBM. I have put those to good use along with some 3D printed tents, Celtic round-houses and a rather nice model of Troy. I have also added a few camp follower elements to the various armies

I may have gone a little overboard with the number of camps I have available now.

I also found that the middle-eastern buildings fit well onto one of my Blucher town bases, so I've made another of those and added some more round-houses. These will work as Hamlets in the DBA rules and The buildings can moved around and removed to make play through them easy.

I have also printed out a large version of Troy that came with the small camp version. This will be ideal to use as an ancient city in the DBA rules. More on that in a later post, hopefully...

And finally, in order to reduce the amount of flipping through the rule-book required I've made a few army cards. The less dense format of these makes it a lot easier to work out what can and should be in each army that I own, without distraction/confusion with other armies I merely want to own.

DBA 3.0 Rebasing - Part 3 : Skythians

The next army to be rebased is the Skythians I/43b. These were part of my Bactian Greek DBM army, but there were just enough models already painted that it's worthwhile making the army up despite it being not a great one. Or at least not the easiest to play.

My version, which does not include all options, consists of 10 Light Horse and the a General and a second cavalry base that can be either Knights or Cavalry as desired.

I think they're a great looking force even if not the most powerful, so I will use them. Plus these, the Graeco-Bactrians, Graeco-Indians and upcoming Classical Indians are all historical opponents, so they fit in nicely with my other armies.

DBA 3.0 Rebasing - Part 2 : Ancient British and Marian Roman

The first armies I bought for DBA 1.0 were Marian Romans (Minifigs) and Ancient Britons (Essex). I remember vividly crouching in the old wargames shop on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh choosing them from the available selection. I bought them as a pair so I'm really unsure why they are from different manufacturers. 

Anyway this second rebasing exercise has been to bring these up to date as the old cardboard bases were very tired. I've not repainted them or repaired them at all.

First up are the Ancient British. These I've always liked. Three chariots, some cavalry, psiloi and a few warband.

The Marian Romans, on the other hand, I detest. The minifig sculpts are very poor. They were poor back in the '90s, never mind now. Also the metal is unbelievably soft. That broken lance was broken and lost years ago and I can't be bothered to repair it. I'm very tempted to buy a new Roman army from Essex to replace this, probably Early Imperial Roman. I thing EIR was what I really wanted anyway instead of these. That may have to wait a bit though.