Koyote's Britons & other SAGA Stuff

[Koyote]

Camel's feet are big and wide to keep the camel from sinking into loose and shifting sands, and the webbing between the toes unites them into a single surface to further resist sinking.

As you can see from the picture below, the feet of the Irregular Miniature's camels falls far short of proper camel feet (they look more like deer hooves), so I made my own.  

I also used greenstuff to repair the tail tuft, which was deformed by the model's poor casting.  

 

[Ish]

Dude. You can’t just post pictures of camel toe here. This is a family friendly forum.

[Ish]

King Æthelflæd and his loyal bannerman, who I've dubbed Beorcwulf*, arrived in the mailbox today. 

* This is a really bad pun on the name Koyote; The taxionomic name for coyotes is Canis latrans, very roughly translated as "barking canine," so I went with an equally rough translation into Anglo-Saxon.  

[Koyote]

1 hour ago, Ish said:

King Æthelflæd and his loyal bannerman, who I've dubbed Beorcwulf*, arrived in the mailbox today. 

* This is a really bad pun on the name Koyote; The taxionomic name for coyotes is Canis latrans, very roughly translated as "barking canine," so I went with an equally rough translation into Anglo-Saxon.  

Wow, that was fast.

I am truly honored by my namesake, but shouldn't his name be Biercþwulf or Beorcanwulf?  You don't want other Anglo Saxons to think he's being named after a birch tree. 😉

I included the bag of Cinders Ballast so replace any that wears off during shipping or painting.  Also, if you decide to use this material to texture your other bases, you will know what particle size to use. It's sold by Woodland Scenics.  I believe that they call it "Cinders Fine Ballast".

May King Æthelflæd lead you to many victories.

[Ish]

Hmm... You may be right on that. Old English isn't exactly my strong suit.

[Koyote]

Now that I’m satisfied with my prototype, it’s time to start shearing camels.

 

[Koyote]

The camels have been shorn and based.  They are now ready for greenstuff.

 

[Koyote]

Aside from sorting out the reins and adding a forward saddle horn, I'm almost done with the camels. 

Some of their feet are a bit too big, so I will have to trim them with a hobby knife.

Each model had a loop of rope around it's neck from which hung a tassel.  The tassels and ropes were severely deformed by the poor castings, so I removed them altogether, and covered up the scars left by their removal with greenstuff.  

As for the riders, I'm going to use two Gripping Beast camel riders and 3 Footsore Miniatures minis from their Arab Heavy Cavalry kits.

The model on the far right will most likely be my Warlord. It's pose is quite static, but its the most heavily armored and thus the most impressive of the five.

[Koyote]

One down, four to go.

 

 

[Koyote]

I used a rotary tool to carve away the riders' original saddles.  For those who sit with legs on either side of the camel, I had to widen their stance as well.  Once fitted to their mount, I used greenstuff to rebuild the parts that were damaged or carved away.

All that's left to do is to add texture to the bases and my camel cavalry are ready for paint.

I don't yet have good recipe for painting camels, so I will primer a test model or two to practice on. Good thing I have plenty of extras.

 

[Koyote]

I've started to assemble my Age of Hannibal Epirus Graeculi (Epirote Greeks).  The cavalry and Samnite warriors are Victrix minis. The elephant is made by Aventine Miniatures.  I am currently assembling my Greek infantry armed with sarrisas and another unit of Samnite warriors.

 

 

[Yarbicus]

That elephant looks awesome!

[Koyote]

With one exception, the Epirote Graeculi (Greek) warriors, are the only unit in Age of Hannibal that can be armed with sarissas.  The sarissa is a pike, measuring between 16 and 22 feet long.  Phillip II of Macedon first equipped his infantry with it in the mid-4th century BC.  The armies of Macedon and the Successor kingdoms continued its use for another 200 years thereafter.

I didn't know of this until recently, but there exists a controversy about whether the sarissa's shaft was made from a single length of wood or two pieces connected by an iron coupling or sleeve.  The argument for the 2-piece sarissa is based upon what is thought to be a the metal remains of a sarissa recovered from a Macedonian royal burial cluster in the 1970s, in northern Greece.  The diagram below shows how the coupling sleeve would have made it easier to transport the sarissa.

Victrix Miniatures elected to to model its plastic Macedonian and Successor phalangite models with sarissas that incorporate a coupling sleeve.  I like the look of the Victirx sarissas, so I reproduced it using short lengths of rubber wire casing from a spool of copper wire. The "couplings" are a bit thicker than I'd prefer, but overall I am please with how they turned out.

Below is my first go at a 6 point Epirote list. I'm unconvinced the the benefits of the sarissa outweighs the weapon's drawbacks, so rather than invest a third point into warriors armed with sarissas, I've opted to field a second unit of Samnites.  

As mercenaries, the Samnites come with their own drawbacks, but their speed (up to a 10" move) and ability to move freely through uneven terrain, helps to offset the slowness and terrain penalties suffered by my sarissa armed infantry.  Also, since the Graeculi's advanced battle board ability, Aspis, is an Orders/Reaction that doesn't trigger an activation, the javelin armed Samnites can gain its benefits -namely, the ability to close ranks plus 2 bonus defense dice.

 

 

[Ish]

I’m not an expert on the period, by any stretch, but I’m a history nerd and a weaponry geek, so it’s a scholarly debate that I’ve been following.

I’m of the controversial opinion that they probably used both single shaft sarissa as well as the multi piece bracketed design. A single shaft would be stronger, but harder to transport and difficult to make (20+ foot tall trees of suitable wood aren’t exactly commonplace in the Levant, even in Antiquity). 

[Koyote]

The coupling sleeves could have been made in mass and transported with the army as a way to repair broken sarissas.  Depending on the type of break and where along shaft the break occurred, they could have cut a way the damaged portions and made a slightly shorter sarissa or kept the longest surviving length and matched it with another recovered piece or even with a new length cut from local timber or spare shafts.

[Ish]

The couplings were fairly simple affairs, any smith’s (and his apprentices) traveling with the supply train would have be able to crank them out. The spear points would have been the most difficult part to craft and we know they made thousands of those.

Anyhoo, great looking army and I look forward to seeing it painted! 

[Koyote]

37 minutes ago, Ish said:

The couplings were fairly simple affairs, any smith’s (and his apprentices) traveling with the supply train would have be able to crank them out.

Making each one from scratch seems like a waste of time and resources to me. 

[Ish]

Oh, that’s not what I was trying to say. They probably had enough spares to go ‘round held in inventory. But being fairly simple to craft, they’d also have been making replacement replacements. 

[Koyote]

I just wish the rules for Sarissas were a bit better.  I think that Studio Tomahawk  just missed mark with them. 

 

[Ish]

That does seem a little underwhelming… 

[Koyote]

The move of S is a killer. I'd rather they copied the elephant's rules and make their first move each turn a move of M and all subsequent moves in the same turn an S.

The primary benefits a unit gets for being armed with sarissas is one free ranged attack per turn with a range of S, and a +1 to hit vs cav and elephants. However, you only get the latter if the unit has no fatigue. 

With one exception which requires the use of a Ruse card, the Epirote Graeculi are the only warband that can field a unit armed with sarissas.  Since the Graeculi battle board has no advanced abilities for removing fatigue, getting the +1 to hit bonus is far from guaranteed.

The other two benefits of the sarissa are (1) no armor reduction; and (2) the ability to close ranks.  Both are good benefits, because in every other instance, equipping a model with additional equipment (i.e., mount, heavy weapon, javelin, bow, sling, or crossbow) results in an armor reduction and prevents the unit from closing ranks.  The ability to close ranks is negated if the sarissa-armed unit is in uneven terrain, but I think this is a very fair trade off.

[Koyote]

June was a slow hobby month.  My home, like most homes in Western Washington, doesn't have central air conditioning.  Painting in the baking heat with a fan blowing on me is both unpleasant and unproductive, so I spent my relatively few hobby hours in June planning and assembling my Age of Hannibal Graeculi warband.

Things have cooled down enough for me to start thinking about putting paint on minis again.  Near the top of my painting to-do list are my Mutatawwi'a warlord and hearthguard.  All five models have been primered and are ready for paint, but my warlord needed a proper display base, so I updated the magnetized display base I originally built for my mounted Moor warlord.  I added a mace an a greenstuff scarf to the horn blower, and replaced the original standard bearer with a different Brother Vinni Arabian model.  I still need to glue texture to it, but once done, it will be ready for paint.

My 75mm display base isn't permissible under the rules (a Warlord's base caps out at 60mm),  but if you've followed my other threads, you will know that during game play, I prefer to keep my warlords on standard size bases.  Thus, my display bases are exactly as described, purely for display purposes only.

[Koyote]

I haven't played a single game of AoH, and I am already planning my second AoH warband. I know. It's a sickness. 

While painting and modeling, I like to listen to audiobooks -mostly horror, grimdark fantasy, sci-fi, and of course, historical fiction.  If the setting of historical fiction is set in one of the Roman periods, I prefer stories told from the perspective of Rome's adversaries.  I appreciate Rome, but being a lover of the underdog, I've always kinda despised them.  Rooting for Rome is like rooting for Patriots or the Yankees.  Yuck!   

So of course, as luck would have it, the Roman battle board is not only one of my favorites in AoH, but the Victrix Republican Roman models look awesome.  What is a neurotic wargamer to do?

Last night, while perusing Victrix's ancients model lines for the millionth time, it struck me.  Victrix sells an Italian Allied Legions kit -which look similar to Republican Romans.

Once subdued by their Roman neighbors, the Italian tribes fought alongside Rome as allies.  However, from time to time, some of the tribes would band together and rebel, or join a foreign invader, like the  Epirote Greek and Carthaginians, in the hopes of freeing themselves from Rome.

One of the accounts in an Osprey book notes that in the Battle of Zamas, Hannibal's third line, which was composed of his veterans and Italian allies/mercenaries, held the longest and pretty much fought to the death, after the first two lines fled or were destroyed.

The tribe I want to represent are the Lucanians.  There's not a lot written about them, and their tribe and homeland eventually came to a bad end, but what little I've found sounds pretty cool.  Below in a excerpt from an article titled Shield emblems in ancient Italy, published by Ancient Warfare Magazine.

"With regards to the wolf, we should now consider the case of the Lucanians and – shortly thereafter – the Romans. The Lucanians, considered one of the fiercest Italic tribes together with the Samnites, seem to derive their name from the Osco-Umbrian word for wolf, lukos (compare Latin lupos). The wolf was the animal sacred to the Italic war god Mars."

And looky!  Vixtrix sells compatible shield transfers with wolves on them. Perfect!

 

There isn't a lot of historical evidence on how the allied Italians were organized and fought, but by I've read that their place in Roman battle line suggests that they were organized and fought in a manner similar to the Romans, using maniples, pilum, and sword. 

In summary, playing the Lucanians will let me "play" AoH Romans without having to PLAY Romans. Woohoo!

[Koyote]

On 6/21/2021 at 12:39 PM, Koyote said:

Below is my first go at a 6 point Epirote list. I'm unconvinced the the benefits of the sarissa outweighs the weapon's drawbacks, so rather than invest a third point into warriors armed with sarissas, I've opted to field a second unit of Samnites.  

As mercenaries, the Samnites come with their own drawbacks, but their speed (up to a 10" move) and ability to move freely through uneven terrain, helps to offset the slowness and terrain penalties suffered by my sarissa armed infantry.  Also, since the Graeculi's advanced battle board ability, Aspis, is an Orders/Reaction that doesn't trigger an activation, the javelin armed Samnites can gain its benefits -namely, the ability to close ranks plus 2 bonus defense dice.

 

Another option that I want to experiment with is a unit of javelin levy.  The Greek battle board has an advanced ability that can only be used on a unit armed with javelins, but since it is a melee/shooting reaction ability, it cannot be used by my Samnite mercenaries.  It costs a single common die and forces an opponent in melee or shooting to reroll attack dice that roll 5s and 6s.  Combined with the Aspis ability (units equipped with javelins can close ranks and gain 2 defense die), this can make unit of javelin levy very resilient. There are a few other advanced abilities that could be added to make the unit even tougher to kill.  Assuming I get the right dice, I can turn one of the weakest units in the game (armor 3/3) into one of the most resilient.

I bought 2 sprues of Victrix Greek Peltasts on eBay.  Each sprue includes 8 different poses, but they are older Vicrix kit so the javelins are really thick and the detail isn't quite a sharp as their newer kits.  Also, the shield arms are sculpted close to the body, so that the poses look a bit stiff and unnatural.

After ruminating on it for a while, I decided to kitbash my own peltasts.  I used the javelinmen bodies and arms from Vixtrix Warriors of Carthage kit, heads from the Greek Peltast kits, and small round shields from the Iberian infantry kit.  Overall, I'm pleased with the results.

 

[Koyote]

Here's my first unit of Lucanian (count-as Romans) Triarii (hearthguard).  In the maniple system, the Triarii was comprised of veterans who were formed up in the third line of battle.  While it may seem odd to put the most experienced troops in the rear, the Romans understood that a route always begins with the troops in the back of the battle line, who have  better view of the overall battle than those in the mix of it.  The Triarii, being the bravest and most disciplined troops, were the least likely to trigger a route.  Also, their position in the rear allowed them to steady the middle ranks and re-establish a faltering battle line. 

Because they were positioned in the rear of the army, the Triarii were slow to adopt pilum.  Instead they continued to use the the long spear for period, before slowly harmonizing their equipment with the rest of the army.

 

Pictured in the foreground is my warlord and first unit of Lucanian warriors. The warlord is a 2019 limited edition Roman Optio mini made by Warlord Games.  I'm tempted to replace the model's hastile (Optio staff) with a spear, but the staff makes the model stand out, and gives it an air of command.