slavs – The Wargaming Erratic

On impulse I have gathered a set of figures to build a pictish type army for the british isles dark ages.

So which figures have I chosen?

I looked at the plastic solder review site and did not like any of the pictish figures on offer. So I looked around for something that might work. My main choice has been Orions slavic foot soldiers who would be more used to fighting at Adrianople or in the Balkans against the embryonic East Roman Empire.

The army will use the army choice given in AMW for the Picts – I have added two commands as well

This set was bought for my much stalled stoke field project in 28mm! yes they were too small anyway. I have used some of the javelin and bowmen plus some of the mailed figures for the command bases

These Sarmations were a snap choice when passing through Frome in Somerset. I knew they would come in useful except not for dark age Britain! They provide some mounted troops

Having now bought these figures they are wonderful sculpts. It is unfortunate that the Plastic Soldier Review plays down these figures on account of poor casting and flash. These figures have fantastic detail. They make up my main units for a pictish army

The army will comprise all the options for AMW so thats 12 units but based singley on impetus style 80mm wide bases with no base removal possible.

Neil Thomas and his Ancient and Medieval Warfare (AMW) book has grown on me over the years. At the start I did not think I would like an 8 unit army requiring 32 DBA bases to allow casualty removal. I tried it with single bases and dice and it worked. The breakthrough came with his One Hour Wargames (OHW) using the same technique and reducing the armies to just 6 units but crucially playing many scenarios.

I have played much more of both OHW and AMW than say DBA or my preferred ruleset of Impetus.

I arrived in Neil Thomas’ world by chance. Mike Tittensor wrote an article in Slingshot magazine published by the Society of Ancients (SOA) about bronze age warfare and using Peter Pig’s Bloody Barons ruleset. I bought the rules and these got me into plastics because I wanted a low cost solution. This was my first departure from what had been a preference for 15mm metals DBA gaming on a 600mm square board – an excellent coffee table sized game by the way. By chance I had now the opportunity to return to a dining table or 1800mm x 1200mm type gaming table. I was toying with 28mm but disliked the size of figures from a painting point of view. I had struggled with my Wars of the Roses Perrys figures to get a look I liked.

So it was the peak of the plastics era in the 2000’s and I just bought lots of chariots none of which in the end made it to the painting table – irony in there somewhere.

What I did get was a drift away from DBA gaming, first into Bloody Barons, then Impetus and then Neil Thomas.

Neil Thomas and 1/72 plastics are a perfect way to experiment in wargaming.

Not sure when this army will complete – sunshine and a last push for summer beckons.