Bacaudae Insipiration

My Bacaudae project is unusual that the original inspiration was a single picture; this one:

It's by Angus McBride from Tim Newark's book Medieval Warlords.

I looked up "bacaudae" and found to my great surprise that much of what is now Brittany was, for several decades in the fifth century, effectively independent of the Roman Empire.  It's not clear whether the bacaudae were proletarian revolutionaries or petit bourgeois tenants of Roman absentee landlords trying to retain the existing social order in a chaotic world but either way I could envisage an interesting setting for skirmish wargames.

This all sat in abeyance for many years until serendipity decided I was to be given a kick up the pants.  Within a couple of months I'd discovered Lion Rampant and found myself at Vapnartak where the bring-and-buy included some cheap Arthurians and a trader was selling another inspiring Newark and McBride book.  The Barbarians - Warriors and Wars of the Dark Ages gave me two more pictures:

Well after this one and the previous picture I knew I'd need a Roman villa to be a centrepiece of any Bacaudae-oriented game...

... and the fact that the central Roman government was handing out (already settled and civilised) land to any barbarian who would fight for them suggested any number of interesting plots.

And so one of this year's Christmas games will feature a civitas (basically a villa and associated farming settlement) in eastern Armorica beset by multiple claimants to ownership, wandering mercenaries and a fair amount of religious disputation.

Pics to follow roundabout New Years Eve!

Sunday Morning Photo Session

I took advantage of a spare few minutes and a clear kitchen table this morning to photograph a few models I've recently finished.

First up, I've knocked up a bit of the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (Berlin Wall to you mate) for a game that's planned for Tuesday.

It's a very simple construction - strips of 50mm high foamcore hot-glued to bases made from an old wooden Venetian blind.  If I was building the wall for a public display game I'd have made more effort to capture the curved top that appeared on most sections of the Wall.  As it is I don't suppose it'll be used more than once or twice.

I painted the wall sections with cheap grey artist's acrylic and suggested the sectional construction of the Wall by applying vertical strokes with a slightly paler shades with a large, chisel shaped brush.

My talented daughter Emilia is doing graffiti art as part of her GCSE course so she stepped in with the more artistic details.

In the pic above, one of the panels has been breached by a shaped charge. More on this in a future post!

Finished, for now, is my Andreivian gun emplacement.

Having done a bit of on-line searching, I found that the metal gun's a Britains anti-aircraft gun.  They stopped making them in about the year I was born so, like me, this one's an antique.  I've decided not to paint it.  I may build an alternative (smaller) gun to go here before next April's Crisis Point.

Moving on from 20mm to 28mm, I've made progress on some Arthurians for one of the Christmas games.

From left to right: Foundry, Foundry, Foundry, Gripping Beast, and Essex.

And finally, there's the Roman watchtower. We've seen it here previously but now I've painted and dry-brushed the woodwork.

Gripping Beast Arthurian hearth guard for scale.

The GBP Dark Age Cavalry are here!

I returned from a hospital appointment this morning to find that Mick the Postie had left a box from Gripping Beast.  So here are my first impressions of the plastic Dark Age Cavalry from Gripping Beast.

The box contains four identical sprues, each with parts to make three riders and horses. This means that, with the riders consisting of a main piece (torso, legs, upper arms and lower left arm) to which we add a choice of lower right arms and heads, the choice of rider poses will be somewhat limited.  Slightly disappointing, that.

The riders wear over-tunics with short baggy sleeves beneath which is a tight-sleeved undergarment. This gives them a vaguely Norman look although a quick look through Barker's Armies and Enemies of Ancient Rome and Heath's Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066 reveals no illustrations that match this look.

We get a choice of four right arms with spears and two with swords.  Hands holding axes can be substituted and one of more spearheads could be replaced with a Draco head.  I replaced the spears of my Late Roman Infantry with wire ones.  It was a bit of a faff; I may stick with the moulded-on plastic ones this time.

There are enough shields to give the resulting unit all oval or all round shields or of course you could mix them up.  A quick check shows that the oval shields are identical to those in the Late Roman Infantry set.

Eight heads per sprue are nice and characterful, though I note that Dan Mersey has questioned one of the helmet designs.  Personally I think I'll mix in some heads from the Roman set as I plan to use these guys for the Arthurian period.

Oh and finally, the box contains twelve 50mm square bases.  I'll not be using them. 

New plastic goodness from Gripping Beast

I've preordered!

I shall be combining them with shields and heads left over from the Late Roman Infantry set to produce Arthurian era cavalry.

On the workbench - November

Almost finished on the workbench at present is my Warbases 28mm watchtower.  This is the second MDF building I've put together and it's proving an enjoyable little project.

I started off building the model straight out of the packet; straightforwardly done whilst I was watching a Rugby League World Cup match on the telly.  Then, when the glue had dried, I proceeded to thatch the roof with flattened worms of Milliput, scored with a craft knife.

As you can see, I've also added some filler to the walls to add a bit of texture.

The first coats of paint are now on and there's just a bit more dry brushing to do on the woodwork.

I'm now debating whether to put it on a base, perhaps on something of a mound.

In production for Andreivia (and perhaps for WW2) is this strong-point.  It's the old Airfix gun emplacement but it's lacking the original gun.  I'm considering using the old spring-loaded Britains gun in its place.  The problems with doing this are twofold. Firstly the gun's a bit big and secondly, it's probably at least fifty years old; should I be repainting what some might consider an antique?

Moving on to yet another period, for Sharp Practice I'm working on a couple of additional groups for the war in the Peninsula.  First up these HaT Royal Marines, who just need their bases completing...

... and then some more HaT Spanish Guerrillas (who may double as United Irishmen for the 1798)....

Fiasco Purchases

Virtually the whole of my Fiasco spend went in the first half hour and at the Warbases stand.

I've invested in a number items for the Late Roman / Dark Ages game I plan to run at Christmas.  This raeda will doubtless by carrying someone of considerable importance...

I could have go some generic Dark Ages crew for this from another stand but in the end I didn't think the quality of the figures rated a fiver of my money.  I shall have to consider further when it comes to crew.

I've already made up and painted this vallus - a kind of Roman combine harvester.  In use it would have a horse harnessed in the frame to push it through growing wheat.  In my case it'll probably just be set-dressing.

The watchtower was officially in the Saxon range but it'll do nicely in my fifth century Gaullish setting.  More on this soon as construction has already begun.

And finally from the Warbases purchase, the main item was a Roman villa.  I've deliberately gone for a small one without a completely enclosed courtyard as I didn't want it turning into a fortress in the context of game.

And finally finally I picked up a couple of 28mm figures from a 50p bits box.  The chap on the left looks like an early Frank with the scramasax at his belt.  His mate is probably earlier, wearing as he does a short tunic over bare legs.  He carries a staff tipped with two streamers.  I'd love to know what he's meant to be (and who both of them are by) but he'll probably serve as a Gaullish civilian in my game.

A trip to Fiasco

Jamie and I had our usual trip to Fiasco on Sunday (me from Sheffield, he from York).  This time I took along Tom which meant we got to talk gaming on the way up as well as while we were there.

I was planning a shopping trip but I was also under instructions to take some photos for Chris, who couldn't go.  Unfortunately I was so busy chatting to people that I didn't get that many pics taken.

This Seven Years War battle (Zorndorf) was nice:

Interesting way of doing unit status markers...

And I liked the windmill.

 
An interesting idea was this modern naval game in which the surface ships were on stands and the submarines manoeuvred beneath them.

There was a 28mm game that I didn't pay too much attention to at the time because I thought it was A Very British Civil War (which doesn't really do it for me) but looking at the pics now I see it seems to be Operation Sealion, which is far more my cup of tea-with-condensed-milk.

Finally, as far as my photos go, there was a large Napoleonic battle, billed as Gorodetschna.  Russians, Austrians and French all featured.