DBA Abysinnians II/62 first blood

I recently painted a Nubian Christian DBA army for my chum Dennis in exchange for this Abysinnian DBA army, mostly Essex I think. The Elephant General is an interesting element to play, it's vulnerable to quick kill by lights, but I used it very aggessively thinking that he's stompy as hell but hard to kill, so just give'r and let the chips fall! Fun army to play, need to be aggressive I reckon, with ample warbands and Jumbo needing overlaps and decent match-ups to ensure they make the most of their q-killing ability.

First 2 games against Nubians were close wins.

Pompey's Legions

Here are some more 10mm Romans, this time we have Marian legionnaires in lorica squamata and some archers. I use the red shields to designate these as heavy or veteran infantry for CCA, blue shields will be medium, and I use some green in the archers, slingers and javelinmen to designate them as lights.

Forces for Fireball Forward

In between Napoleonics and 10mm ancients, I am working on a WW2 post-Normandy scenario for Fireball Forward using some Valiant 1/72 figs I picked up this spring. I like these figures, despite that they are an odd size, larger than 20mm and smaller than 25/28mm. These are the Canadian forces for the St. Lambert scenario around the Falaise Gap representing elements of the Argylls (The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada). 

10mm Auxilia

Some more 10mm Romans as I work towards a couple of Civil War CCA scenarios between Julius Caesar and Pompey.

1/72 "Portuguese"

Dennis and I are planning to run a couple of versions of the the battle of Vitoria next month, it will be the 200th anniversary of one of Wellington's capstone victories on the Peninsula on June 21st. I plan to first run the CC:N scenario at the club on the 4th, then later in the month try the same using Lasalle.

In preparation, here are some Portuguese artillery (actually Dutch by Waterloo 1815, but they are mistakenly given British style artillery carriages, so they could pass for Portuguese at a distance) and Cascadores (OK- they are 95th Rifles by Italeri painted in brown).

10mm Romans

Here we have the first few cohorts of 10mm Romans that I've picked away at over the last couple of weeks. They are very easy to paint and look good en masse- I decided to base them on 60mm frontage for DBA, but also decided to work up a couple of CCA Civil War scenarios pitting Pompey versus Caesar. In doing so I will end up with a Late Imperial DBA army and a Marian Roman army - using one for Pompey and the other for Caesar.

8 bases of legion (160 figs!) and one of cavalry

Can't decide whether to go with thick or thin bases...

Medium cavalry - they might look good with shield transfers.

MayDay and 10mm Romans

This weekend EWG held our annual MayDay gaming convention which was a smashing success. I ran a War and Conquest El Cid game pitting the Christian Spanish attempting to recover stolen booty in a counterraid (Apellido) from Almoravid Muslims. I played the Almoravids with Dennis, while Scott and Jonathan played the Spanish

Game start

Spanish Caballeros

The Almoravid booty-laager

Jonathan thinking about his first move, either that or distracting by single-handedly running an 80+ participant game day...

Dennis, eyeing up a block of Christian Knight of Santiago who have breached the Almoravid line...

Dennis, not paying enough attention to said Santiago threat...

Scott, watching Dennis threaten the flank of his knights with Berber light horse, unfortunately at this point I stopped talking pictures and those white knights got a double turn, charged the black guard, broke them and pursued into the booty laager. Spanish win. 

My main score at the auction this year was a big lot of unpainted 10mm Old Glory Roman Imperials for a song. Like 10 bags of cavalry, legion and auxilia for $11!! Well, I already have Romans in 28mm, 1/72 and 15mm...so why not? I like the mass look of 10mm for big battles.

I painted up 6 strips of legion, they went very quickly and I think paint up very nicely. I am going to do them for Impetus, Hail Caesar or perhaps DBX.FOG. Of course, it means I need to buy an opponent, would like to get something not warband with a lot of cataphracts or other elements types (Parthians, Palmyrans, or maybe Pontic?).

My first quandry now is how to base them. I am considering either 80mm (3 strips) or 60mm (2 strips).

80mm is a nice size for Impetus or DBx (played at double 15mm scale) and nicely fits 3 strips. Pleasing symmetry with the command stand in the middle. Big bases are also appealing to play with.

60mm on the other hand, is a more conventional base size, also accomodates strips without having the cut them up, and means 50% more units for the same cost and effort compared to 80mm.

I can't decide which to go with. Any opinions out there?