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?

Alans

Well, they are Sarmatians and late Romans, but they will be taking their place on the right flank of the Visigoths at Adrianople next week when I put on the BBDBA game. The cataphracts are Warlord and the light horse are Foundry.

Roman Cavalry

I did a couple of more stands of Late Roman cavalry to finish off my BBDBA Romans - 36 bases now completed for Adrianople. I have another dozen or so Goths to do, then we can play! These are Foundry with LBM transfers.

More Goths

A few more bases of assorted dark age foot, looking more like Vikings that Visigoths.

"Visigoths"

Well, they are a mix of Scots, Vikings, Saxons and other generic dark age foot from a variety of manufacturers, some plastics and some metals. But they'll do. Six bases of warband for the Adrianople project based for DBA. The LBM shield transfers are well worth the cost, love they way they make it work. I put melting snow on the base in hopes to see that here soon, we got 40cm this week and it feels like spring is a long way off.

Sarmatians

Here we have some of the Warlord Sarmatian cataphracts. These are fantastic figures, wonderful animation and nice detail. They are cast with the riders legs on the horse and separate torsos, which I quite like. These are great, I will be using them as Alan noble cavalry for the Adrianople project to face my Late Romans. 

Teutonic Kniggots

In between late Romans I have been working on some DBA stuff in the background. I just finished the important part of a Teutonic DBA army using 15mm Essex figs I received in exchange for painting an English HYW army for my chum Dennis. Good figs, nice transfers (thanks Dennis!) and a nice balance 

including light horse:

Crossbows:

Cavalry:

Of course, the kniggots:

various foot:

and the Hochmeister of course: