Outpost Wargaming Services 15mm Samurai

I like these figures and think they are great value.   They are based for Lion Rampant, the Samurai version naturally enough.

There used to be lots of pics of them on this blog, they disappeared (photobucket) but folk still looked for them.  That must been vexing for the reader and so now I’ve put them back. I think you'll be able to tell who's who and what's what so that's that.

More Carlists and conversions next.  Oh, and a couple of book recommendations for Christmas.

A Douglas and a Percy

My first two knights for Lion Rampant are a Douglas and a Percy.  The castings are Donnington New Era and very nice they are too.  The heraldry especially for Percy was more than tricky and to be honest I need to improve a bit there.  I’ll get there with practice or less complex designs I suppose.

Anyhow the psychological barrier is broken and I’ll now press on a pair of knights at a time.  

Here they both are with their pals.

Mycenaean Lion Rampant Chariot Stat's

I thought I’d done this an age ago, but seemingly not.  As you can see the ideas are quite simple we have three different type of chariot warriors.  They have a lot in common but there are differences.  

The Hatti charioteers exemplify the ideal, the Libyans are still reaching for it and the Mycenaeans are doing something different.  I’m an 'Arial Dogfight' and shoot ‘em up sort of chariot gamer favouring the model proposed in Slingshot by Ian Russell-Lowell.  

Contra Drews I’ve not gone for Mycenaeans with composite bows, instead they have javelins which they expertly cast and advantageous long spears. Note how powerful the composite bows are.  They are going to outrange and hit harder than all other bows on the table.  I had thought of giving the Libyans ordinary bows but reasoned if they could they could meet the expense of using chariots they could afford composite bows too.

Unit Name: Chariots of Hatti	Points: 6 Models: 2 Chariots 4 runners
Attack 6+	Attack Value 4+
Move7+, Max. Movement 5"	Defence Value5+
Shoot 6, range 8”	Shoot Value Hit on 4
Courage 3+	Armour 4
Special Rules	Counter-charge

Unit Name: Chariots of the Mesh-Wesh	Points: 6 Models: 2 Chariots 4 runners
Attack 6+	Attack Value 4+
Move7+, Max. Movement 5"	Defence Value 5+
Shoot 6, range 8”	Shoot Value Hit on 4
Courage 3+	Armour 3
Special Rules	Counter-charge

Unit Name: Chariots of Mycenae	Points: 6 Models: 2 Chariots 4 runners
Attack 6+	Attack Value 3+
Move7+, Max. Movement 5"	Defence Value5+
Shoot 6, range 3”	Shoot Value Hit on 4
Courage 3+	Armour 4
Special Rules	Counter-charge, Battle Taxi-can either dismount and remount as part of a normal move.

Jumping the painting queue

As I anticipated 30 Hungarian infantry have jumped the queue on the painting table.  Five bases, for Honours of War you see, at six figures a base, its slow progress. It’s Regiment Haller which has a very pretty uniform.  

In between drying times for undercoating, block painting, inking, highlighting and varnishing other projects have momentarily surfaced.  This is good for morale. 

They come in happy, handy numbers like six, six figures are good.  So, units of:

Hun Nobles, from Donnington.  We have very little idea of what Huns looked like so I went for a mix of eastern and western styles.

Restoration Heavy Cavalry also from Donnington.

and Grenadiers origin ditto.

have made it to completion or are near enough ready for Rampant’in or Lamenting.

While we are looking on things piecemeal here are some lovely Fantassin Dutch and Poles for my Peninsular project.  Fantassin were not always as good as this, but when they were they were very good indeed.  

I must get round to photographing my Peninsular armies.

More Roman Lion Rampant Units

I've painted more Roman Lion Rampant Units, these will be the last until the rest of them arrive from Donnington.

Here we have some dashing Gothic nobles, they would do for Franks too, or might turn up in a Roman retinue on the Eastern Front.   Goths could add a javelin and/or expert status at a cost of 1 point for each. Franks and Vandals seem to have liked to charge straight in.

Unit Name:  Gothic Nobles	Points: 5 Models:6
Attack 5+	Attack Value 4+
Move 5+	Defence Value5+
Shoot -	Shoot Value -
Courage 4+	Max. Movement 4
Armor 3	Special Rules Counter-charge

Some Legionaries next.

Unit Name:  Legionarii	Points: 6 Models:12
Attack6+	Attack Value5+
Move5+	Defence Value4+
Shoot6+	Shoot Value 6 / 6"
Courage3+	Max. Movement6"
Armor3	Special Rules Testudo, Darts, counter charge

Finally, the backbone of the army appears, a British Legion that might fight anywhere in the Western Empire.  Do check this link if you are interested in the Late Roman army, especially the author's theory about identity and the wheel and spokes pattern shields of British and Gallic units.

  http://lukeuedasarson.com/NotitiaPatterns.html

Some more Huns, same stats as last time.  Their noble cavalry will appear later.

Romans Rampant - The Barbaricum

You can’t do Romans Rampant, endless civil wars excepted, without their opponents and sometime allies from the Barbaricum.

  

So, let’s see what we have got and suggest some stats. I intend to add a single unit of Hun armoured nobles but the figures have not arrived yet so today its the rank and file Huns.  

Fearsome Huns

The point of these lads is their powerful bow and great mobility.  If cornered they can put up a fight too.

Unit Name:  Huns	Points: 4 Models:6
Attack 5+	Attack Value 4+
Move 5+	Defence Value5+
Shoot 6+	Shoot Value Hit on 5+ Max range ‘8
Courage 4+	Max. Movement 5
Armor 2	Special Rules Counter-charge, Skirmish, Evade, no minus on shooting over ‘6

When considering the various barbarian foot war bands I thought it would be more interesting to try and reflect their different fighting styles.  I make no great claims of accuracy for this save to say it reflects what the sources tell us.  

So, the Frankish charge is a fearsome thing, their initial volley of Angons and Francesca will discomfit the enemy. Visigoth foot, to appear in a subsequent post, will be better than most on the defensive while other Germanic warriors will shower javelins on the foe.

Franks

Unit Name:  Franks	Points: 4 Models:12
Attack 6+	Attack Value 5+*4+
Move 5+	Defence Value 6+
Shoot -	Shoot Value -
Courage 4+	Max. Movement  6"
Armor 2	Special Rules *Angon improves attack value to 4+ for first charge into contact only, wild charge

Other Germanic War Bands

These fellows are from Donnington's Age of Arthur range, Angles and Saxons, nice figures I think.  

Unit Name:  Warband	Points: 4 Models:12
Attack 6+	Attack Value 5+
Move 5+	Defence Value 4+
Shoot 6+	Shoot Value Hit on 6 / 3"
Courage 4+	Max. Movement  6"
Armor 2	Special Rules javelin, wild charge

More soon and then some games to see how, or indeed if, it works.

Roman Lion Rampant update

I’m much taken by the Roman Lion Rampant concept and accordingly units are being painted at a fair lick.  It’s great to see stuff bought in the 80’s and early Nineties making it onto the table.  I’m tempted to look at reflecting Roman regular status by giving them a better ‘Courage’ rating at a cost of 1 point.  Maybe just for the Legions and Palatinate units and yes, this will make them expensive. 

Of course, the danger of over much tinkering with rules systems is that you unbalance the whole-so I’ll be mindful of that.  The table top will serve as the acid test.

First, here are the units that slot into the given Lion Rampant categories.  Two lots of Roman 'Bidowers', slingers and Legionary skirmishers.

Now some variants, distances reduced for 15mm.  Here I'm guided by Roy Boss's excellent work on Justinian's Italian Wars published by Montvert.  The hard charging Franks liked to say the Visigoths were prone to running away but really they were doing something else.

Unit Name:  Visigoths Nobles	Points: 4 Models:6
Attack 5+	Attack Value 5+
Move 5+	Defence Value5+
Shoot 6+	Shoot Value Hit on 5+ Max range ‘3
Courage 4+	Max. Movement 5
Armor 3	Special Rules Counter-charge, Skirmish, Evade

As far as I can tell you would find these fellows anywhere in the Diocese of the Gauls which includes Britannia. Hard hitting, charging cavalry with Kontos, or Contos if you are more used to a hard 'C'. 

Unit Name:  Roman Lanciarii Cavalry	Points: 6 Models:6
Attack 5+	Attack Value 3+
Move 7+	Defence Value5+
Shoot -	Shoot Value -
Courage 3+	Max. Movement 5
Armor 3	Special Rules Counter-charge,

Here's a Roman unit of Moorish light cavalry which I'll field as expert mounted yeomen with javelin and an armour factor of 2.

More to follow.