What did the Romans ever do for us?

In my last blog entry, I mentioned that I had visited the Roman Army Museum which is ‘twinned’ with the Vindolanda Fort just behind Hadrians wall. First of all, lets be clear, I am no expert on the Roman army. What ever knowledge that I have comes from the various films & TV series that I have watched ( yes, including Life of Brian…), the fictional books that I have read and the sort of casual knowledge that you pick up when your hobby is wargaming. However, at some point in the near future I intend to start to build an Imperial Roman Army. It’s an itch that needs scratching and I have had the itch ever since I bought my first box of Airfix Roman soldiers! So my visit to Northumberland and Hadrians wall was yet another ‘reconnaissance mission’ to start to immerse myself into the period.

Roman Auxilliary

The Roman Army Museum at Hexham does not disappoint. The museum gives a clear picture of what the Roman army was like: how it was organised; how it was armed and how it fought. The film presentations are amongst the best that I have seen at a museum. The main film in 3D ‘Edge of Empire’ is very well done and gives an insight into how the soldiers lived and died on the wall. There are two or three other short films around the museum that give more detail of how the Romans lived and occupied Britain. There is also one of the best and succinct explanation of how the Roman army was organised that I have come across. I have borrowed it from youtube to show here.

https://youtu.be/wCBNxJYvNsY

There is plenty more to see at the museum other than these films. As I have already shown, there are plenty of exhibits of the soldiers and their armour and weapons. There are of course, actual artefacts recovered from the nearby Fort of Vindolanda as well as a brief history of the life of Hadrian, the wall builder!

Reconstruction of Roman and Celt Chariots

Once we had toured the Museum and spent a few bob in the excellent shop, it was a quick drive down the road to the Roman Fort of Vindolanda. The site itself is beautiful, surrounded by the rugged hills of Northumberland. The weather for us was a bit damp but didn’t stop us enjoying the day. In fact we only stayed for the afternoon as we were due to travel home that day but I could easily have spent a day wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere.

Vindolanda

As well as the fort, there is another very good museum explaining how the excavations are progressing and of course displaying the various finds at the site. The most important being the writing tablets that have been recovered and deciphered. The detail that has been gleaned from these actual records of the fort are fascinating. It is no wonder that they are considered to be so important as they bring the past to life. It is mind boggling to me that they have the actual birthday party invitation from Claudia Severa to Sulpicia Lepindina written in AD100. I half expected to find out that Biggus Dickus was on the guest list…

Hadrians Wall Reconstruction

As well as the ruins of the fort, there are reconstruction’s of the Wall, in both stone and timber, and also of various Roman temples. So there is plenty to see and to think about. My overriding thought as we drove away was that the real power of the Romans was their organisational abilities. The fort at Vindolanda was laid out in exactly the same way as the fort at Segedunum. Both were obviously ideal as defensive positions but also as small centres of administration and commerce. They both had all the amenities that were required to keep a small garrison functioning and as comfortable as they could be in what was then the frontier of the Empire. Clever blokes, them Romans!

Beyond the Wall.

Winter is coming, of that there is no doubt but first we have Autumn and happily, a few more days of sunshine. Together with a group of War gaming buddies, Pete, Jaz, John and Josie, Julie and I were lucky enough to enjoy some superb weather as we took a short holiday break and ventured North above the wall (Hadrian’s, of course) to the Coast of Northumberland. The Wildlings proved to be very friendly but have been keeping a secret from the rest of the country. Far from being a bleak, barren place, this part of the country is simply beautiful. Of course, if you enjoy visiting historical sites and looking at castles, you are spoilt for choice. As an added bonus, the food and beer is pretty good as well.

Amble Harbour

We stayed at Amble, a small fishing village just south of Alnwick. The picture doesn’t do it justice but it does show how lucky we were with the weather! On the way up to our accommodation, we stopped of at the appropriately named Wallsend, and called into Segedunum, the small Roman fort that was built to guard the eastern end of Hadrians Wall. The fort is well excavated and thanks to the viewing tower, you can have a birds eye view of the layout. As well as the fort, there is a recreation of a Roman bath house and of course a small museum that explains the history of the fort. If you would like to know more here is the link to the official site:

Segedunum

Segedunum Roman Fort

The museum and fort are well worth a visit and were a great introduction to Hadrians Wall. Once we had passed Segedunum we were in the county of Northumberland and if the Romans found it a struggle to survive North of the wall, there were plenty that came after that were up for the challenge! All you needed to stay safe was a great big castle – and there are plenty to be found! Warkworth Castle, Alnwick Castle and Bamburg were just three that we visited and all close to where we were staying. To be fair, we didn’t go into all of them, there just wasn’t time but it was great fun touring around and visiting. My photos just don’t do these places justice, so here are some from the web!

Warkworth Castle

Alnwick Castle

Bamburgh Castle

As you can see, all very impressive and inspiring! My favourite was of course Bamburgh Castle, home in fiction to Uthred of Bebbanburg and a most imposing structure built right on the coast. It doesn’t take much imagination to visualise this Castle in ancient times, dominating the landscape and the people around it, keeping them safe from the various marauders from the Vikings through to the Border Reivers. Alnwick Castle may be more familiar to people as Hogwarts from the Harry Potter novels. Not my cup of tea but more evidence of just how cinematic these places are. In fact whilst we were in the area, there was a team filming the new Transformers movie. Goodness knows what Transformers are doing up in Newcastle and on Bamburgh Castle but I’m sure that it will all be done in the best possible taste!

The other ‘must visit’ area is of course that well known holiday destination for the Vikings, Lindisfarne or as it is sometimes known as, Holy Isle. The day that we visited, we were fortunate to have a full day of sunshine and so the views of the coastline and landscape were spectacular. Here are just a couple of pictures of the coastline and castle at Lindisfarne.

The view from Lindisfarne across the bay to Bamburgh Castle

The Castle, Lindisfarne

As well as the landscape, there is plenty of wild life to see. We met these two on the causeway as we made our way back to Amble after a lovely day.

Grey Seals at Lindisfarne Causeway

We also visited Cragside, a more recently constructed house of the Victorian times and built by the famous Victorian Industrialist, Lord Armstrong. He is credited with inventing modern artillery and he founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing company and specialised in the development of hydraulic power. His house, Cragside, is set in beautifully landscaped gardens and one of the largest rock gardens in Europe. The place is stunning.

Cragside

The formal gardens are pretty good, once again, teeming with wild life as of course, is the rest of the estate. Although Cragside isn’t as steeped in history as some of the other sites that we visited, it certainly was one of the most beautiful.

Cragside formal gardens

Before we knew it, our break was over and it was time to return home. However, as we crossed back over the Wall, we stopped off at perhaps the best place that a wargamer could visit up here, the Roman Army museum and the Roman fort and museum at Vindolanda. I’ll just put a teaser of a photograph up for now and in my next blog post I’ll add some more detail and pictures.

The Roman Army Museum

All in all, a lovely holiday break, as usual, too short at just five days but we packed a lot into those five days and I intend to return and spend a bit more time at some of those castles! As well as discovering the delights of Northumberland I also found a new way to enjoy my hobby, for now I’ll call it social model making but more of that in a later blog. Back to work now!

Yet more Irish!

I have just about completed enough troops for an Irish Saga warband but the OCD part of my personality has taken over and I’ve decided to finish painting the rest of the figures in the Footsore Dark Ages Irish range. I did need to complete a warlord figure and was trying to decide between the Brian Boru set, The Irish warlord and Standard bearer or the Irish Command group. In the end I decided to paint all of them and have done with it! I also have a priest to add in, so there is another eleven figures on the work bench.

Irish Command ready to paint.

As you can see, there is plenty of work to do! With the Standard Bearer block painted and the chain mail dry brushed on the other figures, it will be a couple of weeks before these are table ready. As well as cleaning these figures up ready for painting, I have been busy elsewhere. I mentioned that there were another eight warriors to finish and these are now complete and based. If you read my post last week, you would have noticed that there was something missing from the first unit of warriors – Shields! Well these are now painted and attached and my war band is close to completion.

Irish warriors ready for battle

Here is a view of both units with the Slingers in the back ground.

Irish warriors and Slingers

I’ve kept the shield designs fairly simple for these boys but I am thinking of going with shield transfers for the Lords so that I can give them a more affluent look! I also may resort to a decal for the banners. There’s no doubt that they look superb. My only concern is that in the days of Dark Age Warriors, graphic design and silk screen printing was not a skill set possessed by the local banner maker! So I may rely on my own free hand designs, which, whilst they will be more primitive, may look more appropriate. I suspect that I will use both methods. Perhaps use the decals for the Brian Boru and Irish Command set and my own freehand design for the Saga warlord. The next photograph shows my war band as it is now.

Dark Age Irish Saga war band

You may notice that I have used a slightly different tray for the four Irish Heroes. I’m thinking of using this style of tray in the game. I know that once combat is joined it makes more sense to move your figures individually, but these trays may be useful at the start of the game to make the movement faster & keep unit cohesion. So with 12 Slingers, 16 warriors and 8 Hearth guard armed with Dane Axes, I can comfortable muster a 5 point Saga war band. The additional 4 Hearth guard ( Irish Heroes) that I have painted can either double up as another Hearth Guard unit or as two Curadh and the Warlord. Once the leaders that are on the work bench are complete, I will comfortably have 6 points, more than enough for the average club game. I haven’t forgotten that the Irish are allowed to take war dogs! That is another unit on the back burner though. I have the dogs, I just need to get them converted and painted.

Finally, I mentioned last week that I was working on some scenery. I have another three Sarissa dark age buildings that I am working on. Although not specifically Irish, the idea is that they will represent a small settlement so that I can use them with either my Anglo Danes, Irish or the next Army that I plan to do, Anglo Saxons. I wanted to add to the MDF finish to make them look a bit more well worn, so as with the A frame hut that I have completed, I have added the teddy bear fur roofs. I also intend to add detail to the timber and daub walls and have started to detail the walls. However, my focus has been on painting, so I have not made very much progress. My plan is to complete the figures in the war band and then I will build the scenery. It’s going to be a busy September!

Sarissa Building with roof added and detailing started.

The Boys are Back in Town!

Well, the boys are on the painting table. As the last few blog posts have been about the gaming side of the hobby I thought it was time to return to the workbench and show you the progress with my latest project, my Irish Saga Band. Progress, as usual, has been rather slow but I have finished the four Irish heroes that I could use either as Curadh or as an extra unit of Hearthguard. When it came to choosing a colour scheme for these figures I was very much influenced by the Footsore web site and of course, in particular, the figures that were painted by Charle Baynon. I have also used some references from elsewhere and I am now finding that the Pinterest site is quite useful in this respect. The following link will take you to my Dark Age Irish and Celts board that I am building.

Dark Age Irish and Celts

There are some good references on this board and it shows what can be done these days with technology. In the past I would have been scratching around in books and magazines to find such images and it would have been quite impractical to have them at the painting table. Now I can just load this page onto my i-pad and it is there right in front of me when I am painting. So with these four heroes to add to my band, it is starting to take shape:

Footsore Irish heroes take to the table!

I also took some close up pictures of these figures in my light box. It’s interesting to see some of the ‘blemishes’ that you don’t see when the figures are on the table and I suspect it is the ability to be more careful in blending at this level that makes the professionals so good at what they do. My lads look a bit dark around the eyes!

Irish Heroes with Dane Axes

Irish Heroes

So having painted Irish heroes with big choppers it was time to move on to the Irish Warriors with … I think Bill Thornhill must have modeled this one on his own physique!

Irish Warrior with Javelin

Enough of the smutty jokes. I have now painted a full unit of eight of these Javelin armed warriors with another eight following closely behind on the work bench. So by the end of this week I will have at least 5 Points for my saga army. The main unit that is missing is a warlord or commander.

Footsore Irish Warriors armed with Javelins

The second rank! Javelins at the ready!

I haven’t given too many painting details in this article but by and large, I have stayed with the limited pallet that I used for the Irish Finah and other Irish figures. To see the details, just click on these links to the relevant blog articles:

THE SAGA CONTINUES.

FOOTSORE IRISH SLINGERS – DONE!

AN IRISH SAGA

I’ve also made good use of my own technique of block painting the basic colours, then applying a dark tone ink wash, then repainting with the original colours, leaving the shadows and adding just a few highlights where I think that they are needed. I’ve also copied Charles Baynons idea of using multiple layers of light matt varnish between coats to protect the finish.

So that’s it for this week. Next week I will show the complete army and I hope to show you some of the scenery that I have also have been working on.

The Retreat from Fort Josephine, St. Ailleurs 1810.

I couldn’t resist posting another battle report using the Sharp Tomahawks rules set that Andy Callan had produced for the club. It was one of those battles that had plenty of talking points and had us both chuckling at the situations created. Afterwards, I drove home with a big smile on my face, thinking this is why I enjoy this daft hobby of ours! As usual, Andy had written a short scenario to set the game up, here it is:

THE ISLAND OF ST. AILLEURS

East Of Madagascar, December 1810.

After the fall of Ile de France (Mauritius) and Ile Bourbon (Reunion), earlier in the year, the surrender of the isolated French garrison on the remote island of St.Ailleurs was only a matter of time.

The small inland post at Fort Josephine has been under a desultory siege by British marines and irregulars loyal to the Sultan of Zanzibar (the former ruler of the island). Now word of the general surrender of French forces in the Indian Ocean has arrived with orders for all regular troops to march back to the island’s capital, Port George (formerly Port Bonaparte), the British to return to their ships and the French to embark for re-patriation.

The prospect of leaving this god-forsaken hell-hole has been welcomed all round and everyone concerned is looking forward to a return to the fresh air on the coast. The former Austrian Grenz soldiers – reluctant servants of the French Emperor- have even raised their old flag in honour of the occasion. (our usual French figures weren’t available!)

But the Zanzibaris are not so happy. They were expecting rich pickings from looting the fort and its garrison and now it seems the perfidious British are planning to annex the island for their own purposes. The alliance is over. Death to the unbelievers!

Capitaine Vachequirit and Colonel Cheshire will have to put aside their former differences and work together to fight their way out.

The French (Capitaine Vachequirit – he cannot order British troops)

2 companies of the 124e regiment de Ligne (@12 figures) (rated “Average”)

2 companies of the 15e provisional colonial battalion (ex-Austrian) (@ 12 figures) (Average)

Mule train (carrying the garrison’s pay chest, powder supply and rum rations). It moves down the road whenever a “Special Event” card is drawn.

The British (Colonel Cheshire and Captain Lester : roll 4+ to give orders in French)

Marines (12 figures –Elite)

Naval landing Party (12 figures – Average)

The Zanzibaris (all troops start off hidden- randomly deployed, with dummies – in woods)

Osama bin-Liner, Mustafa al-Qorbyn

4 x bands of Irregular Skirmishers @ 10 figures (rated as “Raw” troops)

1 x band of Pygmy (25mm!) tribesmen @ 10 figures (rated as “Indians”)

Special rule : Any Zanzibari unit that routs will immediately be replaced by a fresh unit on the baseline for a roll of 4+. An individual unit can only be “resurrected” once in this way.

British forces gather to start the retreat.

We started the game with a new idea. Instead of drawing the cards. Each side was allowed to move one unit in turn until contact or the first exchange of fire was made. This meant that the game moved along at a faster pace whilst units took up their positions. For my part, I started to organise my column, the French were assigned to escort the mule train, whilst the British would act as the vanguard, dealing with any threats that emerged from the jungle. Andy had a different set of problems to solve. Although he knew where his commanders were, his troops were deployed at random on the table. Each location was marked by a scrabble tile and to activate the troops, the commander had to move into command range of the tile. The problem for Andy was that the tiles with consonants had no troops, vowels indicated that troops were there. So initially, Mustapha al- Qorbyn was running around the table like a man looking for an empty seat on a crowded train.

Eventually, he was able to muster his band and the action started with a flank attack on the Austrian troops guarding the mule train. To add to the drama, the pigmies charged out of the jungle to engage the rear of the formation.

The Austrian Grens fight off the first attack!

Although the Austrians were able to shake off this attack and repulse the Pigmies, they had suffered a few casualties and to make matters worse the pigmies had disappeared back into cover still intact! It wasn’t clear to Captaine Vachequirit where they had disappeared to but the grass was shaking ominously out on the flank again! Meanwhile, the mule train had moved off down the road with the British contingent acting as vanguard as planned. All went well until they reached the bridge over the stream. At this point, Osama Bin Liner ordered his troops forward to engage the Brits and capture the Mules.

Ambush at the stream!

Bin Liners Zanizibaris were no match for Captain Lesters Marines or the shore party commanded by Colonel Cheshire and they were soon chased off. There was just one problem…the mule train was panicked and started to stampede down the road on it’s own. With the French and Austrians engaged to the flank and spooked by the Pigmies, and the British busy engaging the Zanzibaris at the stream, no one had taken control of the mules…

Somebody stop those mules!

With Osama Bin Liner rallying his troops to the front and Al- Qorbyn causing problems on the left, the column was suddenly in trouble. The French and Austrians were ordered to cease fire and try to catch up with the column, whilst Colonel Cheshire ordered the shore party to catch up with the mules. The Zanibaris took full advantage of the lull in the firing to close once again with the Marines under Captain Lester. In a fierce fire fight he was badly wounded and although able to continue, he was only able to command of his own troop of Marines. Those pesky pigmies had also reappeared and were once again threatening the mules!

There’s more trouble ahead!

In a desperate attempt to save the Mule train, Colonel Cheshire threw caution to the wind and led his troops the front of the column. Immediately, he was set upon by a large band of Zanzibaris and a ferocious melee took place. Despite his best efforts, Captain Lester was unable to come to the aid the brave Colonel – and the shore party was overwhelmed.

A desperate fight for the mule train!

Captaine Vashequirit, managed to bring up reinforcements but the damage had been done. The shore party was no more and the Marines had suffered terrible casualties, even the gallant Captain Lester was wounded. Although the Mule train was now back under control, there was nowhere for it to go. The Zanzibaris vastly outnumbered the survivors. Bin Liner and al Qorbin were triumphant! Terms were called for. The Zanzibaris agreed to let the survivors continue back to their ships so long as the Mule train and it’s spoils were left behind. So with their dignity still intact, the Allies continued on towards the safety of the harbour. What was that though…a rustling in the bushes… the damn Pigmies were still out there!

If you would like to have a go at using Andy’s rule set, the latest version is available her in PDF format for you to download:

SharpTomahawks

To make life a bit easier, here is todays scenario, also as a PDF:

St.Ailleurs

and if you enjoy it, here is last weeks scenario, ready to download:

Scenario

If you look at the last couple of weeks blog entries there is a bit more information as to how the rules were put together and how you can use them. I hope that you enjoy them as much as we have.

Monthly Archives: September 2016