Franks Anjou-Maine Milities and Vassi

Off the desk some 28mm Gripping Beast plastic dark age figures. This unit will represent the first of my Anjou-Maine Franks defending the Breton/Maine Marchers. Sheilds are LBM transfers, based for Impetus.

Cheers
Matt

Breton Coloni

Off the desk this week some Breton peons, adding to my Dark Age Domnonée army, this base could also be used as Franks, Anjou-Maine or Normans.
28mm Gripping beast plastics with some Victrix heads and hands, plus some metal sheilds, several more units not to far away from completion.

Cheers
Matt

28mm Armorican Domnonée skirmishers

Off the table this week some more 28mm Foootsore miniatures for my Armorican Domnonée Breton army. These figures represent the wild forest valleys and mountains around Saint James and Mortain in South western Normandy. The language today is still very different in this area of France. They held onto their old religious beliefs the longest and resisted the Christian church until well into the 7th century according to Abbot Angot. They raided along the Frankish border of Maine (Mayenne, Oren and Sartre) troubling the  Marcher Lords of Maine, perhaps even the famous Roland Lord of Maine.

Cheers

Matt

28mm Armorican/Breton warriors

 I recently purchased a collection of dark age figures and a number were Footsore miniatures Welsh and Irish, while the remainder were gripping beast plastics.

Recently I have read some interesting articles about some of the early kings after the departure of the Romans, the spread of Christianity, the arrival of the Alans, then the Franks, the coming of the Viking invaders, then the Normans.

I had planned to build a Breton army so with a little thought I could build something to represent Breton Dark age army from the 5th century through to the 11th by swapping out a few units it could fight Alan's, Late Romans, Franks, Vikings and Normans. We have six major battlefield sites within a hours drive from late Roman through to the Norman conquest, and a further 11 battlefields within two hours. I plan to develop some tours and wargame events around these sites.

First off the desk some Domnomée skirmishers. The kingdom of Domnonée seemed to have major ties with Britain, even sharing the same king at one time. These figures represent the marshland people around currrent Mont Saint Michel to Dol de Bretagne.  11 bases to complete of heavy infantry and two bases of skirmishers, and possibly four heavy cav and five light cavalry will give me a good start. I have two more bases almost complete and two heavy infantry should be completed this weekend.

Cheers
Matt
French Wargame Holidays
L'Hotel de Hercé
Mayenne, France
"Walk the battlefield in the morning, Wargame it in the afternoon"

(Seaxan áfiehtaþ) Saxons advant

I have finished some Saxons for Dave's Army, they will come in handy to fill in as Germans for our impetus Fall of the West campaign starting next month. They are from the Crusader Saxon range and a nice sculpts with lots of variants have a mix of hand painted and LBM transfers, and north star spears! Another three units are awaiting basing, then back to my Sassanids........lots of rebasing and some new units coming next week!

Cheers

matt

More Saxons

Well some more dark age Saxons out of the oven last week, these are from the crusader range, very nice models, the open hands are the only thing that annoys me as I prefer to drill out hands for spears rather than lay it in a open hand which tends to allow weapons to be knocked out under handling, all of the shields have been hand painted. These figs are actually for a customer in QLD and will end up on impetus bases beating up Vikings and Normans!!!!

cheers
matt

Saxon/Irish Army

I have just finished this army off this week, it is made up of three or four manufactures (as i like to mix up ancient and dark age armies a lot. As I all ready have three dark age armies and I am rapidly running out of storage, I am selling this army (I have sold the army since posting it this afternoon).

The army is designed to be quite flexible, late Saxon or Irish with three core units, two cavalry units one mercenary and one of mounted infantry, and a few skirmishers to finish it off, around 1800 points in WAB terms.

The standards are on printed paper with hand painted highlights particularly happy with the cavalry standard on the mercenary sarjents( they are all from Rays site, cheers mate!). The shields are a mix of LBM transfers and hand painted ones.

I really am looking forward to painting some more uniformed troops this week (7YW Prussians and Hanoverian's) as I am sick of irregular uniforms for the time being...then onto some moderns for a change and then maybe some more Roman auxilia.

cheers
matt

Trouble up North...the real story!

Today the lads from Goulburn came together today shunt the Norman bastards from the shores of Albion, well that was the plan anyway.

William the Bastard (ala Unlucky General)


Greg built this fantastic Motte and keep based on the Royal Castle at York about two years ago and we thought we had better give it a baptism of fire. I built the bailey walls during the week...with one design fault I didn't make the wall walk wide enough, something that can be fixed though with a tiny bit of work.







A first time run of the Siege and Conquest WAB rules Guy and Myself ran a Saxon Viking alliance to take the motte and bailey. We under estimated the power of the periers and onagers against the walls, having a hard time even trying to hit them! So we assaulted with our unit battering rams and grapple hooks, Greg couldn't hope to slaughter enough of us before we breached the walls.







Olaf the destroyer!


The assault on the Motte was much more successful, the Viking berserkers gained a foothold to start with but eventually died in a hail of crossbow bolts, but the three other Saxon units made it over and eventually defeated one unit of crossbow and a unit of milites who ran like little girls and were all cut down, the remaining mercenary Sargents decided that they would join the victorious Saxons in the keep!



well that is how I saw it anyway!!!! For the Bastards version click here

A good game and a great day out was had by all, I can still have units I want to paint and need to finish to complete my Vikings so perhaps I should pull them out and complete then at some stage.

cheers
Matt