[Impetvs] Bulgarian, it's what's for dinner.

Again facing the Evil Empire(tm) of Jamie's Romans (Byzantines). It had been ages since I've managed a game with Jamie so I was pretty stoked to hang out and throw down with Impetvs. I had more men painted up so we could run a 400 point match up of two commands each. 

I had 5 Medium Cav of Bulgar Nobles, 5 Light Cav (with Comp B) of Bulgars and their Pecheneg allies, 2 Bulgar Skirmishers (with Short B ) and 3 Slavic Light Infantry (with Javelins). Average command and 2 Poor Generals.

Jamie had 3 Heavy Cav Sarmatians (Impetuous), 4 Heavy Infantry (with Pilum), 1 Medium Cav, 1 Light Cav, 2 Skirmishers (with slings), 2 Skirmishers (with javelins), a Ballista type thingy. (Close to this eh Jamie?)

Slavic light infantry guarding the baggage train

Pecheneg light cavalry ready to break out into the open

Above we see a classic rookie move by me. I could have just passed through the units in front of them but instead constrained my movements voluntarily!

Bulgars on the right

Again, these guys didn't need any help. Just hang out move forward draw fire and that's it. But no, I couldn't stick to my plan.

Byzantine General hovering close to camp, later we would drink from his skull

Sarmatians hiding behind a shrubbery

Sarmatians in the open, making me worry...

First activation, four disrupted cavalry stands from double moving

This Sarmatian charges my skirmishers and smashes one to pieces

Those disrupted Bulgar Nobles are about to get charged

On my far left, some cheeky Byzantine Medium Cavalry is making a run for the baggage

Slavic light infantry lurking in a wood

Bulgar Nobles smash into the Sarmatians on the right.

Another group of Bulgar Medium Cavalry getting attacked

Above that's VBU 2 left as well as being disrupted, it had just fought off the Sarmatians in front of it. It held on for a bit longer.
Shortly after this I lost another CM so my right hand command broke, breaking my army.
Very fun game, it was only frustrating because I was relearning mistakes that have already made! It was a while ago, but there you are. It wasn't the dice, just those couple mistakes.
Huzzah Jamie!

[Impetvs] Clan Dulo Nobles and the Khan!

Finally got the last two stands of my Bulgar medium cavalry done.

The Khan with bodyguards and musicians

Clan Dulo Nobles and Champions

Clan Dulo shield next to the clan enforcer's

Combined with my other units I should have a decent 500 point unit.
CM Cavalry M-10, VBU-6; 29 pts each x5
CL Light Cav M-12, VBU-3; Comp B 25 pts x2
S Cav Archers M-12, VBU-2; Short Bow B 12 pts x2
CL Nomad Allies M-12, VBU-3; Comp B 25 pts x3
FL Allied Slavs M-8, VBU-4; Javelins 19 pts x6

408 points, so with a commander and a command scheme...

"Why we fight" - 28mm objectives

Just finished up my baggage train for my Impetvs army of Bulgars as well as a cool wagon for use with SAGA.

Refugees or battlefield scavengers?

Should probably make some baggage eh?

My yurts that I started nearly a year ago!

Shields represent Tengri and the Pechenegs respectively.

Note cart of pillaged firewood and Bulgarian coin representing Asparakh.

"If it keeps on rainin..."

"the levee's gonna break."
So I finally got most of my Slavs finished. I plan on using them for both my SAGA warband as a levee unit, that won't break of course but will in fact die to a man on order.;-)
I will also use them as an infantry back up for my Bulgar army. They will be FL Warriors, again representing Slavs with javelins.

Somehow, I'm out of practice with the bloody 28mm figures, must be all the 6mm tanks I've been doing.
Also, these Gripping Beast sculpts aren't as good as some of the other 28's I've done in recent memory. Overall the poses are good though, so suitable for backup troops, hopefully everyone will just look at the shields.8P

Axe wielding lunatic Slavs, on old shield sketches

A couple 'javelins', next time I'm using different spears, these were fiddly as.

Some of my fave mini's from this set

One unit in their sabot

The two axe, three spear mix looks good.

Add a caller with an ox horn and you have a warband!

Kind of missing my FoW army and their collection of .50 cal MG's for some reason.

In other news, I got some time to bust out the Saharianas this weekend, hopefully I won't get distracted by too much 6mm Soviet stuff.
I'm working so I'm jsut going to have Saturday at Conquest. I think that Pooch and I are still going to do a LRDG vs Saharianas demonstration.
Other ideas are 15mm Force on Force Vietnam, or our 6mm EPIC Modern.

The revenge of Byzantium!

 The second meeting of the Bulgar and Byzantine armies went down at Cavs. Jamie had done a small tweak to his forces and had brought a ballista this time, as well as some Sarmatians. I had the same force but I kept mistaking my light cavalry for something that could charge effectively. Ahem. These guys paid the ultimate price for my myopia.

These are my skirmishers on the right, holding down the sarmatians and the ballista and threatening the baggage train until they were killed by his archers. His archers were very effective and killed nearly four stands on their own! That is one stand I believe.

Here is his left flank and the aforementioned baggage train, ballista and sarmatians as well as his slingers. The slingers put some holes in my skirmishers as well.

These are my Pecheneg lights, they did a good job of running around his right flank and trying to keep him spread out. They did a pretty good job of shooting as well.

Here is the center, where the battle was lost. We faced down over a small hillock that was covered in bodies by the end of the day. Also dead pretty horses...
Both sides charged up and down it inflicting casualties on the other, being forced to disengage and doing it again!

Here is clan Dulo in group for the only time during the battle. Immediately disordered by a double move the left squadron (?) ran around on it's own and attacked out of sync.
Great game Jamie!

Khan Asparukh and the Clan Dulo

Finally everything has pretty much come together. As noted last week I have even fought a battle with them and earned the title 'Evil General'.
I'm absolutely chuffed.
First the Khan Asparukh and his Dulo Nobles. So as mentioned they are tough for C-M, VBU 6 and 2 Impetus.

 A picture that shows their clan shields better.;-)

Next we have the various hordes of Asparukh's followers. These being his shooty C-L's

 That's a representation of Tengri the sky god on the shield to the left.

His skirmishers are also mounted and even have a kill to their credit, of C-M's!

Next up are their allies of the moment, some Pecheneg C-L's, these guys fought hard and got pretty shot up in the process. Bet they had a ball in that Byzantine baggage train.

I'm pretty stoked on these Old Glory Sculpts and had a good time researching them as well. Now is time to fight them!

Impetvs, finally!

Jamie came over tonight for my first game of Impetvs with my newly playable Bulgar Cavalry army.
Great fun indeed as well as very enlightening. Previously I had had great luck with archers, using Jamie's Romans. This time my C-L's and Skirmishers were having a hard go.
I cannot complain though, as I had a skirmisher kill a heavy cavalry unit with a flank charge after his comrade skirmisher had been killed.
The best news was my very expensive(!) C-M's performed exactly as I had hoped and indeed were able to break his line and kill his General which was the beginning of the end. (THIS time sez Jamie, not next time.)

That is Khan Asparakh on the pretty horse.

More importantly though we had a good chat about all kinds of cool stuff including SAGA.
My plan is to use some of my Slavic F-L with Javelins to double as Warriors for my Varangians in SAGA. Household finance will be be ecstatic! (Maybe I'm exaggerating, a little.)

In any case fun game Jamie, always good to hang out!

Paint yer wagon

I've been doing a bit of modelling for my Impetus baggage train/ objective. I plan on doing a couple yurts and a wagon that shows their nomadic nature. While doing so I did some research and found the difference between for example a typical nomadic yurt with rounded roof ribs and what we all picture as a yurt which is actually a Mongol version called a ger.

Here, my lovely assistant is fashioning a roof for one of the yurts. I, meanwhile, was working on the walls and a wagon.

Mmm, whiskey. And uh, planks, for my wagon.

Now I just need some wheels. Roughly 20mm should be right. No luck finding any yet and my first attempt at manufacturing them isn't what I wanted.
Meanwhile however.

Here is my new paint rack under construction, note the 5 ruble coin for a circle. 5 ruble coin equals 25mm btw.

More to follow, yes, I'm back painting my Bulgar CM's.

Shield Walls

Here are my first batch of shields for my Volga Bulgars.
On top are the Bulgar shields for the CL's and Skirmishers. It shows the symbol for Asparuh Khan. Not their sky god as I said earlier.  They came out alright.
Below are the shields of the Pechenegs, for them I copped the Ukrainian national symbol that my wife, a Ukrainian scholar, assures me is probably incorrect.;-) They are tiny shields and a complicated symbol. I'm still not happy...
For the CM's I'm gonna do a combination of Tengri, their sky god and Asparuh, 'he who has shiny horses...'

Real Mo-vember competition

 From my Bulgar CL's and skirmishers.

From back when mo just meant you were a male.

Pecheneg is not a hayfever symptom

So I've finally got some publishable work done on my Impetus army of Volga Bulgars circa 7th century. These are my Nomad Allies of Light Cavalry, which I've decided are Pechenegs who were stomping around those parts as well. If you look close you'll notice a few stray Varangian mercenaries. Weird!

 So this is my leader stand if I use one, the red caftan is a dead giveaway. (VBU 4, VD 2,  I 1, Short Comp B), I made all three stands with two archers firing despite historical records calling the Pechenegs, "an all-archer army." Commentators don't know shit, modern soccer for ex?

With these guys being on the lower end of the economic scale of the 7th century only two get 'pretty horses' with a nice bay for the red coat and a black for a local horse thief cum mercenary. These two stands are VBU3, VD 1, I 1 Short Comp B as well.

The aforementioned Varangian mercs, as well as yet another pointless Movember tribute.;-)

Speaking of which, Bulgar CL's and Skirmishers are next!

Interesting wiki entry.