The Men of the North

Wow, it's been a REALLY long time since i've posted anything on the blog. A lot has happened since the last post back in October. Besides the usual festivities associated with Christmas and the silly season, I spent six weeks visiting Vienna, Prague, and travelling around Turkey.
Much more on that in future posts, suffice it to say that as someone with an interest in history, particularly Habsburg Austria and the Byzantine Empire, it was a pretty amazing experience. For now, i've included a picture of sunset over Istanbul and one of yours truly in front of the 14th century Byzantine fortress above the town of Andalou Kavagi. Armed with some excellent first hand research on Byzantine military costume and equipment from the cave churches of Cappadocia, I'm really keen to get my Byzantines finished. At the moment, i'v got a unit of six Gripping Beast and Crusader cavalry nearing completion. My Byzantines are going to be for Terror Mundi, the upcoming Dux Britanniarum supplement i've been working on set in 11th century Italy and Sicily. I'll keep everyone posted as this progresses, some AARs will be on the way soon.

Sunset across the Golden Horn to old Istanbul 

Me in front of Yoros Castle on the Bosphorus

I also *may* have rather impulsively invested in 15mm Austrian and French armies for the 1859 Second Italian War of Unification. Ahem... Well, they're currently first in line to be de-flashed and undercoated, so we'll see where that project goes. I've no idea what i'll do with them yet, but I've always found the war fascinating. Perhaps by the time i've completed both forces, the TooFatLardies Napoleonic rules will be out and ready for some tweaking.

Speaking of the Lardies, Rich has release the latest of his Pint Sized campaigns, Kampfgruppe von Luck. This is based around the defence of le bas de Ranville on D-Day +1. As the 6th Airborne Division and the 21st Panzer division are the forces which my Chain of Command forces are based upon, i'm very keen to have a crack at this campaign down at the club. As with the 29th Division pint sized campaign, this is useable with Battlegroup, Bolt Action or your WWII ruleset of choice, and as before the research and presentation is exceptional. At the price of a pint, (actually cheaper than a pint down under!), you simply cannot go wrong. Expect to see some AARs of the campaign coming up in the next few months.

Anyway, enough blathering for now. One of my goals for this year is to increase the frequency of updates on the blog. I've completed loads of stuff over the last few months, it's just a matter of photographing it and posting it up.

For today, here are some additions for my Dux Britanniarum Romano-British. I had rebased some Late Roman figures to use as commanders, however they felt a little too Roman for a campaign set in the Kingdom of the North. Not that anyone really needs an excuse to paint up the gorgeously sculpted Musketeer Miniatures figures. Incidentally, these are now available from Footsore Miniatures, following Bill Thornhill's move the the states.

Defenders of the Old North

The Gwyr y Gogledd forces muster

I've used the Dux Brit rules to role up names and some background information for these guys. A campaign based around the Kingdom of the North (using the Gwyr y Gogledd adaptions from Dux Brit: The Raiders) is on the cards for later in the year.

First up is Gwerthefyr the Able, the commander of my Gwyr y Gogledd - that's Men of the North for those of you not fluent in old British. The 29 year old Gwerthefyr is a fine warrior, despite his diminutive size. The son of a Decurion who served on the wall before the eagles left britain, Gwerthefyr is an entirely honourable commander. In campaign terms, this means he can never commit regicide and seize the kingship.

Gwerthefyr the Able

Pedrog is the champion of the Romano-British force. 26 years old and of average build, Cerdic is a dutiful follower and a skilled warrior. The superbly grisly Pedrog and Gwerthefyr figures are some of my favourite sculpts.

Pedrog, the British champion

Next up is one of the nobles, Conan, tall and strong with the constitution of an ox. Son of a British warlord formerly allied with Rome, the 28 year old Conan is a formidable warrior.

Conan, son of a warlord. LMBS shield transfer

The 30 year old Vortiporius the Ambitious is an expert horseman. It is rumoured that royal blood flows in his veins, and that his birth was the result of a drunken encounter between King Iddon and the daughter of a stable hand. While there is an uncanny resemblance between Vortiporius and the old King has led to the sobriquet 'the Ambitious,' it would be a brave man who would question the honour of this fearsome warrior.

Vortiporius the Ambitious. LBMS shield transfer.

The Gwyr y Gogledd rules allow the Romano-Brits to field units of their warriors of hearth guard as mounted troops. I painted up some of these excellent Gripping Beast late Romans as mounted warriors along with a mounted version of Vortiporious. The figures came with the old style GB horses, so I remounted them onto some Aventine nags. The shield patterns are from Little Big Men Studios.

Vortiporius the Ambitious a cheval. 

Gwyr y Gogledd horsemen

I also finished a unit of Gwyr y Gogledd Comanipulares, heavily armed hearthguard. Again, these are the exceptional Musketeer/Footsore figures. Alongside the figures, i've finished off a couple of fenland / marsh terrain pieces. Here is one along with my Romano-British watchtower. This was scratch built along with some other dark ages buildings. The design was taken from Mitch's blog.
Thats it for now, i'll be back soon with more updates. Thanks for reading!

Guarding against the Saxon menace

Fen / Marsh terrain

Comanipulares and nobles