Return of the Dark Ages

This morning after rolling out the trash I checked the mailbox and inside was a box of miniatures. Sweet! The package contained my recent order of Old Glory 15mm Franks and Berbers. After some initial research I decided that my Andalusian army needed some Berber javelinmen to go along with the Arab infantry. With the pack that arrived I now have all the miniatures that I want to use for an all-option III/34ab Andalusian DBA army. Along with the packs of Carolingian Franks that I ordered, I'm now set for putting together my first matched pair of Dark Ages armies. I'm excited about delving into a new time period as I have never really spent much time studying and learning about the Dark Ages. I've always been such a fan of the classical period that anything after the fall of Rome held little interest for me until arriving at the later medieval era (Hastings was usually my point of return). Two years ago I read a book about the four years surrounding Charlemagne's coronation by the Pope, but otherwise I have read almost nothing about this tumultuous time in human history. I appreciate the way my interest in history and wargaming nourish each other in that way. I have thus found this aspect of historical wargaming so much more satisfying than fantasy or sci-fi miniatures and games.

Today I was able to make good progress on the billmen as I finished the cloth areas including the two helmet covers. I'm overall pleased with the covers but I had some trouble getting the red part smooth on one of them though. If you look closely it appears a little clumpy but I don't think it's too bad to worry over. I might try to straighten the separation of the colors a bit but I'm satisfied to leave them alone for now. I also painted their shoes which means I can't delay any longer returning to their padded armor suits. I'm far enough along with these guys that I can now start to see the direction they're taking. And so far I think they look pretty good! Maybe with it being Fathers Day weekend I might even be able to finish them up this weekend. Maybe, just maybe....

Billmen WIP and OG 15s

Painting is well underway with the English billmen as seen in the above photo. I overlooked the back half of two hilts but otherwise all the metal areas are done. This evening I spent time going back over the non-metal parts with black to clean things up for tomorrow's painting. Even though it can be a bit tedious, I feel that taking this extra step is really helping me achieve a much more defined look and crisper colors.

Yesterday my packs of Old Glory 15s arrived and it's been fun examining them. I've got to say that I am pretty darn impressed with them. I still think Corvus Belli and Xyston make better looking miniatures, but the Old Glory ones are certainly nothing at which to sneer. Most impressive so far is the variety of figures in each pack. Of the Andalusian Arabs that I ordered I've so far opened the Command and Arab Spearmen packs. The command bag has four different leaders and four different standard bearers, each consisting of two mounted figures and two on foot. There's even greater variety in the pack of spearmen which has nine different sculptures!

I'm confident that the Old Glory 15s are definitely good enough to justify purchasing an opposing set of Carolingian Franks which I am now planning out. Even though it's sort of impractical to assemble DBA armies with Old Glory packs, since you are likely to end up with a bunch of extra figures, it seems to me that they would be an excellent choice for other games like Big Battle DBA and FoG. Big Battle DBA for the Dark Ages sounds like it could be quite fun, not to mention a good use for my sixteen leftover Andalusian Arab Spearmen. But when I think about having to paint eighteen stands of Frankish knights, a total of fifty four men and the same number of horses as well, I still feel that normal sized DBA armies would keep me happy and content for this time period.

The Old Glory Experiment

I didn't read as much of the FoG book as I had wanted to today, but I did take a four hour nap right in the middle of the day which was nice. I've been working my way through the movement and maneuver rules which at first have come across as a bit cumbersome to me. I do see however the potential for these rules to feel comfortable and intuitive with some practice and experience. I've never been happy with the way Roman Republican armies of the Punic Wars are represented in DBA so right now I think maybe collecting them and a Carthaginian army would be a good idea for my foray into FoG. The armies of Alexander and Darius are also really appealing to me but I'm generally satisfied with how they work in DBA.

The number of figures required for FoG has tempted me into trying out Old Glory miniatures. Their prices are good but not quite the great deal that I had associated with them. Perhaps as long ago as a decade or more I ordered a few bags of 15mm guys from them and at the time I think they were packaging them at 50 per bag. I really don't remember much about Old Glory from back then but I must not have been that impressed if it's been this many years since I last purchased from them. That might be though because of the extra expense involved in using their miniatures for DBA. It's frustrating to have to buy 24 slingers when you only need two!

Despite this I decided yesterday that I would give them another look and ordered five bags from their Dark Ages range of Andalusian Arabs. I'm going to start off using them to make an all-option DBA army (III/34ab). If they're decent enough figures, I will most likely place an order for some Carolingian Franks so that I could put together a historically matched pair of armies. After that, because of the number of miniatures in each bag, I would only need a few more in order to be able to put together Big Battle DBA versions of the army. But considering the rate at which I am currently painting, I think such plans would be pretty far off. Especially since my initial purpose was to just get a sample of Old Glory's stuff. It would even be satisfying for me to finally have a couple of armies from Book Three of DBA's army lists. Anything more than that might be asking too much of this painter.