Wallachians_DBA Journal

2006-10-03T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Here are some images of the completed Wallachian force.

Vlad and his Viteji Light Horse advance behind a creen of Rustici archers & warband.

Rustici archers occupying a marsh.

The Curteni archers flanked by the Rustici warband.

The Viteji Light Horse

Vlad Tepes riding into battle. The Order of the Dragon banner was an image I found online. I printed it off in Black & White then painted it by hand.

The Wallachians arrayed.

hope you have enjoyed these.

bye for now.

Bob Mcleish

2006-09-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Well, that's my Wallachian force finished. The bases have been textured and Vlad's Dragon Banner completed and attached - I'm just waiting for the film from my SLR to be processed then I'll post some photographs. Once I'd completed the army I sprayed each element with Games Workshop's Purity Seal Satin Varnish. I was also lucky enough to find a UK stockist of Testor's Dullcote; http://www.barrule.com/Workshop/index.html This has given the army a great looking matt finish.
I'm going to field the Wallachians this coming Monday and I'm hoping to persuade Ian or Rupert to let me pit them against their arch enemies; The Ottoman Turks. I'll include a battle report, and brief analysis on how well (hopefully) they perform.
I've really enjoyed doing this Blog, and found that it has helped me maintain momentum with the project - I tend to start out with the best of intentions but find that other things have a tendency to get in the way...!! With this in mind I've decided to keep the Blog going, charting the progress of my next DBA project - all comments welcome...!
Anyway, whilst I was waiting for the varnish on the Wallachians to dry I made a start on my next project; Serbian Empire (IV/22). This army is quite different from the Wallachians, containing a lot of options - 20 elements in all! I initially chose this army because they're yet another historical opponent & potential BBDBA ally for my Ottoman Turks. The options within this army allow it to be tailored, to a degree, depending on the opposition they're facing, making it a highly flexible force. I decided to start by painting the elements I'm most likely to use regularly; 4x 3Kn, 2x 2Lh, 4x 3Bw (the ideal troops to go toe to toe with the armies I usually play against), 1x 3Ax, and 1x 2Ps. I'll then paint up the remaining 2x 3Kn, 4x 2Ps, 1x 4Sp, and 1x 7Hd at my leisure. The figures were virtually flash free and I managed to have the whole lot cleaned up, mounted on painting nails and undercoated within about 1/2 an hour. After spraying the Wallachians with Dullcote I went back to the Serbians and managed to paint up the 1st 4 elements of Knights this afternoon. My main source of information about this army was, once again, WRG's invaluable Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 2.
Well, I have the remainder of this evening free and hope to get some painting done, so bye for now.

Bob Mcleish

2006-09-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I'm happy to say that the army is now fully painted and that all of the figures have been glued onto mounting card bases ready to be textured & flocked before getting a coat of varnish.
I'll talk about basing in a bit, but first off I'm happy to say that my regular wargaming group, Kirklees Crusaders, has managed to recruit a new member (we are now 4). Rupert, one of my fellow Crusaders, ran a Russian Civil War participation skirmish game in the upstairs room of a pub in Huddersfield last Sunday. Rupert provided all of the figures as well as scratchbuilding some fantastic terrain. We used the "A good day to die" skirmish rules, which worked surprisingly well - I'd previously thought of them as a rule set exclusively for "Old West"gaming. The game was well attended and very well received, and is certainly something we'll be looking to do some more of in the near future.. Anyway, one of the guys taking part had just moved to Huddersfield to study and I discovered that he lived in the student village which is very close to where I live. After the game I offered him a lift home and during the trip we spoke about wargaming and I discovered that although he currently played Games Workshop's 40k he was interested in trying out the Ancient/Mediaeval period. I told him a bit about DBA and invited him along to our next gaming session the following night. After a couple of games he decided he would like to get himself an army. He went off armed with an Essex catalogue, a desire to buy some New Kingdom Egyptians, and my old copy (V1.1) of the DBA Rules to familiarise himself with troop types, basic rules etc..
Anyway, back to basing! I use Tetrion supersmooth flexible woodfiller to texture my bases. It's cheap, costing a couple of pounds for a mid sized pot which is enough to do the bases for literally hundreds of elements, it's quick drying, hardwearing and it gives bases a great texture which look really effective with a minimum of effort - a basecoat, ink wash and drybrush are all that's needed. It also has the added advantage of not warping mounting card bases which was a problem I used to encounter when using PVA glue and sand. The only drawback I can think of is that using Woodfiller can initially be a bit frustrating - My first few attempts were not great; I found it tricky to apply without getting it all over my figures. I now use a cocktail stick and a old small flat-headed screwdriver to apply/sculpt it. It's worth persevering with.. For armies from non arid regions I paint my bases with Miniature Paints Earth Brown, followed by a thin wash of Citadel Brown ink and finished off with a quick drybrush of the Earth brown lightened with Citadel's Bleached Bone. Once this is dry I put on a few spots of PVA glue and sprinkle on some Javis static grass. I'll post pics of the finished bases and the banners as soon as these are finished.

bye for now..
Bob Mcleish

2006-09-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Apologies for not having posted recently - I just haven't had much time to paint..
Yesterday however I had a few hours free and managed to paint the 6 javelin armed Rustici which will make up the remaining elements of psiloi. These are the figures I'm not 100% happy with - they just don't "feel" very Wallachian. I'm placing an order with Essex later in the week (for a Later Achaemenid Persian DBA army) so I'll order another pack of RNN7; Assorted Tartar foot Archers, to replace the javelin armed psiloi with. I also managed to paint up the 5 peasant figures which will make up the single warband element. I really like these figures, with their fur caps and farm implements, but I'm not too sure of how best to use a single element of warband in DBA - my initial thought is that they might be a bit of a liability when facing my Ottoman Turks, Rupert's Golden Horde or Ian's Poles. I'll certainly try them out, but I think they might end up as a camp garrison more often than not....!
I stuck with the same palette of colours I'd used on the archers (brown, green and a little red) and am happy with the overall look of the army thus far.
That's the foot contingent of the army completed.

Today I made a start to the mounted troops - 3 elements of Light Horse and the general's cavalry element.
Now, horses are not one of my favourite painting subjects, but over the years I've developed a technique that gives a fairly satisfactory result. Basically, all of my horses are painted up as bays of varying shades!
I start off by painting my horses with a basecoat of either Games Workshop's Bestial Brown or Scorched Brown over a black undercoat, leaving the mane, tail & legs below the knee black. I then highlight raised muscles etc with a lighter shade of the base colour. In order to speed up the whole process I've actually mixed up a couple of pots of the highlight colour - 2 parts Bestial Brown to 1 Part Games Workshop's Bleached bone and, a similar mix using Vallejo's Middlestone to lighten the Scorched Brown (I found that white or bleached bone just made the Scorched Brown a bit "pinkish"). Once the highlight's are dry I then give the whole horse a wash with diluted Games Workshop Brown ink and leave that to dry. Varying the ink/water mix gives a good range of Bay shades. Once the ink is dry I go back and paint stockings, socks and/or face markings (stripes/flashes, stars etc) on every 2nd or 3rd horse using an off white colour. To finish I give the mane & tail a quick drybrush with Games Workshops' Space Wolf or Codex Grey. Despite using a limited palette, I find that by the time I've painted the saddlecloths & horse furniture using a couple of colours appropriate to the army I end up with no two horses looking the same.
I'm using my SLR camera to photograph the army and will have some pics to post early next week (hopefully of the army fully painted and ready to base).
I'll discuss basing next time.

bye for now..
Bob

2006-09-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

hi again...

Here's another image of what I've completed so far - this time including the 2 elements of bow armed psiloi . Again, the picture quality isn't too good but I'll keep trying to improve that side of things..

Tonight Rupert, Ian and I, (collectively: The "Kirklees Crusaders") enjoyed an excellent game of DBM - Rupert's Golden Horde, with Ian controlling a command on his right flank, set out to envelop my flanks with their seemingly endless, and hugely efficient, swarm of superior Light Horse. The opening skirmishes between the Akinji Light Horse of my Ottoman force and Rupert's Tartar Light Cavalry didn't bode well, with my Akinji's dying cheaply! Desperate circumstances forced me into sending the 3 elements of Azab archer psiloi who happened to be closest on to a small hill on my right flank in an attempt to stem the flow and, at most, delay the seemingly inevitable encirclement facing me.

I could try to pass off the subsequent reversal as a result of some inspired, insightful tactical acumen on my part, but that would be well, untrue - my psiloi, with the advantage of higher ground, (not to mention my rolling a series of fortuitous 5's & 6's) managed not only to recoil Rupe's Light horse, but to destroy enough of them to halt his advance. The next few bounds saw me reinforce the hill before eventually demoralising one of Rupert's commands. Focus then shifted back to my left flank where Ian's comand had failed to overcome the Janissaries & Sipahis under my CinC's control. Although I'd stabilised one flank, the outcome of the battle still hung in the balance - it seemed quite fitting that it was resolved by a decisive, climactic clash between the Tartar Heavy cavalry and my Lance armed Sipahis who were supported by their more lightly armed comrades.

None of us have really played much DBM, so there was a lot of referring to the rulebook - at one point some confusion over grading factors ensued until we realised that I was playing with version 2.0, whilst Ian & Rupe were using 3.0..!! Nonetheless it was good fun - We felt that the extra rules did add considerably to the flavour of the period without making it much more complex than DBA.

I'm now looking at also using the Wallachian DBA army as the core of an allied DBM contingent for my Ottomans.

Well, bye for now

Bob

2006-09-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Hi,

First off - apologies for the poor quality of the images. I got a new digital camera recently and am still getting to grips with it... I might have to resort to my old SLR and scan the images in for future posts. Hopefully these are clear enough to give you all an idea of how the army's looking.
Anyway, I've finally started painting and have managed to paint up 2 elements of bow and 2 elements of Psiloi today. I've opted for a fairly limited palette, sticking with 3 colours for the Curteni; green, red & brown. I used Vallejo's Cadmium Maroon as a base coat for the red - it covers the black primer well, and creates nice areas of dark red shading in the folds of tunics, breeches etc. The green base colour is Vallejo's Gunship Green - I like this because it's a very earthy, muted colour, unlike Citadels range of greens which I personally find a bit too garish. The brown base colour is Vallejo's US Field Drab - I chose this because it's a nice, natural looking brown which covers well and highlights quite nicely.. I worked through the figures in a batch of 10, starting with the green, painting every other figure with a green tunic, and a few with green breeches, hats etc. I then did the same with the brown and then, a bit more sparingly, with the maroon. Once the base colours were dry I went back and covered everything with a wash of well diluted Citadel brown ink. It creates quick, easy shading as well as highlighting the detail on the figures, making it a lot easier for me to see where I'm gonna put my highlights. Once this was dry I highlighted over the red basecoat with Vallejo's Carmine Red - this is nice, bright red which won't cover black primer well, but looks excellent over the Cadmium Maroon. The highlight colours for the brown and green were just the base colours with a bit of Vallejo Beige mixed in. I painted the bows and flesh areas with Vallejo's Beige Brown, before going back and painting the faces and hands with vallejo's Flat Flesh. Bow cases were painted Leather Brown and boots received a quick dry-brush with a dark grey. The fur around the caps and sheepskin jerkins were dry-brushed with Citadel's Space Wolf Grey. A thin wash of Brown ink over the sheepskin jerkins finished the figures off. I was quite happy with the finished result and particularly pleased that I completed 1/3 of the army in one sitting..!
Once grumble - After closer inspection and a bit more reading I think that the 3 remaining Psiloi elements (javelin armed) have less of a Wallachian "feel" (for my tastes0 than the other figures.. I'll paint them up for the time being, but I think eventually I'll replace them with some more bow armed Curteni figures.
Well, Rupert & Ian are coming over for a game of DBM tonight so I guess I'd better go set the table up..

bye for now..

2006-08-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is the Wallachian army cleaned up, glued onto nails, and ready to be primed.

This is the horse archer figure who's bow was broken - as you can see I've glued a length of steel wire into his hand and now intend to use him as the army's standard bearer.

2006-08-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 30/08/2006

Hello,

Well, today I've finished cleaning up the figures, glued the riders to their horses and superglued the whole army onto nails & primed them ready for painting. I've found that gluing the figures to nails makes them a lot easier to handle whilst painting and means I can get to all of the awkward nooks & crannies(undersides of horses etc) without too much trouble. It also enables me to paint a bit more quickly than before; working a "production line" method - all the flesh on bowmen 1 through 6, then back to 1 to start on the tunics or whatever.
Whilst I was cleaning up the figures I had a bit of a re-think about what to do with the Light Horse figure who's bow was broken. I'd initially thought about depicting him as a lancer, but after looking at the command figures which would make up the army's sole Cavalry element I decided instead to swap the least inspiring looking command figure with the now lance armed Light Horse model and use him as Vlad's standard bearer. This will give me an opportunity to try my hand at drawing and painting a banner, hopefully making the command element look a bit more imposing...
I've finished my reading about the Wallachian army and have pretty much decided on a palette of colours to use; bright greens & muted browns with grey-white sheepskin hats and jackets where modelled, with the occasional splash of red for a bit of variety should be enough for the Rustici & Curteni. I'll spend more time, and use more reds, on the Voivode, his Boyars and Viteji to make them stand out a bit more.
I undercoat all of my minitaures with Games Workshop's chaos black spray primer. I find that it covers well and gives a good surface for acrylics to adhere to. I like black primer because it's very forgiving - you can pass off any fiddly bits you happen to miss as areas of shadow! I know that there are a few colours, particularly red and yellow, which don't cover black very well, but I've got my techniques for those which I'll discuss in more detail as I progress...
I mainly use Vallejo and Citadel paints, but also have a few paints from other manufacturers; Winsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney & Humbrol - it seems that every time I visit an art/model store I seem to discover a colour which will fill some perceived gap in my paint collection....
I use Pro-Arte Acrylix brushes - they're inexpensive and I've found that they maintain a good point for a long time. I use an old white dinner plate for thinning/mixing paints. Because I do most of my painting in the evenings I have an old lamp with a flexible neck and a daylight simulation bulb (available at most hobby stores). Finally, I find that Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" or "Blonde on Blonde" are good background music for painting..
Well, the 1st coat of primer should be nearly dry - I'll go and re-spray any bits that i've missed and leave them for a few hours.
Whilst I'm waiting I'll measure & cut the bases for the army. I use mounting card for my bases, and have recently discovered that my local art store sells off damaged sheets (bashed corners, slight creases etc) for a 20pence donation to a local charity - I've picked up enough sheets this way to provide enough bases for all my DBA needs for the next couple of years...! Every basing method has it's pros & cons - Although it's inexpensive & easy to cut, I've read that people find that mounting card warps and isn't very durable. I use woodfiller to texture my card bases and find that this makes the bases a lot tougher and doesn't cause them to warp. I'm just cutting the bases for now and will go into more detail about my basing technique once I reach that stage.

bye for now
Bob

2006-08-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Monday 28/08/2006

Hi,

I've not had an opportunity to work on my army this last few days. Although it's been a bank holiday weekend here in the UK (3 days off work is usually a time for much painting), it is also a whole year since I met my girlfriend, and she surprised me with a couple of days in York (Yorkshire, England) to celebrate our first anniversary. It was a fantastic break - nice locally brewed real ales, a ride on the Yorkshire Wheel (similar to the London Eye, only smaller), and a lovely Mexican meal in Plunketts, an excellent restaurant which I can't recommend enough - great service, great ambience and top class food, all at a reasonable price - well worth a visit if you're ever in the area... (don't worry, this Blog's not morphing into a restaurant guide, honest...!)
I did buy myself 2 new paintbrushes and a set of modelling clippers which are ideal for removing bigger pieces of flash from models..
I'm hoping to get back on track, and post some pictures tomorrow..

bye for now..

2006-08-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Friday 25/08/2006

Today I unpacked the figures, giving the castings a quick check for any broken spears/bows etc. A couple of the castings come with separate bows which need to be clipped from the body of the figure and glued into its hand, unfortunately one of the bows is broken, but it's not going to be a major problem - WRG's excellent reference book: Armies of the Middle Ages, Vol 2 describes the Wallachian Light horse as being armed mainly with a light lance as well as a composite bow and a hand weapon, so I think I'll glue a wire lance into the broken casting's hand. This really simple conversion will hopefully add a bit more variety to my army, and better reflect how these troops were armed.
At this stage I can also assess how much work needs to be done cleaning off "flash" and filing down any mould lines on the castings before I can start painting. These castings look quite clean and I think about 1/2 an hour or so should see them ready to be primed for painting.
The figures themselves look great, and seem to accurately portray what I've read about the Wallachian troops. there is a nice mix of light horse figures that should give my elements of Lesser Boyars and Viteji a really varied appearance, in keeping with their irregualr status.
At this stage I begin to think about colour schemes, and how they'll look on each of the castings, although I'll do a bit more bed-time reading before making any final decisions. In addition to the excellent WRG & Osprey titles covering armies of this period I've found the Eye Candy section on the Fanaticus website an invaluable source of information on clour schemes, as well as being quite inspirational! It's also worth mentioning that the Fanaticus site has an excellent forum where other members are more than happy to answer questions and share their knowledge about everything DBA (and a lot more too), including uniform colour schemes.
Well, I'm off to get these figures cleaned up, and hopefully ready to prime for painting. I'll have some photographs to post tomorrow.

'til then
Bob

2006-08-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I purchased a Wallachian DBA army pack from Essex Miniatures www.essexminiatures.co.uk about 6 months ago and have decided to use this for my project.
Essex were one of the first 15mm manufacturers I discovered, and generally I've been happy with their ranges and the quality of their castings. I've tried other manufacturers in the past, with mixed results - when I'm gaming I like all my figures to be roughly the same height - there's something aesthetically "not right" about figures of vastly differing heights and proportions lining up alongside, or opposite each other. I find this particularly noticeable with the smaller playing area used for DBA. That said, I do retain an affection for Tin Solider's Hoplite range, which was the very first DBA army I ever bought and painted www.tinsoldieruk.com

So why Wallachians?

Well, they provide historical opposition for the armies owned by Rupert & Ian, the guys I regularly game with at our club, The Kirklees Crusaders. Ian fields a Later Polish army whilst Rupert commands Lithuanians and a Golden Horde. In the same period I have Ottoman Turks whom the Wallachians can fight against, or ally with in a game of Big Battle DBA (BBDBA).

A few elements of Wallachians are needed by our group for a BBDBA re-fight of Nicopolis which we're hoping to stage at Recon in Pudsey, Leeds in November.

This army has an interesting background, as well as an infamous General. I've been reading a bit about this army and couldn't really pass up the chance to field an army lead by Vlad Tepes - Dracula.

In DBA terms, I'm interested in pitting this army against my Ottoman Turks. The Wallachian's low aggression means they should select the terrain more often than not, hopefully giving the Curteni & Rustici plenty of opportunities to stage their own "Night of Terror" ambushing the invading Ottomans.

Lastly, because it consists of mainly light troops and has no optional elements I should be able to complete this army in a relatively short space of time.

2006-08-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Thanks for dropping by & welcome to my blog.
It's the 1st time I've attempted anything like this so please bear with me.

My initial plan is to record my progress as I put together a wargames army for the DBA rules system; from selecting and buying the army, through to fielding the fully assembled & painted force.
I'm hoping that this project might be of some interest to established wargamers as well as giving potential newcomers to ancient/mediaeval wargaming an insight into what exactly the hobby involves.
The main motivation for this project stems from a long-held view of mine (no doubt shared by many other wargamers) that historical wargaming is often perceived as an impenetrable, obscure hobby with deliberately complex and, lets face it, unattractive looking rulebooks - I can still remember reading WRG's 6th edition rules for the umpteenth time and thinking "what the $&*%..?" My introduction to DBA almost 15 years ago was equally inauspicious but considerably less traumatic - coming from a gaming background of slickly produced RPGs and Games Workshop I remember skimming through the thin, card covered rulebook with some trepidation thinking "where are the photographs of beautifully painted miniatures?", "where are the reminder texts and illustrated examples covering every possible eventuality?" - I was, to say the least, distinctly underwhelmed and only agreed to play because I had an hour or so to wait for my bus. I looked sceptical as Gordon Yacomine produced 2 ugly-looking (compared to Games Workshop's 28mm miniatures) 15mm armies from a tiny box, but over the next hour my perception of wargames was changed for ever.
Things have improved considerably since then but I think there is still more that can be done to encourage people to participate in a hobby I love, playing a game that I love!
Chris Brantley made a comment recently on his brilliant website www.fanaticus.org, which is devoted to all aspects of DBA, that he felt it would be fun to see someone start a blog charting the progress of a DBA army - well, here we are......