Matthias Corvinus' Black Army contained Hungarian Light Horse, Serbian Hussars, Szekely, Cumans, Wallachians and Moldavians. The two battlegroups below represent Hungarian Light Horse. Their role was to skirmish and chase away the Ottoman Akinji Light Horse to prevent them from interfering with the deployment and charge of the Hungarian knights. I plan to pair each unit of Light Horse with a unit of Serbian Hussars in my Field of Glory games. This will give the Hungarians a powerful one-two punch that the Ottomans don't have an answer for.
These Essex figures are quite lively and I mounted a couple of bases with the "shoot and scoot" scheme of two figures facing in opposite directions. I think it works but I'll leave it to viewers to decide for themselves. I think using a limited palette of colors paid dividends here as well.
Last up are my Hungarian handgunners. Medieval gunpowder was very expensive and the firearms of the day were of limited effectiveness due to being inaccurate, slow to load and sometimes self-exploding. Even so, they provided a kind of shock and awe on the battlefield. Corvinus utilized the defensive tactics of the Hussites by placing his infantry behind pavises or wagons while his cavalry harassed the enemy and I plan to do the same when I field these troops. Handgunners need to operate from behind the safety of a shield wall, wagons or cover. If they're caught unsupported in open, they'll be obliterated in hand-to-hand fighting. These figures also appear to be a bit on the plump side so I'm not sure they'll be able to run away from a determined charge!
Monty....a gaming friend developed a gladiator rule set that is quite elegant AND tactically deep. It uses a card like system much like the old avalon hill Gun slinger game ......each turn is broken into subphases where players playout a card that moves them toward an action ...lite armor affords more movement xards ..and pehaps a positional advantage....but of course getting hit w/o armour can be painful. I thought it was a fun approach with more than just alternating die rolls. Perhaps we could get him to join us for a afternoon...note, he didn't have great figs...Klay
ReplyDeleteKlay:
ReplyDeleteThat would be fantastic. I'm not wed to any system and his homegrown rules sound intriguing. We should give it a go. I should be able to have some Gladiators based and ready for our next meet.