Back with Byzantines!

This is my Age of Crusades/post-Manzikert disaster Byzantines.  Information on what the Byzantine army looked like at that time is quite thin. Into that space, I created a "down on its luck" appearance where armor is quite rare.  

The force is composed of Fireforge plastic Byzantine Spearmen & Auxiliaries (for the robed bodies), Gripping Beast plastic Arab foot (more robed bodies after I sawed off the left arms), light cavalry and heavy cavalry.  I sourced extra shields and my warlord from Gripping Beast. The shield transfers are from LBMS and Wargametransfers.com.  Lastly, I mixed in Arab heads and torsos to reflect an Arab influence in appearance. I'm quite happy with them at the finish line.  

I assembled these March of 2019 for the UK Saga World Cup. Then I had the bad luck of breaking my foot in 3 places and being misdiagnosed for 3 months. Limping on a broken foot for those months was a disaster. I thought I had a soft tissue injury and tried to gut it out. In the end, I could hardly walk or stand on it, ended my plans for the big show. Disappointed, I sold my unpainted Byzantine warband and then at the start of this summer, I reacquired and painted them.   

Last summer, I also was heartbroken to discover my blog was broken. Most of my posts from 2017 and older lost their links to photos. I've been relinking pictures with my old posts but its a slow,  painstaking task. It was such a mess that I quit my blog.  

I've had a change of heart. I'm going post when I can and continue fixing my old posts.  After a year's break, I'm happy to report I'm alive, well and gaming when I can. So, how was your year?  ;-) 

Mustering the Byzantines!

My big accomplishment this summer was painting a Byzantine warband for SAGA. The best part of the project was using a bright palette with a Dark Ages army.  That, plus I painted these for myself.

Byzantines are a challenging faction to run in SAGA.  Their battleboard rewards tight deployment and thoughtful interaction between each part of your warband. Levy skirmishers shield the main line. Warriors shield the bowmen, who have the unique in game ability to shoot over their own troops and into melee. Mounted hearthguard are held back until they can charge and recoil from the enemy at a critical moment.  I painted up Steppe Tribes for another option as well!

Warriors (Kontaratoi):  The banners are printouts of Byzantine-inspired iconography. They matched my color scheme and the Little Big Man Studio shield transfers quite nicely!

Bow armed Warriors (Toxotai): These fellows punch well above their weight.  There are a number of plays on the Byzantine battleboard to keep them safe and to shoot into combat or support of combat.  If you're successful at shielding them properly, it'll be a maddening game for your opponent.

Javelin-armed Levy: Thanks to a battleboard ability that allows them to activate more than once in a turn without fatigue, they'll be more than a nuisance to the enemy.

Steppe Tribe:  Treated as levies, they too can activate more than once a turn without generating fatigue and that makes them a great one-two punch with javelin-armed levy. The downside is they generate no SAGA dice. With two units of levy, you'll have to make up your SAGA dice elsewhere in this warband.

These Foundry's Scythians are Perry Bros sculpts. They're stupendous sculpts with loads of detail.  I was looking for an excuse to paint these ever since I acquired them last year.  Once I confirmed Scythians served in Byzantine army, I put them on the table for this warband.  By 700- 900 AD,
Scythian fashion was surely changed from whats portrayed here but I'm using them anyway. Eventually, I'll paint up something more historically accurate to replace them.  For now, they're quite lovely and annoying to my opponents as they race in to shoot, shoot again and then race away.

Hearthguard (Kavallaroi):  Though few in number, they're critically important for delivering a knockout blow. The KONTOS ability allows them to roll a die for each figure ending a turn in melee. For each die roll of 4 or more, they dish out an extra hit.  And that's before you roll your melee dice!  

Greek Fire turn counter:  This was just a nice bit of fun and a way to put these nice figures to work in SAGA.  Great figures, Gripping Beast,  and this turn counter helps me keep track of the turn!

Warlord (Strategos): I fumbled this one a bit.  The detail on the horse's armor was very shallow so I used thinned base colors.  When I hit them with a wash, it settled into the grooves and gummed up the detail completely.  From gaming distance, its not noticeable. Close up, its a mess. Ah well, onward and upward!

Surprising everyone, the Byzantines are unbeaten in our summer SAGA campaign. I'd like to say it's due to my brilliant generalship but that would be a fib.  All my games were close, with the Byzantines getting hot down the final stretch.  Heads up to all Byzantines players...you're required to shout "For Basileus!" before throwing your dice during critical moments.  It's worked for me all summer long!  

Desert terrain

I joined a SAGA Crescent & Cross campaign this summer.  My desert terrain collection was stuck at "none" so I had a bit of work to do to get ready for our games.  Since we play in a FLGS, I needed a portable playing surface that was suitably desert-y. I want to make a desert gaming mat some day but for simplicity, I bought desert-colored felt from Joanne's Fabrics.  For under $10, it looks quite nice and travels well. Score!   

I then put together my 4Ground Arabic dwellings. These superb kits are easy to assemble, packed with detail and each has an accessible interior.  I also flocked and painted some MDF to serve as hills, wadis, dunes or rocky outcroppings as needed.  

This Architects of War's  resin kit well went together nicely. Water effects are done with Woodland Scenics' Realistic Water.

The palm trees are by Pegasus Hobby. Primed, painted and flocked, they're a nice down-payment on my own grove.

I had some painting to do for our campaign as well as we're allowed to field two warbands.  My first is the Spanish as they're simply a blast to play. I buffed the Spanish with Gripping Beast's El Cid figure.  I'll run him as warlord and perhaps as the Hero El Cid as well. Clearly, the warlord and his bannerman have the same great taste in colors.   

I've had unpainted Byzantines in my lead pile for almost a year.  Byzantines fit in perfectly for the Crusades so I painted them up as my second warband for the campaign.  My post is getting quite long so I'll post up the Byz next time.  Cheers! 

Strategos and his men

Like a proud dad, I want to show off my new "baby."  I showed this bunch to my neighbors and my parents before boxing them up for  California. Yea, you're probably wishing you were MY neighbor!

I love this warlord figure.  I do wish the horse came in full barding but perhaps this model represents a moment when the Byzantines were short of cash.  Paying the Varangian Guard and bribing invading barbarians to go away has a way of putting a dent in the treasury.

Four of these Saga fatigue markers go out the door with the warband and one goes to my Normans.

With the lovely Gripping Beast figures and bright palette, the Byzantines were my favorite war band to paint to date. I'll come back to them again by book and perhaps, by paintbrush too.  I love  painting Dark Age war bands but I'm also on the lookout for a bigger project in 2014.

B is for Βυζαντινή

If you saw the B word and thought, "it's Greek to me," you're correct! It's Greek for Byzantine. Hopefully you'll also see a tight and bright palette here. All Gripping Beast figs and I should mention the warriors have lots of kit on them! 

TOXATOI: These bow-armed warriors come in handy with the SAGA battleboard abilities Massed Archery (fire over friendly units) and Support Archers (shoot into a melee disregarding friendly units in line of sight).  

KONTARATOI:  Spear-armed warriors.  The "prime white & wash with Burnt Umber ink" is back in play.  

PSILOI:  Javelin-armed levies. Even though levy foot are looked down on in Saga, I've seen them pull off amazing feats.  If nothing else, they soak up lots of missile fire and are a chore to destroy in melee!

My PC is still down, awaiting for a new video card and that's slowed me down.  Here's hoping that when it finally arrives, it fixes the problem.  The good thing about being your own IT is saving $.  The bad thing is making an educated guess and discovering you're wrong!  

Norse go South

The Varangian Guard were elite Norse mercenaries who served the Byzantine empire from the 9th through 14th centuries. To get an idea of how important they were, consider the spoils of war.  After a victory, the Byzantine Emperor took 1/3 of the booty, the Varangians took 1/3 and the rest of the army divided the balance. The Varangians were also the first to plunder a city and upon the death of the emperor, the
privilege of plundering the palace.

Much like Napoleon's Old Guard, the Varangian Guard were committed to battle at critical moments where the action was most fierce. Chroniclers described them as "fighting like madmen, as if ablaze with wrath,"  "frightening both in appearance and in equipment, they attacked with reckless rage and neither cared about losing blood nor their wounds." During the Battle of Beroe, Byzantine troops tried but couldn't break a  Pecheneg wagon laager (fort).  Byzantine officers cried for the "Emperor's wineskins" and up came the Varangians.  Heavily outnumbered, they broke through the circle and slaughtered the enemy. 

These are all Gripping Beast figs.  The hafts on their 2-handed axes were reportedly 5' long, so I trimmed the axes to keep them at or under the height of the figures.  

In Saga, the Byzantines can take Harald Hardrada as a hero & Captain of the Varangian Guard.  Part way into the project, my customer asked to add a Harald, plus 4 Viking Hearthguard for his Viking warband.  I modded a Hereward the Wake figure by cutting the sword out of his right hand and drilling out his left.  In it, I put a clipped spear in and added an axehead. Bingo, the Captain of the Varangian Guard with a a few Vikings running amok. The Viking basing was done to match an existing Viking warband.  

I recently switched to Krylon Matt Finish for sealcoating. It dries with a satin finish that looks brighter in the photography lights than natural lighting.  I'm not sure why the matt finish is coming up satin but I knocked it down with Army Painter Matt varnish after the photos.

Byzantine warband unleashed

My friend Jack painted up a lovely Byzantine army for Impetus that he ported into Saga.  Tempted as I was to paint one up myself, I generally avoid painting over my friend's armies. Then the fellow who bought my Vikings asked if I'd paint him a Byzantine warband for Saga. When asked for painting instructions, he said I had free reign.  The opportunity to paint Byzantines to my own vision is as good as it gets!

I did have a vision in mind, thanks to a profile folder on the desktop of my PC. I love the bright, vibrant colors in their mosaics and artwork, and the story of the Eastern Roman empire chugging along 1,000 years after Rome falls is fascinating.  The Dark Age palette goes on ice for this one.  I'm using bright reds, sky blue and yellows that appear in Byzantine artwork. These colors also appear in the LBMS Byzantine banner and shields as well.  I'm guessing their Byzantine folder looks a lot like mine!

As is my habit, I started with my favorite units first.  Cavalrymen were the elite arm of the Byzantine military. One of their tactics was to soften up the enemy with compound bows. If the enemy spread out to lessen the damage from the missile fire, the Byzantine cavalry would charge in with lances.  If the enemy held in place, they were likely to be disrupted from the storm of arrows.  And then a charge would come!

The LMBS banner and shield transfers really bring these fellows to life.  Scratch painted shield are an art  but I can't match the perfection in the shields below.