Dailami Allies

I finished the core of my Dailami army last December and here's the rest. First up are Bedouin allies. The Bedouin ally commander can only attach to Bedouin troops in Field of Glory.  I painted the Bedouin units in black as a visual cue to help keep them together. In 15mm, that means a black basecoat followed by 2 highlights of grey.

Bedouin Light Horse:  The role of light horse on a battlefield is generally to skirmish and delay.  The role of Bedouin lancers is to run down enemy lights and destroy them.  Tough fellows!

Bedouin Slingers:  Nothing fancy here.  Just slingers, annoying other troops on the battlefield.

Bedouin Archers:  The Old Glory website suffers from the fact that they don't post up pictures of all of their figures.  As a result, I was surprised when I pulled these fellows from the box. They're either Bedouin slaves or men who eschew robes and turbans.

Next are the Ghazis.  Ghazi means "to raid" in Arabic.  Ghazis warriors depended on plunder for their livelihood and were prone to looting during peacetime.  Not a good way to impress your employer!

Ghazis Foot:  These fellows are medium impact foot.

Ghazis Cavalry:  Lancer armed, these fellows will be tough at impact.

Ghilman Cavalry:  Ghilman were slave-soldiers who served in Muslim armies from the 9th century on. Trained and educated, they could earn their freedom through dedicated service.  They're equally good with the bow and sword.

Kurdish Lancers: The history here is a bit thin but 11th century Kurdish cavalry are shown and described as wearing armor, helmet, robes, light lance, sometimes sword and shield, and sometimes bow. That's all I've got on these fellows!

I could not find armored Arab lancers on the Old Glory website so I took Ghilmen figures, trimmed their swords and drilled out the right foot to mount spears.  Presto!  Armored lancers.

Camp:  Baueda tent and supplies with Old Glory figures and cart. With this, the Dailmi army is finished.

Everything's coming up Galatian

Back at it with 15mm.  I've managed to get in some Field of Glory with my Galatians and they've performed well above expectations.  After a loss against the Romans, they broke a Spartan army after a grueling, see-saw struggle and crushed Klay's Pontic army, pike and all. Mind you, it's only the 2nd time I've beat Klay so that alone was cause for celebration.  They also beat a Thrasian army this weekend as well.  Following the military maxim of "reinforce your successes," I've been buffing out my Galatians so I'll have more options when I run them.

Cavalry.  The Galatians and Gauls can each run cavalry-heavy armies. With this batch, I've doubled my cavalry from 6 to 12 bases .

Javelinmen.  The Galatians don't get many skirmishers so I need to make these 8 bases count.  

Soldurii.  Soldurii only appear in the Gallic list and among the Gauls, these fellows are tops. They represent troops sworn to die for their chief in battle. They are elite, armored  heavy foot.  That's as good as it gets in FoG.  Soldurii are the Hammer of the Gods in a Gallic army. Use your hammer wisely!

Thracian Bowmen.  The very worst thing about the Old Glory15 website is a lack of pictures.  I wanted Paionian javelinmen so I clicked on and ordered javelinmen (with no picture).  I got Thracian bowmen instead. Gauls can field bow so I painted these up and won't look back. Dammit, I accidentally looked back and now I'm angry all over again!  How hard is it to post pictures of the products you sell on the web? 

My last bit of Galatian reporting is that "The Dying Gaul" is going to appear in Washington DC at the National Gallery of Art through March 16.  This is a big deal as the statue has not left its home in almost 200 years.  The Wall Street Journal posted an excellent article on the statue including these two delicious tidbits:

• Experts think his hair was a foot longer before being cropped in the 17th Century. 
• The original was painted.

To top off my 15mm painting run, I've got a workmanlike Union army for Longstreet to post up. Longstreet popped up quickly and I decided to throw in with a pending campaign.  I had 2 weeks to turn a pile of mediocre lead  into a slightly less mediocre army.  I finished just in time for our test run but  that's a story for another day.  After Longstreet, it'll be a steady diet of 28mm warbands for SAGA. 

The Dailami army

With my 28mm lead pile depleted, I've been working on 15mm projects. First up is a Dailami army for Field of Glory. The Dailami were highly prized mercenaries who served the Sassanids, Samanids, Buyids, Fatimids, Saftarids and Ghaznavids and later the Seljuks until the end of the 12th century.  That means these fellows can be ported into many other lists. The Dalaimi were the premier Islamic infantry of their time, earning praise from their enemies. Their standard arms were a sword, a brightly painted shield and a javelin. They also used axes and bows as well. While they usually were equipped with round shields, teardrop shields came into use when they were employed by the Fatimids. 

I used the Old Glory Syrian warrior line because the figures come with chainmail, a good mix of weapons and shields.  You can see from behind I kept the tunics to blues, greens and reds. A poem from 1048 described the Dailami shields as "similar to a wall and painted in 100 colours."  I didn't hit 100 but I did use a lot of colors here.

I'm taking elephants in my Dailami army, of course!  I used Old Glory Sassanid ellies, filing down the bulbous helmets and using greenstuff to create turbans. 

Bedouin Light Horse and foot in black.  Black is tricky to pull off in 15mm so I used 2 rounds of gray highlights.  

4 command stands rounds out the lot.  

I still need to paint up Ghilman, Kurdish lancers and a camp. I've got lots of Arab cavalry I can substitute in until I get back to this project.  This gets me just enough to be able to bring the Dailami to the tabletop.

This post has run quite long but I'd like to share a account of what made the Dailami special.  They were described as "all foot-soldiers, each man carrying a sword and a shield and three javelins in his hand" and as exceptionally nimble in mountain country. Agathias described the Dailami in the context of a night attack and ambush: "The Dailami are among the largest of the nations on the far side of the Tigris whose territory borders on Persia. They are warlike in the extreme and, unlike most of the Persians, do not fight principally with the bow and the sling. The carry spears and pikes and wear a sword slung across one shoulder. To the left arm they tie a very small dirk and they hold out shields and bucklers to protect themselves with. One could hardly describe them simply as light armed troops, nor for that matter as the type of heavy infantry that fight exclusively at close quarters. For they both discharge missiles at a distance when the occasion arises and engage in hand to hand fighting, and are expert at charging an enemy phalanx and breaking its close-knit ranks with the weight of their charge. They can reform their own ranks with ease and adapt themselves to any contingency. Even steep hills they run up without difficulty thus seizing in advance all points of vantage, and when they are put to flight they escape with lightning rapidity whereas when they are the attackers they press the pursuit with perfect timing and co-ordination. Well-versed as they are in practically every type of warfare they inflict considerable harm to their enemies. They are accustomed for the most part to fight alongside the Persians, though not as the conscript contingents of a subject people since they are in fact free and independent and it is not in their nature to submit to any form of compulsion."

It sounds like they were, after all, THE premier Islamic infantry of their time! 

Commanders, camp & the whole Gallic army

At the finish line, I realized I didn't have any naked Gallic commanders so I put in an order for Xyston Gaesati.  The Xyston figs are a touch bigger than the Old Glorys but they seem to mix well enough. I love painting Xyston and considered doing this army with their figs, but .75 a figure is spendy for a large 15mm army.  If I were to paint Gauls again, I'd use the Blue Moon line.

Now, about the fellows with clothes.  Other than Lady Godiva, horseback riding and nudity don't mix well. It's also possible that the fellows with pants suffer from a condition known as "never-nude."  Lastly, the historical accounts of Galatians fighting naked says "all but the tribal leaders generally fought naked." There you have the truth of it.  Even in 250BC, management preached from the "Do as I say, not as I do" gospel. Some things haven't changed in 2,000 years!

The Gallic camp is composed of an Essex cart, Old Glory civilians, a Splintered Light dog and a Xyston Gaul.  It was a full-on sweep of my shrinking ancients pile.  

I can't wait to bring the Gauls down to The Source for a game.  I don't expect to win but I do hope there'll be a good amount of walk-up traffic and comments.  When I'm losing badly, those visits can be the best part of a game. To put it another way, my friend Klay once said, "Monty loses a lot but his armies always look great running away!"    

Saturday is the local ReCon in Coon Rapids.  I plan on going early and staying late for a full day of gaming. Last time I went, a fellow introduced himself by saying, "Aren't you the guy who keeps the Twin Cities Gamer blog?"  I almost fell over from surprise to meet someone reading my blog AND recognizing me from my avatar. If you're a local reader and you're going to be at ReCon, look for me at the Saga tables. And game on!  

128 Gauls streak across the finish line!

With a bit of fortitude, I managed to push an additional 32 bases of heavy foot warriors across the finish line for my Gallic army. Multicolored pants and shirts didn't hold me back but the 2-tone shields with 2 - 4 squiggles each were quite trying. It was more work than pleasure to finish this bunch.  As Vercingetorix is my witness, this is the last time I paint Gauls in 15mm!

While I can run these fellows as any Gallic tribe in Field of Glory, they're especially suited to be Galatians. I'll let Philip Matyszak explain why from his great book, Mithridates the Great:

“It appears that the Galatians still fought in the traditional Gallic style. Though skilled metalworkers, all but the tribal leaders generally fought naked.  The Gauls made excellent shock troops, as it took experienced opponents to stand firm against headlong charge by hundreds of large sword wielding warriors who were nothing but spiky line hairstyles and ferocious expressions. The bad news was that the Galatians had only a rudimentary grasp of military discipline and tended to regard setbacks as an invitation to go home.”

The bonus in running them as Galatians in Field of Glory is that they're all rated as superior heavy foot. This plus their impact bonus I'll have a fighting chance IF I can win on impact.  That's really all I'm looking for in a game. I'm a sucker for the "Lost Causes" of history.  As I told my friend Mark last week, when I run Gauls, it is indeed a lost cause.

Here's all 48 bases of heavy foot ranked up. I kept the palette a bit tight by repeating color combos. I think it achieved an irregular look without being hard on the eyes. Front or back, they provide an interesting view! While they were a trial to paint, I'm happy with the look of them all massed up.

Once I finish the Gallic camp and 4 command stands, the Gallic/Galatian army is done! And then, finally, back to Saga.