Iberian Caetrati-lots of 'em

When painting an irregular army, one of the first decision points is deciding on a paint scheme and your primary color(s). You could paint every Caetrati  uniquely, reflecting that each man had to kit themselves out.  That would be historical but also very time-consuming to paint up.  An army painted like this can be a little hard on the eyes, or as my son describes it, a "clown army."  Alternately, you could paint every figure the same, which would be pleasing to the eye.  Visuals are important in our hobby but so too is an attempt at creating something historical.  I split the difference by limiting my colors here and in the rest of my Iberian army.  I picked 3 primary colors for the tunics-black, white and red.  I limited the shield colors as well.  You never know how it'll turn out till you hit the finish line and here, I think I have a balance that says "irregular" without veering into the "clown army."  All Xyston figures with a nice mix of poses.

Caetrati provide skirmishing support to the main battle line of Scutarii warriors.  As Light Foot skirmishers, their job in Field of Glory will be threefold:

1.  Protect my battle lines from enemy skirmishers and their missile fire.
2.  Pepper the enemy battle line with javelins in hopes of disrupting them.  
3.  Move, occupy and fight in poor terrain.  I'll drag as much poor terrain on the table as I can with this army.   

Livy mentions the Caetrati in The History of Rome, Book 23: "Several skirmishes took place between the two sides who  were alternately frightening and fearing each other, and the Numidian  trooper proved to be no match for the Spaniard, nor the Moorish  javelinman for the caetratus, who were quite as rapid in their  movements and possessed more strength and courage." Who's bad? We bad!!

Fear my Falcata

Ancient Spanish (Iberian) Project

I've wanted to paint up an Iberian army for some time. Before I pitch in, I've asked esteemed Spanish historian Antonio Banderas to give us an overview of the Iberian army. He told me that my page views will double, on account of his animal magnetism.  So, take it away, Antonio...

¡Buenos días! So you want to learn about ancient Iberia and the ways of love, eh? Oh, I see. You Americans only want to learn about Iberia. That is not so surprising to me.  Very well.  A quick show of hands if you've read Plutarch's account of Sertorius in Lusitania. No? How many of you are familiar with Iberian weapons? No? Can anyone point out Iberia on a map?  Do any of you know what a map is? Oh my.  Since this is a remedial class, I'll speak slowly enough so that even Arizona State University alumni can understand.

The Iberians lived in tribal communities on the Mediterranean coast of Hispania. Their coastal settlements facilitated extensive trade with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians...as well as much desired tan and ruddy complexion.  Which is why the Romans invaded.  Yes, our silver mines were attractive but the real draw was our sunny beaches. And our knowledge in the ways of love. Italian men boast that they're the best lovers but everything they know, they learned from us! I've uploaded a map of Hispania with Iberia colored in gold.  ASU alumni may color in the rest of the map for extra credit, assuming you all haven't eaten your crayons.

Historians describe 2 kinds of Iberian warriors and 26 kinds of Iberian lovers.  We only have time to discuss the warriors so I'll start with the Scutarii. They carried a broad oval shield known as a scutum and generally fought as heavy infantry.  

The second kind of Iberian warrior was the Caetrati, who carried a small round buckler called a caetra.  They generally fought as light infantry.

Many Iberian warriors favored the Gladius Hispaniensis, a stabbing sword  so effective that Rome shamelessly copied it. Our complaint is still pending before the WTO so don't think for a minute that we've forgotten.  

Some warriors favored the falcata, a 2 foot curved sword that was capable of crushing helmets and lopping off limbs.  As for myself, I use mine to shave with.  Feel my cheek...smooth as a baby's bottom, no?  

The fearlessness and sword skills of the Iberians made them fearsome warriors.  They served Hannibal well during the Second Punic war and were much sought after as mercenaries. Need I mention that they were also the greatest lovers the world had ever known? But I digress...

People think Iberians fought exclusively through raids and ambushes and were incapable of sustained stand-up fighting.  Professor Fernando Sanz rebuts these assumptions in his superb paper "Not so different: individual fighting techniques and battle tactics of Roman and Iberian armies..."  linked here.  He demonstrates that Mid-Republican Romans and Iberians fought in a similar fashion and that Iberians fought pitched battles in close-order formations. It's an excellent read if you have a few minutes and download-worthy if you don't.

Which brings me to my last point. There's a reason Roman and Iberian armies were not so different. Simply put, the Italians were copycats. They loved our scutum shields, gladius swords and javelins, so they copied them. They loved our beaches, our tan, ruddy complexions, and our ways with the ladies. Since they couldn't copy that, they occupied our lands to be more like us, spending HUNDREDS of years subduing Hispania. Long before Napoleon, we were a Spanish Ulcer for the Roman empire!

I'd like to direct my final comments to the Americans. Your country, she is 243 years old, no? You must be very proud of her. Of course you are! Oh, did I mention I live in a fine Spanish house that is 550 years old? Think about that. ¡Hasta luego!

If you give a Szeklers a bow...

The Szeklers were the finest horsemen in Medieval Hungary, fighting as lance, bow and sword-armed cavalry. Noted for their fighting skill, they played a key role in defending Hungary from the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Szeklers enjoyed autonomy under the Hungarian crown. Their lands were outside of traditional Hungarian law, including taxation, and their only obligation to the Crown was to supply troops for military service.

Szeklers Armored Cavalry:  In Field of Glory, Szeklers cavalry options are what make the Later Hungarian army list sizzle.  They can be taken as Armored Superior cavalry with bow and sword.  That means they can melee with anyone except knights.  As Superior mounted bow, it's probably wiser to deploy them in a single line and evade when charged, shooting your enemy to bits.  After knights, they're the best Hungarian troops on the medieval battlefield.

Szeklers Light Horse: You're probably thinking, "Light Horse? Yawn."  As the best horsemen in the region, it should come as no surprise that they can be taken as Superior.  Did I mention they're sword and bow armed? They outclass most Light Horse in period. I painted 3 units of these fellows, all the better to tear up the enemy Light Horse.

Painting these Essex horsemen left me wanting more.  I'll scratch that itch by ordering up a horse-heavy Essex army, once I can decide on the army!

I've got a new army under way to celebrate the launch of Field of Glory 2.  V2 is supposed to be released in October so I need step away from the blog and get painting! 

Hungarian Lights

After a year layoff, it's good to be painting Essex figures again.  While Essex gets grief from some quarters over the limited poses, there's no company with a larger line of 15mm Medieval figures that I know of.  And their horses are simply the best in this scale.  I have some Xyston horses on my painting table and they look small and thin by comparison. The same goes for Old Glory.  Here's the first batch of reinforcements I painted up for my Later Hungarian commission.   

Hungarian Light Horse Archers:  Hungarian Light Horse are nothing special in the Medieval era but you can run up to 12 bases of them.  Good detail on the figures.  I really love the braiding on the coat and the fur trimmed jackets.

Foot Archers:  Cheap and nimble filler, really cheap if you take them as poor quality.  But then you'll have to hide them on the battlefield!  Forest green uniforms will help them hide in the woods if that's necessary.

Crossbowmen:  Like the Foot Archers, crossbowmen are cheap Light Foot filler for the Hungarian army.  Cheap doesn't mean they can't look fabulous and their yellow & black combo work looks quite stylish.  Essex cast the crossbow separately from the figures and that extra step worked quite well for these figures.

Up next in the batter's box are Szekler Light Horse (x3) and armored Szekler Cavalry. 

TYW Cannons & a new Hungarian project

I've been working through my lead pile while I'm between projects.  In my stack, I had 6 TYW cannons and gunners by Old Glory.  I bought these to port my Later Hungarian army into Field of Glory-Renaissance. As it turned out, FoG R in 15mm never got off the ground locally.  And more significantly,  I recently sold my Hungarians.  I painted these up for practice (and eBay) and I have to say, they're good molds.  For a changeup, I left the black primer in places for shadowing, separation and facial details.  It looks quite good in 15mm and I'll use this old school technique again.

I was happy to sell my Hungarians but felt a bit blue as I packed them up.  That was a bit odd since I'm not the sentimental type.  I found solace in the fact that the buyer is a skilled FoG tournament player in the US and International circuit.  As an added bonus, I got a commission to bulk up the army so one more time, for old times, I'll paint up Essex figures for Matthias' Black Army. The Hungarian word for forward is elore, so elore with the Hungarian project.  And one day, I do hope to hear how they've ripped it up on the FoG circuit.

One last thing...Mark and I started a Maurice campaign and we got our first game in at The Source.  The game was a blast, with loads of people stopping by to watch or comment.  It went right down to the wire but I don't want to say any more since Mark has the AAR up at his blog.  Its a great retelling of a great day of fun.  Check it out!

Field of Glory v2 - peeking under the hood

While the Field of Glory v2 rules are still pending, the major changes have been announced and tallied up in the Slitherine forum.  Brandt and I decided to play a match with as many of the changes as we could keep track of via a couple of printouts.  I brought Later Carthaginians because I wanted to test the new elephant rule where they get 3 dice per base at impact.  Brandt surprise me with an Indo-Greek army I'd never seen before. Apparently, he wanted to test the new elephants as well!  Almost everything in this Indo-Greek army shoots, with the exception of the elephants.

7 pieces of terrain ended up on the Indo-Greek side of the table.  If Brandt had been running his favorite Late Republican Romans, this would have caused havoc for him. Because he was running an army of medium foot archers with swords, it was no trouble at all.  D'oh!!!

It's been months since I played FoG and it showed.  V2 limit how many battlegroups a commander can command in a battle line based on the quality of the commander, making field commanders worth the extra cost in the early game.  I got confused over which of my commander was commanding which troops and allowed my Scutarii on the left wing advance by themselves.  That was a rookie mistake that would cost me dearly.  In FoG, you just can't let a unit get isolated by itself like that.

On both flanks, I advanced into a hail of arrows, underestimating the effectiveness of the Indian medium bowmen.  After impact, I found out these bowmen were packing swords. D'oh!!!

In the center, I got an early break when Brandt charged this elephants to drive off my skirmishers. Their variable charge move of 6 inches put them far ahead of the rest of his army.  A battlegroup of 8 bases of African Spear took his charge, with overlaps on both sides of the ellies.  I was tossing 8 dice to Brandt's 4 but to no effect.  The ellies took all the hits I could muster over 2 turns until  his phalanx caught up and charged home.  Once they went in, my own ellies went bust when I threw a 1 for their first death row.  Then my African Spear collapsed under the combined weight of the elephants and the phalanx.  In a single turn, my center evaporated.  I could still win on the wings, right?

On my right wing, Indian bowfire disrupted my elephants and Scutarii as they went into a charge. The Ellies had to pass a death roll.  DONT THROW A 1!  I threw a 1 and goodbye ellies.  Two death tests for ellies, two 1s.  I told Brandt I was imposing a self-ban from running any list that include elephants.  Sorry Jumbos, its for your own good.

On my left wing, I had small success with my last unit of Ellies but it was not enough. Center gone, right wing gone.  Chance of success...gone.  

Brandt played another skillful game.  He held his  bowmen in terrain and let me come to him.  I obliged and got shot to pieces on both wings. It's back to reworking my Carthaginian list.

I found the v2 rule changes to be uniformly excellent and I'll be a day 1 purchaser when they're released.  It was only a single test but my feeling is that games will be shorter and more decisive.  For example:

• losing at impact is an additional -1 in the cohesion test.
• -1 to cohesion tests for each 25% original strength lost.  
• broken battle groups at or below 50% strength cannot be rallied.
• additional -1 modifier for seeing the commander in chief lost.

These and other changes will shorten melees, which can grind on and on.  With a combined 31 battlegroups on the table, our battle was shorter and more decisive than usual.  I think that's a good thing as I find it frustrating to spend 5 hours in a match without a clear winner at the finish line.

We really liked the changes that make skirmishers less slippery.  I especially like the change where a single level of armor advantage does not give a + POA if it would result in an overall ++POA.  That means barbarian foot are no longer a walkover for Romans. Two very big thumbs-up to the rule changes and gameplay under v2.

P.S.  I'm excited enough about v2 that I ordered up a pile of Xyston to build my first new FoG army in a year. As a hint, the army name appears in a song title on The Clash's London Calling.  Between that and Xyston's limited army list, this should be easy to crack!

Stomp, Stomp, Stompies!

Elephants:  4 new stompies for my Carthaginian army.  I put some effort into the blankets since they're going to see battle without war towers. You have to look good to feel good, even if you're a war elephant! I decided I'd made the tusks too large and trimmed them back a bit.  Then again, the North African Forest Elephants used by the Carthaginians are extinct and I could claim some artistic license.

In Field of Glory, the Later Carthaginian list allows 6 elephants BUT if you take a Numidian ally, you can field 8 in total.  Elephants will reportedly get 3 dice per base at impact in FoG 2.  We're ready to bring it, en masse.

 

Thureophoroi:  My Thureophoroi, based as Medium Foot, give the Carthaginians another unit to contest and fight in terrain.  They can be paired with a unit of elephants in a battle line.

Slitherine announced that version 2 will be published in paper and digital format after all. That's excellent news as an iPad/laptop only version would have scotched Field of Glory 2 in our club.  We've been reading the announced list of changes and we're quite anxious to give them a try.  So anxious in fact that a buddy and I printed out the list of changes and put them into a game with my newly painted Carthaginians.  I'll post the AAR next week with a few observations.  The short version is I'll be a Day 1 purchaser when the new rules hit the market.  Two years of tweaking and field testing has paid handsome dividends, in my opinion.