Apologies for the bad language in the title of this post, but for most wargamers, the topic is one in bad taste, if not taboo. But first, a little background, or at least a bit of explanation of motivation.
Some of you might remember that a while ago, I put my ancient armies up for adoption. I am pleased to report that they have now flown the nest, and I hope they are very happy in their new homes, and get onto the wargame table more often than I was able to manage. Those of you with really good memories might also recall that I had started to rebase them (yes, that is the rude word) in that the Celts and Romans, or their foot at least, had had the number of figures on a base doubled, or, looked at another way, the footprint of the foot halved.
I mentioned at the time that I had finally yielded to the argument that the bases look better with two rows of troops on them, in spite of my geometric better self, which argued that even an eight-deep column of men was a lot smaller than the width of a unit of, say, 500. This is, of course, entirely true and also, as most wargamers know, hardly relevant. The look and feel is at least as important as getting the width-to-depth ratios correct.
As was mentioned (or hinted at) in the last post, the Aztecs, before they masqueraded as Siberians, had already been rebased. In fact, I think this was rebased for the fourth time. Hopefully, I’ve got it right this time, although there is no guarantee. The bases, in case you are wondering, are 40 by 20 mm plastic cards, with the figures glued on. The bases are then covered in polyfiller and dunked into chinchilla dust, which is overcoated with PVA glue, and then painted. Simple, plain, and unfussy bases, I find. I have taken to painting them in plain green or sand. The ancients, most of them, had the bases dry-brushed with various colours, but I decided that it actually made it hard to discern what the figures were, so for the early moderns, I abandoned that idea. It might also be because I am a lazy and reluctant painter.
So, after the departure of the ancients and a bit of a sort out, I wondered which collection was to be next to be rebased. My beady eyes alighted on the North African, Bedouin, and Arab box. Now, I imagine that this lot, in the early modern period, are not the wargamer’s go-to armies. But in fact, they are quite interesting, with a mix of tribal types, cavalry, camels, and shot. The box also had quite a lot of infantry stands, which meant that a fair reduction in footprint was possible.
The results are above. Obviously, the cavalry and camelry to the left are untouched, although there seem to be a lot of light camels in the box. On the far left, incidentally, are the Taureg. The infantry – tribal foot and spearmen – are to the right, and the footprint has shrunk by half. The figures are Irregular, mostly, as I recall, from their dark ages and colonial ranges. You have to get a bit creative when you are trying to put together armies from the less popular quarters of the world.
My eye then latched on to my small collection of later medieval (or early early modern, depending on your taste) figures. These are more recent, Baccus figures from the Wars of the Roses range. Here, they are masquerading under Burgundian flags as Grenadines and Spanish from the Reconquista period. They were last seen in action, I think, in my Ferdinand and Isabella narrative campaign a few years ago. The cavalry are Moorish jinetes from Irregular.
These were originally based eight figures to a stand, and the plan was to go to sixteen. This worked fine for the pikemen on the left, but the crossbowmen and handgunners looked a bit crowded. My style consultant advised that twelve to a base looked better, and I think she was right, although it meant that I only reduced the number of bases by a third, not half.
I learnt a number of things from this exercise. Firstly, rebasing is not as scary as it seems. With my basing scheme, once the polyfiller was cracked, the figures could often be simply pulled off, and the base scraped clean and reused. The ability to pull the figures off was a great boon, but it does not seem to say much for the glue I originally used. With the reuse, I now have a box with an increasing number of spare bases in it, and I suppose that they will have to be jettisoned in due course.
There are some oddities, of course. The North African spearmen in the top picture have both ranks carrying flags, and the way the figures are, one flag is behind the other. I’ll live with that. They do look like a unit that is serious, rather than a few blokes with pointy sticks left out in the desert.
I also have a few leftover figures. For example, originally there were three bases of janissaries, that is, three strips. Now, there is only one, with a leftover strip. I’m taking note of these when they arise and, as Irregular 6 mm are back in production, an order to make the odd strips into bases will happen in due course. Mind you, figuring out which strips I used originally has been tricky at times; the most obscure was the Bedouin foot, which turned out to come from the French Revolution range.
As you might imagine, I have a fair bit of this to do. Next up, who might need to appear in the 1600 campaign, are the Irish. The pike and shot armed figures are already double strips, but the gallowglasses, bonnachts, and kern are not. I have also run across some Hessians for the Thirty Years' War, who will need a bit of augmentation. As the Estimable Mrs P reminded me, ‘If you buy them, you will have to paint them, you know’.
Beyond that, I have more late medievals - crossbows, longbows, dismounted men at arms and the like – which include some old H&R figures as well, the East Asians – Samurai, Chinese and Koreans – who will, I suspect need a fair bit of augmentation even to get to 12 base armies, the South East Asians – Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese and so on, and a few of the Indian infantry bases who are six to a stand at the moment, but come on irregular bases and might need some thought.
Once that lot is underway, I might extend my map to cover the whole Eurasian landmass. I did it for the play-by-email game, so it should be viable for a solo one. So long as the provinces don’t shrink to mere blobs….
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