Toysoldiers - JohnJenkinsDesign Samnites and Mid Republican Romans

Manufacturer:   JohnJenkinsDesigns

Scale:   1:30 (60mm)

Hi,

just a short post about my newest reinforcements concerning my developing collection of Mid Republican Romans and their enemies. One of their toughest enemies had been the Samnites, a people of hill tribes that fought several wars against Rome at its first expansions in Italy. 

The Samnites also allied with Hannibal. The army of Hannibal must have looked very cool with all its different troops. Carthaginians, Crete Archers, Samnites, Celts, Iberians and Numidian Cavalry. A very interesting mixture and also a very exciting period of warfare. How was Hannibal able to command all those different troops with that many different languages? How did this military genius manage to combine them?

Besides my all time favorite period of warfare of the SYW and FIW the punic wars also excite me very much. There are different manufacturers offering Romans and Celts, but I have not seen Samnites from other manufacturers before. And there is more to come. JohnJenkins also started to increase the ranges of Iberians and Carthaginians, not to mention that the Romans also got more models.

JohnJenkinsDesigns celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and in my opinion the models are one of the best ones comparing the different manufacturers.

So here are some pictures of my current collection of Samnites and their Roman enemies. Of course, I was not able again to resist making some AI versions of the pictures. Hope you like them.

Cheers

Mike

LionRampant 2 - My new massive Mongolian Army

Manufacturer:   sorry, I don´t know about this

(maybe Victrix, maybe WarlordGames)

Scale:   28mm

Hi,

a good friend made a great deal with a guy who sold a lot of stuff from his collection. One part of this deal had been this Mongolian Army, consisting of at least 49 Cavalry and 48 Infantry, not to mention the two Mongolian tents and also the stone building. 

The figures are not painted perfectly, but they look good and surely will do their job on the wargaming table and are ready for gaming. The friend who had organized this deal got an Teutonic Army from the same seller. So this is a perfect start for gaming Liegnitz 1241 or something like that.

I organized the figures into suitable units for LionRampant 2nd Edition.

The rulebook says, that a Mongolian Army should exist of at least:

 - one unit of EliteCavalry with bows and leader (8 points)

 - two units of HeavyCavalry with bows (10 points)

 - one unit of Veteran LightCavalry (6 points)

The total number of figures of this deal is enough to group up the further units:

 - another single unit of EliteCavalry with bows and leader (8 points)

 - 3 units of LightCavalry (12 points)

 - 2 units of Archers (8 points)

 - 2 units of HeavyInfantry (8 points)

This also makes it possible to create an additional army of Steppe Tribes that would normally consist of one unit of EliteCavalry with bows and leader, and another 4 units of LightCavalry. So I could also build an army of Tatars, who had been a big thread for the Mongolian tribes before they had been united by Genghis Khan.

As you can see in the list above there are only 3 units of LightCavalry left. I could decide to grade up two of these LightCavalry to make them Veterans. For bigger games I could choose to give both armies also one additional unit of Archers and one additional unit of HeavyInfantry. The options are very flexible.

This deal has been a very good opportunity to get a complete army (or even two armies).

The following pictures will show you the single units. I decided to make special unit cards for them and so used AI to create some stylish pictures of the certain units. The idea is to integrate these pictures into the unit cards to make it easier to identify the troops on the gaming table. 

So here they are. Hope you like it.

Cheers

Mike

The whole army from the deal - 49 Cavalry, 48 Infantry and at least three additional
buildings.

The whole army set in scene by AI

First of all the Mongolian Army:

The unit of EliteCavalry with bows and leader.

The first HeavyCavalry with bows.

The second unit of HeavyCavalry with bows.

A unit of Veteran LightCavalry.

Second the possible Tatar Army or Steppe Tribes:

The possible EliteCavalry with bows and leader for the Tatar Army.
The rider with the camel would have to be removed.

The first unit of LightCavalry. This could be upgraded to be Veteran.

The second unit of LightCavalry, that could also be upgraded to be Veteran.

The third unit of LightCavalry. In order not to  give the Tatar Army to many Army points they
won´t get an upgrade.

The additional infantry units:

First unit of Archers.

Another unit of Archers.

Here comes the first unit of HeavyInfantry.

And here´s the second one.

The buildings, the deal included:

Just a short overview.

The yurts´ roofs are removable and the inside is created very nice and stylish.

As you can see, the roof is magnetized and can be removed.

Very practical for placing units on the top of the building.

Eagle Rampant - Building a Republican Roman Army - WIP - Part 5

Hi,

today´s post is about some unit cards I created for EagleRampant. 

When building your warband you normally write down the single units on a paper as there is no army builder for LionRampant like it is for rules like Muskets&Tomahawks. At least I didn´t find an army builder searching the web.

But on the Facebook group for LionRampant I found a file within the file section that offers unit cards. But to be honest they had been very simple and I don´t like the simple look. So I decided to create my own unit cards. There are all the stats of the specific units noted and also their special abilities, the possible upgrades and the additional points for upgrading.

While gaming LionRampant we often had to look up some abilities of the units in the rules. To avoid this I also  decided to note the explanations of the special abilities and upgrades on the unit cards aswell. The result was a card (or cards) that can be folded in the middle and iserted into card sleeves. Because of putting the cards into sleeves there is also the possibility to mark the upgrades with non-waterproof pens in order to get the total points of the specific unit after upgrading them.

So there is no longer a sheet of paper necessary to build an army. Just grap the units you want to integrate into your warband, mark the upgrades and count the points.

We haven´t used the cards yet, but in my opinion this should work very well.

I created a version with a blank space between the UnitName and the stats of the unit. I like to fill this gap with pictures of my own units. So the units can be identified easily on the gaming table.

The unit cards can be found here:   EagleRampant UnitCards on Facebook

Cheers 

Mike

A unit card showing a unit of my own Velites.

The same unit card in a neutreal  version.