Monday, July 21, 2014

IV/33 Epirot Byzantine

1204 AD - 1340 AD 

DBA 2.2  

Army Composition: (16 elements)
1 x (Gen) 3Cv, 2 x 3Cv, 2 x 3Kn, 2 x 2Lh, 1 x 4Sp or 2Ps, 3 x 2Ps or 3/4 Bw, 1 x 2Lh or 6Kn.

Historical Enemies: Serbian Empire, Later Bulgar, Romanian Frank, Palaiologan Byzantine, Albanian and Catalan Company.

Historical Notes: The Epirot Byzantines were thrashed by the Bulgar's, Serbian Empire and Albanians! ... more notes coming soon...  :o)

I enjoyed painting up the 15mm Essex miniatures for this army, especially the 6Kn Caparisons (A caparison is a covering, or cloth, laid over a horse)  ....anyway...A nice army to command and play with, it has a mixer of Heavy, Med and Light cavalry units along with good infantry support i.e. the 3 elements of foot archers (Bw) should be placed on one flank or both to shoot at enemy Light Horse. The Knights are the main punching force, usually Knights are deployed in the center supported with it's General and other cavalry units and during the opening stages of the battle/game move forward and charge as soon as possible at the enemy! ;oP


Army Arrayed

















General (3Cv)


Epirot Heavy Cavalry (3Kn)








Epirot Line Cavalry (3Cv)








Frankish or German Mercenary Knights (6Kn)
The 6Kn should be based on one 40mm x 60mm base to 
represent a "wedge formation" I decided to mount these figures on 
single bases 40mm x 30mm to be used in other armies if needed.






Light Horse (2Lh)




Albanian Mercenaries (2Lh)





Epirot Heavy Infantry (4Sp)






Regular Epirot Foot Archers (4Bw)


Albanian Mercenaries Skirmishers (2Ps)



other skirmishers (2Ps)




Monday, July 14, 2014

28mm Renaissance Swiss Pikemen

Hi Guys, my apologies for lack of posting and for not visiting your blogs I have been busy and well...um.. here are my long over due 28mm Swiss Pike block(s) part of a large project I will be working on during the next few months. The miniatures are by Old Glory 25's - The Italian Wars range. Even though I have painted 25mm ACW figures last couple of years, It has been a long time since I last painted mass 25/28mm miniatures units I'm talking about the late 1970's early 80's painting 25/28mm Napoleonic's regiments... ah the memories.... 

anyway on to the figures

A bit of a slog  to prep, clean and paint these buggers ;o) The two units of Swiss Pike Blocks for French Service? :o) mounted on 40mm x 40mm stands. Each unit consists of 24 figures 8 Heavy Pikes, front rank, followed by 2nd and 3rd ranks of 16 Light Pikemen. These units may be used with any rules sets, or for my conversion ;o) of Commands and Colors - "Renaissance" board game engine/system ;o)

I like the Old Glory miniatures and I'm thinking about getting more packs i.e. Swiss, Italian and the Landshnechts (did I spell that correctly? ;o) to enlarge the pike blocks from 24 figures to 48 figure.....anyway... um.. I'm not to sure but I may have botched the Pikemen color schemes. Do these guys look historical painted to you guys? After looking at some of my photos some of these guys should have Swiss "crosses" on their shirts and legs?