Scratch Built Orky Deff Dread

I need more Dredds for my Big Mek Dread Mob. I try to make each orky vehicle different because da Meks don't use production lines. This little beauty is scratch built from all sorts of odd bits. I have gone for an upright look to contrast with GW dreads.

I always give da dreads close combat weapons and a burna - useful for winkling grots out dere hidey holes.

Note da sensa pack on da top.

Rear view wiv da heat exchanga for blowing off spare gas. Spare gas build up in a dread is a real problem, especially if the pilot has been on da squigg beer.

 Side pic showing power drive on da main cutta arm.

Against a GW dredd to show the scale.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Lazy sunday afternoon in Kent.


The crack of Leather on Willow.

And if Willow gets fed up you can always watch the village cricket.

British Army

I had forgotten how tedious it can be painting rank after rank of historical soldiers. Still, at least the Celts are colourful with bright striped clothes and decorated shields, to say nothing of trophy heads hanging everywhere. Celts are really the archetype Orks, heavy boozers, quarrelsome, violent, always up for a rumble anyplace, anywhere, any odds. They either fight in warbands or at speed, cavalry and British chariots and the tactic is to charge straight in and take a wild swing with an oversized slashing sword. The Romans by way of contrast were disciplined heavy infantry, well armed and heavily armoured, but the Celts usually had numbers on their side – assuming they could stop smashing seven bells out of each other first.

I have been rereading Caesar’s Gallic Wars and it struck me how like a Guard versus Orks the battles are and what a good 40K campaign Caeser’s conquest of Gaul, and his raids on Germany and Great Britain, would make.  Now there’s an idea.

This is the British Army in about 55BC, but it occurs to me that after the next round of spending cuts.......

A close up of Celtic shield decorations.

Models are plastic 28mm from Warlord Games and Wargames Factory.

Only three more warbands, a squadron of chariots and a couple of extra sub-generals to go.

Henry Moore

This is a Henry Moore sculpture that I photographed recently at Hatfield House.

I have to say that I do not see the attraction of Moore. Perhaps I am just a Philistine. What do you think?

The Battle of Watling Street

The  battlefield layout for the Battle of Watling Street between the Romans and the British.

The History

"A treacherous lioness butchered the governors who had been left to give fuller voice and strength to the endeavours of Roman rule."

Gildas the Monk

“Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The photo above shows the battlefield layout for the Battle of Watling Street between the Romans and the British.

Somewhere around AD60, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Roman Britain, was leading a campaign against the island of Mona (Anglesey) in north Wales, which was a stronghold of the druids.

In Norfolk, the Iceni and Trinovantes rose in revolt under the leadership of Queen Boudica. They attacked Camulodunum (Colchester), the former Trinovantian capital and at that time a Roman colonia. They burnt the city to the ground.

Quintus Petillius Cerialis, commanding the 9th Legion Hispana, was ambushed in the Stour Valley on the Icknield Way to the west of Colchester. His legion destroyed. The commander and a handful of cavalry fled.

Boudica and her warriors marched south, torching Verulaimium (St Albans) and London and killing the inhabitants with great brutality.

Seutonius concentrated units of the 14^th Legion Gemina and 20^th Valeria Victrix with all available auxiliaries where the Fosse Way meets Watling Street. The 2^nd Legion Augusta was down at Exeter and Seutonius summoned them to march up the Fosse Way to the rendezvous, but they unaccountably failed to respond. The Roman army was just ten thousand men.

Sutonius chose a position where his flanks were anchored and the British would have to go head to head with the legionaries, the best heavy infantry of the Ancient World. Cuttle Mill in Northamptonshire appears to match Tacitus’ description best although no battle debris has been found.

The size of Boudica’s army is unknown but was probably about twenty five thousand. There were many camp follows and the Celtic wagons full of women and children were drawn up across the battle field to hem the Romans in.

The Celts charged and were stopped by a massed pila barrage, then the legionaries stepped forward to begin the slaughter. The Celtic warriors were hemmed in by their numbers and their wagons such that they could not swing their long slashing swords. They were exterminated.

The Roman Army:
A: Governor Seutonius
B: 20^th Valeria Victrix. Three units classed as 'green'
C: 14^th Legion Gemina. Four  units (one small) classed as 'veteran'
D:  Auxilliaries. Two units (one small)
E: Gallic auxilliary cavalry


The British Army:
1. Three generals (one is challenging Seutonius to single combat)
2. Four Warbands (wild fighters)
3. Large Warband (wild fighters)
4. Celtic cavalry unit (large)
5. British Chariot Squadron


Rules:
Hail Caeser
Standard unit frontage 10-12 cm frontage, infantry10-12 models, cavalry six models

1. The Romans held their ground and allowed the British to make the running and close. 
2. The British  advance into the 'funnel' and the British line gets compressed, the left wing outrunning the rest. The crack 14th Legion and the auxilliary cavalry charge.

Astonishingly, the chariots (1.) and large British cavalry unit (2.) are broken  by the outnumbered Roman attackers and flee. A battle rages on the new British left flank (3.)

1. Cohorts of the 14th push back the engaged warband.
2. The auxilliary cavalry turn to engage the next warband down the line as it is charged by fresh cohorts of the 14th.
3. The remaining cohorts of the 14th march forward to plug and opening gap in the Roman line.

1. The large warband charges through the gap and hits the unengaged cohorts of the 14th which manages to take the shock without breaking.
2. Cohorts of the 20th prepare to support.
3. The warband on the Roman right is forced back.

 

1. Cohorts of  the 20th charge in to support the 14th leaving only the auxilliary infantry on the left as a reserve. The warband is huge and capable of absorbing losses.

2. Attacked to the flank by cohorts of the 14th and charged to their front by the Gallic auxilliary cavalry, the right flank warband breaks.

Seeing this the remaining warriors lose heart and flee, to be cut down in their thousands by Setonius' troops.

Roman Victory - as it occured in history.

Hail Caeser worked brilliantly allowing Shaun and I to play out a wonderful historical recreation with modest numbers of 28mm figures on a home table. Shaun laid out the battlefield and, I think you will agree, did a grat job.

As an aside, I live alongside Watling Street where it runs south of the Thames.

 

"Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway."

Prince Albert commissioned a large bronze statue of Boudica on her chariot (complete with anachronistic scythes) from ThomasThorneycroft. It stands by the Thames in Westminster by the Houses of Parliament. The Rebel Queen who fought imperialism became a symbol in the Capital  City of an Empire greater than Rome. Thus are we mocked by the gods.

Pontic-era army

I have added a cuple of elephants to my Anatolian Pontic-era army.

From left to right:

Two Galatian (Celtic) warbands.
A unit of Galatian medium cavalry.
A unit of Iranian spear/bow-armed medium infantry.
A unit of Iranian medium cavalry
A unit of Iranian bow-armed  light infantry.
A unit of Iranian horse archers.
Two Hellenistic elephants.

A nine unit army in all, which would use an Iranian-Hellenistic general and possibly a Galatian sub-general. Quite a small army but one that presents tactical challenges as it lacks any heavy troops to act as an anchor. Elephants are a mixed blessing. This army will need clever tactical manouvre to survive contact with Romans or a Hellenistic Pike army.

The Warbands are Warlord Games, the rest Wargames Factory, and I don't know who made the Elephants as I bought them for a very reasonable price second hand on eBay.

Another Triumph for British Education.

They are shutting down Classical Studies at Royal Holloway, London University.

But don't worry. The taxpayer will still be supporting courses in surfing, kite flying, curry making, and endless media studies degrees in various ex-tech colleges, where presumablythey train you in phone hacking, blagging, and bribing policemen. So much more useful than the training in plumbing, electric, building etc that they used to give.

Another triumph for British education. It appears that the windbags in the House of Shame are determined to do to the universities what they have already done for state schools.