The Bits Box

Sunday, 25 February 2024

Genuinely Ancient Romans

This has got to be my most procrastinated project. My dad bought me most of these figures at the Armageddon show in 1982. Still better later then never. So, I now have a 15mm Early Imperial Roman army for ADLG.

Starting with the legionaries. These are armoured impact heavy Infantry in ADLG terms, based with 8 figures on a 40mm x 30mm base.

Next are the Auxiliary Cavalry. The Romans can have quite a lot of heavy cavalry. It's not as hard hitting as some but not bad. 3 figures per 40mm x 30mm base.

Plus some additional more specialist cavalry. A base of Cataphractii, who are heavy cavalry with impact, probably recruited from the Sarmatians, and a couple of base of Light Horse archers, Syrians or Judeans possibly. All on 40mm x 30mm bases again.

You get a lot of options with the main Auxiliary infantry but I have based them as medium infantry on 40mm x 40mm bases, they get impact and an option to be armoured. I have also done one base of bowmen to give a little long range archery.

Last of the troops are some light infantry Auxiliaries, four with javelins and two with bows. All 2 figures on a 40mm x 20mm base. All could serve double duty as supports for the infantry if needed.

For command bases I have these two below and the single legionary above. I might find another mounted Roman officer at some point.

All this gives me just a bit over 200 points, so there is a little room for fine tuning the list. I can always add some other options later if need be. All figures were from Minifigs except one officer that was from Essex miniatures.

Wednesday, 14 February 2024

Ottoman Vassals

This is the third batch of my 15mm Napoleonic Ottoman army. This time the units represent the forces of the empire's vassal states.

These Mamluks were a class of slave soldiers found across the middle east but especially associated with Syria and Egypt. They formed units of fierce cavalry and were famed for their skill and courage.

Palestinian or Syrian soldiers like these would have served in the armies of powerful Ayans like Jazzar Pasha, who fought Napoleon at the Siege of Acre.

These Delis are the sort of irregular cavalry found serving in the retinues of Asiatic and North African pashas and could be sent to fight for the Sultan when called.

Large numbers of north African Maghrebi mercenaries like these were recruited and found serving throughout the empire.

These figures were originally Cossacks, I think, but I have pressed them into service as some northern horsemen. Possibly Turkic Yoruks, Wallachians, Moldavians or some sort of Caucasians. All irregular cavalry in Blucher terms.

Lastly we have someone to lead them all to victory, a senior Pasha with a two-tailed tug standard in true Turkish style.

This is all I have completed so far. I still have a few additional units to paint up, but they will be added later.

Tuesday, 13 February 2024

Ottoman Irregulars

This is the next batch of 15mm Napoleonic Ottoman soldiers for Blucher rules. This time they are the irregulars. These troops would later come to be called Bashi-bazouks, a common theme of 19th century Orientalist painters.

The infantry are Balkan Arnauts, hillmen, bandits and professional mercenaries that would flock to the colours wherever there was fighting. With men like this Muhammad Ali, this one not this one, would take control of Egypt.

These are the last of the Timariot Sipahis. Once the backbone of the Ottoman field armies and the scourge of Europe they are now little better than a home guard of old men and provincial farmers.

The Ottoman cavalry was more typically now a mercenary force raised by the provincial pashas and greatly expanded with freebooters, adventurers and hangers-on in time of war. In theory every Muslim male Ottoman citizen was a potential soldier and many would join up with a captain of their choice when war was declared. These men were hardly an elite but such Ottoman forces could seem to spring from nowhere.

This last pic are some more Delis and a small field battery with old 15mm gunners. I might replace them at some point or add Snow White to the base.

Coming next are the vassal forces of the empire.

Friday, 9 February 2024

Ottomans Reborn

These poor 15mm Ottomans have been tucked away unused in boxes for many years. That was, until a few weeks ago when I played a game of Sam Mustafa's Blucher Napoleonic rules with a new club mate.

I liked the rules, so I thought I would re-base my long neglected Turks. The rules use big bases and are a large scale big battle game of multi-corps armies, with units representing regiments or groups of battalions.

This is the first batch of the re-based units from the Kapu Halki, the Sultan's household troops, starting with two regiments, or ortas, of Janissary infantry. The Janissaries were, by the late 18th century, a pale shadow of their former greatness but still formed the core of the Ottoman infantry.

The household regular cavalry had six regiments and were 10,000 strong in total under Sultan Selim III. These are the senior regiment, the Sipahis.

The next regiment are the Silhadars, or 'weapon bearers'. These first two regiments were double size.

The third and fourth regiments were the Ulufecis or 'salaried men'. These continued to wear heavy armour into the Napoleonic era.

The household artillery corps, or Topcis, had a mix of traditional pieces and more modern designs, often imported or made to western patterns. Sultan Selim tried to reform his army, against strong resistance from traditionalists within the empire. He was most successful with the artillery.

Next up will be the irregular forces like these light infantry from Albania, Greece and Macedonia, known as Arnauts.

Thursday, 1 February 2024

RCW Flags

Some Russian Civil war Era Flags that I think they were originally downloaded from this web site: https://krigsspil.dk/download/rcw/ which is now gone.

Uploaded for this LAF post here: https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=144313.0

Sunday, 1 October 2023

Old School RPG Thoughts

When I was young I was heavily into RPGs but, except for a few dabbles, I haven't played for a very long time. I do have friends who still play and periodically I read up on the latest developments, especially on the OSR 'scene'.

So this departure from my usual wargames posts is another nostalgic indulgence, and although it probably won't ever come to any kind of fruition, I wanted to collect together my thoughts on running an OSR style RPG game. Probably only for my own later review.

OSR Gaming

The Old School Revival, or Renaissance, is a an attempt to recreate the style of play from early RPGs, particularly TSR era Dungeons and Dragons.

It's a loosely bound movement that in many ways is searching for a lost past that never existed. Vainglorious fool's errand or not, this 'renaissance' has sparked a massive amount of creativity, much of which I personally like and feel an affinity to. The OSR now runs from early retro-clones like OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord to new divergent products like Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Knave and Mothership.

The early attempts to explain the OSR philosophy came from Philotomy's Musings on OD&D or Matt Finch's Old School Primer. Probably the most comprehensive statement to date is the Principia Apocrypha, David Perry's excellent assembling of OSR wisdom from Questing Beast Ben Milton and RollPlay: West Marches' Steven Lumpkin. Interestingly, the foremost champions of the OSR now are too young to have 'been there' in the 80s, and this probably accounts for the continued vitality of the movement.

For an in depth discussion of the OSR's philosophy and history see Marcia B's The OSR Should Die.

Rules

To run my hypothetical a game I would probably use my original B/X D&D books, the retro-clone du jour Old School Essentials, or a mix of OSR concepts and modern mechanics like ShadowDark, 5 Torches Deep, or Knave 2e.

West Marches

I would like to run a open world sandbox style of game with heavy emphasis on emergent play and exploration. This concept was so brilliantly explained by Ben Robbins, in his seminal blog posts, that the West Marches name is now the archetypal shorthand for this way of running a campaign.

West Marches (part 1), Introduction

West Marches (part 2), Sharing Info
West Marches (part 3), Recycling
West Marches (part 4), Death & Danger
West Marches: Running Your Own

West Marches: Secrets & Answers
West Marches: Layers of History
West Marches: A Survivor’s Story

West Marches: Finding the Dungeons

The comments below the blog posts contain additional material from Ben.

Matt Colville's video on the concept further revived the ideas by bringing them to a wider and less grognard audience.

Steven Lumpkin's collection of West Marches resource links is here.

The Wilderness, Hex Crawls & Point Crawls

Although the traditional style of play for such old school sandboxes was the venerable Hex Crawl, I prefer an approach using a linked matrix of locations joined by limited but intuitive paths. I think it was Chris Kutalik, on his Hill Cantons blog, that coined the name Point Crawl to describe this type of structure but the concept had been around for ages and is very much how Text Adventure Games or the Fighting Fantasy books worked.

Lots of Links

Here are some blog posts explaining the concepts and providing other handy GM advice for running sandbox or old school games.

Ars Ludi

Besides his iconic West Marches posts, Ben Robbins dispenses lots of great game design and mastery wisdom. Here are just a few useful links.

Situations not plots

Don't Roll, Think

Initiative: the Silent Killer

Bad Trap Syndrome

Bad Trap Syndrome (part 2), Curing the Bad Trap Blues

Treasure Tells A Story - This is a great concept that is especially useful for West Marches exposition and when combined with The Three Clue Rule can point the players to undiscovered areas.

The Alexandrian

Justin Alexander's blog is a mine of great material, far too much to list it all, but here, in appropriately Jennell Jacquays style, are a few entrances.

Gamemastery 101

Game Structures

Jacquay(s)ing the Dungeon - A must read for sandbox adventure design.

The Open Table Manifesto

Justin also has a book out soon, So you want to be a game master, which I have on pre-order and promises to be a nice synthesis of much of his blog advice. His Alexandrian YouTube channel is worth a look too.