DBA - Coming To A Blog Near You...

1. A Long-Expected Email

Today the very lovely Neil Parsons of Mount and Blade sent me an email announcing my DBA armies were ready. He included photos so I could confirm I was happy with his efforts (which I was). Now I only have to wait a few days for delivery, but here's what I'm getting:

Early Imperial Romans (II/56 from the army lists). I'm particularly loving those blue auxiliaries.
The figures in the background on a temporary card base are to man my camp (see below).

Ancient British (II/53 from the lists). A general in a chariot - what more do you want?

Total cost for both armies, including 15mm figures from Essex Miniatures, painting, basing and all postage, £127.26. Which is a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned. Neil charges 52p to paint a foot figure, and 92p to paint a cavalry figure. I think the photos speak for themselves - the standard is excellent and I hope to be using Mount and Blade again.

2. Camping It Up

Deciding I should do at least some work towards my new period, I have put together the required 2 camps. For the Romans a good old marching camp seemed to be the best bet. Now of course, a bit of Polyfilla and some cocktail sticks can produce you one for practically no cost if you want to spend the time. Predictably, I quickly started looking for commercially produced models. My favourite was a nice little product from Long Range Logisics. This was inexpensive and had the right proportions - 100mm x 60mm is my favoured size as it allows a Light Horse element to be easily accommodated. Unfortunately the purchase process informed me the item was a Special Order and wasn't currently available. Two emails to LRL produced no reply. Sale lost. LRL derive their name from being located in Thailand. Delivery times can be lengthy by current standards, but they have an interesting range of products. I hope you have more luck with them than I did if you deal with them.

Turning to the obvious alternative of Baueda, I quickly found their own Roman Marching Camp, which was unfortunately 40mm x 120mm, but looked fine. To cut a long story short it was purchased, assembled and painted, with the result shown below:

The log barrier is left loose to give more flexibility should the camp come under attack - its removal allows a Light Horse element to occupy the camp snugly. The model is about twice the cost of the LRL one, and comes as a kit of 9 parts. A good bit of sanding and filing is required to get a reasonable fit of parts, which I feel should not really be needed with state of the art production techniques. Nevertheless I am quite satisfied with the result.

Baueda had the right models for my Ancient British camp as well. I purchased a Thatched Straw Hut along with a Camp Cooking set. The hut might be a bit late in period, and I had to scratch off the medieval shield resting against its side, but the result is again pleasing enough. In this case the models were cast to a very good standard. I based the assembled bits and pieces on a 100mm x 60mm rectangle of mounting board.

The group of sacks and pots in the foreground are loose.
Removing them creates a space for occupying elements, enemy or friendly.

So now I await the arrival of the figures through the post, following which gaming will commence. I'll be sure to keep you informed.