Another Day in the LIbrary

December, in the year of our lord five hundred and ninety eight since his ascension to heaven, the sixteenth regnal year of the reign of Flavius Mauricius Tiberius, Emperor of all the Romans.

Today I returned to my search for the documents referring to this mysterious comes sareceni.  I believe I have found a cache of documents that are related to this story.  It seems that a certain church official in Aela had complained of incursions by the desert nomads into the villages.  Based on the notes I have found, Bishop Paul of Aela, convinced the comes of the Palaestina Tertia to lead a punitive expedition against the nomadic tribes southeast of Aela.  Based on what I have found, it seems that the comes gathered his Buccelaria and the local militia to form the basis of his troops.  Two units of Byzantine cavalry moving north to join the armies on the Euphrates border where added just before the forces set out on this adventure.  There is an obscure reference to an engagement being fought out in the borderland but at this time I have not located any sort of report.  I will keep searching... 

Unusual Documents in the Library

December, in the year of our lord five hundred and ninety eight since his ascension to heaven, the sixteenth regnal year of the reign of Flavius Mauricius Tiberius, Emperor of all the Romans.

Today as I continue my work of cataloguing the massive pile of documents found in the lower annex of the great library in Alexandria, I stumbled across a collection of scrolls addressed to a minor official in a town called Aela.  I am attempting to locate this place as I have yet to find it on any map.  That in itself would not have piqued my curiosity.  The first few scrolls I opened were mundane enough but in the third one I found a reference to a comes saraceni.  Tomorrow I will begin searching anew...

The above comments are the opening lines to story of a campaign that I am working on that will revolve around the Arabian peninsula in the 6th Century A.D. My focal point will be a fictitious Byzantine officer starting around 526 AD who is tasked with influencing the Pre-Islamic Bedouin and Arabian tribes.  I have almost completed the map and the campaign rules are progressing rapidly.  Next up will be to paint a suitable Early Byzantine officer to go on an Arab command stand to represent this comes saraceni.  Unfortunately, no one makes appropriate 15mm Pre-Islamic Arabs for this time period so I will be using a mixture of figures but mainly Khurasan 15mm for the Arabs with a few Forged in Battle and Essex miniatures thrown in to fill in the blanks.  My Comes Saraceni will be an Essex Late Roman officer while the remainder of the Byzantines will be Old Glory Belisarian figures.

Gateway to The Ganges

One of the many projects that I will come back to from time to time is this one.  I have almost completed enough Classical Indians to field three different 300 point Classical Indian Armies.  Shortly, I will have enough Hellenistics to morph them into Indo-Greek armies.

To complement these new figures, I am working on a  campaign that is set in Northern India just after the fall of the Mauryan Empire hence the name of this post.

The campaign rules are based on Jeff Jonas' Syrian Wars campaign rules found on his website, AncientBattles.com.  Although, his rules are for Warhammer Ancient Battles, I found them relatively easy to adapt to Field of Glory.  I am working on the map at the moment.  It will feature four 8.5 x 11 sheets forming a 2x2 master map.  Once I have it further along I will post it on the blog.

I might even be prompted to write a newspaper type series of posts to demonstrate progress.

Here is a picture of the host so far awaiting flocking.

It seems like I am all over the place with painting and foci so it should not be any surprise that my focus has shifted again.

After being contacted about the play testing of FOG 3, my interest has been rejuvenated.  I have managed to get three playtest games in so far.  1st game was at 600 points with Early Germans vs Later Republican Romans.  2nd game was 800 points with Early Germans vs Dominate Romans.  3rd game was 650 points with Sassanid Persians vs Dominate Romans.  Many new concepts and adjustments that are being considered and have renewed my interest in gaming in general and painting figures as well.

Hope to get some more games in in the future and to post some pictures as I go.

Having said all of that, it appears that that my focus has now been set on the Early Byzantine period.  Reading Ian Hughes book about Belisarius at the moment.  After a quick inventory of the mountain o' lead, I discovered I have enough lead to build an Early Byzantine list almost in its entirety.  I will need to order one or two packs from Old Glory but otherwise I am good to go.  I am already halfway done with the first battle group of regular Byzantine Line Cavalry (the average lot) and have started on the first battle group of Legiones.  If my reading inspiration keeps up I should be able to keep this going for a while.

Until next time, and who knows when that will be, enjoy.

Back to The Blog

It has been a while since my last post.  Since then my focus has shifted from Dark Age England to 1st Century BC.  I have been reading alot about the transition of the Roman Republic to the Principate.  Pen & Sword have published quite a few great books that cover this period and provide interested reading.

Roman Conquests:  Judea and Egypy by John D. Granger
Roman Conquests:  Asia Minor, Syria & Armenia by Richard Evans
Mithridates the Great by Philip Matyszak
Crisis of Rome by Gareth Sampson

These are just a few.  I hope to post more as time goes by.  Until next time...

Reading Blitz

My summer reading blitz continues with new historical fiction and the return of some oldies.  I heartily recommend them as good inspirational reading for the Viking Age.

The Norsemen Saga by James L. Nielsen (3 books and I hope their are more to come)
Fin Gall
Dubh-linn
The Lord of Vik-Lo
These three book are set in Viking Age Ireland and focus on a single crew of Norwegian Vikings under Ornolf the Restless, Thorgrimm Night-Wolf and Harald Broadarm.  These books include alot of intrigue, double dealing and violence.  The historicity might be questionable but Nelson spins a good yarn and I hope to add more books by him to my collection.

The Strongbow Saga by Judson Roberts (4 books for now but I believe another is in the works)
Viking Warrior
Dragons from the Sea
Road to Vengeance
The Long Hunt
These four books cover the life of ex-thrall Halfdan whose reputation grows among the Danish Vikings in the middle of the 9th century.  Thes books cover his near murder by a his notorious step brother Toke and his travels to glory and vengeance.  It is from the young adult historical fiction so it is a bit of a light read but still entertaining.

The seven books above I have read since the end of May along with a couple of non-fiction texts and a few more novels.  I will add the other books a bit later.

The Warlord Series/Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell (You can't seriously read Viking Age historical fiction without the master himself)
The Last Kingdom (Just finished listening to this one again on Audible)
The Pale Horseman (Just finished listening to this one again on Audible)
The Lords of the North
Sword Song
The Burning Land
Death of Kings
The Pagan Lord
I have read the first five of these over the last few years and the last two this summer.  I restarted the series on a trip to South Carolina through Audible but have all of the books on my shelf.  Cornwell has a newish book in the series (The Empty Throne) and another on the way.  I am waiting on the price to drop on The Empty Throne but I have plenty other books to keep me busy this summer.

Frenzied Painting

Work continues apace on the forces needed for Dark Ages FOG 300.  8 stands of Viking Huscarls are done as are 10 stands of Early Scot Thegns.  I will run them as impact foot.  Just need two more stands of these boys.  Working steadily on the Early Scot/Later Pict offensive spear and should have ten stands worth done soon.  Command stands for the Vikings and the Scots are done.  Thinking of using Viking Berserker figures as Galwegians.  These are medium foot so would work as Viking 3BL raiders for DBA 3.0 and Viking Raiders for ADLG (ack).  I hope to post pictures later this week.