Arrival and Departure

Last night I finished flocking my third DBA army--early Welsh. I have a soft spot in my heart for Wales and its people--some of my ancestors were Welsh, and I lived there for a few months--hence, this project. In theory, the DBA army list starts the Welsh at 580 AD, lumping everyone before that as Romano-British, but I wanted to model the men who lived in Wales then. King Arthur was, after all, Welsh! At least that's what the Welsh say. In any case, I painted a standard III/19a Welsh army, but my paint scheme invokes the 450 AD era, not that of 300 years later (Plus, now all I have to do is paint 6 more cavalry figures and I can morph the army into a Romano-British army if I want). Here is the full army arrayed.

Unlike my Early Samurai or Koryo Korean armies, the Welsh are one-dimensional. Line 'em up, charge into battle, and let God sort them out. It has 1@ 3xCV, 2@ 2xPs and 9(!) 3xWb. Here is a picture of the core units, the nine stands of Warband, with closeups to follow.

The Warband figures took the most time because I wanted to make each of them an individual. In the end, I repeated a couple of shield patterns, like St. David's Cross and a Celtic cross, but I'm pretty happy how they turned out. To emphasize the time period, I painted many of their pants with the striped design common among Ancient British (which is what the original Welsh were). Here are three close-ups of the front rank:

The helmeted spearman on the left has a shield emblazoned with St. David's Cross--yellow on black. St. David, of course, is the patron saint of Wales, so it seemed appropriate to put on shields, given how the Welsh kingdoms had turned Christian by 400 AD or so. The figure on the right has a Draco on his shield--the red dragon of Roman legionary fame that became the Welsh national symbol (and remains on their flag today). I know, it doesn't have legs, but the shield boss made drawing legs beyond my meager skills. The Draco figure is one of several Romano-British spearmen by Essex miniatures. The others are Welsh Spearman (also by Essex). Given the historical similarilty during this period, I figured it'd be okay to mix them. Overall, the Romano-British figures are slightly larger, especially the shields (which are convex, as opposed the flat Welsh shields), which made them more rewarding to paint.

I especially like how the two guys with helmets turned out. The blue/white/gold cross is apparently a historical Welsh pattern; the white with black/yellow cross is a late Roman design, but it fits so well with the St. Davids cross theme that I had to use it.

The helmeted spearman in the front is bearing a late Roman design on his shield. After the time I took to paint it, my wife says it looks like a clown's face turned sideways. <sigh> The figure with spear/sword behind him is actually made by Irregular Miniatures, one that I bought as an experiment. Not bad, but they don't have a wide range of figures for this time period.

Speaking of other manufacturers, the cavalry figures are from Lancashire games. Not quite as detailed as the Essex figures, but they look nice painted and they're cheaper than most other makers.
I like the middle figure best--King Arthur wielding Excalibur, of course.

Here are the army's flankers, two stands of psiloi. Originally I had planned on painting a Southern Late Welsh (III/19c) army with 8 stands of Longbow instead of the 9 stands of Warband, so I ordered a bunch of Welsh archers from Lancashire Games (along with the 3 Cav figures). Once I started research, though, I got caught up in the earlier period and switched, but these figures still work as skirmishers (I'm not sure what to do with the other 20 or so, though).

When I first unpacked them, I thought of Robin Hood, and I think they'd work well for most archers of that era. The most striking thing about the figures is how skinny they are. Not out of proportion, but just different than armored figures by other manufacturers. The figure on the far right is different; I'm not sure who makes it, I picked it up in a trade (the face does look like my Essex figures, but who knows).

The Asheville Club is planning a DBA day later this month, so maybe my boys will see some action...