Monday, 22 March 2021

Norman Infantry

 I am still hoping later in the year to put on a Battle of Hastings game. When I decided to start planning I discovered I had a few more Norman infantry lurking in a box. Fairly old second hand figures (Gripping Beast I think) picked up secondhand sometime, of course they will also be able to fight in Al Andalus and although nothing spectacular they bulk out a force ok. The banner was a spare left over from a conquest knights box.

Norman infantryπŸ˜€

Jonathan’s recent post has me thinking about scale and as I happened to be in the Dungeon I took a picture of two of my favourite storage boxes.
28 mm German Armour, what’s not to love although expensive and no space for the other Stug or the Panzer III I have yet to make up.
My 6mm German Armour a smaller box and lots more tanks ! Now don’t ask which I prefer πŸ€”

I appear to be over the vaccine and played another game at the weekend which I need to post πŸ‘


33 comments:

  1. So, which do you prefer: 28mm or 6mm?

    I am looking forward to seeing what you do with a Hastings battle. The terrain on the video that Norm shared looked impressively steep.

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    1. Now I said don’t ask ! It would be a hard choice, as mentioned before there is no perfect scale for WW2 they are just different. Even in 6 mm 4 Tigers is pushing it. Have been doing some planning for Hastings, and thinking it through we might even see two versions one smaller 6x4 version and a larger shed game. I need to do a figure count. The terrain I can manage ok think Breed’s Hill but wider.

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  2. Great work on the Normans Matt and as you say, can fight in Spain and other parts of the Mediterranean. At times I do miss the detail and conversion opportunties that 28mm gives, but frankly space prevents me even considering this now. 10mm or 6mm all the way now!

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    1. Thanks Steve as I mentioned on Jon original post, I think at heart we all know that 28 mm is a fantastic scale, most of us are then constrained in other ways, time, space, storage which means it makes much more sense to drop a scale or two. A good example for me is my SYW project. Where the idea was to game more complete battles, this makes much more sense in 10 mmπŸ‘

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  3. Normans look great. Good to catch up at the weekend

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  4. Like the Normans, very nice work on the shields (as always). Is that to be a 'Kings of War' Hastings game?

    Torn between scales,perhaps we should start a society or some-such!

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    1. Hastings will almost certainly be Kings of war. It provides that slugfest dark age combat, where I need to test is resilience of units and special rules. We have found in the past that in KoW when you have two lines of troops they are very resilient as the unit that wins and breaks the combat is then faced by a fresh unit and so on. The challenge as several games I have searched out is getting the balance for the normans giving them a chance, when their numbers are roughly equal and the disadvantage of attacking uphill !

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    2. I’ll join your scale dilemma group πŸ‘

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  5. Natty looking Norman's there Matt.

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  6. Those Normans look superb. The old GB models are still some of my favourites

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    1. Thanks Neil, they stand up pretty well in bulk armies πŸ‘

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  7. Grand additions serving more than one purpose too! There are sizes other than 28mm? Shurely Shum Mishtake?πŸ˜‰

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  8. Wow, gorgeous Normans, impressive details on them!

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    1. Thanks Phil simple paint job really πŸ‘

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  9. Glad you're feeling better.
    Somehow I can't like Normans and am currently painting Saxons to fight Vikings. If you do Hastings I hope the Saxons win!
    Stephen

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    1. Thank you , yes better now the vaccine has worked out of my system. Something mean and nasty about the Normans.....everyone preferred them when they were vikings !

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  10. Great looking Normans ....I had to laugh at the previous comment about not liking Normans...I kind of get that, although they do look nice...a bit like Nazi Germans really! I have never really gamed below 15mm and even that has been mainly WWII unless using my mate Julian's medieval collection occasionally. The micro armour does look quite nice and fully understand the advantages of the smaller scale models...including storage!

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    1. Thanks Keith.......clearly we need to ask the question what the Normans did for us ? as for scales yes the smaller scale works really well for some larger WW2 battles we play (not for ages) on the eastern front where it is perfect.

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  11. Lovely Normans Matt...
    I’ve always liked these old Gripping Beast figures...

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly they have a certain character and fill out the ranks ok, but are showing their age !

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  12. Lovely Normans and armor, Matt. I once played a small skirmish game of Malfosse using Lion Rampant. Worked out nicely with a lot of terrain issues.

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    1. Thanks Dean, after your comment I admit I had to go off and check out Malfosse so thank you for educating me πŸ‘

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  13. Looking good. What rules will you be using for Hastings?

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    1. Thanks David the plan is to play with Kings of War I want and like simple rules that don’t get in the way of the spectacle and narrative of the game. We have used it for larger dark age games before and it gives a good sense of a slugfest between blocks of troops. As I mention above it works especially well when you have more than one line of troops as it is rare for the unit to break through

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  14. Those look great Matt, looking forward to Hastings.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks Stu I just need to count up some number now.....or just keep painting till I run out πŸ€”

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  15. Very cool Normans! I love me some good Normans. Curious about how you will do Hastings; my own project stalled years ago but has been on my mind lately. πŸ˜€
    Glad you’re feeling better as well. Lots of people I know had a hard time with the shots.

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    1. Good to hear it Stew. The more I think about it I may actually run two games one smaller to test things out and then a larger game later in the summer outdoors. I probably have enough figures for the first in my own collection but the plan had always been to combine with a gaming mate to allow a really big scale game.

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  16. Good looking Normans, but like lots of others I'm not keèn on them! Lovely German armour and the small stuffs pretty good too!
    Best Iain

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