Dark Ages Bibliography

I don't know whether or not others will find it useful, but I thought I'd put together a list of references that I've found useful (or even not so useful) in putting together my Dark Ages stuff.

I've deliberately left game rulebooks and supplements out of the list. These are specific to whatever setup you use, and having a pile of rulebooks for something you don't play probably isn't useful.

Anyway, on with the list.

Wargames Research Group

Armies of the Dark Ages, Ian Heath, WRG
Probably as near an indispensible reference as there is, in my opinion. If you really could only have one book, this would be a compelling choice. Follows the usual WRG format of an overview of the armies of the period, potted battle histories, plus a huge number of black and white line illustrations with informative captions.

Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome, Phil Barker, WRG
 Arguably a bit too early, but contains a good deal of stuff that is both interesting and useful, especially for an early Dark Ages player.

Availability of WRG books seems to be a little bit hit and miss, but they are well worth investing time hunting down on Ebay.

Osprey

The various Osprey series probably needs no introduction. I bought my first MAA book about 27 years ago and have carried on ever since. Don't expect tremendous depth from a book with only 48 pages, and you are usually not too badly disappointed. The colour plates of course can be a great source of inspiration. Particular volumes I've found useful include:

MAA154 Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon Wars, David Nicolle and Angus McBride.
Becoming slightly dated as the archaeology and its interpretation has moved on, but still a solid source, especially the late Angus McBride's plates.

MAA247 The Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine Michael Simkins and Ronald Embleton
Useful as a source for Romano-British armies.

Warrior 17 Germanic Warrior AD 236–568 Simon MacDowell and Angus McBride
A very broad subject indeed, but MacDowell provides a useful jumping-off point for more detailed research. The illustrations have proved very useful indeed.

Warrior 50 Pictish Warrior AD 297–84 Paul Wagner, Angus Konstam and Wayne Reynolds
Very little is written about the Picts, so the choice of references isn't large. The illustrations are useful, but not in the same league as McBride's work. Whilst I have unashamedly used this book on many occassions, given the very sketchy source materials the authors have had to work from, I have lingering reservations about how truely authoritative it can be.

Warrior 9 Late Roman Infantryman AD 236–565 Simon MacDowell and Gerry Embleton and
Warrior 15 Late Roman Cavalryman AD 236–565 Simon MacDowell and Christa Hook
The influence of late Roman tactics and equipment, especially armour, on Dark Ages warfare, is profound. For this reason alone both of  these books are worth having. MacDowell's written work is very good, clear and authoritative. Unfortunately the illustrations do not equal it, in my opinion. I do not especially like the style of either illustrator, and whilst the colour plates are useful, I have not found them as easy to work from (for example when sculpting helmets) as similar offerings from McBride or even other work by the same people.

Warrior 5 Anglo-Saxon Thegn AD 449–1066 Mark Harrison and Gerry Embleton
Very useful. Harrison's written work is a good starting point, and Embleton's illustrations are useful, certainly better than his work on the Roman Infantry. I think this is currently out of print, but worth seeking out.

Fortress 92 Strongholds of the Picts, Angus Konstam and Peter Dennis
Interesting and useful, with illustrations and text that are very handy for applying to the general principles of how Pictish fortresses might have been constructed. The black and white illustrations are in many cases too small to be helpful and are merely tantalising, but the decent bibliography allows you to get to the originals.

Fortress 80 British Forts in the Age of Arthur, Angus Konstam and Peter Dennis
 Konstam  and Dennis's works are useful if sketchy sources, and could use a more brutal hand with the editing in a number of places. However, the descriptions and the colour plates are fantastic as source material and inspiration for building model fortifications.

Fortress 56 Rome’s Saxon Shore, Nic Fields and Donato Spedaliere
Text OK, generally informative, illustrations not too great at all.

Academic Sources

I make no pretense of having any academic qualifications in this field (I'm a chemist), but it is gratifying to find the volume of academic work available that there is. Some disciplines appear almost to hide their work from the lay reader. None of the sources mentioned here are in very heavy going - anyone who can handle the work of Phil Barker will be all right.

The Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament, Professor Rosemary Crump
Part of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, and available on the web here. An essential and very accessible guide to Anglo-Saxon stonework, invaluable in producing wargame buildings.

The Hebridean Iron Age: Twenty Years’ Research, Professor Dennis Harding
If you want to build a Pictish structure, read this paper. A fantastic piece of work, available here.

Symbols of protection: the significance of animal-ornamented shields in Early Anglo-Saxon England,  Tania Dickinson. 
A great guide to early medieval shields. Less detailed than Dickinson and Härke's co-authored work, but easier to find.

The Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite: an interdisciplinary analysis, Heinrich Härke
A guide to who was buried with what, and an attempted to rationalise why. If you want some evidence for why most men had spears only, this is it. 

I'll update this with new references and new sections as and when. I hope it's useful to someone.

Enjoy!

Anglo-Saxon Characters

Finally, the characters and command for my Anglo-Saxon (Anglo-Danish) army.

The (Wessex) Wild Bunch

These are all actually Vikings from Crusader Miniatures' Dark Ages single figure range. I would (and have) argued that as Anglo-Danes the difference in appearance is negligible, and besides that they are really nice minis.

As expected from Crusader, these are good, solid figures, strong looking and well animated. The appearance is of well-equipped, well-dressed men which nicely fits the role I have for them. No flash and minimal joint lines as per usual made pre-paint preparation a doddle. Paint was quick and simple and because these are the focal point of the army I splashed out on shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios. If you haven't tried these before, give them a go. They're very easy to use and the results speak for themselves. Steven Hales at LBMS is a really helpful guy and their mail order service is exemplary.

This specimen is the Eorl acting as leader. The Eorl of where varies (see below). Irrespective, most of the time he's going to be with the standard bearer, close to the huscarl unit slap bang in the front and centre of the army.

I'm in charge!

These two are Eolderman, and would be expected to be at the front, attached to whichever of the units of thegns or ceorls needs bolstering at that moment.

Lastly, the other Eolderman acting as army standard bearer. This is where the comment about Eorl of where exactly comes in. By a bit of jiggery-pokery and drilling down into the base of the figure, I can remove the standard and replace it. This way, I can ring the changes between the armies of Wessex (see above), Mercia and Kent, all of which have small but significant differences that give them a range of strengths and weaknesses, making it that bit more fun. Wessex is at the top, and here are the other two.

Gimme me flag back!

So here they are as Mercians, with the eagle and saltire.

Lord have mercy!

And Kentish men. Or men of Kent. Or both...

Invicta!

Finally, here's a couple of group shots, from other angles, just for completeness.

Enjoy!

Crusader Miniatures Scots Skirmishers

What it says in the title. I finished these just before the computer died and so couldn't post them.

These come as a pack of eight, with shields but no weapons. The website shows four pose options, but the pack was rather a disappointment in that I got four of the same pose! Since that sort of uniformity looks so wrong in a rabble like this it was out with saw, scalpel and greenstuff to change arm positions, hair and add a hood to one. I added hand weapons as well, a mix of swords (home cast scabbards fixed in place and embellished with greenstuff), axes (ex-Gripping Beast) and daggers (sculpted in situ with greenstuff).

The javelins are brass wire hammered and ground to shape (the pack doesn't include spears), and the shields are a mix of the large Crusader examples from the pack plus spares of various shapes and sizes taken from Black Tree, Newline and Gripping Beast figures undergoing restoration. I'm not unhappy with the end result.

Well, here they are. The first unit of my Pictish army to take to the table.

Enjoy!

More Artwork

At long last, some actual progress!

I've been working on these for a little while as part of my Anglo-Saxon command and characters. These are banners for three of the old Saxon kingdoms / earldoms.

At the outset I suppose I should point out that these make no pretence of being historically accurate in their actual execution. The period in question predates true formal heraldry by rough a couple of centuries at least (depending where you put your timepoints exactly), so I'm guilty of anachronism and artistic licence at least!

Anyway, on with the artwork. I used PhotoShop to do the shadows and highlights. Since my old Iwata bought the farm I no longer have an airbrush that's up to that kind of work.

First up is the gold wyvern on red of the Earls of Wessex. This is W&N ink on Bristol board. Whilst it appears there's no evidence that the wyvern was specifically identified with Wessex at the time, its actual existence and use is definitely attested to.

Second we have the white horse on a red field, the Kentish Invicta. There's a supposition that this is derived from the banner carried by Horsa the Jute. Ink and watercolour on Bristol board.

Third and last we have a flag for the earls of Mercia. The cross of Saint Alban, yellow on blue, has a long association with Mercia, and the silver double-headed eagle was actually attributed to Leofric of Mercia in the period in question. The superimposing of the two is all my own dirty work I'm afraid. This is acrylic and ink on Bristol board.

Please feel free to copy for personal use, if you feel that the ahistoric status of these banners is something you can swallow! If not, well, the rest of my army is as historically accurate as I can make it, so as Max Malini said: "Honest to goodness, I only cheat a little!"

Enjoy!

Had a buy-up

Just bought three reference books on Arthurian matters:

Leslie Alcock's "Arthur's Britain" and "By South Cadbury That Is Camelot" and "Camelot and the Vision of Albion" by Geoffrey Ashe et al.

Note to self: write out one hundred times "I must NOT start modelling the South Cadbury fortification reconstructions"...

WAB Pictish Army (Part 1)

In complete contrast to my Anglo-Saxon army, here comes something completely different.

If this army is labelled as Pictish, it would be suited as such for up until about AD900. After this point, it becomes an army of the Kingdom of Alba. The differences in appearence, equipment and so on would have been very small, and in game terms it makes very little difference either. 

The strengths and weaknesses of this army are pretty much the opposite of the Anglo-Saxons. Where one is weak, the other is strong.

One great strength of a Pictish / Alban army is its mobility. Nearly all troops have a base movement of 5, so skirmishers can absolutely roar across the table and be in places the enemy might want to be before they're out of the starting blocks. This is amplified if you take the option of using cavalry. I have, as the temptation is too great to avoid. A largeish force of light horse, equipped with javelins and hand weapons, can run rings around ponderous footsoldiers, and will make mincemeat of any unit that breaks.

Another advantage is that this army tends ot have a lot of missile troops. Although javelins predominate, short bows and even crossbows (during the Pictish period) mean that an attacker potentially has to trudge forward through a hail of fire before ever getting to grips with an army that can go on evading him all day long.

Finally, troops are cheap. You can place enough men into the field to turn the game table black. The downside of this of course is that it isn't a cheap army in monetary terms! I was eagerly awaiting Gripping Beast's plastic generic Dark Ages troops, but found that Miniature Design Studio troops will get round this problem.

The biggest single disadvantage is the parlously low Leadership rating of most of the troops. Although you can put a huge army into the field, it's a swine of a job keeping them there! You need to go out of your way to put characters with units and / or use every single bit of rank advantage you can. Fighting a mobile battle, using missile fire and hit and run tactics helps, but if a unit of spear gets into a tussle with a group of Saxon Thegns, there's pretty much only one result.

The other great disadvantage is a dearth of well-armoured infantry. There is basically a single unit of armoured troops (the Toisech) allowed to you in the core units. If you want to, or can afford to, or are willing to swap the cavalry for them, you can add some heavy infantry through the Dogs of War options available.

Most troop types only have bucklers for protection, so against an enemy with missile fire, you can find your large army evaporates very quickly...

As a Pictish army, the spearmen can be designated as pikemen. Whilst this provides an advantage in that they are pretty much guaranteed to strike first, it's worth remembering that pikes and bucklers are a poor answer to heavy infantry. This disappears with the changeover to Alban, along with the crossbow (unfortunately).

Back in business!

Guess who's got a new computer? Plenty to do getting it ready and fully up to speed, but hopefully should be back to normal in a few days!