More Progress...

My Byzantines, of course, must needs an opponent ... or two. I began with Bulgars, the arch-enemy of Byzantium for centuries, until Basil II Bulgaroctonos - Hammer of the Bulgars - over several decades fought them to a finish. Now, I built these 15mm armies for WRG originally, and very soon adapted them to the DBM game system - in my view a fine system wrecked by rules lawyers, over-frequent and ill-considered rules amendments, and a large margin in favour of who knows the rules best. But for mine, the main problem had to do with an unrelieved diet of one-off encounter battles against unhistorical opponents.  Win or lose - and, apart from the poor old Bulgars of whom I shall soon relate, I won more battles than I lost - I didn't enjoy the games. Boring - and I still believe that was not due to any fault in the DBM concept; it was they way it was used. Still and all, the figures can still be used for a DBA or DBM game with these guys. Or Hordes of the Things.

'Generic' barbarian army that might be Bulgar
or Abasgian (a.k.a. Georgian).

Unfortunately, my 'Barbarians', qua Bulgars, had to be the unluckiest army I ever owned. Even though 'irregular' according to the DBM system, they had very good heavy and light horse archer cavalry, and lots of them. Owing to the historical period I chose for it, their heavy spearmen were not so good, classed as 'inferior' to some average - Sp(I). That tended to mean that facing enemy foot, who generally were not (I), was a losing proposition. They weren't really solid enough to face cavalry classed as knights, either.

In one horror battle, my Bulgars were facing an enemy possessing knights and a war wagon or two (I have no memory what this army was). Doing well, too: my few light infantry took out one of the war wagons. Then a whole line of knights thundered down upon my line of spears.

Even though they were overlapped at one end, I reckoned my spearmen, though inferior, were on a winning proposition. So I watched in disbelief as just about the whole line vanished under the knights' hooves. Events such as these just plagued that army. Battle after battle saw one disaster after another. I'm talking winning propositions, here, rather than the occasional 'oops' moment that led to defeat. After beginning with a draw and a win in its first two battles, I think it was about Game 14 or so before it saw its next victory.

There was the occasion in which my line of LH(S) - 'superior light horse' - attacked an equal line comprising LH(F) - fast light horse - flanked by a fast knight element. The Kn(F) was the biggy - took him on, and destroyed that element. Fine beginning. So now I had the overlap, fast troops in their own turn count minus if out-diced ... this is heading for 'gimme' country...  

Nnnnnn...ope.  The enemy light horse held brilliantly and smote my horse archers hip and thigh, croup and fetlock. The whole line of LH(S) vanished at a stroke.  So, pretty much, did the command to which these light horse belonged. My Bulgar army fought well after that, but from that disaster there could be no recovery. 

And then there was the time when one of the commands had to traverse a tract of hilly country to get at the open plain beyond (I tended to be very lackadaisical about the terrain system!).  I could have chosen a better way than a long line, but I figured I could afford the occasional delay caused by a bad PIP die roll. I might have known. Half way through, the command stalled, and could not be got going again. To this day, I remember exactly the sequence of PIP rolls that kept a whole third of my army out of the battle:

1 - OK, we counted on that happening - a nuisance, but factored into our planning.
1 - Damn.  A bit unlucky, but don't reckon the delay too damaging.
1 - Oh, come on! Three ones in a row?!  This is getting serious.
3 - Yay! but not quite clear of the hills yet...
1 - WTH?!
1 - WTFH??!!  Curse you Red Baron, wherever you are!
2 - Too late, and enough only to clear the hills, and nothing more.

By this time, despite heroic deeds of valour, the rest of the army had succumbed to odds of three to two...

Well... you gotta laugh, eh? Or try a different army.

Light horse, and a rather motley bunch of 
heavy cavalry from a variety of sources.

So I tried them out - same figures - as early Georgians.  The heavy cavalry were classed as 'fast knights' - Kn(F) - rather than 'superior cavalry' - Cv(S); the spears ordinary (O) instead of (I), and the army included a useful contingent of close(ish) order archers as well. 'Fast knights' really denotes cavalry of no huge weight that are armed with lances, and like to rush up and to poke people with them. That army did very well - certainly won more battles than it lost. So the problem didn't lie with 'Irregular' vs 'Regular' armies, then! I rather think that, as Georgians, this was a better balanced army, that included an element of shock and a little bit of distant firepower, too.

These six light horse elements are I think Essex
Bulgar figures - very nice! They go well with just 
about any army requiring light horse. 

The thing with Dark Ages and Mediaeval 'Barbarian' types, is that the figures representing them are, within reason, fairly interchangeable. As I mention in my previous posting, you could also almost use Byzantine figures for Georgian heavy cavalry - they weren't so very different. My main unit of heavy cavalry I bought as Bulgars (Essex figures, I think) but in my view they serve very well, possibly even better, as Abasgians/Georgians!

I have no idea what these figures are except they 
simply add to the light horse contingent.

'Barbarian' heavy cavalry - very attractive figures
from (I think) Essex.  I was chuffed to discover that 
although they didn't use them (much) in battle, Abasgian 
heavy cavalry did carry bows and arrows. 
Used them mostly for hunting, I gather...

'Barbarian' close (loose?) order archers.  
Abasgians, these fellows.  Not a Bulgar type.

The Tsar of Bulgaria, or King of Abasgia,
according to occasion.

Barbarian light javelinmen fronting a unit of spears.
Several - not all - of the spears are pins. 
Great hazard to the careless and unwary.

More spears...

More spearmen - fronted by some rather 
crude and horrible light archers.

The whole ... 'army'

There's a little more work to be done on these
though they look fairly OK.

The eagle-eyed reader will observe that this army is a deal smaller than my Byzantine force exhibited in my previous posting. Hung up on DBM for so long tended to inhibit building this one aside from one order of 24 figures from Essex Miniatures and scrounging around picking up oddments from Bring-and-Buy sales. We're looking at 96 foot and 64 horse, not counting command. One hundred and sixty figures - the same number as my Byzantine infantry...