Wednesday, June 11, 2025

DBA/Hordes of the Things: Medieval Humans

 


For years my maps for potential fantasy campaigns have had a placeholder country for "generic medieval people" tucked away somewhere, under the assumption that I could piece some sort of army together if necessary. But about this time last year, I started thinking that maybe it was time to paint up some of the figures I had stashed away and expand the handful of units I had into a real force.

As usual, this got a little out of hand.

I figured I would use one of the DBA army lists as a model but not worry too much about the exact figures or the descriptions in the list. I could just about piece together what I needed for a medieval French army with what I had on hand, mostly the old Accurate Hundred Years War Knights and Men-at-Arms. But then I needed a few more crossbowmen, so I got a box of the Italeri French Knights and Foot Soldiers. And then I ran across some of the English Knights and Archers at a flea market... and you know, wouldn't it be nice to have a matched pair of armies?

What I finally settled on was a sort of conjoined-twin pair of armies: two lists with a reasonable amount of overlap that can also serve as historical opponents for each other. (For the DBA aficionados, these were IV/64b Medieval French and IV/74 Free Company & Armagnac. All the dedicated English lists needed more longbows than I had even after my flea market acquisition.) So here at last are the armies of Florlys (blue and yellow) and Brimarth (red and white): 


Mounted general (3Kn)


Mounted knights (3Kn)

Dismounted knight generals (4Bd) - here there is some duplication so that I can play the two halves against each other. Also, I actually painted up some pavilions to represent camps for the two sides!


Dismounted knights (4Bd)

Spears and other polearms (Sp)

Crossbowmen (4Cb)

Brigans or men-at-arms (3Bd)

Longbowmen (4Bd)

Additional longbowmen as mounted infantry (Mtd-4Lb)

Skirmishing bowmen (Ps) - some ubiquitous Airfix Robin Hood figures here, representing something close to their native time and place for once, not converted into ancient Canaanites or Mesoamericans.

Peasant levy (7Hd) - more of the Merry Men here.


Painting time remains easier to find than gaming time, but I do hope to try out these armies against each other in the not-too-distant future. (The Florlys contingent has had some fantasy adventures already, facing off against orcs and the undead...)

4 comments:

  1. Nice work and great to see the Airfix figures still in action

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Yes, I have gotten a lot of use out of them over the years...

      Delete
  2. Hi Norman! Sorry for the late comment, but it has become increasingly difficult to write comments on blogs (including mine!) because of security parameters in Firefox. Now I use private navigation, and it seems ok... A lot of heraldry here, something very challenging in 1/72, and you did a very nice job!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it is very odd - I can comment in Chrome on my phone, but not in Chrome on my laptop!

      Delete