Ed's new army for WAB!

Ed McDonald chief witter monkey to the Beast is a collector of WAB armies. When he approached me to do some painting for him I asked him to pen a few lines as to why he picked that particualr army. That sort of stuff interests me, what was his inspiration.

So enough from me, over to him:

So there I was, perusing toy soldier websites to see what was new, when I got toGripping Beast's website (www.grippingbeast.com) and saw some greens of a new range of British and Welsh Kingdoms that Soapy had been sculpting for the Beast in anticipation of the release of Steve Jones and James Morris' "Age of Arthur"Warhammer Ancients Battles supplement.

Having seen some early drafts of the book, I knew it was going to be fab. Steve and James are wargamers after my own heart and James' El Cid supplement was great so I knew that when Age of Arthurwas released I was going to have to have an army from the book. The only question had been: "Which one?" and this was answered the Soapy's shiny newgreens...

For those of you who haven't got the book (and shame on you, go out and buy it immediately!), Age of Arthur deals with the armies of the British Isles between about 400AD and 800AD (the start of Shieldwall). Included in the book are listsfor the Romano British Civitates, the British and Welsh Kingdoms, the Saxons,the Picts, the Scots Irish and the Franks.Now, usually the word Welsh makes me run a mile. Apart from Wales being theonly corner of the British Isles to which I have no (albeit tenuous) connection,my experience of the Welsh seems to involve large, smelly, beer swilling rugby players picking on me (it's a long and sad story and probably best left foranother time).

(Dave - Ok, good welsh folk, write to him about that bit not me)

Thinking about it, I can only think of three good things ever to come out of Wales: The song "Men of Harlech", Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mad NickB...So, having decided on on the army, now I had to decide on what will be in the army.

Steve and James suggest in the book that a good size for an army is 1500points and that this plays well in period on a 6 foot by 4 foot table. I am a big fan of in period play and find that generally speaking this is the way WAB works best. However, I also like the odd "Open Tournament" (Dave - odd????) which are usually played at 2000 points. Because of this I will work out a 1500 point base army and supplement it with another 500 points.
(Dave, he's flash like that!)

Looking at the book, the British and Welsh Kingdoms list is split into a number of periods. My favourite is theBritish Kingdoms variant as I like heavy infantry instead of light infantry,plus your king can be "Old King Cole" and, most importantly, it isn't Welsh!!!(Dave- oh, oh he's having a pop at the Welsh again...)


I'll definitely need a number of characters to lead the army, but I'll get to them at the end. Let's start with the "Boys". (Dave -Boyos?) Every British King would be accompanied by his close retainers, his Teulu, so I'll need a unit of them. As they are rock hard they are correspondingly expensive in points, so I'll stick with a unit of 24 with command.

In addition to the Teulu, the bulk of the army would consist of Combrogi, basic warriors with spears and shields. I think I'll have 2 units of these, one on either flank of the Teulu. As they are a lot cheaper points wise than the Teulu (but no where near as good!) the units will be bigger and I think I will have them in units of 32, plus the obligatory command.These three units will make up the core of the army and add up to about 1000 points.

Steve and James have added a neat little twist to the usual way characters arepresented in WAB through adding "Character Advantages". This means that you can spend points to buy abilities for your characters. They can either be things that affect units, such as making the unit they lead stubborn or allowing rank and file to upgrade their armour, or they provide the character with a combatadvantage once in the game, such as extra attacks or strength. This makes characters a little more important than in a typical classical army and you can spend 1/3rd of your points on them. As such, I'll get a king, plus an army standard bearer as a minimum. I can probably afford another character or two,so I'll add a Bard at this stage. With the rest of the points available, I'll buy as many Pagenses (skirmishing shortbowmen and Javelinmen) to support the army as I can. (Dave - & he did!!)

The above has taken the army up to 1500 points. To expand the army I think I will add some mobile troops, as what I have so far is quite static. To this end I'll add a couple of units of 12 Combrogi cavalry. Not only are they light cavalry and thus add a little flexibility to the army, but they are mounted on Gripping Beast's spangly new "shaggy ponies"!

Finally, I'll add a couple more characters, a minor lord (who could either lead a unit of foot Combrogi or a mounted unit), plus a Christian Priest. The British at this time were very Christian and it was a major feature of their society, so he'll fit in quite nicely.

Et voila, a British army! Now the only problem was, am I ever going to paint it?Here, the ever redoubtable Dave Woodward of Ever Victorious Miniatures came to the rescue and off the figures went in the post to him. I can't wait to see theresult...


Edward G. McDonald

England

(not Wales)