The Quiet Before The Storm

Where does time go, I was meant to do my army lists for tomorrow yesterday afternoon but didn't make it due to some priority map work, I was caught out by the Spam folder grabbing an important email and leaving me in the dark. Why would it take that one and not the others from the same source? Anyway the upshot was I was drawing until ten last night in order to get this project out of the way so I can relax over the weekend killing toy soldiers.

First up is the Saxons who will be fighting to Romano-British armies, both are shieldwall armies and very similar, I have the choice of two excellent bodyguard units and was tempted to have them both on foot to use as shock troops however the Brits can take a nice shock cavalry unit which is or could be King Arthur's knights so I have chickened out and split the bodyguard, one on foot and one mounted. I have noticed I do not get a lot of skirmishers with this list, which from a wargaming point of view sucks, but it accords with my thoughts on Dark Age skirmishers, so I can't really moan about it can I. So the army is typical, it has a couple of units of high class warriors supported by a core of average warriors and then some lesser mortals, young men (Geoguth) out to prove themselves and Ceorls (who would rather be elsewhere).

Now for the lads, the Thunderbolts, the fighting Twelfth. The Roman list like all the others for War and Conquest has been updated/modified and revamped recently, I had only briefly looked over it as Rob had included the Contarii unit I have been banging on about so I did not expect any huge changes. How wrong can you be. My cohorts now have to pay for a Centurion for each one rather than have him as a choice, so my expensive units are now more expensive so in competition games Veterans and Praetorians are further from my grasp. I will have to rely on the 'old reliables'. I also find that the slingers have disappeared from the lists, now these in War and Conquest terms are super troops or are most of the time as they get two shots to everyone else's one, so I have seen them grind down battle formations to almost half strength, we only use one shot in friendly games. So the Romans have a core of three cohorts and an Auxiliary one, the support troops are some decent cavalry, cataphracts and contarii along with some horse archers, javelins and archers. I am up against two Dacian armies and having seen the lists for the Dacians there is no doubt in my mind the Twelfth are up against it. Phil fought some practice battles during the week and he agrees with me.

I know people either love or hate army lists, I like them or I do when they are used properly to ensure the army on the field bears some resemblance to its historical counterpart and to me that generally means maximums and minimums for certain troop types with allowance for that odd wargamer these days who actually researches his army for a specific niche period. WAC army lists to me seem to be heavily weighted towards the better troop types, the lesser troops are there but you don't have to take them, hence you hardly ever see them on the tabletop, there are minimums with some troop types for instance I can only have one cataphract and one contarii unit or one bodyguard unit for the Saxons per 1,000 points, this I like. These are just my own thoughts on the matter and do not represent the thoughts of any person living or dead or comatose.

I will be off in a couple of hours and am looking forward to the good natured banter across a table groaning with alcohol and opinions, I have been dry for about three weeks now so will probably partake of a couple of pints myself.