Byzantine Intrigue

The first of the new series and I am hoping that the Arab Conquests and the Crusades feature in due course.

You may recall that a whole ago I picked up a copy of the latest Richard Borg Command and Colours game being the first title for the Medieval period. The scenarios in the game covers various of the battles the Late Romans/Early Byzantines fought against the Huns, Goths and Sassanid Persians. There is certainly an overlap with the Ancients game but the Medieval version, whilst similar in many respects has more than sufficient, dare I say it, ‘Medievalness’ to make a noticeable difference in game play. This is the era of the cavalryman holding sway over the battlefield and the game reflects this with the mounted arm being more effective than previously.

For my own part my interest in this period is limited and if truth be told probably owes much to the novel Count Belisarius by Robert Graves and the WRG books on the Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome and the Dark Ages as anything else. The main reason I acquired this game was for the  inevitable expansions which should cover the period of the Arab Conquests and the Crusades which I am far more interested in. GMT Games (the producers of C and C Medieval as well as the Ancients and Napoleonics series) tend to produce the base game which has everything you need and the expansions which are not usable on their own. They also tend to add in additional units that would complete earlier armies so in order to ensure that one is fully up to date one is almost forces to buy each expansion as it is released for completeness. Cynical marketing ploy? Perhaps, but then I couldn’t possibly comment....

I have a couple of books in my library covering the wars of this period of history and indeed, many moons ago was looking to prepare an Arab Conquest Army (25mm Minifigs) for use with WRG 6 th edition. I never got around to this but an army consisting solely of Irregular A fanatics would have been fun to use!

Coincidentally, at least coinciding with the not-so-recent release of C and C Medieval, comes the following batch of goodness to be released next year by the Plastic Soldier Company.

The rules....

....the first army....

....with the first of the opposition....

....some really useful barbarian types...

....with some marauding light horse.

The army box sets are in 15mm hard plastic and the plan is that they will be launched at Salute next year although the pre orders will be available beforehand. 

You will have probably worked out where my thoughts are heading with this  - using figures instead of the blocks from the game - and I have to say it is a tempting option. I will look forward to seeing the figures when they are released and it is something that I suspect I may well be looking long and hard at. If the Plastic Soldier Company expand the range available to include the Arabs then it would be an absolute no brainer.....

...And I have absolutely no brain (at least the willpower portion of the brain that is!).