Project Updates

1683 Vienna Project

I've been doing research for my 1683 project.

I picked up a couple of rulesets:

• Baroque is an Impetus variant. It has a few army lists, including Imperialists, Ottomans, and Poles.
• But I am most interested in Pikeman's Lament from Osprey.

It's really geared toward smaller actions, but I find the campaign system very intriguing. It follows the fortunes of your commander, as he leads a company through a series of actions, and (hopefully) rises in experience and rank. I'm thinking of creating an Austrian officer and running a campaign for him.

PL's force lists are geared for western European armies, but I found some online suggestions for eastern armies.

I currently have some 3mm figures that will do for cavalry. I placed an order with Magister Militum for some infantry and dragoon. I can do 1683 as a small side project.

Byzantine Project

I placed my orders for my Byzantine project. 

Miniatures will come from Magister Militum's 3mm line. Here is my shopping list:

Byzantines:

• Heavy/Medium Infantry will represent the skutatoi
• Skirmishing Archers will be light infantry
• Parthian Style Cataphracts will do double duty as Byzantine Cataphracts. At this scale, I can't really tell the difference
• Likewise, Parthian Style Horse Archers will do double duty as Hunnic allies

Sassanian Persians:

• Parthian Style Cataphracts and Parthian Style Horse Archers for the cavalry
• Persian Sparabara will be levies
• Skirmishing Archers as light infantry
• and Seleucid Elephants

I also ordered some terrain; the Roman Buildings from PicoArmor.

Operation Last Train

I wanted to order PicoArmor's Desert Buildings for my Operation Last Train sci-fi project. Alas, they were out of stock. I'll keep an eye out for them.

The 3mm Byzantine Project

For 2022, I decided to do a Byzantine project in 3mm. I created a new label, 3mm Byzantine Project, to record my progress.

Here are my thoughts so far:

Focus

First I needed to decide what era of the Empire's 1,000 history I should do. There were two main contenders:

• Basil II (976 - 1025) vs. Bulgars or Arabs
• Sassanid wars of the 6th to 7th centuries

Basil had Varangians but the Sassanids had elephants. Elephants win.

Army Organization

I'll use my MicroBattle rules with One Hour Wargame scenarios. I'll pattern the army organizations on the lists from Neil Thomas's Ancient & Medieval Wargaming.

For reference, here are the maximum units per troop type according to AMW.

• Byzantines – 6 heavy cavalry, 3 heavy infantry, 2 light infantry, 2 barbarian cavalry
• Persians – 4 cataphracts, 3 light cavalry, 4 levies, 4 archers, 2 elephants

Because OHW armies are 6 units and AMW armies are 8, I may reduce the above numbers accordingly.

Miniatures

I'm going to order figures from Magister Militum. I need to work out what packs to order.

I ordered two Osprey books to get a better idea how the armies (especially the Sassanids) look.

Terrain

Here are my ideas:

• Brown felt for the battle mat
• Cork hills
• Pot scrubber woods - although I don't know if I need many
• Rough ground? Fields? Probably use construction paper
• Buldings - I have my eye on these Roman buildings from PicoArmor.