The points system

Just thought I'd put out some words on the points system that I use as a basis for organising the battles that I am putting on the blog.

In the book Table Top Battles there is a points chart. This evaluates troop types of every era. For example;

Heavy Cavalry 4 points per stand, light cavalry 2 points per stand.

Assessing the size of an army to recreate we would at first look at the actual total say, 40,000. You can use this total in two ways.

1) 40,000 is converted to 40 points. This total is then divided by the individual points value of the stands making up the army

2) 40,000 can be converted to 40 points. This total can be doubled up to 80 points. This helps if you want to include more diverse troop types.
Each stand in this size of army would be representing roughly Brigade size units.

3) At another level, should you wish to recreate a small force of maybe 1000 men,
then start with 10 points and keep multiplying by 10 until you reach a level that recreates the force you want. This would consist of a number of platoons or companies.

Now, this works fine for an evening game playing a one off battle. The system also works for a pre-planned solo game but I had to change things around a bit when doing these historical battles. For example;

I want to recreate the battle of Waterloo in the near future ( we are painting the figures ). The cavalry of the French Army was 14,000. That's 14 points. I think there were 6000 Cuirassiers. Now, under the normal points system, a stand of heavy cavalry are 4 points so that would be one stand.

There has to be more than one stand of cuirassiers so how to get round the problem?
In the actual battle the cuirassiers, much as they were terrifying were not very effective so I downgraded them to 2 points each which gives me three stands.

Therefore I have the numbers, I still have the cavalry but ,as in real life they will not achieve a lot.

Another section of an army to take into account is the Artillery. This is always a bit difficult to assess. Very often the numbers of guns, their position and use in battle is blurred or completely ignored. This makes it hard to give a points value and to allocate models.

From my own perspective, if the total of guns is known I divide the actual number of guns by either 10, 20 or 50 depending on the size of the battle. The designation of Heavy or Light I assign depending on their function i.e. whether they were static or constantly moving.

The points total for the artillery are taken from the Infantry total. This is because;

Artillery personnel are lumped together with the infantry.
Infantry were sometimes assigned to the artillery to provide extra muscle to haul the guns about.

I have a generic sci-fi section which can be adapted for any era of mechanized warfare. Tanks have an attack and defense value which is added together to give a points value to the model.

Using the points system you can field a "Heavy " army against a "light" one. Within the Table Top Battle system neither side has an overwhelming advantage. Although die driven ( 12 sided) tactics and terrain do have some influence.

Above all, I am fitting this onto a 3 foot by 2 foot ( 90cm x 60cm ) board. The size of the playing area also has an influence on the size of the armies.

The battle of Manassas is a similar situation. Sigel,s Corp were all normal line infantry which would be three points.and would only be two or three stands.

However his Corps were deployed in a long line and despite hard fighting struggled at the railway embankment. So, I downgraded the stands to 2points each to give me enough stands to cover the position.

As you can see, the system is pretty flexible and adaptable to any situation. Having written that, I hope those battles I have presented and those I hope to do will give you ideas for your own interpretations of these events.

This photo is of Roman Heavy Cavalry. I made this group of four stands from Ceaser Miniatures Sarmatian horses and Hat horses. The figures are Hat with different heads. The lances are North Star Javelins ( 50mm ). As you can see the bases are four points each which means they are Heavy Cavalry. Each stand is used individually in a big battle, but could equally be a Regiment of cavalry in a smaller action.

Plastic n' Metal The Late Roman Era.

Well, I have an interest in the Late Roman Era.
I am not an expert painter of figures, and often I have been up against the clock.

Therefore my style is very basic. I use 20mm plastic, mainly Hat and some Miliart. I also mix in some metal Newline Designs as being 20mm these seem to fit  with the plastic figures.
I think a company called Tumbling Dice also make 20mm metal figures for this era.

To prep the plastic;

1) I wash them In warm soapy water scrubbing
them lightly with a nail brush.

2) I then assemble the figures with shields and spears, and attach any cavalry figures to their horses.

3) The figures are then glued to cardboard strips.

4) Next, I undercoat the figures with PVA glue. This can be watered down a bit. This stops the paint flaking off. I then leave the figures to dry.

5) Once dry, I completely coat the figure brown paint.

6) When the paint drys I go through the figures
putting on various colours.
Having wrote that, I use a minimum number of
colours and rotate them.

7) Once the paint is dry, I brush on some gloss acrylic varnish. Again I water it down a bit if needed.

8) I don't worry about flocking the base. I just paint a basic colour on.

9) Having done that, I base the figures.
It's basically (for me ) about getting the figures on the table.

Here are some illustrations;

These are a mix of Hat Goths and Miliart German Tribesmen.

Hat Industries Cataphracts. The Spears are from North Star Miniatures Javelins.

Hat Sassanids. The flags are scratchbuilt. North Star javelins.
The standard on the light cavalry archers is a dressmakers pin.
The round bases are 40mm mdf from Minibits.

These figures are Newline Designs Late Roman Infantry ( metal) painted in conventional fashion with North Star javelin.

These are Hat Industries Huns.

These are part of my Pict army. The cavalry are from the Hat Goth cavalry.
The chariot is from the Hat Celtic chariot box, using some twine for the reins.
The hooded crossbow are from Hats Enemies of Rome box.
The Pictish infantry are from Redbox and the archers are from Hat Saxons, part of the Enemies of Rome box.
Apparently it was not unusual to find Saxons amongst the Picts.

This was my attempt to recreate the Del Riata ( the people of the chariot). They had a thriving society on the West coast of Ireland and the East coast of Scotland.
The chariots are from Hat Celtic Chariots with converted occupants.
The infantry are from Hats Gothic Infantry. Over time the Del Riata merged with the Picts.

I found myself with too many Sassanids. This is because I had bought Hats Parthian cavalry before they released their Sassanid range! So the Palmyran army came into being!.
All from the Hat Sassanid and Parthian range. The standards are made from masking tape. 

This is Zenobia!. Made from the bottom half of a camel rider from a hat box of Arab camels and the top of a figure from a Hat Celtic Chariots.

Supply wagons and civilians. The middle waggon and mules are from Ceaser miniatures Roman Waggon train set ( I think there are 4 different ones).
The civilians come from the same sets as are the oxen. These look large but apparently this breed were large in real life. The spearmen are from Hats Gothic range. The wagon with the big wheels is scratch built. I used cardboard for the body.

The wheels are made from pre-cut sponges that you put on the bottom of chair legs.
They come in sets and sold in D-I-Y stores. Once I stuck them on, I painted them black
and painted on the rims and spokes. The Goths used waggon lagers and nobody make any. I'm hoping Hat will do some one day.

Sassanid War Elephants. These are from the Hat range. Hat were going to produce actual models but these went on the back burner. Those shown are from the Carthaginian set. The mahout is the body with a Sassanid head. The archer is Sassanid but I had to pack out the Howdah with a piece of eraser.
The heavy cavalry are Sassanids.

These were known as the Savaran. During sieges they fought dismounted.
In the field a Sassanid army was nearly all cavalry and elephants.

These are Newline Designs Goth Cavalry. The spears are North Star Javelins.
The standard is my own paint job on masking tape.

 Lastly, these are Hat Auxilliary Infantry. They could easily be used for later Goths or Saxons. As the Roman empire started to break apart foreign Auxiliaries struck out on
their own as they were not being paid.

That is the best part of this Era. You can mix and match western armies. In the 400,s and 500,s there were very few pitched battles. If there were more they went undocumented, so there is an opportunity for a few " what if " scenarios, especially
concerning the Arthurian legends.

Also, there is recent evidence to suggest that although the Federated troops broke away from the Roman Army some of the men had basic engineering or surveying skills. As people are finding out the Dark Ages were not so Dark after all.