I think the proposal would be a good idea and i'd be keen to try out either at an event or elsewhere, though the impact against peers such as ancient greeks would need thought/testing against to ensure this doesn't give the macedonians an unreasonable advantage.  The MeG macedonian/sucessor armies have felt drastically more narrow compared to ancient greek armies - to the point where trying to re fight chaeronea or the like has always felt off as the macedonians can just be enveloped by a much wider greek line - which does not reflect as far as i'm aware what we know of relative frontages in history.

Fantastic painting as always - you give them a huge amount of character and variation even with a necessarily limited colour palette for steppe chaps. Taking note of your horse colours to stop me just using a brown wash on mine next time I have a load of horse to paint

Fantastic. Those sarissas look intimidating at 28mm scale. Pikes at 45 degree ish angle seems the best compromise re being able to rank up/move adjacent their opponents versus looking a bit like they're ready for a fight

Not quite a full phalanx but a start. Thanks for the painting tips PUNCH

thanks Nik, Gilles,

green/teal colours mainly based on the osprey men at arms re nikephorian infantry. unsure frankly re the realism of teal etc in dye technology of the area but it looked good and not so much the muddy browns of a typical dark ages army...

more to follow now i've tidied them up after literal/metaphorical stompings at C&C..

Pechenegs




so far used these in combination with the prokoursatoures for shooty cavalry. tactics need work.


Cataphracts






standard added via a glob of green stuff for a bit of visual differentiation/emphasis - medieval warfare vol II, issue 6 had a cover image of a standard bearer for the Athanatoi unit that was a bit of an inspiration.


Tagmata cavalry







kite shields for tagmata/round shields for themata cavalry was my system for visual differentiation that i cpied off others on the forum - bit unclear what type shields were used, though round shields seem to be the older type being phased out through the era covered by the nikephorian byz. plus trying to make the tagmata look a bit glitzier


Normans





the more i read about the normans the more I think they were a bunch of racketeering bastards. useful charging/fighty cav though. my attitude to them is probably appropriately byzantine. worth paying the points for melee expert.

Themata cavalry




I tried to make the themata equipment look more monochrome and also less uniform (as well as being more dusty) than the elite tagmata. though how much thematic forces were out and out farm boys is a bit unclear and probably changed. not a huge fan of charging lancers - too much command control/holding charges for cav that aren't hugely resilient in extended combat or being shot at

Varangians







Had some fun with the shield designs thanks to acrylic fine liner pens. Useful (/essential) reinforcement to the infantry line to stop the other infantry getting chopped up. expensive though. a bit like the normans, cataphracts and tagmata they need to be the better quality option from the list as well as melee expert or they're not really worth it. didnt take these to C&C but then its an expensive army and you makes your choice...etcetc. probably are in my next nik byz iteration.

Nikephorian Byzantines (and possibly some troops for a Komnenian/ Nikaian army in future) - the Byzantines that have cataphracts *and* varangians have always seemed like the 'proper' Byzantines to me (even if historically this cross over of the two troop types didn't last all that long) - pretty much entirely Forged in Battle Nikephorians. citadel/vallejo paints.

Documenting ahead of their first big outing at Cross & Crescent comp before a literal or metaphorical stomping has an impact on their finish



Generals - FiB miniatures - from the thematic range for fib, with almond shields added rather than the bucklers the figures have to be a bit closer to probable nikephorian era armour, fabric banners are LBMS, icons/shields hand painted from osprey sources/as best as I could decide would look fitting for nikephorian byzantine. C in C has a couple of lurking varangians to pick him out - a Basil II or a John Tzimiskes maybe. you can't quite see it from this angle but i've stolen aetheling's idea of used magnetised 'discarded shield' markers to indicate generals quality (good for list tweaks and wounded/stunned generals).






Byzantine camp - I think probably this would be more likely red velvet (skylitzes manuscript indicates this anyway) due to the prohibitive expense even for emperors of that amount of purple fabric - but it looked right to me at the time. snorri of the varangian guard can be seen informing his colleague sveyn that there's enough gold in the chest at his foot to get all the girls in his home town to lift their skirts to him (twice, if he goes to olfjord) and while the big wigs are off to fight, why don't they commandeer some mules and make good their exit...





Skutatoi - quite like being able to shoot and to an extent block charging cavalry with the mixed archer/spearman format - however their fragility in this format means they'll work well as blockers/pinning troops if closely co ordinated with the rest of the army or get fairly quickly cut to pieces. Painted with the help of Mr Spence's excellent speed/efficient painting tips - base colours and then nuln oil - a maximus army (even a high value small one like this) is more than a bit daunting for a beginner/pacto scale player.




FiB Menulatoi - 'cataphract killers' with spears made from cut down saplings - historically used to run out from the infantry blocks last minute and form a front line against heavy cavalry - they can be taken as a separate unit in support of light infantry or the assumption is that they're integrated with your skutatoi, giving them shieldwall, useful against charging cavalry / dev chargers - tbh outside of special scenarios i can't see using these as their list description as if they're a separate unit the skoutatoi lose the shieldwall characteristic - i'll use them as Armenian mercenaries to visually distinguish them a bit.






Prokoursatoures - i quite like them as flexible shooty mounted troops - I just need to get better at using them (rather than have them caught and cut to pieces or squashed on the edge of the table... )

Very nice. I'm currently wondering the best models/colours for vardariots too. The Magyars are a nice choice sculpt wise - close enough to the look of the rest of the army without being just standard armoured horse archers. I wondered about using
mix of tukopouloi cav/Turkish types as they're re settled Turks aren't they? Though the amount of "Romanisation" of arms/armour/dress is probably unknowable. Can't see how armour over knees/legs is a massive deal breaker

Fantastic - you're an artist. Particularly like the character of the vignettes. Don't envy your re basing woes

👏good to see the Niks making a good account of themselves

Fantastic, it's an era/area I'm in complete ignorance of currently

Apologies, PUNCH. - this probably not worth the wait, now UK lockdown allows me to visit my old family home I managed to dig out one foundry 28mm phalangite sans sarissa (painted approx 15+ years ago), plus some Greeks who I think were to use the Macs as allies for WHAB or similar. It looks like the ranks need some dressing/organising too... potentially there's a force for a 28mm magna army there, though 15mm Alex Macs/Hellenes is the most tempting project thanks to your earlier pics

Thank you for the help and suggestions - I didn't want to be skirmisher-less as they're useful meat shields / for in rougher terrain but probably the list's gone too far the other way. Good point re Varangians/slavs in 6 s - maybe they're a bit fragile. I also hadn't thought about a fortified camp but it's probably a good idea for such a comparatively small army that will probably be engaged elsewhere. The byzantines look a bit fragile and difficult to use overall but it's a favourite era/civilization of mine (especially the one featuring both Varangians and cataphracts) so there's enough pay off in that. Onwards with painting up endless cav...

hello chaps.

(apologies if this is in the wrong area/forum) I've had a go at doing a Maximus list for the Nikephorian Byzantines as (hopefully) attached. As I haven't really played much beyond pacto this is very much a theoretical exercise. Any input/suggestions for tweaks/notes of silly mistakes much appreciated. Plan was for CinC to be floating and gifting cards/mediocre general to hold a refused flank with shooty horsies or give them two units of scary stuff to hit the enemy hard with while the other chaps distract/block...in theory...



Jamie



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Outstanding as always.

Re varnish I've used GW munitorium varnish (ok, but has frosted in me the odd time) so I'm looking to try out other/ cheaper matt/possibly semi matt alternatives from paint factory or the likes. Though I might add extra coats of brush applied Windsor and newton gloss over 'metal' areas to give them back a bit of sheen

Excellent as ever - like those cavalry . what's your preferred flag/banner material/technique? These are applied to fully painted miniatures? I've used foil so far for LBMS transfers/hand painted designs and can't decide if it's the best option.