Making some custom Chainmail tiles

[clownboss]

Jul 10, 2017 17:17:32 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Um, hate to be harsh, but you're mixing periods like crazy there. Gendarmes don't appear before the 15th century, for instance.

It's bound to happen, which is why I'll gladly hear revisions. I can not devote my time to studying history while I'm drawing, as I want to finish these figures as quickly as possible, so until I get statistics presented to me, I will continue to make things up.

But I did take that possibility into account which is why the first army(the pre-arquebusier one) features lanceless gendarmes, which are essentially just weaker Heavy Horse troops. Therefore their lack of lance proves to be a huge detrement in the composition. You could just substitute them for any Heavy Horse or Medium Horse should you so desire.

[Deleted]

I think, if I may, that giving no information is better than dubious information. I really like your markers and want to support your work, but truthfully your army cards are quite inaccurate.

[clownboss]

Jul 11, 2017 10:52:30 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I think, if I may, that giving no information is better than dubious information. I really like your markers and want to support your work, but truthfully your army cards are quite inaccurate.

The way I see it, dubious information prompts people to take action and correct it. Sooner or later, some idiot such as myself is going to cause a mess, and it is good that the mistakes should be addressed and cleaned up as soon as possible, so that the community as a whole can learn from it and reap the benefits from this knowledge.

I was anticipating people fearing I spread misinformation and being a bad influence on kids, and I understand the concern and the moral weight of doing so. However, this is a set which I intend to finish, and so I will keep all the visual elements consistent. I'm making these markers and cards for personal use, because nobody has made them before, and it is only right if I share them with everyone to use the tools as they see fit. I think it's important adding a dose of accessibility and reference points to an already exclusive hobby, and since nobody has given numbers on how the units must be organised, then I will. I wouldn't mind at all if people dismiss and ignore them, but I'm certain there's someone out there who would like these cards and would want to make use of them, so power to them. They can also look up the 'notable battles' section should they want to learn from more historic circumstances.

That aside, I would like to thank you kindly for the compliment.

Meanwhile, here's some new content. I'm giving you the Army Commander figure in two variants, mounted and foot:



And also I'm introducing the Saracens(Arabs), in the first instance of something of a troop description from Chainmail, although even then, there is a saddening lack of percentages.

[Deleted]

Hey, as long as you're willing to accept that they're inaccurate, and are okay with correcting them later, rock on!

Once my shoulder stops hurting I've got a whole shelf of Osprey Men at Arms books to help with corretions.

Actually, I've got the books now, I just can't type much.

[Fearghus]

Hi, clownboss. I lurk and review your markers a lot, so I wanted to take a moment to compliment you on a job well done. Looking forward to seeing more.

[arkansan]

Fantastic work, as always. Great way for folks to get into Chainmail with minimal cash.

[clownboss]

Thanks everyone! Please be well, Mike.

This update is centered all around levies. Here is first a generic levy unit that is applicable in every situation. Point of contention being if they are all assumed to be armed with pikes or not, which is why I left it as a figure that could be interpreted either way.



Next we have Italians... pre-unification. So how do you make a cohesive faction system that encompasses a thousand years of complicated history between several sovereign and vassal city-states centered around a peninsula? You just can't. Which is why the Italians are probably more suited on a nation-to-nation basis, but I tried my best to concoct a fantasy scenario where all Italian states somehow banded together and provided all the best arms of their collective fighting power. As such, Italians get not one, not two, but three unique units.




You can tell I'm very biased towards Florence in the provided heraldry. Wonderful city.

Lastly we have the County of Flanders. I've made two variants of their levies, one armed with goedendags, and others armed with... well, longer goedendags, but they're stand-ins for halberds/pikes.






With this, I now have enough generic units to provide my second starter sheet which includes basic pikemen, levies, crewmen, wagons, and light and heavy catapults. The .pdf of it can be downloaded here.


Once again, this is meant to be printed on an A3 sheet with 300dpi.

[clownboss]

Man, that Genoese crossbowman sure is giant, isn't he? Once I finish my entire collection of custom units, I will have to perform some re-adjustments regarding size for all of these figures before I make a downloadable pack.

[Fearghus]

The starter sheet is excellent.

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2017 13:46:29 GMT -6 clownboss said:

Jul 11, 2017 10:52:30 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I think, if I may, that giving no information is better than dubious information. I really like your markers and want to support your work, but truthfully your army cards are quite inaccurate.

The way I see it, dubious information prompts people to take action and correct it. Sooner or later, some idiot such as myself is going to cause a mess, and it is good that the mistakes should be addressed and cleaned up as soon as possible, so that the community as a whole can learn from it and reap the benefits from this knowledge.

The trouble is, it doesn't. Inaccurate information never dies. "Knights had to be hoisted into their saddles with a crane," for instance, is total nonsense and has been known to be so for over a century. Yet you still hear that.

"Ring mail" and "banded mail" and "splint mail" never existed, yet you still see these terms 60 years after they were thoroughly discredited.

To quote William de Worde, "So, Mister Dibbler, when did you decide to start pissing in the Fountain of Truth?"

[clownboss]

That is absolutely correct, hence the immense moral weight of handling misinformation. At least I may be secure in the knowledge I always knew ring and barded armours were a myth.

I actually never heard of that crane theory before, or that it had ground among legitemate historians. Colour me surprised. I just simply thought it was... never a problem for knights to mount? It's something they would still be well-trained for, even for such a pampered social elite. Would a Hollywood actor want to look bad by not earning his driver's licence to show off his sweet new Ferrari?

[Deleted]

Well that's cheery, maybe that myth is dying out. It appears, among other places, in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," which for decades was a standard of high school English Lit classes, so it propagated that way.

I'm really glad you're taking my comments in the spirit intended. I don't want to discourage your efforts, but as somebody with an actual degree in history and two Masters' degrees, the necessity of firm citations has been pounded into me. Seeing casual tossoffs presented in the place of actual historical data is like chewing on tinfoil with a mouthful of fillings to me.

However, my lad, never let it be said that your old Uncle Gronan would hang you out to dry without any resources. Behold!

ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/period-books/medieval-warfare

Everybody should have at least a few of these in their library.

Speaking of library, never underestimate the public library as a source.

[clownboss]

I think the Osprey books are fantastic Mike, but I'm afraid I just don't have time to read through them at this moment. I'll gladly see to it if I happen to get into a part of my life where historical knowledge, or Chainmail games, do start becoming a big part of my life. My chief concern right now is to finish the units and the cards, so I can then devote my time and schedule to planning games for OD&D. I didn't even meant to provide so many graphical elements, but one thing led to another, so...

By the way, I'll be taking a 10-day holiday out to the country, and I am uncertain if I will be capable of providing updates during that time, but in case my posts die out, you will know what's holding me. Was thinking I would finish the three Asian factions until today, but right now I only managed to get the Chinese done.

On the other hand, I think my absence would provide an amzing opportunity for you people to provide feedback in regards to how unit compositions and ratios ought to be fixed, and if you're still aiming to compile your lists after retouching the Osprey publishings Mike, I would love to see them. After the Chinese, I'm aiming on making the Koreans, Japanese, Russians, Magyars, Poles, Tartars(sic), Mongols, the Spanish, and as cream on the top, the English and the Scots. Most of these already have compositions provided in the book which I intend to follow to the letter, but additional information, especially on the Spanish, English and the Scots would be very helpful.


So here's the last of my stuff for now. Do I have an order for one BASILICA BOMBARD?



And here are yer peasants, the weakest of the standard melee units.



Lastly, the first of my Asian factions, the Chinese, unique unit feature being the repeating crossbowmen:




The Asian factions make me want to draw regular troops such as the Heavy Foot and Light Foot in their Asian variants, but I have to refrain, otherwise I'm never going to be done with these updates. @_@

[Deleted]

My shoulder's getting better so I might be able to start posting info soon.

My personal inclination is that no information is better than bad information so I'd actually prefer no cards for armies you don't have firm data for, but that might just be me.

[clownboss]

The rest of the Asian factions are now complete!




The Japanese gave me an awful lot of trouble in terms of how I was supposed to interpret the relationship of the samurai, the longbowmen and the medium horse, and this was the best I could come up with. It's very counter-intuitive to have mounted samurai have a lower morale rating than foot samurai, but you can say it also provides a certain kind of depth and importance in using dismounted samurai. Or you could just say their horses are easily frightened : P

Here is the samurai unit, which I've also made in several variations depending on how it's equipped. I'm aware historic samurai rarely used swords in large-scale battles, but as is with horned vikings, I am willing to let my suspension of disbelief for an awesome wargame.




I am sorry I am so persistent with giving fabricated compositions, Gronan. But to me, at least, they provide a design element that needs to be accounted, and they also inform a loose guideline of how I envisioned the factions would be played like. At least these ones and some of the following I'm going to make have some grounding in what Gary wrote about them, so I hope they won't be... entirely inaccurate.

You have my promise that once the correct compositions are determined, I will edit every single post I made here with updated images.

And good news! I picked up one of the Osprey books, specifically Saxons, Normans and Vikings, in my anticipation of recreating the Battle of Hastings at some point.

[Fearghus]

Well done with the tiles, and glad you got the Osprey book. The Norman invasion is one of my favorite settings, and right about the technology level I like for D&D.

[clownboss]

^ I am currently cooking up an OD&D campaign, and I am actually including close equivalents of all the peoples mentioned in Chainmail, because I want to have an occasion to use them. Worlds will collide.

Meanwhile, here's my newest update!


Baggage! Loot, moolah, swag, whatever you want to call it.



While I was making the Polish card, I've realised they had seperate melee and bowed Light Horse, so to mark a difference, I made a hasty edit with a generic LH bowman. In the rest of this update, I hope you're ready for the Eastern European fever!

[clownboss]

Not a lot this time.

[Deleted]

Where are the laden carts to carry the baggage?

[clownboss]

Aug 14, 2017 11:40:08 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Where are the laden carts to carry the baggage?

You used laden carts? Oh okay, I guess I'll draw one in the next update.

Although there are still the wagon counters from earlier which can also be used as substitute.

[Deleted]

That works, yeah. Are the baggage chits sized to sit on the carts? That would be awesome. Mayhem ensues...

[clownboss]

I didn't know which dimensions to use, so I used an ordinary man-sized base. 0.75'' per side. I don't know how baggage looked like or how it was utilised during gameplay.

[Matthew]

With regard to your earlier halberd question, yes I did assign the benefit of halberds to the Huscarls, yes only for 1:20 scale, no not for using the man-to-man tables. As for the reasoning, a halberd can be short hafted or long hafted (for Gygax's view see the AD&D PHB where it is listed as 5'+ as compared to the battle axe 4'). In an abstract game like this, you will often see "heavy weapons" treated similarly, for example in Field of Glory. As for historical mash ups, I would be totally comfortable with HF/HF (Halberd) huscarls versus AF/AF (Halberd) Men-at-Arms, it would be a total slaughter regardless.

As a side note, you can find a lot of translations of "dane axe" as "halberd", but that did not affect my thinking outside of being an amusing coincidence.