Side Duels Update FOUR!

G'day All,

Welcome to the penultimate Side Duels Update for Challenge XIII. The final instalment will be delivered post-Challenge completion when all entries have been tallied. Don't forget to submit your entries!

PLEASE submit each update separately and only after your submission is live! If an entry qualifies for two or more Side Duels, that's two plus Side Duels forms to submit too. It makes it much easier for me to accurately tabulate your scores as I can filter the sheet by the selected Side Duel question. Thanks!

Here's the current standings...

A Squirrel a Day

The squirrels continue to rain down. Hurrah for squirrels! Chris W - 54, StuartL - 40, KyleC - 21, KerryT - 20, MartijnN - 12, MikeW - 9, AdamC - 7, PhilH - 7, BenitoV - 4, JezT - 4, everyone else zero.

Carausius Emperor of Britain

PeterD has walked away with this. Clearly he has struck his fellow duellists dumb as his score of 343 is the ONLY score.

SPQR

MattW has continued building on his lead to 755 points, with Peter D (176) and SimonG (100) now seemingly too far behind to catch him.

Turnip28

CurtC's turnip obsession had continued to reap, um, more turnips? He's now on 387 points. AlanD remains on 169, PaulOG on 160, StuartL on 115 and Barks has decided he prefers skulls to turnips and sits on 0.

Neverending Cold War

DaveD continues to show just how cold a war can get, climbing even further to 1,098 points! That's a serious cold front when the barometer goes into four figures! MattW is on 104, SimonG on 94 and DavidB is on 0.

Airbrushes at Dawn

KyleC has extended his lead to 8 points, Curt's now on 4, DavdD is on 2, DavidB on 1 and everyone else is still yet to airbrush anything at all.

Codpieces & Ostrich Feathers

Feathers are flying with KerryT now up to 995 points, MikeW is stalled now on 461 and ChrisW (200) has been passed by CurtC with his total of 216. Everyone else? Still nada...

Terrain du jour

Despite Miles not submitting his entire island I'm going to concede the Terrain du jour title to him. Congrats you terraforming nutjob!

TFL America 500

PhilH has claimed victory but I've not seen a single score logged by any of the participants. Shameful! We'll call this a technical knockout and leave it open for a challenge if his fellow duellists can find the energy to call him out.

Cheers,

Millsy the Duels Wallah

KenR : Just for Peter - 28mm Spanish Italian Wars Infantry (110 pts)

Its been all about the ships this Challenge, which was supposed to be a massive purge on my Spanish Italian Wars pile of metal opportunity. I'll let you decide if its been a failure or not.

So as its the last day for our hard working Minion, who has been nagging me for some Italian Wars stuff all Challenge I thought I would do a last Monday Post for Peter, with some of the elusive Spanish.

This is my progress to date on my first Colunela which will end up being 60 figures, 32 Pike, 16 Shot and 12 Sword and Buckler. I've managed to get 12 S and B and 8 Shot done so far and hope to have the whole Colunela done before Challenge End.

The figures are from the relatively new North Star Range and are based on my standard 60 x 50 bases with 4 figures for a Shot Base and 6 for the Sword, so thats 20 x 28mm Foot figures at 5 Points each giving me another 100 points.

Brewing for the Free for All Weekend I hope to finish this unit off, finish the Prinz Eugen and I also have a bunch of 10mm Malburian I have been doing on the side to put in for scoring.

That just leaves me to thank Peter for all the hard work he has done as our Minion on the Monday Crew. This Challenge only works due to the volunteers like Peter that make it happen, so thank you 👍

My gosh Hell Hath Freezeth Over!  I wouldn't have nagged you if you didn't keep promising them.  But definitely worth waiting for.  These are an excellent bunch of efficient looking Spanish infantry, ready to loot the Italian boot. I am not familiar with the North Star range but will be checking it out shortly.  Love the basing too.

Since you did it just for me I've upped your points a bit.  Now give us the rest of the unit.

Flank Speed to the End of Challenge XIII!

Hello Fellow Challengers!

Just a short note to remind you that the end of the Challenge will be at midnight (CST) this Sunday. 

Also, the last two days of the Challenge (this Saturday and Sunday) will be 'Free Fire', meaning you can go bonkers submitting last minute entries leading up to the the finish line.

Now, let's organize our paints and clean our brushes for the last sprint to glory!

- Curt

From Curt: 10mm Pistoliers for Warhammer Fantasy (III of VII) (48 Points)

Thank you Peter for letting me under the red lanyard and muck in with the rest of your Monday crew. Also, hats off to you for once again serving as a faithful minion to this barely organized madness that we call The Challenge. I forever enjoy your clever pulp posters and Tuesday greetings, and you always have something thoughtful to say to each of your charges (and sometimes its even nice and helpful). ;) Thanks again mate, you were terrific.

Okay, this post number three to my ever-expanding Empire army. Today we have a regiment of Pistoliers trotting into line as reinforcements. 

These guys are basically the Warhammer equivalent of Renaissance 'Reiters'. Historially these chaps would use their heavy pistols to roll up and attempt to break up enemy formations, softening them up for the charge. Usually they would be in fairly tight, regimented formations called a 'caracole,' but these fellows are in a more flexible, skirmish formation. 

Again, I put in a clump of trees for a bit of fun (and it saves me from filling the base with figures). 

Aaand a gratuitous, as-it-stands-now, group shot of the force.

As to points, there are 16 of these Reiters in this unit, which should give me 48 points.

Thanks for popping in for a look. Maybe see you tomorrow with another reinforcement for the Empire!

- Curt

I do like these guys Curt, they have some added style to the normally utilitarian Reiter look.  Excellent basing and tree too.  I look forward to riding these guys into the dust on table.

Happy to Minion MONDAY for you Curt. My MONDAY crew is a great bunch who've produced some top shelf work and two Minions' Choice awards.  Nothing like that unruly bunch that Tamsin fails to control on Tuesday.

From DarrellH Byzantine,Tagmatic (Nikephorian) Kataphractoi (170 points)

Almost certainly the most attractive of all the units in an early 10th CE Thematic Byzantine army are, of course, the Kataphractoi. Fully enclosed in many layers of armour, invincible like a middle ages version of the battle tank. Well, not quite but that is certainly the impression they were meant to have on the enemy. One Arab soldier poet described the Byzantine horses as having no legs! 

The soldier would first place a peristhethidion (padded armour) over his torso and down to his waist and elbows with metal splints added to his legs. Next would come the kremasmata (padded skits faced with mail or lamellar/scale armour). A klivanion (lamellar/scale armour "vest") over the peristhethidion (padded armour) followed by manikella (upper arms splints of mail). Splints would be added to the lower arms and finally a padded helmet with a 360 degree aventail was placed over the head. All of this covered with a final layer of padded armour in the form of the epilorikion. The soldiers horse would be similarly armoured; the two making a truly fearsome unit.

The main armament of the Kataphractoi was the matzouka (heavy mace). This weapon was significantly heavier than most hand weapons and clearly designed for smashing armour, crushing bones and devastating the soft tissues of the human body. Each soldier would also carry a parmerion (curved sword) and a heavy spathion (sword) as well as number of back up matzouka (heavy maces) attached around his waist. Contrary to popular belief the Kontarion (a lighter version of the earlier Kontos) was not used by most in the wedge and only by those on the flanks. It makes sense, the whole idea of the Kataphractoi and the Blunt Noses Wedge formation was impact. Also, the aim was to spread as much terror and confusion into any enemy formation unlucky enough to get in the way.

I have modelled the miniatures in the unit as two ranks and in the Blunt nosed Wedge formation. Much ink has been spilled out into the pages of the Byzantine military manuals (which I have read) on the subject of the the Blunt Nosed Wedge formation and I will not attempt to go into any detail here except to say two things; i/ that the formation was designed to deliver maximum impact at a certain point on the enemy line which could then be exploited by the Kataphractoi or the accompanying cavalry units and ii/ archers were placed in the center of the formation and arrows would be loosed as they cantered into combat. The archers were less well protected than their fully armoured compatriots (a necessity if one wants to be able to loose a bow unencumbered).

These formations were extremely expensive to maintain and were actually only used in relatively small numbers.

Regarding the painting. I have attempted to make all of the units in this army quite uniform. This certainly would not have been the case with units from the Themes but, given that the Tagmata units were armed and equipped centrally by the State a degree of uniformity is least possible, but certainly forgivable. I have attempted to give the bards in each unit different patterns. This, I think has come out well enough though I have to admit to sweating it out when painting the very first unit! 

Hopefully I have captured some of what it would have been, en masse, the equivalent of a medieval tank!

The Single Mini's and Bases:

So, that's 16 Cavalry models at 10 points a piece = 160 points? 170 for all the extra work on armour and details.

Saved this for the last!  More amazing work on these Kataphractoi Darrell.  The colour choices are really striking and the amount of detail that you include unbelievable.  I hadn't realized that the brain crushing mace was preferred over the Kontos at this time, but the sheer wight of man, horse and armour must have been enough on its own.

I've really enjoyed your Early Medieval projects this year Darrell.  Sounds like you have plans to get these on table during 2023 and I'd be really interested in seeing an AAR.