Friday, 14 March 2025

From EdwardG: a miniature DBA points bombe (540 points)

 Hej hej all,

As is my standard, I have been working away at painting an army for DBA. This year, I'm back to 28mm (having stayed in 15mm land for the past few challenges). 

These chaps are for all intents and purposes a bit of a clearing project. There are about 6 or more different manufacturers and all of the figures come from left overs of previous projects. They're painted and based to fit a Danish Leidang DBA v3 army from ~1250AD. They have with them some German knights who can join as an ally.

The army will be an interesting one to play, as it has a solid core of very heavy infantry, with the options to have a not insignificant mounted wing. Compared to other armies in the competition which favour one or the other much more. 

Starting with the General's element. These are classed as Knights in the DBA rules. Painted with the Danish Royal family coat of arms (the yellow was a real pain!) 




Next up are the Danish nobility. Unlike other European countries, Denmark had not so much in the way of nobility. The shield patterns are a mixture of known noble families, and the tree commune symbol from Areo island. It's the island where my wife and I were married, so holds a special little place in the heart. They are again classed as Knights under DBA rules.




The German Allied knights round out the mounted that I have painted this challenge. These are possibly the only bases that come from a single manufacturer. All 6 being Fireforge knights. I had given up trying hand painted shields by the time I got to these figures. So the shields and horses are adorned with printed heraldry. A little crude, but the effect isn't bad. 



Now on to the foot. 

The main backbone of the army are 8 bases of Heavy Foot. Each base should have 8 figures, but on one base these wouldn't fit. So it's 7 bases of 8 figures and 1 base of 7 figures. They are a total mix of many different manufacturers, and I won't even try to list them! 







A quirk of the army is the inclusion of "Freelance Vikings". Not sure how many Vikings were still about in the 1250s, but I've made the base as it's in the list! Their black shields denote their lack of allegiance to any lord or commune. They're classed as fast melee foot, so can be very useful in hunting down bowmen or similar lighter troop types. 




Speaking of lighter troop types, the final parts of the army consist of Bowmen and the skirmisher troops. Most of these are a little bit kitbashed, except for the Gallic bowmen who were found at the bottom of a box and have been pressed into service as Finns.





Last but not least, the style of the campaign means that each player needs a figure to represent their location on the map. In the end I have taken the heavy foot figure that didn't fit on to his base and made him that player marker. 



A closing group photo of the army in all its tray based glory! 


I hope that this is not my final post for the challenge. Fingers crossed time allows for a few more figures to make it through the painting queue! 

Points total:

84 x 28mm foot figures = 84 x 5pts = 420pts

12 x 28mm mounted figures = 12 x 10pts = 120pts

Total = 540pts

What a great project, Edward! All these units are very fine, but I like the knights with their hand-painted shields (although I can fully undestand that you gave up on the shields halfway!). And yes, yellow is notoriously hard to get right, but I think you nailed it. I'm not sure what Teemu would think of your Gallic Finns, but they seem to fit the bill rather nicely. As do your slightly outdated vikings. A DBA army to be proud of! I'll throw you some bonus points for the hand-painted shields, so 545 points will be added to your tally. Well done!

Martijn

3 comments:

  1. I approve your Gallic Finns, Edward. :) Those and other minis on your post look great! 1250s, that was the time when Swedes started to really pay attention to Finland and started conquering the area, hoping to gather taxes (of course), men to various wars and of course wood, tar and furs.

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  2. Great looking army. That is a nice deep vibrant yellow.

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  3. Very nice as always. Crisp and bright. I shall miss the gatherings in front of the mountain pass.

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