Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that!
Since my last post, I've managed to paint both the skirmishing units I had included in my initial contingent of the army (10 Levy Bowmen and 11 Levy Crossbowmen), but I also painted My General (Macbeth) and a momentum marker for the army, so the current state of the painted figures is:
Two units of 20 Warriors with long thrusting spears and shields - 360pts
One unit of 10 Levy Bowmen - 60pts
One unit of 11 Levy Crossbowmen - 55pts
Macbeth - 125
For a grand total of 600pts so far!
Now, I'm a firm believer in accepting changes in an army build as you start making progress through a list. Sometimes this can mean adding extra figures to the list of those that need painting, and sometimes it will reduce the number. What's important though, is to be honest in your choices and make changes where it seems obvious that they need to be made. With that in mind, I decided to change the army list in order to give my Scots a bit more of a punch on the table top.
The list I originally put together was a little more defensive than I wanted to play the army, so I've removed some of the basic warriors with their more defensive thrusting spears and replaced them with some more attacking style units.
Ok, so the first change was a small one. I removed the second unit of Levy Skirmishing Bowmen and replaced it with three units of 10 Levy javelinmen with bucklers. Nothing dramatic here, but javelin armed troops don't suffer the modifiers for movement and range when shooting and if you can keep them alive, can be very useful at taking the odd wound here and there from enemy formed units. Adding the bucklers is also really good if the opportunity to charge another skirmishing unit should present itself, plus, by putting a total of thirty of these fellows in the army, it allows me to change their unit sizes according to my opponents army.
The next change was a lot more dramatic, as I completely removed the two units of 28 warriors with thrusting spears. These guys went to free up the points I needed to add in a 21 man unit of Freebooters, armed with hand weapons, throwing weapons, light armour and shields (A total of 294pts), as well as increasing the size of my Scots-Irish Exiles from 18 to 24 (This unit is now 262pts).
With these two more aggressive units, I feel that I might have the tools to take advantage of any possible weak points in an enemy army as well as making an opponent more cautious with their own advance. We'll see how well this works in future articles I'm sure! As a bonus positive, these changes also mean that I have 9 less miniatures to paint, although that may still change as more progress is made.
So, for the second contingent and a bid to reach halfway in the army build, I've chosen to paint the first unit of 10 Skirmishing javelinmen (50pts), the 21 Freebooters (294pts) and a Nobleman Command consisting of two miniatures (50pts) for a total of 394 points to add to my previous 600 out of what remains a 1996pt army, which will bring me nicely to the half way point!
Just for consistency, here's the new army list:
Macbeth - 125pts
2 Chieftains, each with 2CP's and 4+ Superior Armour - 170pts
1 Nobleman with 1CP - 50pts
1 Sagart - 50pts
2 units of 20 Warriors, with long thrusting spears and shields - 360pts
1 unit of 12 Mounted Thanes, with throwing weapons, light armour and shields - 252pts
1 unit of 12 Mounted Skirmishing Warriors, with javelins and shields - 168pts
1 unit of 10 Levy Bowmen - 60pts
1 unit of 11 Levy Crossbowmen - 55pts
3 units of 10 Levy Javelinmen - 50pts
1 unit of 24 Scots-Irish Exiles, with hand weapons, light armour and bucklers - 262
1 unit of 21 Freebooters with hand weapons, throwing weapons, light armour and shields - 294pts
TOTAL POINTS - 1996
COMING SOON - PART 3 - Half done, half to go!