Simon,
Thank you so much for bringing the Helion “Battle for Britain” paper armies to our attention.
I only got around to reading your post on the 2nd of March, ordered 3 books straight away, which have arrived from Amazon the very next day.
So what do you get?
Well, each book costs about 17 quid (or just over 4 pints of beer), and I now possess “The Wars of the Roses”, “1066, Saxons, Vikings and Normans”, two armies I don’t already have, and “The Roman Invasion, AD 43 -84”, because I wanted the terrain accessories.
“The Wars of the Roses” book has mounted and foot nobles with lots of lovely standards and flags, mounted and foot men-at-arms, liveried and unliveried billmen, liveried and unliveried longbowmen, artillery, light horse ‘Prickers’, Scottish mercenary spearmen, mercenary crossbowmen with pavises, mercenary handgunners, mercenary Swiss-German pikemen and flags, and Irish kerns.
The Lords and standards are those for Edward IV, Richard III, the Earl of Warwick, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Stanley, Henry Tudor, the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Oxford, and the Earl of Northumberland, along with their liveried troops.
The terrain accessories are a medieval windmill, a Wealden house with a thatched roof, and a small hut.
The “1066” book has Saxon housecarls, select fyrd, great fyrd, Saxon archers, Viking warriors, Viking Bondi, Viking archers, Berserkers, Norman knights, French/Breton knights, Norman spearmen, Norman archers, Norman crossbowmen, villagers and monks, all with their own personalised flags plus lots of extra shields with various designs for more variety.
The personality ‘figures’ are King Harold, Duke William, Harald Hardrada, Earl Tostig, Orri Eystein, plus Saxon Earls and Viking Jarls, all with their own personalised flags.
The terrain accessories are a river, a stream, a very nice wooden bridge, an early church, a wooden thatched house, a large and impressive fortified burgh, and excellent longships.
(It also has something close to my own heart...a cardboard candle clock which 'burns down' to show the current game turn.)
The “Roman Invasion” book has what you’d expect; lots of wild Britons, javelinmen, slingers, cavalry, light horse, chariots including Boudicca, and druids, while the Romans have 4 different legions, auxiliary cavalry and foot, slingers, skirmishing auxiliary javelinmen, eastern archers, scorpions, plus legionary testudo’s and 3 different Roman elephants, one with emperor Claudius.
The terrain accessories are very impressive in this set; British round houses and thatched huts, a wooden Roman bridge, Roman barges for landing on the coast and for storming Anglesey, plashing for the British camp, and a large and very formidable Roman marching camp plus Roman roads.
The figures are 28mm tall, but are designed to fit on bases with a 40mm frontage.
The mounted are 4 LH or 6 Cv/Kn to a base in two ranks on 30mm deep bases, while the close order foot are 12 figures in 3 ranks also on 30mm deep bases (although I shall be making my close order foot as 8 figures in 2 ranks on 20mm deep bases).
And all the terrain accessories would be suitable for normal 15mm figures, if printed at a slightly reduced size.
People are encouraged by the author to scan and print everything for themselves rather than cut-up the original prints.
Here are some links:-
www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/wargame-the-roman-invasion-ad-43-.php?sid=acffbfcbad8a12055866790b55115a98www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/wargame-the-wars-of-the-roses-1455-1487-.php?sid=acffbfcbad8a12055866790b55115a98...and here is a demo video by the author Peter Dennis showing how to construct them:-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RzBSVucFfY So for the cost of what I usually spend on a Thursday curry night in Wetherspoons, I now have 3 very useful books.
Well worth it.
Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes