Looking back over my blog, it seems that it's been almost exactly 4 months since I posted about putting together 500pts WAB armies for my Andalusians and Vikings.  Man oh man is this blogging thing depressing.

At any rate, I'm still working on that project, but with a minor twist.

The WAB guys released a new book about the "Age of Arthur", which is basically the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England after the Romans left.  This book is astonishingly cool, and although I'm not going to be gaming in the period it covers, it contains a HUGE number of fantastic scenario and campaign ideas.

One of the most intriguing (to me) parts of the AoA book is that the authors champion two different "army sizes", neither of which is the usual tournament 2000pts.

First you get 750pts, which is basically 500pts with a full complement of characters.  This scale is perfect for "saga" level conflict, where you have a Jarl/Ealdorman/Earl and a few of his friends, each leading a unit of loyal men.  This force might be a longship's worth of Vikings or a Saxon Noble's retainers, friends and relatives, called out to repel the Vikings.

Next up is the 1500pts game.  In this larger game, you can afford to pick up some of the less common troops, like a bunch of armed freemen, the local clergy (for moral support), and maybe some mercenaries.  This would represent your Ealdorman's personal forces combined with the Fyrd (essentially "minutemen"), and might be an army raised to fight an army that was already ashore, or even a hostile neighbor.

So I've tweaked my old 500pts lists from April, and expanded them to fit 750 pts.  Oddly enough, for the most part adding a General and Army Standard Bearer used up most of the extra points, so the lists really aren't that different:

Vikings
Characters:
Jarl - 160pts
Hersir ASB - 100

Troops:
10xHirdmen w/2H Axes & Throwing Spears, Leader&Musician
10xHirdmen w/2H Axes & Throwng Spears, Leader&Musician
15xBondi, Leader
10xBondi w/Bows

Andalusians

Characters
Amir General + Horse, Lt Armor +Shield = 103
Alferez + Horse + Lt Armor + Shield = 93

Troops
9xJinetes w/Throwing Spears, L+S+M - 195pts
15xBerber merc Spearmen, L+S+M - 180pts
12xAndalusian Spearmen, L+S+M - 87pts
12xAndalusian Archers - 60pts
8xAndalusian Javelin Men - 32pts

It has been suggested to me that the Viking list might be better if I replace the Jarl with another Hersir, and spend the extra points on more Hirdmen to make them stronger, but I'm not sure about that yet.

The good news is, I have quite a lot of these figures painted - about 2/3 for the Andalusians, and I'm almost half way into the Vikings, unless I decide to re-tool that list to get more figures.  I estimate that the Vikings could be finished off in 4-5 evenings if I could get an hour or two of painting in each night.

I know, "fat chance".  But hey, can't a man dream?