Œnotrian Cavalry

Or is it "Gashantry"?  which has a certain "Irish Fishing Village" ring to it...

This is my first troop of a flight of Œnotrian regular cavalry, which are intended to support my 7th "Bellicose" Œnotrian Legion in action against the Red Menace (Britain). I painted them in the purple livery that the 7th sports - I'l have to add some white trim to bring the flight into the proper historical canon.

One of the adjustments we made to Soldier's Companion was to cut the size of mounted units in half.  Gashants are pretty expensive, and RAFM's recent price hike hasn't sent me rushing back to buy more. 

IIRC, I picked up a batch of Gashants and Officers on eBay some years ago - these look like they might be a garage variation of the RAFM Gashant.  I have a lot of the RAFM gashants (which will be appearing eventually) but I like this variant because it comes with Martian "tack".

The officer had his arms altered by yours truly to give him a different look than the infantry officer (aka "First Sword") of the Legions of Mars boxed set.

Figures are RAFM (more or less). Lances are from Old Glory Accesories line - Short Thrusting Spears with Cast Tips. It would be interesting to try and outfit a troop of Gashants with javellin-armed riders, rather like the Irish in the 16th Century. It would certainly fit in with the Renaissance character of the Œnotrians.

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And More Œnotrian Artillery

Rounding out the Œnotrian artillery park is the mighty Lob Gun.

With RAFM 28mm figure for scale

While there is no direct Earth equivalent on the Soldier’s Companion artillery tables, the Lob Gun’s performance equates to that of a 10” or 11” mortar. As non-rifled, indirect artillery, a lob gun only hits on a 6, regardless of range.  However, with a range of 6 feet on the table, the lob gun can reach out and threaten most units in your average Soldier’s Companion game.

Lob Guns don’t work well against open order infantry, and are best used in defense of towns, where they can threaten enemy vehicles, like slow-moving British land juggernauts (tanks) and aerial gunboats. The Lob Gun’s slow rate of fire (1 shot per three turns) means they are best deployed in pairs, or even better, in threes.  Three Lob Guns, fired one per turn defending during a British assault, might goad the Red Terrans into launching a premature attack.
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The particular model shown is from J.R. Miniatures and is cast in two-piece resin (base and barrel).

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More Œnotrian Artillery

Here are a coupe of rogue guns for use in defending town walls.  Rogues performance is equivalent to that of the 68-pounder, albeit with a slower rate of fire.  This can be explained by the 68's use of the percussion cap for firing, while the rogue still uses the "prick and prime" method.

Rogues are not much seen in the field, being very heavy and difficult to maneuvre, but they are useful in knocking down the walls of smaller Martian states. Any siege train on Mars expecting to carry the day will feature a battery of rogues, and any municipality hoping to resist will mount a few on the walls, as a deterrent.

These are part of a three-gun set from Scotia Grendel - you will find them under the Medium Dwarven Artillery.  As resin-cast, there is a bit of "greeblische" around the base, simulating churned-up dirt from the field. This might bother the extra-fastidious when deploying them on a stone parapet.

 I wasn't entirely certain these would scale well with my RAFM Martian gunners, but they do.

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28mm Œnotrian Artillery

For a start, I think the "proper" pronunciation of Oenotrian is "E-not-tree-an", with a long "e" to start, and not OH-not-trian as I occasionally hear.  The reason being that "Oenotria" is a classical Greek alternative name for Egypt, when it was spelled "Oegypt", and it follows the vast majority of the Greco-Roman Martian place names.  H.P.Lovecraft liked to use the word "Oegypt" in his poetry. This form survives in the 19th century spelling "EncyclopOEdia".

The same would hold for the "Moeris" in Moeris Lacus being pronounced "Meerus", and not "Mo-ris" unless you actually *want* to name your Martian geographica after the First Stooge.

Over the Christmas break, I finished three Martian cannon from the Paroom Station line carried by Brigade Games.  I've been using English Civil War cannon for my Martian artillery, and I'm really pleased to have begun the upgrade to these - I love these figures, especially the ancient sea-monster leokampoi ornamentation. 

They are not cheap - about twice the price of an Old Glory set of ECW artillery, but the capture the feel of Oenotria, or Tekumel, very well.

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