Sunday 13 September 2009

War Machines 3 - The Legion of Mengano the Jakallan

The Legion of Mengano the Jakallan, 12th Imperial Artillery, is based in Jakalla but typically was broken up into elements and distributed where needed. At the start of the war with Yan Kor it was largely posted to Khirgar, and presumably served in the Western Theatre for the balance of the conflict.

The Armies of Tekumel, Vol 1: Tsolyanu book lists it as having light, medium and heavy ballistae (dart throwers), medium and heavy stone-throwers and trebuchets. There is an obvious problem with terminology and the crew levels stated are higher than the models provide, but for my purposes I am going to ignore all that. The WG set provides the bolt throwers and the stone throwers. I can safely ignore the trebuchets for the moment as they would not be likely to see battlefield service.

How large should the contingent be? A second set would give two bolt thrower sections (of two machines each) and a single section of stone throwers, also of two machines. That is probably good - I could later upgrade them to three machines each with a third boxed set. I wouldn't want the war machines to dominate the battlefield however.

As far as painting goes, the brief colour guide gives:

helmet - base: blue, no plume, trim: green;
body armour - base: blue, kilt: white, trim: green;
shield* - base: green, 2nd colour: silver, trim: blue;
standard - base: blue, 2nd colour: green, 3rd colour: white.

*the shields would be those borne by the guard contingent and officers, but also the mantlets the book says the legion also uses. I'm planning on using Assyrian Siege Mantlets from the Wargames Foundry range for this purpose. I think, being from Jakalla, that the legion might have greater access to reeds than wood.

Mantlets: scroll down, way down

No comments:

Post a Comment