I love counting people! Let’s begin.  One impaled merchant, Wa ha ha ha!

I’m sorry, that was Count von Count, not Vlad the Impaler.  I always get those two mixed up.

Vlad the Impaler, not to be confused with Santa Claus.

Here is my new DBA Wallachian army, IV/65: 1x3Cv (gen), 3x2LH, 5xPs, 2x3Bw, 1x5Wb.

I decided to paint Wallachians mainly because the new Essex figures looked so good.  The army list is “not competitive in an Open tournament” and doesn’t fare well in DBA against most of its contemporaries.  5 psiloi in 1330-1504?  AD?  Besides, who the heck were the Wallachians anyway?

That last part is easy: Vlad the Impaler!  Vlad III Tepes, aka “Dracula” (son of Dracul, his familial name meaning “dragon”) is considered the prototype for Bram Stoker’s vampire.  Sometimes I think he’d be a good Darth Vader, given Vader’s penchant for killing people off.  Wallachia was a part of what is now Romania.

Wallachian Light Horse.

This army is from an Essex DBA 2.2 army pack.  Most of the figures are from the new Wallachian/Moldovian line, but the cavalry General consists of older figures from other lines.

Wallachian and generic Psiloi.

The Light Horse figures are very interesting.  Unlike any other Essex mounted figure I’ve ever painted, these are cast in a single piece except for the spears.  They have very nice details and sculpting, and are well proportioned.  However, the poses are quite flat.  There is enough of a variety of poses to be interesting, but they vary mostly only in their heads and armament.

Wallachian bows and generic Warband.

There are 5 Psiloi elements.  The army pack provided three elements of Wallachian spears and two elements of generic light medieval crossbowmen.  For the shield designs on the light horse and psiloi elements, I referred to Wallachian heraldry online as well as WRG’s Armies of the Middle Ages 2.  There are only a few true heraldic devices, with the rest being merhant marks. Besides being the only source I could find, this felt somewhat appropriate, since Vlad made a hobby of killing off all the nobility as painfully as possible.

The two units of bows were from the Wallachian line, but the warband was a generic horde.

Overall I’m very happy with the figures and my paint job.  I would’ve preferred to see a few more of the Wallachian-specific psiloi, but I expect that they chose alternate figures for a reason. The other non-Wallachian figures were well chosen and fill their role well.

I haven’t played this army yet, and don’t know when I will.  Besides not having many opportunities to play recently while I’m so busy with work, there aren’t many opponents I’d bother irritating with this band of light troops.  Hopefully there will be a good Eastern European themed event for me to bring them to before Murphy’s Law totally revamps the list for DBA 3.0.