The astute may have noticed some parallels to the start of my army fluff here and real life. I double-majored in history and economics in college, studied abroad in Istanbul, Turkey, and did some independent inter-discipline studies my senior year blending my majors and looking at the Byzantine economy. Really interesting stuff. I could ramble on, but I will try to rein it in here. Suffice it to say, I like the Byzantines (though they referred to themselves as Romans; Byzantine is a “modern” label. Ok, reining it in now).
Getting into Kings of War from Warhammer, I knew I was going to expand my army. If not for practical reasons (new units, for example), than aesthetics (so many cool models out there!) or inertia (gotta have at least one hobby project going on it seems). After the Battle for the Mausoleum, I sat down, looked at my collection and the KoM army list and sketched out some thoughts.
Fluff
The first thoughts were crystallizing more of my fluff, and writing it down to make it more “official” in my mind. My Ostermark Army started out with purple and white as their provincial colors (I think technically they were purple/yellow or purple/white according to GW fluff and I just chose the latter). I always thought that was dumb, as they were a rural province, and purple is the color of status/royalty, but whatever.
Instead of choosing new colors when I started transitioning stuff to KoW, I decided to double-down on the color choices. While I don’t have a truly unified approach to colors my army (not all my uniforms are uh… uniform; some are quarter colored, other mixed on each limb, etc.), I did actually try to put some thought into it. My army’s colors are purple and white. The Banners (and the Blog’s title) are purple on top, white on the bottom, and that was on purpose.
I was repainting a lot of the army as I converted it over to Kingdoms of Men. I remembered Thorstein Veblen’s idea of “conspicuous consumption,” and decided that to incorporate that a little of that concept into my army instead of choosing new colors.
Purple, the regal color is on top. Even the lowly typical troops wear purple, a statement saying: “the Regnum Aeternum has the resources to squander expensive dyes on our lowest troops.” White is on the bottom. It’s a bright white in my army, and is also a statement the little dudes are trying to make: “we’re professionals.” White would be a terrible color to bring to a battle, but my dudes not only do it, but keep it clean, as a matter of pride. As for plumage, purple is for more common soldiers, white is for officers/more elite units, with the idea being that the higher wouldn’t need to associate themselves with purple to prove themselves, they could afford to take the time to clean/have white plumes as a status boast. Overall the colors are not good choices, but it gives my army a little character (proud, maybe a bit arrogant), which is good for the fluff.
Composition
I was struggling on how to expand my army and have all the models make sense on the table together. Just having similar paint jobs wouldn’t do it completely for me, and I decided there needed to be more of a story there. I decided to take a page from history and tie it in to my fluff.
In 1204, Christian Constantinople was sacked by Crusaders. Whoopsies. While the Byzantines did eventually retake the city in 1261, losing it wasn’t great. I decided that I wanted more “defensive” units in my army: Spear Phalanxes, Foot Guard with Shields, and Shield Wall are all stuff I wanted to have a few regiments of.
I mentioned here that I was going for a bit of a Roman Legion feel with some of my transitioning units, and also that I was interested in picking up some Imperial Roman minis. I decided that heck, that’s the ticket.
The Regnum Aeternum has been on the back foot for a while. Defending the lands and preserving the traditions are all good and noble; a worthy pursuit for a soldier over the many years. Defense and traditions are intertwined, so in step the Roman minis. Tradition is defended by traditional means. These Roman minis will be modeled to be my more defensive units: Shield Wall, Spear Phalanx and Foot Guard with shields.
Somewhere along the line, the Regnum momentarily lost the means to produce their traditional armor, hence the inclusion of any other Shield Wall, Spear Phalanx or Foot Guard units in my collection or lists. These were just other provinces emulating the traditional units in their own way with their own tools. They are functionally similar, but differ in aesthetics a little bit.
Combining it all….
· Purple and white are statements on the heritage and power/wealth of the Regnum Aeternum and expresses a little of how it views itself.
· The traditions of the Regnum Aeternum are defended by traditional means: ideally “older,” classically themed style minis like the Romans, though occasionally a medieval themed unit will take the field (out of necessity).
· Reclamation of their old lands is a new thing. The Regnum Aeternum is usually outmatched and outgunned, and they have been proudly fighting a slow, grinding, losing defense for some time. Taking the fight to the enemy is something new for them, demanding new tactics, and this will be expressed in my taking more medieval themed models to aesthetically show this kind of militaristic innovation.
Man. I feel like I put way too much effort trying to justify things to myself. It was good to kind of codify this for me, but man, let this post be a warning to the kids that this hobby can be a slippery slope for your time and energy!
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