Slitherine

I just finished up the camp for my Wallachians, inspired by the famous woodcut showing Vlad the Impaler dining among unfortunate victims:



The original:



Hopefully it's nasty enough to keep their enemies from wanting to sack it...

Now that is outstanding!

I think I might really really really want to sack it just to get it out of my sight though

Quite gnarly indeed. A biography I read way back in the '70s stated that many of the victims were impaled vertically, and that in his 'little garden' his permanent guests were in various stages of decay. OTOH, all the Turks he had impaled outside of his capitol were done at pretty much the same time. One of the more successful psyops in history.

An interesting character. I wonder if any of the Turks reflected that they had made a mistake in trying to terrorize the young Vlad when he was a hostage.

For some reason there was a burst of interest in Vlad Tepes back in the 1970s. Jack Palance did a great job portraying him as Dracula, and it was the first (perhaps only?) Dracula film to incorporate the military hero aspect of Vlad with the lurid monster. It made a much mosre complex and intriguing narrative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWnN5F19nDA

ShrubMiK wrote:Now that is outstanding!

I think I might really really really want to sack it just to get it out of my sight though

That could have some uses as well . . .

I recall a piece on the History Channel about how Vlad's impaling worked.

Essentially, the pike followed the digestive tract in reverse -- i.e., start up the ass and protrude through the mouth. This permitted the victim to (a) not slide all the way down immediately; and (b) live for several excruciating hours or days while dying.

The pictures and camp do not capture this, but only nerds like me would point out this inaccuracy.

Spike

Spike
I have read similar accounts of how Vlad impaled his victims, so don't feel too nerdy about it. Gives me shivers just thinking about it. I read once that one of his servants complained about the smell from the decaying corpses and Vlad had him impaled on a longer pike so that his nose was above the stench he found so offensive, that Vlad had a real sense of humor... Not!

Awesome camp, I imagine most armies will want to steer clear of that foul camp of putrid smells and rotting death... makes one wonder where Vlad gets his soldiers if he impaled them all.... or is that a warning to your opponents of what fate awaits them after your victory?

Many thanks for the kind comments. I will see in tomorrow's game if I made it gory enough for my enemies to stay clear of it...

fredrik wrote:Many thanks for the kind comments. I will see in tomorrow's game if I made it gory enough for my enemies to stay clear of it...

Lol, good luck, Fredrik! Send us an AAR if time permits, please! Well done on the camp.

If my orders EVER arrove from Blighty, I will be doing a Vlad Tepes camp as well. My interpretation will be just a bit different though.

Essex does a pack of Greek/Ancient casualty figures that I used for my Sassanid camp fortifications (half the camp had to be fortified in DBM).

I spread them around the spikey (of course) ditch and rampart with lances drilled through them, nailing them to the walls. I'll try to drum up some pics.

Spike

Skullzgrinda wrote:

fredrik wrote:Many thanks for the kind comments. I will see in tomorrow's game if I made it gory enough for my enemies to stay clear of it...

Lol, good luck, Fredrik! Send us an AAR if time permits, please! Well done on the camp.

Well I'm happy to report the enemy was suitably terrified of my evil little santa-Vlad (being inadvertently painted in a seasonally appropriate jolly red) and his dining scene. The troops performed admirably under his stern gaze from the back of the table and I could swear I felt the force of his indomitable will as I moved the units at his command. My opponent claimed it was just varnish fumes though. And/or the beer.

don't buy that varnish or beer story, you know his failure was due to being unnerved by Vlad and that gory camp scene

Dracula! Dracula! Dracula!