28mm - Anglo Saxon Fyrd - Early Medieval (Dark Ages)

 

It was a welcome change to go to simple painting styles after painting a number of Napoleonic troops of late.

Here we have the 28mm Dark Age Warriors set from Gripping Beast painted up Anglo Saxon Fyrd of the 1066 period.  You might notice some interlopers among these. There are a few Wargames Factory heads which I added for interest.

The Gripping beast figures go together really well, are of mercifully few parts, which means a lot less faff and makes them less fragile than some other figures which seem to have more parts than a Tamiya plane kit.

The shield designs are from Little Big Man Studios and these also went on really easily. No wastage from messed up transfer application.  The designs are simple yet effective.  I go around each design with a black Pigma Micron pen which nicely hides any gaps between shield or boss edge and transfer and gives a fine definition.

The static grass and camera were playing tricks on me today. I had spent some time yesterday diligently brushing off static grass from the figures to prepare them for the photo opportunity. On looking at these pics on the big screen it seems they have been in battle on a field of freshly mown grass! I shall have to brush the figures again!

I'm using a new camera and getting used to the settings. These were actually my 3rd attempt at taking snaps of the troops - slowly I'm understanding what works best but it's taking time.  I have had my old camera since 2006 but a sharp steel pike gouged the lens on a close up shot of ECW pikemen and a white smear appears on shots which I have to try to cut out/disguise etc.

Nothing too dramatic with these figures, but they provide the mass behind the Housecarls and look perfectly good providing the weight and numbers. The poses are nice - getting stuck in and doing their best to fend off Normans/Bretons/Vikings.  

I undercoated and primed these figures using an airbrush - my first real use of one.  It did make the job easier and I was impressed by the smooth even layers.  I did apply some colour too with the airbrush, more as a learning experience, but my brush lowlighting and highlighting means that I can't remember which colours I applied by that means.  The main thing was the undercoating and priming, which the airbrush made into a relatively simple task and gave a very satisfactory base (airbrush is the Harder & Steenbeck Ultra 2024 - much recommended by others and I can see why).

I'm not quite sure what to paint next.  I do still require some more Fyrd in my Anglo Saxon army to avoid using Ancient Celts to discretely fill the rear ranks!). I think another 3 stands will do it. I also need some casualty bases painted up. This should be a quick win if I do those.

On the other hand, I still feel the draw of Napoleonics.  Complicating this fun dilemma further is my recent reading of the first two books of Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy set in Arthur's time.  These books have really given me inspiration.  I think these are the best Bernard Cornwell books I have read - I just hope the 3rd one doesn't let them down!  

I have just built the Victrix Early Saxon Unarmoured Warriors and have just ordered the Early Saxon Armoured Warriors.  Building these is something I can do in hotels in the evenings when I'm away working.  Large Late Roman/British and Early Saxon armies are a new project for me!

 

I do have one rather bizarre project that I'm toying with and that's a fantasy army using the new Midgard rules - the 'Loki and the Frost Giants' army just looks so much fun!  I have never owned a fantasy army in my life and never thought I would ever have one...but they look great to paint and a game with them would be very entertaining.  I wouldn't rule it out!

I wish you all a fabulous Christmas and I hope you receive many enjoyable additions for your projects.

Best wishes.

Jason

Epic (15mm) Scale - Napoleonic - Prussian Fusilier Battalion 25th Infantry Regiment

 

I know it's total madness, but one that afflicts many of us. This being the covering of the same period of history, but in several different scales!

My recent posts were of my 28mm Peninsular troops but there is something appealing about the massed ranks of close order infantry that are the Warlord Games Epic scale troops.

I do have quite a number of the old Minifigs 15mm figures and they do have that wonderful classic look to them, but they would still require individually gluing very close together to achieve anything like as good as the look of the close order Epic figures and even then I don't think they would pull it off.

The other great bonus of these troops is their comparatively low purchase price and also the speed of painting that their pre-cast formation lends itself to.

I was able to base airbrush the entire Prussian Brigade box set with some care and paint top ups, in about 10 to 15 minutes.

I took about 3 extended evenings to paint these plus one more for basing.  As it's not the whole figure being painted, doing 80 of these is not too tedious a job.

The casting is very crisp and the detail nicely prominent.  This lent itself to painting very well, but also encouraged me to put more detail in than I intended!

I have a particular project in mind with these and that is the recreation of the Plancenoit battle.  This scale should mean I that I can get most of the battlefield on my 8 x 4 table (I hope).

For my first Prussian unit, I really fancied painting one with red cuffs and collars. There seemed to be a variety of red shades used, so there seemed to me to be a good chance of finding one in IV Corps who was there at Plancenoit.  I merrily applied base colours and continued my research.

To my surprise no units in IV Corps had red collars and cuffs that I could find! However I did find that the 25 Infantry Regiment of 5 Brigade in II Corps were heavily engaged at Plancenoit also.  I thought this was my answer so continued to paint whilst still researching.  Then I found that it appears that only the 3rd (Fusilier) Battalion of that Regiment wore the blue tunic, the remainder (the 1st and 2nd Battalions) appear in the sources that I found, to be wearing the long black coats and black trousers.

This left me with a hard choice - Do I now go back and change the red to another colour and change the regiment? Or do I cut down the flag staff, turn it into a musket and continue down the Fusilier route?

I chose the latter.  One thing I didn't do was replace the drum with a home made bugle.  That would have involved more carving skill (and time) than I possess. They will have to be happy with the drum.

Hopefully the converted flagpole, now a musket with bayonet, is not too obvious a conversion.  I cut down a 28mm sword to make the bayonet for it and re-shaped it.  

These were fun to paint. I think if I had stopped or been interrupted for long I would have lost interest in completing them, as I do find figures smaller than 28mm a lot less rewarding to paint.  However, I am pleased with these and will continue to do units every so often.

Now to get back to the Anglo-Saxon warriors who have been sat patiently on my desk whilst I did my 'Epic' try out!

28mm- Peninsular War - British 4th Dragoons - Perry Miniatures

Another labour of love finished!  Here we have the 4th (Queens Own) Dragoons.  This Regiment were present at the battles of Talavera, Albuera, Busaco, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees as well as Toulouse.

These figures are Perry Miniatures sculpts.  The main reasons for choosing these was to keep them size compatible with the other Napoleonic troops that I have.   I was so tempted by the recent Victrix set of Dragoons, but Victrix figures tend to be larger.  

The Perry Miniatures are also in breeches which fitted my own thoughts of it being more likely that breeches were worn in the earlier battles.  I also really like all of the Napoleonic figures by the Perry's so I knew I would really like these.

I never used to be fond of the bicorne hat as a piece of military uniform and even in my teens always preferred to paint up figures with the later dragoon helmets. It's funny how one's views can change. I now really like the bicorne, for all of its impracticality, it is iconic of the British Heavy Cavalry in the Peninsular.

I decided to paint the horses in a variety of colours and not just the one shade that was the traditional domain of the British Heavy Cavalry.  Wellington was chronically short of horses, so much so that he would threaten the Board of Ordnance to take the artillery horses and give them to the cavalry (Wellington's relationship with the Board of Ordnance could be described as antagonistic at the best of times!).  The Regiments surely had a multitude of horse colours at the worst times of supply.

From my recent reading it seems that the British Cavalry in the Peninsular were rarely bested unless heavily outnumbered.  Even facing lancers didn't seem to trouble them. I have not yet found anything in memoirs talking about any particular feelings about facing lancers.  Certainly, the Vistula Legion lancers had a reputation for ruthlessness, gained at Albuera facing infantry, but it seems to be part of the Waterloo story where lancers really gained their reputation.

One thing that really struck me about the 4th Dragoons, was their green facings.  From illustrations I have seen, this seemed to be a pretty lively green and not muted. I tried a new paint that I had picked up from Army Painter from their new Fanatic range called 'Greenskins'.  I think it is meant for painting Orcs and suchlike but it seemed a really nice colour for these.

I used my now standard Peninsular basing method. The application of an acrylic house paint and sand to form a basing texture.  This is followed by a good coating of Matt Earth (Humbrol).  I dry brush with three shades over that; a light brown, a light yellow and then an off white.

This is followed by the application of cat litter rocks that I paint up (or not) depending on where the base is to represent. In this case I went for a Sea Grey and dry brushed over the top of the rocks.

I followed this up by gluing on the various tufts, and then dry brushing Vallejo 'Iraqi Sand' over the greener tufts to tone them down a bit.  This gives, I think, a good summer/autumn mix for the basing - certainly good for campaign seasons!

..and some more pics below to finish off...

I must admit I quite like the Sergeant figure above. Putting the stripes on to the green background colour was a challenge but fun.  I have not been able to find references as to whether the Dragoons wore stripes on both sleeves or just the right sleeve.  I thought both sleeves was just a Light Infantry thing (though no doubt there were exceptions as always!).  I went for stripes on one sleeve in the end.

I do fancy a change now that I have finished these.  I had an excellent 1066 game with Ian at the weekend and I found that I have shortage of Anglo Saxon Fyrd so I'm inclined to do a batch of nice simple clothing for them. No lace, no braid...so much simpler! :-) 

28mm - Spanish House - Grand Manner

Here we have a building of a Spanish house and a wall.  Both of these were made in resin by Grand Manner.

I held off of painting these until I had done my 'Wellington Experience' trip to Spain and Portugal in September.  I was glad I did, as I took as many photos of older buildings whenever I could.  

It wasn't just the buildings either, I was snapping the general landscape, plants, rocks, soil and anything really which might have a future wargaming scenery bearing. 

The building and the wall were my last orders placed with Grand Manner before they shut up the shop.  These were bought as plain resin so it was for me to paint them up. I prefer to paint my own buildings up anyway and am always surprised how it takes far less time than I think it will.

MDF is great and is excellent for economy but resin still seems to have more character. Each stone has shape and the building can teem with raised detail.

I love the little sheltered store on the side with wine barrels, and storage jars and cobbles.  I can spend a long time just enjoying seeing all of the detail.

The wall is really detailed too and there are broken pantiles among the stone debris.  It was quite good fun trying to spot those among the stonework and pick those out with a brush.  I did have to go back over a few things, and I am sure I may have missed some among the debris.  I love the damaged sections, you can imagine the cannonballs slamming into it to cause that damage.

The detail inside the houses are really nice too. Not done to excess, as you might wish to put figures in there too...but just enough to add character.  I decided that mine was going to look lived in by someone living a very spartan lifestyle. Perhaps a small-holding farmer who has only recently left on hearing of Napoleons's army advancing.  Those barrels and pots are still unbroken so the infantry haven't got inside there yet!

I will miss receiving orders from Grand Manner. Every little loose item was carefully wrapped and bubble-wrapped and placed in such a way that it would not be damaged. The care and attention was a marvel and must have taken ages to prepare to send.  I bought as much as I realistically could before they closed up.

Here are some photos that I used to get inspiration for the stone and pantile colours.  This is actually in the street in Fuentos de Onoro which goes up to the Church, where some of the heaviest fighting raged.  Like so many Spanish buildings, these seem to have been largely left as they were before the occupants moved out.  In the below picture the loopholes can still be seen in the walls of houses.  It's quite difficult to imagine that the road going up where the tour member can be seen below was probably 3-deep in dead. Sobering thoughts.  I will post more pics up of my tour to the battlefields soon - I'm still labelling up the 750 photos!  I need to do this whilst I still remember where they were taken and what the significance of the photos were!

On the workbench currently is another Peninsular War treat, but as always with Napoleonics it is time consuming. I really feel like painting Arthurians/Saxons next as I have started reading the Bernard Cornwell trilogy relating to that period (I can't put the first book down!).