Norman Infantry Command 28mm - Battle of Hastings

Most of my Norman command stands are mounted. This one is the exception so far.  I thought it would be fun to have one commander ready to lead and stand with his men on foot.

The figures are from Gripping Beast and were again, very enjoyable and quite quick to paint up.

The standard is from 'Flags of War' and I selected this one just because it was large and colourful.

The shield transfers are from 'Little Big Men Studios' if I recall correctly.

This takes care of my immediate need for commanders for my Normans. I have built and undercoated lots more foot figures ready to take to the next stage, however, my interest is now firmly onto another two periods of history (two just to make it harder to paint everything quickly!).

So there will be a delay before I get onto to painting more Normans. It only took me 24 years to paint up commanders for my Normans, so I'm sure the new infantry don't mind a little wait! This is another reason why I'm moving into smaller scales...I actually want to have playable ranges...but I'll keep my existing 28mm figs and just add to them slowly.  I do enjoy painting the detail.  Anyway - there will be something different in my next post to follow soon.

Count Eustace of Boulogne - Battle of Hastings

Here we have the command stand of Count Eustace II of Boulogne.  It is believed that Count Eustace carried the Papal Banner, and here we have it in all it's glory.

Count Eustace seems to have been a colourful character, having been excommunicated by the Pope, being involved in rebellions and getting involved 'in a brawl' with the citizens of Dover which caused a rift between King Edward and Lord Harold Godwinson (if my easy research from Wiki is accurate!)

Wiki also claims that Eustace might have been the patron of the Bayeux tapestry, and then goes on to claim that Eustace is shown pointing in retreat on it. I'm not convinced that a patron of the tapestry would have himself immortalised telling the chief that the army should skedaddle!

William of Poitiers who chronicled the Norman conquest did write the following about Eustace though (which also shows that one doesn't turn one's back on a line of angry Anglo-Saxon's!).

'With a harsh voice he (Duke William) called to Eustace of Boulogne, who with 50 knights was turning in flight and was about to give the signal for retreat. This man came up to the Duke and said in his ear that he ought to retire since he would court death if he went forward. But at the very moment when he uttered the words Eustace was struck between the shoulders with such force that blood gushed out from his mouth and nose and half dead he only made his escape with the aid of his followers.'

To me it appears that the tapestry shows that Eustace is drawing attention to William who has raised his visor. 

My figure of Eustace has one of his entourage doing the actual carrying of the Papal Banner.

The figures are from Gripping Beast and the banners from Flags of War. Shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios (if I recall correctly).

I do enjoy painting Normans - a good covering of chain mail makes painting a simpler task than many troop types!

Well, I am away working again this week and I have taken plastic 28mm Normans and Saxons with me to build - hopefully I will get to paint some more up too. It's nice to take uncomplicated things away to do in my time off in the evenings.  So hopefully more to follow soon!

Bishop Odo - Battle of Hastings

Here we have Bishop Odo, brother of William the Bastard of Normandy.  The figure is from the excellent Gripping Beast range with a fine banner from Flags of War.  The shield designs are from Little Big Men Studios.

I was going to give Bishop Odo the Papal Banner, but it does seem that Eustace of Boulogne was given the honour of carrying it with him.  I have given Odo a different very bright and expensive looking banner to reflect his high status.

There were weapon options in the pack and I decided to go for the wooden mace option as per the Bayeux Tapestry. I have read that it is thought that Bishop Odo may have commissioned the tapestry, in which case one would have thought that he might have wanted to have been represented fairly accurately in terms of armour and equipment.

The quilted armour certainly stands out on the tapestry.

Hopefully a 1066 Battle of Hastings can be recreated on my wargaming table soon. I started my little collection in the early 1990's but progress has been slow.  I think a few more troops and it might soon be playable.  Unusually I now have enough commanders to make it feasible.

...And finally a little joke which I thought of earlier.  This is how it might look if the Kubrick movie 'The Shining' had been made in 1066...!

AWI - 4th Virginia Regiment

Just squeeking in a last posting in 2016!  This should bring me up to beat my posts in 2015 by one! I noticed a small decline in posts over the years and hoped that 2016 would be an increase in posts.  I don't tend to post unless I have something fairly worthwhile to say, hence my few posts.

 Here we have the 4th Virginia Regiment.  This Continental regiment are shown very well turned out in their later war uniform.  This regiment fought at Guilford Courthouse and are another unit to get closer to my aim of representing all of the units who were there.

The figures are 28mm from the plastic boxed set produced by Perry Miniatures.  I love these figures and really enjoyed putting them together and painting them.  I'm not normally a fan of marching poses, preferring the more dynamic poses of shooting or attacking with bayonet (it's my Airfix upbringing!), however I do really like these.

This is my second attempt at finishing this unit.  The stars and stripes flag is produced by GMB and is beautiful.  As I couldn't find any images of the flag for the 4th Virginia I decided to paint my own regimental colour.  This looked pretty good and I used a gel pen to produce some pretty nice scroll work and writing BUT overnight the gel pen ink spread like a fountain pen on blotting paper so by morning it looked like I had used the flag to wipe my tears (which I could well have done at that point!).  This yellow flag is instead a replacement and rescued me.  It is produced by Flags of War and is lovely.  I have just in the last few minutes painted the edges of it and replaced my duff flag.   I am really pleased with this flag.  Flags of War allow you to choose your own regiments and colours for the unknown colours and then they print it to your desire.  A perfect solution.

Paints used were my usual combinations of Foundry, Vallejo and Citadel.  I went for the the Foundry Triad French blues which are a tad darker to my earlier painted units, but I feel this has the right look.

I have about 6 minutes now before New Year so I had better post a bit quick to get it into 2016 as mentioned earlier!  Enjoy the rest of the photos!