Men of Shropshire

With just four weeks and two days to go before the "Wargamer" show in Birmingham and the inaugural outing of the 1314 project that has dominated my work for the past year or so, I am trying to stack up completed units as quickly as possible to save myself some late nights as we wend our way through November!!!

Latest new kids on the block (although I painted them a while ago, and did the flag, and even varnished them, but only based them yesterday!) are these "Men of Shropshire", hardened veterans of many a skirmish against the dastardly North Welsh and now set on meting out the odd beating to the more northerly Celts of this sceptre isle.

These hard-bitten veterans have damaged shields, mixed armour and bad attitudes, but will no doubt help keep the Earl of Hereford's command out of trouble for a while when they finally hit the table.

As with the "Carlisle and the Cumbrians" unit I painted and posted about ages ago, I have taken modern and older references to Shrewsbury and Shropshire and stripped them back to get something I find more plausible for 1314. The blue and yellow is here to stay, but gone are the lions' heads, the modern day ermine on the yellow chevron, etc., leaving just said chevron on its field of blue.

The figures are my usual Fireforge plastics, with just the odd conversion thrown in.

G

The completed West Mercians in all their glory

A veteran bunch of hard-bitten mercenaries

Distressing the shields was easy given their plastic manufacture. Painting some in paler, washed out tones, helped the illusion of them being in regular use I feel.

I like chevrons, especially in the run-up to florry counter-florry!

The whole unit again.

The side the Scots will not see (unless I am playing the Scots when the time comes., of course!)

The Bruces plus one

Just a quick post to show that I have finally taken enough Dutch courage to do some more "florry counter-florry" in order to finish painting my Scottish command elements (the non-hairy bits anyway).

The Islesmen are now about half way to completion, then it will be a mad month of varnishing and basing, plus as many odd bits as I can muster before the first outing.

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Robert the Bruce, in case you did not know. The hairy lumps are painted coir doormat to represent some wild grasses on the moorland of somewhere in Scotland.

A detail of that heinous "florry counter-florry border". Heraldry can be a crime against painters! Now I reckon I know why Chaucer had it in for the "knight" character, making him anything but chivalrous. He must have had to paint some hell-spawned heraldry at some point...



And baby makes three...

Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, and some more (the last!!!) of that florry counter-florry.

And again.

This element is a mix of Black Tree (Randolph) and Fireforge figures.

Edward Bruce.

The snot is a spare lump of Green Stuff from doing my Islesmen conversions, which will be painted as a rock.

Another mixed bag of figures, this time 1st Corps (Edward) and Fireforge.

Almost there.....

It has been a good twelve months spent almost exclusively painting stuff for my 1314 project, but I am, indeed, almost there.

By the middle of last week, and with time off this week to look after my children (some poor soul has to and they are at least mine!), I expect to have completed my painting of all the units for "Phase 1" by the start of November, leaving varnishing and basing to complete by December 1st and the "Wargamer" show..

Yet, in a last minute attempt to make my job harder, I made a decision regarding those final troops, which were to consist of Angus Og MacDonald (a three figure command element) and 16 Islesmen with two-handed axes. I could have bought some Redoubt Gallowglasses and, had they had them at Derby (apparently, they do not take their Renaissance ranges to shows), would have. I looked at Norse-Gael types in the SAGA starter set too, but there was not enough of what I wanted. I also checked out what appear to be excellent looking figures from Claymore Castings, but baulked a little at the price and I do like to see what I am buying in the flesh.

Thus, I set myself up with a few Fireforge plastics, a box of Viking Hirdmen from Gripping Beast, some brass spears, a few spare 1st Corps command figures and an inch or two of Green Stuff and set about converting a few Islesmen of my own.

Sculpting in this way is something I have not done masses of before, but with which I have dabbled from time to time. My first major foray was the "Medusa Legion", a Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marine legion I built using plastic fantasy Chaos Warriors, using Green Stuff for horsehair helmet crests because I wanted them to have an Ancient Greek feel to match their "fluff". I continued in this vein with my Death Guard, especially the three Dreadnoughts I built for them from the loyal Space Marine kit. I may post some pics of these old warriors at some point.

So, with various pictures in my head, I set to lengthening mail shirts into hauberks, aketons into more full skirted versions, adding sleeves and hoods and filling a few gaps in the castings after my attempts at changing various arm positions, etc.

They are now undercoated and ready for a paint job. Some of my attempts, as you will see below, are a tad crude, but the whole thing took me just a couple of days' work and was most therapeutic. I will see how they paint up and can always spend some money on replacements if they really do not look the part!!! It is fair to say that I need a lot more practice with the modelling putty and associated tools....

G

"Swing low..." Fireforge Foot Sergeant in aketon with mail coif head from Mounted Sergeants box. The axe is made by cutting the head from a plastic axe (Fireforge or Gripping Beast to taste). This is obviously the pre-Green Stuff kit.

Fireforge body and arms again, but with GB Hirdman head and Danish Axe. I can live with the extra haft thickness on the plastic casting vs my wire and axe head versions.

GB Hirdman body and arms, Fireforge head with arming cap and another of "my" axes.

Angus Og MacDonald himself. Hirdman body, mailed Fireforge arms, Fireforge helmet with head removed and hollowed out plus another of my axes. The head is also from the GB Hirdmen set.

"Swing low..." with his mail coif extended into a mail cape.

And from behind. The sword is from my bits box.

Arming cap man, now also with a mail cape.

Yet another mail cape on the figure from the second photo above. I tried to blend the Green Stuff into the mail "skirt" around the back of the helmet in order to make it a continuous thing.

I did rather more work on Angus, extending his shirt into a hauberk and adding short outer sleeves to hide the mismatch between the GB body and Fireforge arms. I also added a mail hood attached to his hauberk. It must be a warm day in the Hebrides since he has doffed his headgear.

Angus again. A bit more work on his right sleeve would have been beneficial.

I am happier with his left sleeve.

Another extended shirt into hauberk conversion, this figure will carry Angus' banner. I tried to create a sense of movement in the skirt.

And another hood attached to a mail shirt.

Cressingham

What, you may ask, is someone who is building a "Bannockburn-era" set up doing someone who was killed 17 years earlier at Stirling Bridge, namely Hugh de Cressingham???

I shall explain.

I had a few figures from this era in my bits box that I bought long ago. Several have appeared in this project already, such as Ross, Stewart, a few Scots spearmen in my first schiltron painted last January, etc, but I had a couple left. One of them had a bird's head and neck on his helm. Thinking back to a copy of Military Modelling from probably 25 years ago, I had in mind an article by Charles Wesencraft wherein he built a diorama for the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. His view on Cressingham's heraldry struck me immediately - three black swans with red beaks on a white ground. I looked no further than this vague memory and promptly painted up said figure as Hugh de Cressingham, together with a suitable entourage.

After all, it is a "Bannockburn-era" project, not Bannockburn itself.

The other figures are Fireforge Foot Sergeants, the banner of calico as before, varnishing and basing to follow en masse as usual.

My final bits box figure is another knight, this time with a boar's head on his helm. As I have no recollections, vague or otherwise, that leap to the fore to identify a likely candidate, I guess I will have to research this one!

G

Sir Hugh de Cressingham, no doubt before the bridge collapsed and stranded him on the Scottish side of the river that fateful day in 1297.

Cressingham's retinue.

A clear view of the banner.

Grim, determined, English men ready to take the fight to those breechless, barbarous Scots....

And a close up of the banner.

Review - Fireforge Teutonic Infantry

I buy a fair few figures each year and have bought several sets of Fireforge figures for my Bannockburn-era project, but felt a bit let down by this one.

1. The price - I paid £20 for 24 plastic figures. This was my choice, but I could have got 24 metal ones from Curtey's, for example, for just £4 more and would not have had to put them together. As I said, my choice, one I made purely for speed, as the shop had these in and not any others!
2. The options - the castings are good, the 24 figures mostly in good poses, but I wanted spearmen to augment my English and there were not enough spears to equip even 20 figures allowing for two standards and two leader figures with hand weapons. I do not mind the odd conversion, but I HAD to convert 8 figures to hold spears, by using open hands intended for crossbowmen and sourcing parts from elsewhere, e.g. other kits I already have and my bits box.
3. The sprue attachments - I expect to have to trim off mould lines and small lugs where I cut the pieces loose, but I do not like having to potentially damage the parts to get the pieces off the sprues because of the way they are attached.

However:

• they are readily available
• they mix well with the other kits in the series (and you need more than one box for an army anyway!)
• the plastic is easily worked
• you get bases in the set which are meant for "Deus Vult" but equally useable elsewhere
• the set does give you a number of options to equip your figures, just arguably not enough of any single option for my tastes.

Good figures if you want the work. 5 out of 10 on the value for money, 7.5 out of 10 for the figure quality.

G