Pembroke's archers

With just two months to go until my first planned outing with this project, at the Wargamer Show in Birmingham on 1st December, I am almost there......

• The last of my planned English units is awaiting a standard, but all the figures are now painted.
• My Scots need four command elements, some highlanders and Islesmen.
• I need to varnish all bar about seven units.
• I need to terrain all the bases except Lord Clifford.
• I need to make a few token buildings.
• I need to paint some casualty figures as disordered markers.
• I have some civilians and other vignette types to paint to dot around the table.
• I fancy some standing stones or a ruined Pictish broch/ dun for flavour.

Whilst I use the next eight weeks or so to cover off the above, I will leave you with a few shots of Pembroke's archers, a unit I finished a while back. All are 1st Corps from their Feudal range. And these are actually varnished!!!

G

Valiant Welshmen fighting for their true king. None of that Plaid Cymru rabble here!!!

Close up, hopefully showing the quality of the original 1st Corps castings. The guys at 1st Corps are always helpful at shows, so give them some cash for their wares next time you see their trade stand! They have some great ranges.

And the other end of the unit. I have mixed figures from different packs of archers (heavy/ medium/ light armour, plus command).

A clear view of the banner. I used Pembroke's "burelly azure and argent" as a base, with the red "arcry orle of martlets" becoming three red tails. Plausible, I hope.

Edward gets a flag

The last of my planned English command elements for my Bannockburn-era project is finally here and, wait for it, is varnished too!!!

I painted the three figures a while back, but have been hanging fire on the Royal Standard (i.e. chickening out of....)

Anyway, here they all are, awaiting some terrain to finish them off.

I am actually a little disappointed in the overall thing. In hindsight, I should probably have done some more heraldry on the ancillary figures rather than just give them red caparisons. Perhaps a depiction of some of Edward's other holdings. I could not find out who carried his banner, so that would have been good too had I been successful in that minor quest.

Hey ho.

G

The three amigos. All three are 1st Corps (pack MEC1 I think), with a wire standard pole. The round base is 75mm diameter from Magnetic Displays and the staging just cut up plastic bases I would not otherwise use.

The usual calico standard. I used gold paint in various shades/ mixes to try to give a high-end finish to the banner. This is the King, after all.

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

The last of the schiltrons (for now)

Hello again.

I have now finished all six of the planned Scottish spear units I envisaged for my Scots army for the Bannockburn-era game set to see the light at this year's Wargamer show. Using the various "dodges" I outlined in the previous post, I managed 120 figures in about seven or eight weeks, including time for a foreign holiday, which is seriously good going for me. That just left the flags, the last six of which you can see here. I have also now based the figures into units, which I will photograph and post soon, but the onerous tasks of varnishing and base texturing await......

I finished Stewart/ Sutherland ages ago, made from a varied selection of Fireforge conversions and Essex Miniatures. I also posted the flags for Moray/ Atholl and Ross/ Caithness last time out. As you may have guessed, each schiltron gets two flags. Each is also 24 figures strong in 3 ranks, as required in the "Hail Caesar" rules I intend to use. All standard bearers in schiltrons 2 to 5 are Old Glory figures, sometimes with the odd shield change from the bits box.

G

Angus, who will pair up with.....

Strathearn.

Lennox, who will gamely accompany.....

Buchan. This is NOT a fore-runner of a well-known Anglo-Dutch oil company. Those are wheat sheaves, not shells.....

Fife, who will fight alongside.....

Mar.

Scots, Damned Scots and yet more Scots...

Hello all!

For the past six weeks or so, I have been "valiantly" painting a planned 120 of Bruce's finest peasants (with a few noble front rankers), a task which somewhat daunted me to start with as there are just soooooooooo many dull infantry types! As I type, I am part way through finishing painting the last batch/ unit, so almost there, but before a few photos, I thought I would educate and elucidate on how I got through this particular chore.

Firstly, anyone who knows me knows I like a bit of variety, and even my regulars have different hair colour, knapsack cloth, sock colour, indeed, anything I consider suitable to add that bit of variety. The figures I used were all Old Glory, which come in four basic spearman poses (good), but you have to drill out the hands (bad). I also have a certain standard to which I like to paint. I am far from being the world's greatest painter, but like to try and do the best I can, but I felt some compromises had to be made to get through this lot.

So here goes...
1) No conversions (OK, just a little bit)
2) Coloured undercoat, as most of each figure is gambeson. I used Army Painter Skeleton Bone, spray and pot.
3) Basic colour then wash with GW Agrax Earthshade.
4) (Gulp. I almost cannot admit it....) Do not bother highlighting back up post wash, but leave them suitably grungy............

Quickly moving on, here come the pics.

I cheated a bit by only showing you the standard bearers finished so far! They are just four of the 99 figures done so far. I still have another six standards to make and paint, namely Strathearn, Angus, Fife, Buchan, Mar and Lennox, so still quite a bit to do.

Overall, I reckon I am still on track to have the Bannockburn-era display game ready for Wargamer, but it will be tight. I still have a unit of Scottish knights, some Highlanders, some Islesmen and 4 command elements to do for Bruce's army, along with 3 units of English foot, plus all the basing and varnishing, after I finish the Scots. This covers the planned initial set up. I also need some buildings and similar terrain bits. I have already written off the idea of casualty markers and other desires for the first outing.

Needless to say, I am thinking up contingencies, just in case!

G

Caithness. All the banners I am doing for my six schiltrons are taken from the spread in the Osprey Bannockburn book. This is a standard figure, in that it is an unaltered pose and carries one of the shields supplied with the Old Glory figures.

Atholl. The same figure as above, but with a Perry plastic buckler from the European Mercs set.

Ross.

Moray. You may have noticed that the figures are rather more HYW than earlier. I have tried to backdate them a little with the non-heater shields and by limiting metal armour. This guy has leather on his legs, the guy above metal.

English command

Hello again.

After a while away from the colourful stuff whilst I trawled my way through sundry peasant types (photos to follow), I finally decided to put some order to the chaos with some command figures. Gloucester arrived and was posted a good while back. I still wanted a C-in-C and another two "brigadiers" however, so here come Edward I/II and his trusty fellows, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.

G

Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. Painting this one tested my sanity even more than Lord Clifford. I found the best way for me was to start at the bottom of the caparison and work up to try and keep each stripe even in width as far as possible. Just thin the paint a little and keep your brush strokes as even and smooth as possible. Don't "dab" at the figure. Aymer is a 1st Corps/ Curtey's command figure (pack MEC1?) with a Fireforge sergeant standard bearer, whose weapon was cut and carved away from his right hand to receive the calico and brass wire standard.

Guess who??? Too easy. Edward I/II, of course. Another 1st Corps/ Curtey's command figure from pack MEC1.

Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. This figure is a Black Tree 100 Years' War figure, but with a greenstuff surcoat added to backdate him 30 years.

A close up of Pembroke's standard, "Burelly azure and argent arcry orle of martlets gules" (blue and white hoops with a border of small red birds to the rest of us! More hoops would have been better)