Casualty Markers

Both the HYW games I've put on have come up short - of casualty markers. I keep making a resolution to paint more and I've managed to complete a few for this year's Agincourt game.

They are a mix of Old Glory and Perrys - the former are actually for the earlier HYW period (circa 1350/60s) and are fairly rough casts by today's standards, but I had started them some months ago and so they'll serve their purpose for the game. They're supplemented by some arrows from Perrys WotR box, just in case.

More pics comin' soon.

Agincourt demo - state of play

So, I'm afraid that I've neglected the blog updates with figures I've been doing for the Agincourt demo at Salute. This week I have made little progress due to later evenings at work and am now a bit behind schedule - some pieces may have to give and not make it to the table.

For the moment here are the rest of the French men at arms that were done a few weeks ago. All a mix of Perry plastics with some metals interspersed. I will try and put up a number of quick posts this week to show other stuff as it gets done. Flags are GMB attached to stiffeners made of thin foil - all rather rushed and I've not done the best job that I can in getting the colour match between the printed flags and the foil.

On the schedule are casualty markers, English and French commander stands and some local peasants.  In addition to figures, I'm adding some terrain broads, just flat grassland, to match the Keith Warren ones I have had for some years - but therein lies the challenge in achieving a match which is acceptable and right now they look noticeably different tones - so next challenge tomorrow in daylight is to try and drybrush static grasses to get a good enough colour match!

Now...back to the painting table.

English Men at Arms for Agincourt game.

More figures now completed for the Agincourt game at Salute.

These are all the English additions I need to do – the longbows are from the previous post – and three of the men at arms bases are all new – the base on the left has been ‘liberated’ from some Burgundians I’ve already done, by just swopping the flag for one of St George, which will suffice for the day. They are a mix of Perry metals and plastics – I’ve attached arms holding bills and spears from the Wars of the Roses sprue to the Agincourt bowmen bodies, to make a few retainers in the rears ranks.

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English bows - extra bases done.

A quick diversion from painting French men at arms - I've based up the additional English bowmen for Agincourt game.

I planned to add four extra bases, but when I've based them up I appear to have created six  - but this will allow evenly sized 'wings' of longbowmen for the English set up. All are Perry plastics and are based on 50mm square bases, as per the rest of my HYW. At previous games we've used two together to create units for Impetus rules - which seems to work Ok for a display game where the minutiae of record keeping is best avoided, to enable the players to chat with visitors and have time for their own look around the show. We'll discuss with the players what we're going to do for this years game.

Now, back to those French...

French Men at Arms for Agincourt (I)

The production process is underway, with goal to expand the French men at arms for the lance & longbow Society game at Salute. These are my ‘speed painted’ figures; although I worry that I maybe spending too long on getting them done (but it’s much too early to panic just yet). I have a schedule drafted and have to stick to it – and cross my fingers that no unplanned distractions occur along the way.

The good news is that the plastic Perry figures are primarily attired in white harness, making the figure painting process quicker. So these have been done on thinned black enamel undercoat. A heavy drybrush has then been applied of GW Runefang Steel, over which I’ve added a wash of inks – an approximate 50:50 mix of GW Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade (brown). When fully dried a much finer drybrush of GW Steel is made, just to pick out the raised edges and joints of the plate armour and any mail.

Other parts to be painted are then re-blackened and all the leather, cloth, wood and flesh areas are painted in – without any highlights, as they’ll be lost in the morass that is the French foot at Agincourt. Gilding is then picked out to create a bit of variation – on couters and poleyns, dagger and sword pommels, visors, and scabbard & belt fitments, etc. A couple of rather old Citadel waterslide transfers have been dug out and applied to the shields - all in efforts to save time. A few banners will be added by retainers, who are currently in prep stage, using some Perry metals.

Although I have a schedule I do still get tempted to convert and alter figures. So far I’ve limited this to just three figures – changing heads on metals as the new plastics have much finer definition to paint. I've also added a visor to a metal foot knight – for variation and to save time on one less face that I have to paint! All of these are relatively easy to do of course.

First plastics for Salute game

I've started work bulking out both armies for the Agincourt demo game at Salute in April. These have been painted using ink washes and highlights restricted to some areas only, and no bowstrings added, to 

help speed things up. All the basing will be done as a single task once the figure painting is all done.

These are all Perry plastics from the new Agincourt English box – although the men at arms will be used as French, alongside a few metal colleagues and retainers. I particularly like the plastic men at arms – very well defined mouldings, with minimal cleaning up required and which are easy to paint. They take ink washes well over a silver base coat, followed by a  silver drybrush; before the leather, cloth and any gilding details are picked out. A few longbowmen have had pairs of arms attached from the WotR box, to produce differing poses, which seem to work OK, despite the bows being a tad shorter. 

You need to take immense care however when removing some of the arms and weapons from the sprue – even with a new scalpel I have had polearm shafts snap. Whilst those exquisitely made visors are also a challenge to clean up and attach, after you’ve dropped them on the floor and spent time finding the little b*ggers again! Useful to add spare visors to some of the metal figures though, to produce a bit more variety.

Plenty more to be done – this month I will largely be painting French men at arms….

Agincourt at Salute 2015

Just a quick update. The good news is that the Lance and longbow Society have had a table confirmed for Salute 2015 to put on a demo game for Agincourt.

I've been sorting out what needs to be done in the next 12 weeks, to ensure that the armies are adequately represented to put on a decent looking game for those attending - both players and visitors.

The 'essentials' list currently shapes up as this:
- Casualty Markers - mainly for the French(!) - starting with this chap above who I painted up over Christmas.
- French dismounted knights and men at arms - hopefully using a mix of Perry metals and plastics.
- English bowmen - to ensure there are goodly numbers of the 'battle winning weapon', although not to the apparent ratio of 5:1 in the actual army.
- Commander vignettes and banners - to represent the main leaders on the day.
- Terrain - a couple more boards to be done.

To meet the schedule some of the painting may be completed 'at speed', but better to ensure the figures are on the table. I have some other possibles too, should time allow.

More to come as I make some progress...