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...

Merry Christmas - hiatus is over.

Oops, I’d not realised that it has been over five months since the last update on this blog. 

My apologies for the ‘radio silence’ but the reality is that I have made no material additions to my HYW – focussing instead on my Burgundians and some extra units for my AWI collection. However the good news is that 2015 will see the resurrection of the blog, as I have some expansion plans. These are primarily inspired by the 600^th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt and the related Perry Miniatures plastic and metal additions to their AO range. I’m hoping to use my figures and terrain for an Agincourt demo game on behalf of The Lance and longbow society at Salute next year – Agincourt being the theme for the 2015 event. However I understand that the Society are still awaiting confirmation of the game from the South London Warlords – so if any blog readers can kindly give them a gentle nudge that would be appreciated!

The picture at the top is one taken by Alan Perry, with some of the bowmen from the new plastic Agincourt English, which I’m sure everyone’s now aware of. I was lucky enough to be given a test sprue. I now have the plastics box and am very impressed by the men at arms in full ‘white’ harness. The sculpting is fantastic of course, but I think Renerda have surpassed their previous craftsmanship – there is hardly any loss of definition along the sides of the armour plates, the visors are wonderfully detailed and the figures have been aligned so that mould lines largely follow joints in the armour plates and only helmets need a small amount of smoothing before paint is applied. The flag sheet by Alan is also very informative on the styles of armour over the circa 1415 to 1430 period that these figures cover.

For Agincourt I will need to add some casualties, vignettes, flags and banners of some leaders (as I have largely focussed on the 1420s so far) and some French mounted knights. For the casualties I have found some half completed ones from Old Glory I have – not the best of sculpts, but there is a lovely fallen horse and rider. Although the horses head is noticeably too small, I’ve replaced the body of the knight that’s provided as a two piece model with a cut down plastic Perry one, which is a big improvement. Just need to decide on the heraldry for the caparison on the horse.

More anon  in 2015 – in the meantime have a wonderful festive break and hope Santa brings you some hobby related gifts…assuming you’ve been good all year of course!!

Medieval Hounds castings

The information on these models is on my other blog - http://je-lay-emprins.blogspot.co.uk/ - so forgive me for those who follow both, but I have commissioned some sculpts for medieval hounds, as none were currently available.

Typically termed aluants, they were greyhound-like hunting dogs and are regularly shown in medieval illustrations and tapestries. Steve May has done the wonderful sculpting and Griffin Moulds have converted them into some crisp castings. If anyone's interested, I have a modest stock that can be purchased as a set of the four poses. See the 'Je Lay Emprins' blog for details.


Also of interest is Perry Miniatures announced venture into plastic HYW figures - a box of English and French figures seems to be planned and Alan has shown some of the greens that he's working on. This will definitely re-generate my own project and extend the collection. I will be adding more French mounted figures for an Agincourt game soon. And I'm now thinking on what other theatres in the 1410-1430 period, these forthcoming figures could be used for...hmm.

Masters In Miniature - a new chapter.

As you may have seen, Atlantic Publishing are releasing a new book at Salute in two weeks. It comprises of hundreds of photos of the Perry's figure ranges. Alan and Michael have staged and taken all the photos, which are beautifully done. My modest contribution has been to lend them my HYW collection, which forms the bulk of the 'Agincourt to Orleans 1415 to 1429' part of the book. One of these pictures has made it as the cover of 'Miniature Wargames' magazine for April.

I've seen all the photos  taken for this chapter (nearly 18 months ago). The are all very impressive and it's interesting to see your own figures in picture compositions that you've not thought about before - throws a new perspective on your collection. Alan's added some arrows in-flight to some pictures, using Photoshop, which creates some contemporary feel to the battle scenes.

Pictures from the other ranges that I've has a sneak peak of are really excellent too - it's the kind of book that you'll keep returning to for reference and inspiration. So I know what's on the top of my shopping list for Salute!