Project Lead Mountain 03/03/17

Project Lead Mountain - 3rd March 2017

As part of my ongoing attempt to clear out all of my unpainted, unwanted metal which I have called Project Lead Mountain I have been rationalising and rebasing older figures in my collection to sell off on EBay. I had ten bases of Psiloi crossbowmen which I have been trying to sell on EBay with little or no interest. I thought they would have sold but I guess there's only so many Ps a DBx player needs. They are suitable for the 13th C era onwards. Since they didnt sell I decide that I would rebase them into Reg Bw O and put Pavises in front of them to turn them into Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw O. So a quick order to Tin Soldier for a number of their Pavises was in order to let me to the conversion. I only wanted to make four elements so have added the spare two elements of Ps into my collection.

I decided that since most mercenary crossbowmen seemed to come from Italy that I would decorate the pavises with various Italian city state patterns. Rebasing figures is always a chore but often works out for the best in the end. I painted the pavises whilst still attached to the elements bases before glueing the now spare crossbowmen in place. The end result is quite effective and they will be on EBay in the next few days. I am fairly certain that the helmeted castings are Essex but I can't ID the other ones.

As part of the rationalisation process I had some old Minifigs Z313 Frankish Crossbowmen which were in desperate need of rebasing. There were sixteen castings and I decided that they would be ideal to turn into Reg Bw O or I because they are fully armoured in a long mail hauberk. They will be suitable for the earlier style Reg Bw O or I Mercenary Crossbowmen in Feudal armies such as Communal and Papal Italian, Feudal French, Sicilian, Medieval German and Feudal English. I think they wont really be suitable for depicting troops after 1200 AD due to their armouring style. They will be on EBay in due course as they are surplus to my requirements. As a casting sculpt style they are pretty unimpressive but they are very old figures but so generic they will easily hide themselves in lots of armies with little problem. I didn't paint these figures having acquired them at a Bring and Buy some years ago but they were on horrible bases. 

Minifigs Z313 Frankish Crossbowmen

Moving onto figures I decided to paint and keep to finish off gaps in my collection I had already painted up an odd bag of eight Minifigs Z310 European Crossbowmen [Helmet] as four bases of Irr Ps O but as part of collecting for another army I got another bag of Z310 figures and decided that since I had too many Ps I would paint these to match the first batch and then rebase them all as unarmoured Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw I which will be suitable for use from 1029 AD up to at least 1200 AD in the same armies I already listed above. The castings required almost no cleaning up and are a dream to paint up and base.  

Minifigs Z310 European Crossbowmen [Helmet]

The other figures were two bags of Minifigs Z311 European Heavy Crossbowmen [Mail, Pot Helm]. The castings also required almost no cleaning up and again are a dream to paint up and base. Their figure style is slightly later than the casting Z310 due to the Pot Helm so will be suitable to use in armies up to about 1300 AD as Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw O.

Minifigs Z311 European Heavy Crossbowmen [Mail, Pot Helm]

This brings to a close this weeks installment from Project Lead Mountain. I still have a lot more figures left to paint and have purchased the metal for a new army last month with the proceeds of last years EBay sales.