Early and Later Polish - Part 3

Feudal & Medieval Polish - Part 3

Continuing on from my previous two posts here's the latest update on my 2017 army project.

As stated before the Polish army is broken into two lists but the lists are completely different in composition and since it starts at 935 AD the clothing and equipment styles change fundamentally during the 565 year list lifespans.

I have been accumulating the bare metal to build the army from start to finish taking into account the changes in equipment and armour styles.

Having lots of metal still left in Project Lead Mountain allowed me to produce some purpose made elements to represent the High Medieval Knights. Essex Miniatures castings are generally very reliable for this period and as luck would have it I had six similar riders left over which would be perfect for the Polish senior nobility. Four of them were shieldless figures so I filed the shield arm slightly flat and glued some spare Corvus Belli shields I have in the spares box to make them an almost perfect match to the central casting. The figures have been detached from their horses a long time ago so I have no idea of the specific figure codes or even which horses were supplied with the riders but I wanted them to have full barding. The Polish nobles have a limited choice of heraldry in this period and lots of people shared the same coat of arms as they belonged to the same Herb, [the Polish term for a Clan Family], red is very popular in Polish heraldry. I made some waterslide transfers of the Polish national eagle which I am using for members of the Royal Family. I have yet to finalise their flags and standards so these will be added to the command stands when I have finally completed the army.

The changes in equipment style means I will need to paint up two complete sets of spearmen for the Early Polish list.

I have settled on various figure makes for the army and am happy to mix and match ranges but not usually on the same bases. I purchased a large amount of Irregular Miniatures castings from the NR41 Polish/Russian/Prussian Spearmen. Unfortunately due to the way the range was designed only one casting comes with the rectangular shield suitable for the start of the list, the others are a round shield casting, a wooden almond shield and three different metal almond shields. I sorted out the castings and produced a battlegroup of ten elements of Irr Sp I using the rectangular shield. They look quite nice one cleaned up and painted. I have discarded the round shield castings into the spares box. The almond shielded castings will probably end up mixed together to provide some variety in the 1200 AD style toops and will mean the entire part of this army will use identical figures.

Irregular HR41 Polish Spearmen with rectangular shields 

Next up are some more Irregular Miniatures castings but at Ian's suggestion I used the V12 Rus Spearmen castings They all have the same rectangular shield but come in a variety of poses. They were painted in traditional Polish clothing for the period of browns, blue and green. I am very pleased the the end result for the ten Irr Sp I elements.

Irregular V12 Rus Spearmen painted as Polish spearmen

Last up are some Minifigs Z338 castings. These are described as Polish Heavy Infantry, Spear, Square Shield. I have enough castings to create 20 elements but to be honest compared to the other two ranges the figures are showing their age but since I have the metal I shall have to paint them all. They are vey easy to paint up and the pose whilst limited does have a look of realism about it.

Minifigs Z338 Polish Heavy Infantry, Spear, Square Shield 

MDF Gaming Aids

Recently Discovered Another MDF Gaming Aid Company

Being the inveterate wargamer I tend to go online and if I see something of interest click on the link. No its not always porn :-) 

Anyway over the weekend I was on Facebook when I found a link totally at random for a company I have never heard of before called Beadspoke Designs http://beadspoke-designs.co.uk/ The company is run by a man called James Claypole who responded to my email enquiry very promptly and much to my surprise despite ordering a personalised item in addition to a generic off the peg product informed me that the order was in the post on Monday and had arrived to me on Tuesday. Under 48 hours from order to arrival was excellent service.

I had a browse through the product range and whilst not much of it was of interest to me there were two items that jumped out as being very useful. His website is split into three parts, one deals with his business part, another with 3D models and the third part hobby accessories.

The first item I saw was a Compass Rose. It comes fully assembled and is 100 mm in diameter. The wind direction arrow is held in place by a green plastic pig that is quite firmly pushed into the hole in the backing plate and the arrow freely rotates.

http://beadspoke-designs.co.uk/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_64&product_id=145 for £3-50 its well worth buying and has multiple uses.

The second item I saw was a turn counter. The website didnt mention that it required assembly and it didn't come with any instructions. The assembled counter is 60mm wide and 30 mm high and about 7mm deep. There are eight pieces in all that will require careful cutting out of the template with a sharp knife. The base plate is pre-marked with the positions that the four spacers must be glued onto. I used boatbuilders superglue and carefully placed the two dots which act as axles for the dials and then glued in the two triangles and held then on place with pegs for about two minutes until the bottom glue coating had set. Once its set you just pop on the dials remembering to make sure they are the right way round and on the correct sides so the numbers line up at the centre the right way up. Anothe quick application of superglue and carefully dropping to top onto the spacers and reusing the clothes pegs resulted in a small and perfectly functionally turn counter that runs from 0 to 99. Only time will tell how durable it is but that will be most likely because the glue I used has failed rather than anything else.

http://beadspoke-designs.co.uk/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_65&product_id=96

All in all I spent £5-50 including personalisation and this included free delivery. 

Salute 2017 - Some Pictures

Salute 2017 - Excel London

I attended Salute this year for the first time since 2015 to assist the Naval Wargames Society with their 1919 Russian Civil War Interventionist participation game. Simon and the crew were there in attendance with me attempting to assist by answering questions, help run the games and pack up at the end of the day. It was quite a busy day and money was spent buying toys and paints by all!

Simon used the excellent PT Dockyard models from the USA for the game. There isnt a UK stockist but if riverine actions are your thing these vessels are a must buy.

I took the opportunity to walk round and take some pictures of any game that was connected to water based warfare and here are the pictures I took on the day.

Dalauppor put on a Swedish - Dutch North American Colonial game. 

Hysterical Games put on a landing craft assault game

Oshiro Model Terrain put on a spectacular looking Shogunate waterborne siege game

The Continental Wars Society put on an 1823 Franco-Spanish War game set in Cadiz.

Freebooters Kickstarter game set in a swamp.

Jersey Pirates Falklands War game

Fleet Action - steampunk style game launching their new rules.

RAF Wargaming Association Pirate Treasure Hunt game

Ghassanids - Later Pre-Islamic Arabs

LPIA Allies

I was asked to paint up an LPIA allied contingent to go with a Patrician Army by a clubmate. He provided the figures, I don't know the make, they didnt have enough shields and were missing their spears. I must admit I didnt know much about the LPIA list and was informed that Ghassanids were the tribal grouping that would have supplied these troops. As part of Project Lead Mountain I have tons of left over bits and pieces. The figures included a Medieval horse from Essex Miniatures for the generals figure which didnt match the other castings so I checked the spares box and found an almost identical style sculpt in the remnants so added the Essex horse to my own spares and substituted this horse instead. I put his shields into PLM and sorted out some shields to match the figures and gave the general his own distinctive shield. The thrusting spears are some sort of segmented bamboo type of spear with a metal tip.

After cleaning up the figures and drilling out their spear hands I glued in some plain wire thrusting spears. Its a shame I cannot be sure of the make but suspect the might be CB or LH type castings.

I started them three days ago and hand varnished them yesterday evening. My clubmate does his own bases so I have temporarily hot glued them to MDF bases to take some pictures. They also make transporting them easier when secured to a base. He wants six Essex camel riders painted as well which I am currently working on. All in all this little commission was a nice change from painting Polish troops for my own Medieval army.

Camels now finished and posted further below.