Early and Later Polish - Part 2

Polish Feudal & Medieval Polish - Part 2

Continuing on from the pictures of the first contingent of Knights I posted yesterday here is the first batch of infantry I have managed to complete in the last month. As before it was a case of seeing who made what, what I already have and if there were any cheap bargains to be found on EBay.

Since I like to have unique elements where possible first up are the Town Militia. These are classed as Reg Bw X/O DBE in DBx and were uniformed standing troops in the Later Polish Medieval army.

I had a huge bag of left over Pavises from the now discontinued Corvus Belli Range after having produce the Bohemian Crossbowmen elements late last year. So now I needed to identify suitable troops from Project Lead Mountain that could be converted to shield bearers. I had some Minifigs Z305 13th C Kettle Hat, Axe figures which are nice sculpts but because of the age had really weak axe shafts where is joined their hands and to be honest the pose is a bit strange.

Minifigs Z305 13th C Kettle Hat, Axe

So out with the knife, off with the axes and I had 24 castings waiting for conversion. Careful drilling out of the hands with a pin drill allowed me to insert thin metal spears that were bedded into a hole drilled into the base for additional strength. Once I sorted out the pavises I glued them onto the fronts of the figures and set them aside whilst I researched Town Militia liveries and the correct Town Arms for the pavises. The rear rank figures ended up being Minifigs 484X castings as I had three packs of these surplus to requirements. They wear armour in part so make ideal figures to use as troops sheltering behind pavise bearers in the rear ranks. For me the label on a figure is just a guide as in Medieval Europe there was so much commonality in armour styles across the whole of Europe there's no point in being hung up on a figure being called Burgundian and it not being suitable for other nations armies. Unfortunately there's no picture on Minifigs website for figures 484X in the Burgundian range so I cannot be 100% sure this was the casting I used.

It took a few weeks of patient work creating the Town Militia due to my having to constantly change colours and wait for the various layers to dry properly to ensure there was no bleeding across the borders between colours. It took be a couple of days to paint the pavises which isn't bad considering the variety of designs I settled on. For me a day isnt a solid 7 hours but a few hours grabbed as and when between other things.

Unfortunately the Town Militia also have the option of being normal crossbowmen so I also need to paint up twelve elements of liveried Reg Bw O behind Pavises in due course. This will come later and I already have the metal put aside for this.

The Early Polish list has four elements referred to as Murderous Rustics and classed as Irr Bd X which luckily enough carry on into the Later Polish list. During my cheap figure hunt on EBay I found three packs of Minifigs Z340 Russian/Polish Peasant Infantryman, Furcap, Axe. so I bought them with the intention of using them as part of the main army but the pose is so great they just begged to be the Rustics. The WRG book claims that Polish peasants are usually dressed in a mix of Blue, Green and Brown clothing and traditionally painted the exposed wood on the fronts of their shields the almost ubiquitous red colour which sets off the clothing rather nicely.

Minifigs Z340 Russian/Polish Peasant Infantryman, Furcap, Axe

People often overlook Minifigs for more modern sculpts but they have an excellent range of figures and lots of them easily hold their own against newer figures. The only down side is the single pose they have in each figure code. This can be annoying but unless you are unwilling to mix and match makes in an army not a problem for me. The figures were easy to paint and required minimal cleaning. I am very pleased with how they turned out and should frighten any European knights.

Minifigs Z340 Murderous Rustics

The Early Polish list has 12 elements of Irr Ps O of Slingers and 40 elements of Irr Ps O or Irr Bw O Archers that vanish from the Later Polish list. I assume this is because of the change in how the nobility decided to drawn on the peasant population to fight invaders. I meant that in respect of the archers I can use my huge number other Irr Bw O Feudal archers and ignore the fact they are not entirely accurate clothing wise. Whilst hunting for figures on EBay I did find five packs of Z341 Russian/Polish Peasant Infantryman, Furcap, Bow and I already had three packs of Z315 Staff Slingers in Project Lead Mountain. So this decided it for me. I would use the Z341 figures for 20 elements of Ps and the Z315 would make up the Staff Slingers and clear another small part of the Mountain.

Minifigs Z315 Staff Slingers 

Minifigs Z341 Russian/Polish Peasant Infantryman, Furcap, Bow

I cant seeing my ever wanting to use more than 20 elements of the Ps Archers but if I do I have plenty of other Feudal types that can make up for the shortfall. I might just decide to create proper Irr Bw O archers for the Early Polish army one day but at present it is a case of using whats to hand first to get it on the table. Plus 40 elements of Archers is a lot of new metal to buy. I also figured that the Psiloi types would be more suitable to fighting in broken ground and dressed to better protect themselves against thorn bushes etc whilst the Archers would be fighting in a closer formation and may well be encumbered by the use of heavy cloaks etc.

Minifigs Z315 Staff Slingers

Minifigs Z341 Russian/Polish Peasant Infantryman, Furcap, Bow

With this blogging post I am now up to date with my painted figures. Its probably going to be a while until I can post more progress as there's a lot of figures still to paint.