More Catalan Company Infantry

Catalan Company Infantry - Part 2

As part of Project Lead Mountain I had a large number of QRF MIT03 Italian Pavisiers/Spearmen going spare. I had intended to use them to create more Italian Double Based crossbowmen with front rank pavisiers but after having a sort out of the casting poses I realised that only one of the three poses was ideal for that still to do project. This left me with 48 spare castings in two batches of 24 castings each of two poses and three spare castings with the upright spear which were left over that would be ideal as standard bearers. I cut off the soft metal sprear and replaced then with metal spears for the standard bearers. I also had a mixed bag of old Gladiator Games/Blackhat War of the Roses commanders that were spare which look perfect in the command elements for the 14th C period.

I sorted out which castings mixed in with the QRF castings and ended up having enough figures to create twelve more elements of Catalan Company Almughvars Reg Ax S and three Generals Almughvars elements also classed as Reg Ax S.

Since this is a morph project I decided that these would make the core of the army and the other Medieval Regular Auxilia elements I have painted up will be used to bilk out the army to make it usable. I cannot see me using the army often but at least now I have cleared out some more unpainted figures.

Lastly I needed some flags so I created my own flags based on historic Catalan designs and settled on using the first three flags for my generals. If I add more troops to the army I have the option of using the other flag designs. I have no idea how accurate the flags are but they are based on the Aragon flag with historic variations.

Iphikratean Peltasts Commission

Iphikratean Peltasts 15mm Commission

As part of an ongoing project one of my club mates is building an Athenian Later Hoplite Greek Army, specifically the one commanded by Iphikrates between 374 BC and 353 BC when he ordered Athenian Marines removed from their ships and deployed as special long speared shielded peltasts classed as Reg Ax [X] in DBM. 

He chose to use a mix of Xyston ANC20018 Peltasts with pilos [16 figures] and ANC 20032 Peltasts with Attic helmets [8 figures]. I also added in two spare modified Museum Miniatures Peltasts Code SE04 because he wanted a couple of spare figures for a command element. He wanted a mix of shielded and unshielded figures for variety so I mixed and matched as best as I could using the 16 shields he provided. Xyston are annoying castings because you have to drill out the hands to carry their very long spears and their shields are loose so they needed gluing on. He will be basing them himself to match his other troops so I just needed to paint the bases sand to hide any bare metal that might show through the basing materials.

Information is scant on what they looked like and the only images I could find had red and white crests where worn and light blue shields with nautical motifs.

I started them a week ago and I am quite pleased with the end result. I hand painted the shields because they were too small to use transfers on without a lot of aggravation. As they say "the cash is useful!"

Xyston Mixed Codes ANC 20018 & 20032

Museum Miniatures Code SE04

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 9

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 9

After a long break from painting the T'ang, my last blog was in January 2019 I decided to finish off the last eight elements of Regular Crossbowmen. They are Outpost Wargames Services figures Code STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen - Pose 2. I will return to other projects for now but might get the urge to paint up more of the missing elements later in the year.

Outpost STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen Pose 2

Outpost STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen Pose 1

Essex MPA14 Macedonian: Thessalian Medium Cavalry

Thessalian Medium Cavalry

As part of Project Lead Mountain I am always rooting through bits and pieces to paint up for sale. Having found a bag of Minifigs Thessalian Light Horse whilst looking for something else I realised that I also had 21 unpainted Essex Thessalian Medium Cavalry code MPA14. They are of no use to me and I think I might have bought them when I was building my Marian Romans to use as Macedonian cavalry. I would have decided to keep them but I can use Gallic, German, Spanish, Italian or Macedonian cavalry in my army so they are really a duplication. I might sell on something else in their place. - I think I might just keep them for now!

The figures are the usual Essex type cavalry, single pose riders but with a variation of horses. They painted up easily enough and were finished with a Light Brown shade wash, tufts, small gravel and a matt spray varnish sealer.

UPDATE - I spent an hour moving figures around in my storage cases just so I could fit these into the correct box. So now I have my Polybian & Marian Romans, their Spanish ally and the Attalid Pergamene army all in the same storage box. This does mean I have spare room in my Early Armenian box for more light horse and the Numidians and Tang Chinese need to swop boxes because I dont have enough room for all my Chinese troops waiting to be painted to be stored.

Essex MPA14 Thessalian Medium Cavalry

Bosworth Field - what might have been?

Good King Richard Smites His Enemies

Good King Richard met his enemies today at Bosworth Field. There was a strong wind blowing in their face for the entire duration of the battle. Lord Percy was late to respond to the Kings orders after his courier got lost on the field of battle. The Stanleys Battle rushed headlong against the Kings main infantry Battle whilst Percy sat immobile alongside the King. Then he saw the crash of the Kings great bombard demolish a file of retinue archers and advanced against their flank whilst the King moved his mounted Battle around the rear of the now isolated Stanleys. Norfolk advanced against Tudors main battle whilst Tudors other Battle sat isolated at the far end of the field of battle. With the Stanleys crushed and captured the King and Norfolk then proceeded to isolate Tudor from the rest of his army and camp which quickly fell. Later upon Ambion Hill the Stanleys and Tudors were executed for High Treason whilst all their lands and possessions were declared forfeit to the Crown for Richards pleasure. The game was 500 AP and the score was 10-0 to King Richard [31-1] and lasted about three hours in all. Kevin Baker from the Cowards Wargames Club commanded the Tudor Traitors.

Initial Deployment

Initial Deployment

Stanley rushes forward against the Kings Infantry Battle whilst the King moves around their rear through the gap in Tudors army.

Stanleys totally isolated [White Banners]

Norfolk holds down Tudors Battle

The King prepares to crush the Stanleys

Norfolk pins Tudor protecting Percy and the Kings flank

Stanley's Battle appear to hold out at first

Norfolk holds firm against Tudor

Stanley's broken Battle try to flee the field whilst the Kings cavalry loot the Tudor baggage camp