Final Batch of Gladiator/Blackhat Feudal Spearmen and Some Crossbowmen

Finally Completed my Feudal Infantry for the 12th Century

With this blog entry I have now completed the planned replacement of my 12th C Feudal Spearmen along with the unplanned replacement of some 12th C Regular Crossbowmen.

All the of figures are from Gladiator/Blackhat which I purchased at 25% off due to Vexillia having an end of discontinued range clearance sale due to his ceasing to sell this figure range after its sale to Fighting15's. The figures are excellent sculpts and I now have 34 mixed posed spearmen left over along with 36 more crossbowmen still to paint but these are not going into my collection unless I decide to replace some of my Irr Bw O elements.

The Codes from Fighting15's are FE21, 21 & 22. I freely mixed up what I purchased and have no proper idea which specific code the spearmen are from now! The first batch are generic and suitable for my Communal Italian army and others that use Town Militias etc. These finally complete the 32 elements I wanted to have.

This batch were painted using a shield sheet of English coats of arms for the 12th C that I found on the WWW as a point of reference. Each shield is hand painted and these elements give me the sixteen other elements I wanted for variety.

Last up are the crossbowmen code FE25 Italian Crossbowmen, though the label is just a guide as this armour was common to most of Western Europe, I had some Falcon Figures that I wanted to replace, so they are on EBay and these have replaced them in my 12th C army collection.

All of the sculpts were well designed and painted up easily.

Dismounted Norman General Commission in 15 mm

Dismounted Norman General Commission in 15 mm

Tim at the club has been using 15 mm Normans this year and realised that he was short one dismounted generals element and asked me if I had anything suitable in my collection surplus to my needs or if there was anything in Project Lead Mountain that would do.

On Saturday night I came home and had a look through the unpainted metal and found two bags of unpainted swordsmen, possibly Lancashire or Donnington castings, along with some spare Norman period figures. The spare figures were from Essex Miniatures and consisted of an axe man and what from memory was a broken standard bearer. After cutting away the axe and broken standard I drilled out their hands and fitted them with metal spears. Then I had to pare away the metal under the staffs it had left smooth metal so a quick stabbing session with a scalpel blade tip reinstated the look of chain mail underneath the new metal spears. The basing style was done to match some figures I had already supplied to Tim last year.

I only started the figures on Monday night and I added some flags I found on the WWW that were suitable for Norman period armies.

Rebased Norman Era Armoured Crossbowmen

Falcon Figures Feudal Armoured Crossbows

So almost one year after my previous post on rebasing some Norman Milites I had a spare hour to rebase some more of my Norman infantry. These date from 25 years ago and were on some very old all over static grass bases, which whilst still OK looking were very old fashioned and dont match the rebased Milites. Falcon figures are no longer sold in the UK after the range was sold to an American company. I gather they are very hard to get hold of in the USA nowadays. Given how old they are and the painting style I used back them I am very pleased how they turned out. I removed all the old static grass and applied a quick armour wash over the chain mail and helmets to bring out the fine detail. Put on new magnetised MDF bases, completed with brown edgings, small rocks and various tufts.

Even More Gladiator/Blackhat Feudals Spearmen

Gladiator Feudal Spearmen - Part 3

The third instalment of my project to replace the current mix of figures for my 12th C Feudal Spearmen hits the lightbox. They are Gladiator Code FE20,21 & 22, I sorted them out into identical sculpts to ensure I made up liveried, uniformed spear blocks. I already had two bases painted a couple of years ago so added in some additional basing materials to try and make them match the new figures, they are the block on the left of the 1st picture. I have another two batches left to complete, 24 identical castings and another lot consisting of three batches of 8 identical castings each.

I really like these figures, their pose and sculpt really shows off the idea of how uniformed militia contingents should look. The shields and liveries are generic to allow them to be used in lots of European armies from around 1200 AD until approximately 1300 AD

15mm Ancients For Sale

Waiting To Go On EBay

I am having a clear out of surplus items as I swap about figures within my collection. Most of the figures are virtually unused and some are brand new. Most are on MDF bases and all are magnetised. I have been working on Project Lead Mountain since 2012 as I strive to clear my backlog of unpainted metal and finally complete lots of projects that stalled due to other priorities.

Apart from the mounted and baggage elements which are £10 each the infantry elements are £5 They are nearly all European style figured and range from 1100 AD until 1500 AD depending on the casting design.