15mm Painting During Lockdown - Scythians

Last of my Scythian Infantry Completed

Back in August 2018 I blogged about painting my Scythian Archers and 21 months later I have finally painted up the last of the Xyston Scythian infantry I have to complete this army. I had 115 castings to paint and started them six weeks ago just after the UK COVID-19 Lockdown started. 

I was missing 18 x Irr Hd O elements which accounted for 90 castings meaning I had 25 castings left over going spare. After giving it a lot of thought due to the mix of castings I had left over I decided to create an additional eight Irr Ax O elements from the remainders and hid the single odd casting within one of the horde elements as I hate to waste figures! These auxilia are in my to sell pile of finished figures and will end up on EBay in due course.

I still have a large number of horse archers to paint up but I dont need to paint them at present as I have more than enough finished elements in my box for my current needs unless I go for the almost entirely light horse variation of the army. The thought of over 100 Irr LH F plus the lone Irr Cv O CinC is quite daunting!

So here are the completed eighteen Horde elements.

Here are the eight spare Auxilia elements.Which are now on EBay UK

Finally as part of the Chinese lot I blogged about on the 10th May 2020 there were four orphan elements of Indian Light Horse with javelins. I had to repair two of the castings which had broken javelins and repainted their shields into Black Lacquer so they matched in with my own Indian army collection.. The figures were otherwise very nice and I rebased them in the style of my own Indian army bases for a very quick win as I was missing a couple of Irr LH O elements anyway.

15 mm Swiss Army Finally Completed after 25 Years

Last Part of my 15 mm Swiss Army Completed

Way back in 1994 when DBM v1.3 was still in use I decided that I might like to build a Later Swiss Army. Because Navwar was local to me and the figures relatively cheap I decided to use their Naismith/Roundway figure range to build it. As other plans changed including real life events causing problems they project languished in a draw for years and years.

The Swiss Confederation army of this era consisted of troops drawn from 14 Cantons which meant that I had some guidance on the Cantonal Flags and used these as inspiration for various uniforms of each contingent. As I built the army over the last four years I restarted with contingents 9 and 10 back in 2016. Fast forward to 2019 and now Cantons 13 & 14 are finally done along with the last element to complete the Early Swiss Army which came about due to my ending up with a bag of very cheap Minifigs 13th C Halberdiers which I had painted earlier.

So that's two armies finally completed from Project Lead Mountain which I started back in 2012.

First up is the Early Swiss CinC Reg Bd [X] which includes a converted pike general who is now holding a halberd. The cantonal inspiration is Schwyz, one of the founding cantons.

The list requires two optional Psiloi generals elements so I used Basel for the inspiration for this element. Whilst not a canton until quite late they still provided troops to the confederation before they formally joined. Again I took a pike general and modified the casting to carry a much more handy spear for use in rough going terrain.

Next up is the Basel Cantonal Contingent made up of eight elements in all, four x Reg Pk [S], 2 x Reg Bd [X], 1 x Reg Ps [S] Handgunner and 1 x Reg Ps [O] Crossbowmen.

Last up is the final cantonal contingent drawn from Schaffhausen organised exactly the same as the Basel contingent.

 

Of course posting about a completed army would not do unless I posted a picture of all the troops together. All in all it made for a colourful army painting project and I am very pleased with how it turned out.

 

15 mm Early Swiss Enfant Perdus

Early Swiss Enfant Perdus

The DBM/DBMM Early Swiss had eight Reg Ps I Enfant Perdus in the list. They are rock throwing children and I thought no one made them until I was directed to the Minifigs website under their Two Dragons range of Dark Age Peasants.

http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/images/catalogue/DAP11.jpg

The figures are quite well sculpted and are ideal for these particular Swiss elements.

I only have one more Reg Bd X CinC element to paint to field the Early Swiss army which grew out of my Later Swiss and other suitable three to a base Halberdier elements in other armies.

They are finished off with my usual basing of magnetised MDF covered with Vallejo Earth Brown paste, gravel, tufts with the bases edged in Raw Umber.

This means that now I only have two more Canton Contingents to complete the Later Swiss army.

15 mm Anyscale Resin Tents - Part 2

More Baggage Elements From PLM For Sale

Back in August 2018 I blogged about some Anyscale Resin Tents I purchased and created two batches of eight elements that I intended to sell. 

https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2018/08/15mm-anyscale-models-resin-tents.html

I have twenty more tents left in Project Lead Mountain and I finally got around to creating up another eight elements for sale. They will end up on EBay in due course.

Milanese Civic Militia Under the Visconti's 1277 AD to 1447 AD

Milanese Civic Militia Spearmen 1277 AD to 1447 AD

As part of my ongoing project to clear out unpainted metal and replace items in my collection with more suitable figures I purchased a batch of QRF Italian Militia Spearmen back in April Code MIT03 Italian Pavisiers/Spearmen

https://quickreactionforce.co.uk/product/mit03-italian-pavisiersspearmen/ 

Some of them ended up at Catalan Company troops as per a previous blog entry and I had 24 left over castings in the same pose that were ideal for Spearmen or the front tank of Pavisier carriers.

Subsequent to this I purchased a huge batch of Blackhat Italian Spearmen at 50% off in the Vexillia Clearance Sale as they have discontinued selling these castings as he restructures his business into other options. This meant that the original plan to use them to create more Reg Bw X/O elements went out the window.

I recently used my Italian Condotta Army in a special game at the Club Open Day and fielded the Milan version against the Republic of Florence. The Civic Militia Spearmen I had were actually Roundway Hungarian Spearmen and totally unsuitable for the army but were the only figures I had when I created the army 20 years ago. I have now rebased the figures and repainted their shields into something more Eastern European looking and intend to sell them on [pictures at the end of this blog].

Since I wanted to field the Visconti Era army I looked at the heraldry for this time and realised that the Milan arms are the Flag of St Ambrose, which English people will notice is exactly the same as the Flag of St George. To be honest plain white shields with a red cross are really boring and uninspired so I took the liberty of creating my own shield transfers using the Family Arms of the Visconti's as the model. I often create my own flags and transfers and I am very pleased in how they turned out.

QRF MIT03 Italian Spearmen

These are the now surplus Naismith/Roundway Hungarian Spearmen

Roundway RKH08 Armati Heavy Infantry