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

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.

Hussite Infantry - Part 2

More Hussites Pulled Together From Project Lead Mountain

With my ongoing mission to finally clear out the last of my unpainted metal now entering its 8th year I am becoming a bit more creative with the elements I create. As detailed in Part 1 I had a batch of Minifigs Spearmen to make use of. After sorting them out and replacing some of the broken spears with metal spears I ended up with sixteen Minifigs Code Z604 French Pavisiers. Now as far as I am concerned the label on the packet is only a suggestion because European armies tended to share their equipment styles over a very large distance because of their constant internal conflicts and as part of their contribution to the numerous crusades. The rear rank is a mix of QRF castings MIT04 Italian Mercenary Crossbowmen. I decided to paint them in a similar fashion to the repurposed spears I recently blogged about that came with the Hungarian army I purchased. The end result are four generic DBE elements of Reg Bw X/O suitable for lots of armies that fields crossbowmen protected by a rank of spaivier holding spearmen. As usual they are mounted on MDF with magnetic sheeting underneath and the bases are textured using Vallejo Earth Brown paste, compete with static grass, some gravel and tufts before they were sealed with Matt spray sealer to protect them. Sold already - to a clubmate!

Update On Recent Hungarian Purchase

Repurposing Hungarian Spearmen Into Bw X/O

For those who follow my blog they would have seen that I purchased another Hungarian army. Included in it were eight elements of very nice spearmen but I didn't have any need for more spearmen. They are clearly Essex Miniatures but I cannot find out which figure code but they look similar to their EMED41 code. So after some thought I took them off their bases with the plan to turn them into the front rank figures of Regular Bow X/O Crossbowmen.

Spearmen as purchased

I have recently purchased a batch of QRF castings MIT04 Italian Mercenary Crossbowmen and MIT03 Italian Pavisiers/Spearmen. Since I had not finalised what to do with them and the Hungarians were already painted but spare I decided that I would use some of the QRF Crossbowmen for the rear rank. The figures are a good match size wise and I managed pretty much to duplicate the painting style and colours used on the spearmen on the crossbowmen. I am very pleased with how they have turned out. The bases were finished with Vallejo Earth Brown Sandy Paste, dry brushed with static grass, gravel and a few tufts. As is usual my figure bases are completed with magnetic sheeting and the edges painted a dark brown colour for contrast. I am not sure if I will keep them or sell them just yet but they are certainly of use in lots of Central and Eastern European armies during the 14th and 15th C. UPDATE: Sold them to someone at my club today [17/02/19] he was happy and so am I!