Project Lead Mountain 03/03/17

Project Lead Mountain - 3rd March 2017

As part of my ongoing attempt to clear out all of my unpainted, unwanted metal which I have called Project Lead Mountain I have been rationalising and rebasing older figures in my collection to sell off on EBay. I had ten bases of Psiloi crossbowmen which I have been trying to sell on EBay with little or no interest. I thought they would have sold but I guess there's only so many Ps a DBx player needs. They are suitable for the 13th C era onwards. Since they didnt sell I decide that I would rebase them into Reg Bw O and put Pavises in front of them to turn them into Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw O. So a quick order to Tin Soldier for a number of their Pavises was in order to let me to the conversion. I only wanted to make four elements so have added the spare two elements of Ps into my collection.

I decided that since most mercenary crossbowmen seemed to come from Italy that I would decorate the pavises with various Italian city state patterns. Rebasing figures is always a chore but often works out for the best in the end. I painted the pavises whilst still attached to the elements bases before glueing the now spare crossbowmen in place. The end result is quite effective and they will be on EBay in the next few days. I am fairly certain that the helmeted castings are Essex but I can't ID the other ones.

As part of the rationalisation process I had some old Minifigs Z313 Frankish Crossbowmen which were in desperate need of rebasing. There were sixteen castings and I decided that they would be ideal to turn into Reg Bw O or I because they are fully armoured in a long mail hauberk. They will be suitable for the earlier style Reg Bw O or I Mercenary Crossbowmen in Feudal armies such as Communal and Papal Italian, Feudal French, Sicilian, Medieval German and Feudal English. I think they wont really be suitable for depicting troops after 1200 AD due to their armouring style. They will be on EBay in due course as they are surplus to my requirements. As a casting sculpt style they are pretty unimpressive but they are very old figures but so generic they will easily hide themselves in lots of armies with little problem. I didn't paint these figures having acquired them at a Bring and Buy some years ago but they were on horrible bases. 

Minifigs Z313 Frankish Crossbowmen

Moving onto figures I decided to paint and keep to finish off gaps in my collection I had already painted up an odd bag of eight Minifigs Z310 European Crossbowmen [Helmet] as four bases of Irr Ps O but as part of collecting for another army I got another bag of Z310 figures and decided that since I had too many Ps I would paint these to match the first batch and then rebase them all as unarmoured Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw I which will be suitable for use from 1029 AD up to at least 1200 AD in the same armies I already listed above. The castings required almost no cleaning up and are a dream to paint up and base.  

Minifigs Z310 European Crossbowmen [Helmet]

The other figures were two bags of Minifigs Z311 European Heavy Crossbowmen [Mail, Pot Helm]. The castings also required almost no cleaning up and again are a dream to paint up and base. Their figure style is slightly later than the casting Z310 due to the Pot Helm so will be suitable to use in armies up to about 1300 AD as Mercenary Crossbowmen Reg Bw O.

Minifigs Z311 European Heavy Crossbowmen [Mail, Pot Helm]

This brings to a close this weeks installment from Project Lead Mountain. I still have a lot more figures left to paint and have purchased the metal for a new army last month with the proceeds of last years EBay sales.

Cilician Armenian In Disguise

Cilician Armenians Disguised As Mongols

This DBx army list has two elements of Irr LH F described as Armenians dressed as Mongols. I was at a loss what to do to create these two elements until as part of another EBay purchase I added one pack of 15mm Minifigs ZC350 Mongol Cavalry [Firing Bow] to the order.

I Googled for suitable images with very little luck, they were more traditional Asiatic Horde type drawings and thought that considering they were really Cilician Armenians in disguise I should try and make them fit into the rest of the army but still give them a flavour of what the Mongol Hordes would have looked like.

Like most of the Minifigs range they are very old sculpts despite the old company having remastered all of their horses over 15 years ago or more. They are still quite crisp castings and required minimal cleaning up to get them ready for painting. I added them to the list of items to be painted which took on more urgency this week when I decided that I intended to use the Cilician Armenians for the first time on Sunday at Essex Warriors and I wanted to swop out the two Arab-Muslim light horse elements of Horse Archers I was using in their place.

So to all those gamers out there who dismiss Minifigs as being old castings this isn't always the case and with a steady hand and a keen eye you can get some very nice results.

Minifigs ZC350 Mongol Cavalry [Firing Bow]

Peter Pig 15mm Tuaregs

Peter Pig Tuaregs in 15mm

Back in 2013 I ordered some of Peter Pigs Tuaregs from their range 0303 to make up an allied contingent to go with my other Arab armies. Despite it being ready to use I still have not ever played a game with them! The figures required some cleaning up and assembly. See http://www.peterpig.co.uk/ancients.html I ordered a mix of codes 03031, 03032 & 03033.

The large shields were all separate which means you can get some variety with a limited number of figures. I decided to take the army list notes literally and they were the famed milky white colour. I also have a ton of other camels from Irregular painted with brown hides to act as troops for the LPIA army and as mounts for infantry if needed. The one thing that really annoys me about the LPIA list is that all of their generals are mounted on horses which means that operationally you cant move though dunes using a small command due to the adverse effect dunes have on horses in DBx.

I could field a Tuareg army by using all of the camels but have never felt brave enough to try it! 

Here are two pictures of the finished Tuaregs which are now four years old and have never left their storage box to fight. One day maybe?

Baueda 15mm Medieval Tents Review

Baueda 15mm Medieval Tents

I spotted a bargain on EBay last week and whilst I knew better I bought them. I paid a total of £28-30 for 6 x 15MDV Nobles Tents, 1 x 1 x 15RNS Nobles Pavilion, 1 x LGS1 Ancient Supplies, 1 x LGS2 Generic Supplies & 1 x 15WFN Wattle Fence. The retail from Baueda for then all is €36-00 which converts to £30-47 plus delivery. So whilst I got a bargain I still ended up with so more items I dont know what to do with at the moment. I already have one of each of the LGS 1 & 2 packs meaning I now have four of them spare. I will be keeping the Wattle pack and will use it to create Temporary Fortifications for Dark Age and Early Feudal armies in due course.

I really like the Baueda range of baggage items [see http://www.baueda.com/index.html ] and I had been thinking of replacing my current medieval baggage with new elements. I have just completed them and have put them in the baggage box in lieu of the older items I had. Whilst they are clean resincast items with minimal flash they take a steady hand to paint them well enough to avoid you ending up with a messy looking set of tents.

The replaced baggage elements are now on EBay as they are surplus to my needs and they will offset the cost of the new tents despite their being Baueda castings. [Pictures below]. I guess that sometimes I am just a bit too picky for my own good as theres nothing wrong with them really.

The EBay link is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192107489673?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

15mm Stuff on EBay

Decided To Have A Bit Of A Clear Out On EBay!

With new things to paint in the pipeline and Project Lead Mountain reaching the stage where I have completed about 90% of the things I want to keep and the remainder left being things to sell I had a look through the storage boxes for things I no longer want to keep and have put a load of lots on EBay. Its all 15mm scale.

My EBay seller name is DYSON690

Heres a link to one of the lots http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192105925297?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Currently I have the following lots on sale.

Baueda Medieval Tents

Essex Crossbowmen Psiloi x 10

Essex Early German Wb O x 8

15mm Wagon

15mm Wagon

Essex Bactrian/Sogdian Cavalry x 4

Renaissance Gunners

Wickerman 8EE Baggage/Camp Feature

Minifigs Later Byzantine Auxilia & Psiloi

8 Generic Baggage Elements

12 Elements of Feudal Archers

4 Elements of Unarmoured Mounted Archers

Baueda Tents

Baueda Tents

Baueda makes lots of excellent resincast tents, buildings, accessories and now metal figures. I am a sucker for a nice piece of baggage and have far too many pieces already but I decided that I just needed a few more for variety! So I ordered four more to add to my own collection to enable me to create a set of six similar elements. I personally prefer immobile baggage elements so am happy to buy tents. I already had a pair of the Greek Tents so ordered two of the Ottoman and two of the Persian tents as the name on the bag is only a guide! see http://www.baueda.com/ for their website.

Below are the finished items. I used a Linen colour and a Chestnut wash to give them a dirty look. Being resin they need a good wash using domestic washing up liquid to give the surface a clean finish so the undercoat takes proper hold. I finished them off using Plasticote Spray Matt Sealer which should give them a good protective coat for many years.

15GRK Greek Style Tents 

15OTM Ottoman Style Tents

15PRS Persian Style Tents

If I need more than six elements I can easily just use some of the other elements I have in my collection.

Eastern Franks - Swabian & Bavarian Knights

A Long Delayed Project Finally Completed

Way back under DBM v1.1 I purchased a Norman Army for 1066 AD. One of the ideas was for it to morph into Eastern Franks. The last two years of Project Lead Mountain saw me clearing more figures from the unpainted pile at a ration of four to one. I have also been buying new figures but the amount of unpainted metal is now down to the state that its all bits and pieces with a few exceptions and none of it is of any use to allow me to morph an existing army into something new.

Having cast around for suitable mounted kite shielded knights armed with swords I settled on Donnington New Era Normans specifically their http://shop.ancient-modern.co.uk/nmc11-heavy-cavalryman-2918-p.asp castings. I emailed Damian and asked him if he could make sure I got 24 of each casting and selected 24 each of the HH01, HH02 & HH03 mounts for variety. I am unsure if I will ever use 24 Irr Kn I Swabian Knights but they will double up as other Milites from this era so wont go to waste. I am very pleased with how they turned out. It took be about two months to do them all because I also had other things on the go at the same time and I hate painting huge batched of identical castings if I can avoid it. The mounts required some fine cleaning up of flash as did the riders. The figures came with separate kite shields which were a bit of a pain to glue on to the figures. This of course means that these casting are also perfectly suitable for other similarly armed knights from the Dark Ages by the simple expedient of using different shaped shields.The castings are full of detail and they paint up really well.

So now I have 24 elements of Irr Kn I in my collection which can double up for other knights if necessary.

Donningtons NMC11 Norman Knights on HH01, HH02 & HH03 horses