Generic Dismounted Men-At-Arms From Project Lead Mountain

When you find another bag of figures in the wrong place!

As part of Project Lead Mountain my aim is to clear out all of my unpainted 15mm Ancient castings either by painting and selling on EBay or adding to my own collection. Whilst looking through a draw of figures to see what I fancied painting next I found three bags of dismounted knights. After sorting them out I realised that with the addition of some metal spears to four of them and a quick look in my draw of yet to be painted Swiss infantry for some spare Hornists I had the making of 15 new elements of Blade [Superior] using DBx terminology. The figures are of mixed makes and apart from the Hornished which are either Naismith or Roundway I do not have a clue what make they are or where they come from. Such is the long time I have had them. I had originally decided that I would sell them on EBay but after I have completed them decided that they will be going into my own collection. Which means I will be cascading twelve elements out of my collection in their place to go on EBay. 

I realised that if I wanted to use them for a few armies I would need to use fairly nondescript flags for the command groups. I settled on fairly generic Guelph Faction Italian Condotta flags which will be suitable to use with lots of armies.

I ended up creating five groups of three elements making 60 castings in all and it took me 48 hours to complete them from scratch.

The first batch of pictures are the figures going into my own collection.

Apparently Corvus Belli castings I am told.

There are supposed to be Lancashire Games castings I am told

The following groups are carrying flags for Cremona, mainly because I liked the look of them.

These next two groups of elements are going on EBay.
The first group are Naismith/Roundway castings.

The second group are a mix of makes some of which look like Mikes Models, at least one Minifigs, an Essex and anyones guess what else!

Early and Later Polish - Part 13

Feudal & Medieval Polish - Part 13

The Warwagons and Handgunners.

As part of my ongoing project to create a Polish army my next installment of the army is their warwagons and skirmishing handgunners. All of the elements are from a Polish company called QR Miniatures [except for the loose pavise which are from Irregular code HR28]

http://www.qrminiatures.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=18 

Codes PTM8 [five different sculpts, one with attached pavise] and PTM12 [two different wagons].

The range is well sculpted, cleaning cast and excellent to paint up. I have lots more of their 13 Years War castings to add to my army.

The warwagons come in pairs, one with horses and the other on a solid base as if parked up overnight. I ordered eight wagons and used the stationary ones as baggage elements as per the previous blog entry for the Polish army project.

I decided to give them lots of crew and provide infantry escorts to make them appear formidable.I finished the sides of the wagons with transfers to give them a national appearance.

After completing the warwagons I had eight handgunners left over. The army list only required two elements but I decided that I would paint them all up and have two spare elements because otherwise I just end up with random unpainted metal hanging around in my spares box. One of the casting had what we would recognise as a much more modern traditional looking handgun so I put those four castings on the same bases to create Regular looking elements with the other four castings mixed up to create Irregular looking elements. 

15mm Anyscale Models Resin Tents

Yet More Baggage Elements For Sale

Anyscale Models make an interesting range of bits and pieces. I purchased some of their resin cast A profile tents. The objective was to make some baggage elements to sell on EBay to generate some income to fund my incurable Lead Habit. The castings came in plain grey finish and were quite clean with minimal air bubbles which can plague poorer made low quality resin product.

As with all my painting projects these were for use with 15mm scale armies.

I mounted them on 40mm x 40mm MDF bases, completed with magnetic sheeting underneath, finished off with Vallejo Texture Paste, various tufts and spray sealed with a matt varnish sealer.

I have completed two batches so far in different styles and plan to do another two later this year.

Scythians - The Archers

Scythian Archers - Or How I wasted 3 Weeks Of My Life

Because I am using Xyston castings for my Scythian infantry I ended up with some of the best designed and sculpted castings on the market. The Scythians are a colourful lot and their clothing has lots of contrasting trim, a mix of either fur or cloth stripes. I had a total of 72 castings to paint and the colour mix meant that there was a lot of mixing and matching of paints as I worked through them. I started to get bored painting them and kept getting distracted during August painting other things or working on small commissions which meant they seemed to drag out. In the end it took me a total of 21 days to complete these figures. As is usual Xyston castings are mostly clean and required minimal cleaning up before painting could begin. The DBMM army list allows you to use a maximum of 24 elements of Bw archers. They are a perfect fit with the other infantry I have already blogged. I still have eighteen elements of Hordes to complete which totals another 90 castings but I am going to take a break from painting Scythians for a while as I can use other Hd elements as a quick fix substitute if necessary whilst I work on a different army.