Six Essex Medieval Cogs

Essex Medieval Cogs - Ready for Sale

Essex Miniatures Code Boat 4 Medieval Boat with Single Sail

Having purchased six damaged Essex Medieval Cogs on EBay earlier this month I thought that they might be interesting to repair and complete properly. They don't have a scale listed on the Essex Website and I think that given the dimensions and size of the Crows Nest they are probably 1/300th scale as there's no way that a 15mm scale figure would realistically fit in the models. [link below]

https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/products/boat4?fbclid=IwAR1KG4nhphSqX0T566_sWEkQk1cW5pGZQo3XNfIlKAAv9CleEUvbHOa-yy8

They are very expensive models to buy but with a lot of patience and effort you will end up with some very nice looking ships suitable for any wargames table.

Here are the models as listed on EBay. As you can see they were all broken, badly based and appeared to be undercoated a greenish brown colour.

After removing them from their old bases and giving them a good clean up with a stiff brush to remove what looked like lots of dust I set about trying to match the masts to the various hulls. 

It turned out that only three of the masts were snapped off which I repaired by drilling down the centre of the mast with a 0.7mm drill bit and inserted a pin 10mm into the mast. 

Once each ship was cleaned up and I had removed the old glue I restuck the masts using Boat Builders Superglue and then glued the pin repairs into the corresponding half for each mast and hull.

Next up was put them on Magnabased 80mm x 40mm Plasticard with more Superglue and paint them with a Dark Brown colour and a Black Wash.

 

It was whilst doing this I realised that each ship had been given two shields hung on each side of the Stern Castle. I then started to paint the shields in basic heraldic colours ready for them to be decorated properly. 

I also lined the fine detail on the castles and painted each stern in a Brass colour and completed each of the 24 shields in a unique coat of arms. The bases took longer than I thought and were painted Deep Turquoise base coat with a Dark Blue wash followed by a Light Blue wash and completed with a very thin White wash to create the water effect. The completed hulls were then given a couple of coats of Matt Spray Sealer to protect them.

The sails were created by downloading Candy Stripe images from the net and folding them in half and glueing them together to create double sided sails. 

I chose Candy Strip because this appears to be quite a common sailcloth pattern for this era according to some illustrations I found on line.

Each sail was hung on the spars by using four strands of cotton superglued to the backs of the sails and wrapped round the spars in a single loop leaving the spare thread hanging loose to use as the rigging.

This loose cotton was then wrapped round the mast at the centre to create the bowsprit rigging and glued to the inside hull from the endspars to create the stern rigging.

Once the glue was set I just had to trim off the excess cotton and I had six complete ships. Whilst I am tempted to keep them I am fairly sure that they will end up on EBay in the next few weeks.

Hussite Infantry - Part 1

Speculate To Accumulate 101 - Hussites For Sale

I purchased a lot of very badly painted figures off EBay. It comprised of 76 infantry and a badly made warwagon labelled as Hussites [picture at the bottom]. I knew I didn't want or need them but I like a challenge. I raided Project Lead Mountain and have found some more odd figures to add into this batch as well as suitable horses as motive power for the warwagon. In the end I managed to get a total of 40 infantry to use as Blades, 32 infantry to use as Spears and a warwagon with eight more figures left over to turn into crew. Eight of the spearmen castings were broken but I quickly replaced their broken spears with new pointed steel spears. I am still unsure what to do with the spears as yet and I might end up using them as the front rank of more Reg Bw X/O crossbowmen elements if I can find some more cheap crossbowmen.

Being Hussites I had a look through some picture sources and reference books and decided that Black would be a good solution for a frighting look. The castings are a mix of Minifigs, Essex and some other makes like Corvus Belli. They were finished of with magnetised MDF bases, texture paste, static grass and tufts before being sealed with a matt spray sealer. 

I will offer them inside my wargames club first and if they don't sell they will end up on EBay. Sold already to a clubmate!

Picture From EBay

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!

More Elephants - Can you have too many elephants?

Elephants Off EBay

I really need to stop buying things but these looked too nice to pass by. The seller is a name known to use on the UK gaming circuit so I knew he wasn't going to sell rubbish. What surprised me was that the items I received were better than his pictures showed on EBay. I now have 30 mixed elephants which is enough for all my needs. I may start to sell on a few that are surplus to my requirements? They were sold as being Legio Heroica but having checked their website only to find the only elephant they sell is in their Sassanids range and completely different I realised that they were Donningtons TIMEL01 & TIMEL02 from their https://shop.ancient-modern.co.uk/timurid-golden-hoard-ilkhanid-and-persians-61-c.asp range. They are well made and fit into my collection perfectly so I am not unhappy.

Painting Commission for Later Hoplite Greeks

Athenian Horse Archers 15mm Commission

I was asked if I had any suggestions on what to use for Athenian Horse Archers in the Later Hoplite Greek list by someone at my wargames club. I must confess I didn't have a clue so Googled them and found a discussion paper which confirmed that they were hired in mercenaries and one of the options were the Getic tribes. https://stefanosskarmintzos.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/the-myths-about-horseback-archery-in-the-greek-armies/  I vaguely recalled that Essex Miniatures made a Getic Horse Archer in their Macedonian and Punic Wars Range - Code MPA33 Later Hoplite Greek: Getic Horse Archer. https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/products/mpa33

As strange as this may sound as part of a purchase of unpainted metal some years ago I had four of these castings in Project Lead Mountain and since I had no use for them they had remained in a bag waiting for disposal in due course. So after pointing out the the reference and that it could have been Getic, Scythians or Thracians I was asked to paint up my four castings in a suitable Athenian garb for him.

Being Essex Miniatures they were in their usual house style and came with a single pose. There were fairly cleanly cast with minimal flash except between the hind legs.

Being a small commission I started them yesterday evening and finished them earlier today. I am glad I have got rid of another small bag of otherwise useless castings from PLM and it has solved a problem for my friend too. They are painted in a similar style with minor trim differences to match in with his existing collection. As is normal they are not based so he can base them himself to match his collection. Now I need to think about what's next in the queue of things to paint or base as part of Project Lead Mountain.

When EBay Strikes - Hide Your Credit Card [Later Hungarians] - AGAIN

Another Unplanned Purchase Off Ebay - Again

As part of my project to complete my Serbians, Lithuanians and Poles I saw this listing on EBay for more 15mm scale Later Hungarians. They were very well painted so I put in a bid and waited to see what happened. Much to my surprise I won and paid less than I thought I would. The figures were all based on MDF but none of them were magnetised. I have now done the magnet basing and repainted the edges of the elements and they are in my collection. I have not done the spearmen and handgunners yet because I am considering other options with them including making them into the the front rank of double based bowmen with newly painted crossbowmen and since I have too many handgunners I may sell on the surplus handgunner off or even rebase them into Shot elements for use with DBR, FoG R etc and sell them. UPDATE I have decided to keep the Handgunners and will sell on my other handgunners instead.

All the figures are Essex Miniatures and consisted of 33 mounted and 88 foot figures.