Arget8's Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere (Lannister) Update on page 4!

[arget8]

So I have started my Lion Rampant Westeros armies with some less than honorable characters, house Frey. As the lords of the Crossing, the Freys are particularly wealthy and are able to equip one of the largest forces in the Riverlands. They also have no shortage of men at arms and knights both due to their wealth as well as the size of family. However, when Lord Walder calls his banners in support of his liege and Robb Stark, his own substantial levies are bolstered by Houses Haigh, Charleton, and Erenford. What this means is that the Frey's are potentially the most powerful house in the Riverlands, second only to the Tullys in numbers. It also means that the forces of Lord Frey are a myriad of colors, making them quite impressive to behold as well as less tedious to paint!  

Below I have the start of my Lion Rampant army which will eventually be as listed below.

1 unit Mounted Men at Arms
1 unit Men at Arms
2 units Foot Sergeants
1 unit Crossbowmen

All of the models are built, almost solely from the Perry French box along with some English knights. The mounted men at arms are made from both the Agincourt knights and the War of the Roses knights. Some of them have torso swaps and some have had the torsos shaved down in order to accommodate the heads from the Agincourt knights. I have also added shields from the Fireforge Templar box set, but I have run out so I don't have any on the mounted knights.

Enough talking, here are the pics!!!











Next planned is the unit of 12 Crossbowmen, then the knights and the second unit of sergeants. After that I'm thinking that I'm going to go with their partners in crime after I finish the Freys and put together some Boltons. Not sure who to do next after that though. I was thinking either a medium sized house from the Westerlands or a house from the Reach. What do you guys think?

Let me know what you guys think!

[LordOdo]

They look great! The diversity in heraldry works a treat! 

For a house after the Boltons..  you may look into the Dondarrions. Stormlands after all, but pretty interesting I think!

[Tordenskjold]

Inviting you to a wedding

Too soon man, too soon! 

They look awesome. I like the variation in heraldry and how it's all done by hand. The models look like they are part of the same force, having similar uniforms and all that, while still retaining some variety. Good job!

[Sangennaru]

Woah!
I really LOVE how you combined the azincourt english bodies with the WOTR horsemen, they blend in splendidly!!!

[sukhe_bator]

Nice looking units, and some excellent mash-ups. I like the combination of houses, including the lesser ones, which is the route I'm taking. I like the use of muted tones as well. Sticking to similarly equipped figures gives them a real unity of look. After all, they are likely to have drawn their kit from smiths and armourers from the same region.
All I would say (and this is only a little niggle for the purists amongst us) is that the Frey troops are described in the novels with a definite blue tinge...
‘a large party in blue steel ringmail and capes of a silver grey. On their shoulder was another familiar sigil, the twin towers of House Frey’ (GOT, p.279)
‘Their banner bore twin towers, dark blue on a field of pale silver-grey’ (GOT, p.619)
There are opportunities for blued armour and not just 'white' armour. If you want to stick closer to the books then you have to be very wary of the sigils depicted on the Wiki. They can be outright wrong...

[arget8]

Thank you everybody for the compliments! I'm still not completely pleased with the heraldry, but it may just be that the pictures magnify all of the errors that you wont see on the table. As for the Freys coloring. I must have missed the mention of the blued steel. I will have to try my hand at that on the mounted knights. With the sigil, I think it just came down to that I like the show version better and it is easier to do as the towers are less stylized.  I'm waffling over the same thing if I ever do the Rtarks as well. I like the show version of the sigil far more that the direwolf rampant from the books. I find that for most of the houses that aren't depicted in the show the wiki is a pretty good resource. However, with the show houses, they can often be drastically different from the books, like the Boltons. I like the Bolton sigil from the show and I am tempted to use it, but I don't think that I can pass up doing that much pink.

[sukhe_bator]

arget8,
I agree that some of the show liveries and sigils work better than the book versions. I particularly like the Bolton flayed man sigil. I've found that a lot of the generally accepted sigils are in fact artifices from the Wiki. and sometimes downright inaccurate. House Rosby for instance has chevronels but the Wiki shows them upside down. House Glover has a mailed fist, NOT a gauntleted fist. A common mistake replicated by all manner of real life army insignia. GRRM refers to them as 'lobstered' if he refers to plated gauntlets so he clearly knows the difference.
Badges and sigils are often different. Badges are often abbreviated such as the head only of an animal, or a much simplified version of the emblem.
People also seem to be missing a trick by not tinting and going for 'white' armour colouring. GRRM mentions russet and brown, blue and black and lots of enamelling. I use a blue W&N drawing ink wash over a silver/black metal basecoat.
If you like the Bolton pink livery, you can always do the Bolton officer as a ‘a man in dark armour and a pale pink cloak spotted with blood’ (SOS:2, p.133)
In the end, the beauty of raising your own fantasy forces is you can do your own take. Just enjoy the process and stick with what you are happiest with.

[arget8]

Also, I'm out of Fireforge shields, so if anyone has some, I'm interested.

Sukhe: I will probably be doing less heraldic clothing for the Boltons as the North is not as wealthy and I imagine them more ragtag than southern houses. I plan on using the same minis, but they will be less uniformed and wearing more undyed gambesons and leather. Pink was an expensive color during the time period the series is set in, which is why it was a martial and regal color and used by one of the books' biggest bad guys, so it will be less likely to be on anyone but the household troops and maybe shields. My Bolton list is as follows:

6 Mounted Men at Arms
12 Expert Foot Sergeants
12 Fierce Foot
12 Bowmen
6 Mounted Sergeants

The Boltons and much of the North are less numerous than the houses of the south and, as they do not follow the Faith of the Seven, have fewer knights. However, the North has a tradition of skilled light cavalrymen, which the mounted sergeants are meant to represent. The expert sergeants are going to be the pavise spearmen that we saw in the Battle of the Bastards as they were just to good looking to not take. Also, pavises will provide the perfect canvas for the proper Bolton sigil of the flayed man on a field of pink. The fierce foot will be what I imagine many of the Northern levies to look like, which is kind of like Islemen or Galloglaigh axemen. The bowmen will be fitting with the motif of the North that has been described in both the books and the show, standard English longbowmen.

I'm not sure if this really gives me any opportunity to show off any sworn houses as I think that the expert foot should all be Bolton men and the fierce foot wont have shields. The mounted units would give me the opportunity, but I'm a little worried that they wouldn't blend as well as the Frey units will since all of the units will be mixed in. What do you guys think?

Obviously, from Martin's descriptions we hear a lot about pikemen when he talks of the North, but I feel that this is a little anachronistic when it comes to levy troops. They would much more likely be spearmen, because he talks about shields ALOT. Shields were largely out of favor by the time the pike returned to medieval warfare. If I ever get around to doing different units that what I have planned for the Boltons or if I ever do any other Northern houses (Starks, Umbers, Karstarks) then I will be adding more spearmen.

[tomrommel1]

very nice start indeed

[sukhe_bator]

I'm liking your thinking and I too am having problems reconciling the shaggy northerners look with the use of sigils and and a look that also has shields.
I'd dispute the business with the pink though - madder was a common dye which went from brick red to pale pink. Most red dyes weren't that colour-fast (just ask any member of a reenactment group after an event in torrential rain!)
My 10 man House combos have 4 missile and 4 melee troops plus a captain/leader and standard bearer. I can stretch a melee unit to 6 figs by including a Cpt. and banner, thus I only require 2 Houses to make up a 12 man units for Lion/Dragon Rampant.
I get a sense from my reading of GRRM that he has the Scots schiltron in mind when he refers to the North, so a mixed 'long-pointy weapons' unit is more likely, with a front rank of guys with shields. I like your idea of using pavise troops, which matches my idea for Crownlanders like House Rosby...

The rest of Westeros seems to have a more high Holly-eval look for the better equipped troops with more shields. Of course this does not help wargamers with limited resources/figures. TBH, I have more of a problem incorporating bill and pike troops. The better the armour, the less shields were used, so by the time you get to WOTR they were getting scarce. The majority of my Houses have 2 pike and 2 bill, and I plan to combine 4 to 6 Houses together for each faction. This gives me the tactical flexibility to make weapon-specific units or mix-n-match ones. For the less well equipped Northern houses I either skew it so they have more pike and fewer shields, or opt for spear and shield combos. I'm planning to use Fireforge and Dark Ages figures for my Karstarks and Boltons so they will have a higher proportion of shielded foot.
As for shields. Have you thought of making your own? I've made heater shields easily enough out of plasticard, slightly bent to shape. It's probably just as easy blagging a sprue off someone on the forum, or getting them as accessories. Several companies do them and they are a good investment.

[arget8]

I'm really liking the Rosbys and the Rykkers you've done up. I'm seriously tempted to do Crownlanders as well as they would be present in almost every conflict in Westeros and would be very versatile.

As to the pink, I am quite possibly wrong. It was something that I must have heard somewhere from a less than credible source.

For the shields, what kind of plasticard do you use? I've tried before, but I was probably using the wrong stuff.

[sukhe_bator]

The Rykker captain has a plasticard heater shield which is about 1mm thick. Beyond that I couldn't tell you about it. The plasticard was from my Late father's modelling scrap stock.
With a gentle application of even pressure it can be rolled over a smooth dowel or pencil into a curve once cut to shape. Don't forget to centre the curve over the straight top of the shield.
For kite shields I'd make a paper template by drawing out a the longitudinal section and folding it over to make an even profile. That way you could replicate the straight, curved and angle-topped variants that are in the Fireforge sets. This should help ensure the shape isn't wonky providing you've done the scalpel work carefully enough.

The Crownlanders had not seen much action until the War of the Five Kings, which makes Roose Bolton's decision to send Northerners there all the more suspicious. I think you may mean those from the Westerlands and Stormlands and of course the Reach, who bore the brunt of the fighting on the Lannister/Baratheon side

[arget8]

Ok, thanks for the tips.

I assumed that Crownland houses would see a good about of action as they are sworn directly to the King. They may not have seen much military action during the War of the Five Kings, but I would have to imagine that they did in the past during many of the Targaryen wars. As for Roose Bolton, he was using his independent command of one of the Northern armies in order to purge some of the more loyal Northern lords. Duskendale was a way for him to purge the Glovers, Ruby Ford was a way to purge the Manderlys and many of the Clans, such as the Lockes and Norreys. That way, by the time they returned to the Twins, Roose's army was composed of Bolton men, Karstark men, and Frey men. That's one of the things I love about the series. There is a ton of foreshadowing if you can put the pieces together and it makes the revelations that much more satisfying when you realize that you missed all the little pieces of the puzzle.

[Captain Blood]

A good start. I've added you to the LAF GoT compendium thread. No pressure! 

[sukhe_bator]

A worthy addition to the GOT Compendium