Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Medieval Adventures => Topic started by: Charlie_ on 20 February 2016, 04:54:08 PM
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My Agincourt French Infantry kit arrived yesterday from Perry Miniatures. I won't go on about how great it is, suffice to say it is indeed great!
I'm most interested in it for kitbashing purposes for my WOTR-era project. So the following pics are what I've attempted so far at combining the two kits.
I am trying to keep the 'out of date' armour from this kit at a minimum, and combining it with the WOTR era armour when possible so it's not so noticeable. I'm most interested in this kit for the spear arms, as it gives us some great new options for standing-at-ease poses, and spears can of course be easily converted into bills and other polearms, or banner poles.
I was worried at first that the bodies would be noticeably bigger than the WOTR ones, as I found with the Agicourt english kit, but I don't think it's really much of a problem at all. Judge for yourselves.
The one unfortunate thing is that swapping heads between the kits isn't easy, as the Agincourt ones mostly have mails aventails. It would be great to put some sallets onto the Agincourt bodies, but for most of them that would require some green stuff sculpting which I'm not very experienced with.
Anyway, here's what I've come up with so far!
(http://i.imgur.com/u9dGW4f.jpg)
For these three, I wanted to use the new bodies for some infantry with polearms to blend in with my WOTR billmen and such. The two on the left use the pike arms from the Mercenaries kit. One is converted into a bill, and the other uses one of the great axe heads from this new kit. The chap on the right is a straight build from the new kit except converting this spear into a bill. By using as many kettle hats and as few bascinets as possible, hopefully they will mix in nicely.
(http://i.imgur.com/3ZAKA5J.jpg)
The one on the far left is a WOTR build using one of the new heads. The ones with neck plates (gorgets?) like this can be made to sit on the WOTR bodies very nicely by just building up a 'neck' with plastic shavings. The other two are WOTR builds using pairs of the new spear arms, one with a WOTR polearm blade. If you've ever tried to build loads of WOTR Perry billmen, you may have quickly tired of the same two bill poses like I have. This gives us some more options.
(http://i.imgur.com/3YKn9dM.jpg)
Another two using the new arms. On the axeman I actually shortened the axe haft quite a bit. One of those axes is REALLY LONG, more like a halberd missing the extra spikes! The arms on the chap on the right didn't fit perfectly onto the WOTR body, and needed some surgery to work. I don't think these two poses work quite so naturally, but they will do.
(http://i.imgur.com/KuP4NCx.jpg)
On the left is one of the new knights with arms from the WOTR foot knights. The two spearman I am REALLY happy with, they just use new arms on WOTR bodies. I'm planning to replace their plastic spears with longer metal pikes, and use them as standard bearers.
(http://i.imgur.com/k6VlvnO.jpg)
On the left, two of the new arms on a WOTR body. In the middle, the new crossbow arms on a WOTR body. I haven't really got on that well with the WOTR crossbow arms, these ones are quite a bit nicer I think. The bows are more slender, though overall bigger. The crossbow bolt quivers are much better than the oversized WOTR ones. The axeman on the right is one of my favorites, he is simply a WOTR body with a pair of axe arms from the new knights sprue. Simple but effective!
Anyway, hope you like it all. The kits do mix very nicely, though at times minor surgery is needed to make it work. It's worth buying one of these boxes just for parts to spice up your WOTR collection.
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A great start there Charlie. Some nice builds. Yes, I also thought the new crossbows were a marked improvement on those in the WOTR mercenaries set. Looking forward to building a few of these myself when I'm home from the sunny south next week :)
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Great looking conversions, ok you've convinced me to get at least one or possibly two boxes, alright I didn't need that much convincing!
Best Iain
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Nice kitbashing with the new set. You've convinced me to get a set myself. Thanks for sharing
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Excellent conversions. I might have to get a box or two and see what can be done.
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Great stuff, thanks for posting and showing what can be achieved.
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Those are really excellent conversions Charlie - they do create some 'hybrids' which appear to fit the 1430-40 'gap' between the two plastics.
Particularly like the standing spearmen - great for standard bearers!
Simon.
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I hope Dave Thomas brings a couple of boxes with him to Hamburg Tactica next weekend as I have to build three more crossbowmen for my GoT house Brax unit.
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Really, really nice! Looks like there are tons of possibilities with the new set.
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Its nice to see people recognising that not all armour was of the latest fashion. There are several extant wills which record outdated armour being held in armouries which suggests that they still retained value even if they were not the latest fashion.
I suppose the best analogy would be how we view cars today. Not everyone can afford a Ferrari, so they buy what they can afford. Equally, those well off enough might well buy a new car every year to keep up with trends, but sell on their old car to someone else who still wants a second hand Ferrari as they cannot afford a new one.
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There are several extant wills which record outdated armour being held in armouries which suggests that they still retained value even if they were not the latest fashion.
Do you mind if I ask you what your sources are for the extant wills? Very interesting :)
Cheers,
Darrell.
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Its nice to see people recognising that not all armour was of the latest fashion.
... but some of it was 'customised' to look more modern, which adds to your car anaology, although I doubt anyone was adding enormous spoilers to their harness.
;)
To add to the extant wills, there are also the probate inventories, which are usually in the local county archives. Most tend to be from the Tudor period, but then that is the time for armour of the 15th C to be handed down to heirs and heiresses.
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So it would be safe to paint some of these in 1970s Cortina mustard/baby shit brown with a go-faster stripe down the side then? Gaming with fluffy dice. Who knew? :)
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Seriously, no joke, you've just described the first car I bought. ::)
They would take the breastplate leg and arm bits (stop me if I get too technical) from an older suit and combine it with more modern styling for things like the knee, elbow and shoulder bits. Some (but not all) of these composites we blame the Victorians for, are actually the attempts by men of the day to try and look fashionable amongst their wealthier fellows.
So in some cases the kitbashing is entirely accurate. :)
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Dave Thomas just told me that he brings the new sets with him to Hamburg Tactica!! Saves me some postage I could reinvest into another box ;D
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Seriously, no joke, you've just described the first car I bought. ::)
I think you've just outed yourself as Lewis Collins. Either that or Dennis Waterman. :D
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I think you've just outed yourself as Lewis Collins.
Well apparently I did have more than a passing resemblance to him back then, or so I'm told. The Cortina was soon replaced by an electric blue Capri though.
But anyhoo... while all this is old, it's not quite medieval. ;)