Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)

[fred]

Great looking armies, they look very natural.

And well done on getting a newbie in. And doubley so for ensuring he won!

Regarding rules - I do like the look of the light troops, they immediately look like light troops in a cloud rather than the solid blocks of formed troops.

[Captain Blood]

A handsome spread as usual Charlie 

I've bizarrely found my post-game thoughts leading to me wanting to completely rethink my rules and how I've based my units!!!

My good friend Silent Invader has precisely the same reaction after every Wars of the Roses game we've played 
(In fact, after almost every game we've ever played!)

[Breazer]

its such a great thing to see all those units on the field. great stuff!!

[Charlie_]

Regarding rules - I do like the look of the light troops, they immediately look like light troops in a cloud rather than the solid blocks of formed troops.

Funnily enough... it's actually the look of the open order crossbowmen that is really bugging me. See here.... I think they'd look much better on large bases, 4 or 5 to a base...



Basically I think I'm going to switch to multi-basing, but won't be re-basing the whole collection. I'll do it in bits and pieces, the first on the list being the crossbowmen and certain commanders and retinues. My 'heavy' infantry won't be rebased any time soon as they have good movement trays, I like how they look as they are, and I still might re-shuffle how they are arranged in the future.

For rules, I'm going to keep my current command / movement system, but switch to a unit / combat system based on Hail Caesar... but not without distinctive changes of course.

My good friend Silent Invader has precisely the same reaction after every Wars of the Roses game we've played 
(In fact, after almost every game we've ever played!)

Glad I'm not the only one! Does it get frustrating having to learn a new set of rules for each game?

[fred]

I see what you mean about the crossbows. It was the light cavalry who looked particularly good.

Have you looked at the ‘cloud’ style movement trays that warbases do? These are very good for irregular troops, and allow you to keep them single based giving flexibility for different rules.

[Winston]

Great looking game. Brill to see the collection out in action. Out of interest, what size table is that you are playing on? And how many minis were involved in total? I'll soon need to knock some proper boards together as a cloth on the dining table is soon going to be too small. This looks like a reasonable fit to what you have without being too vast.

[Charlie_]

Great looking game. Brill to see the collection out in action. Out of interest, what size table is that you are playing on? And how many minis were involved in total? I'll soon need to knock some proper boards together as a cloth on the dining table is soon going to be too small. This looks like a reasonable fit to what you have without being too vast.

It's an 8x4ft table, and a little over 300 figures.

[Charlie_]

Well, I took the plunge...

Here's the remains of over 50 bases which have been clipped off.



No going back now!

Well I've rebased all my crossbowmen and handgunners, and will leave it at that for the time being... I've got some good ideas of what I'm going to do with the heavy infantry, but that will require more figures to be painted up. I'm not decided yet what I'll do with the cavalry. Not everything will be re-based, some will stay on singles.

So I have six bases of crossbowmen in open order, posed to look like a skirmish screen advancing in front of the main force. They are on 50x100mm bases, with five figures per base. The idea is to usually have them in pairs, so a unit will have 10 models on a 200mm frontage. Two of the six bases are more Italian looking, the other four are generic.














And then I've got another 20 crossbowmen in close order, on 50x50mm bases, 5 men to a base. Basically they take up half the footprint of the above units - they probably won't see so much action, and will just be used in defending scenarios, perhaps behind wagons and barricades. They are all in stationary shooting and loading poses.







And finally I've tried out doing the same configuration for some men-at-arms and halberdiers and such.... Again these won't be used that often, just in defending scenarios. My main infantry units are in advancing poses, so these stationary / defending poses don't really get used... Shame as I have a lot of really cool models in such poses. So I've based them up together, and there will be several more bases like this.

[painterman]

Congratulations on achieving that - did it once with an army and not intending to repeat it... but I do like the posing of those 'open order' shot bases.
Cheers
Simon.

[Breazer]

these are looking very good. Adding more defensive bases has my vote for sure!

[HappyChappy439]

Agreed with everyone else, congratulations on achieving the rebasing! It's looking grand! I really like the option you've got of alternative skirmishing or defensive frontages for your crossbowmen though! Would you do similar with your abundance of archers you've mentioned before?

Though ooof, that must've been a task and half to do!

[Charlie_]

Agreed with everyone else, congratulations on achieving the rebasing! It's looking grand! I really like the option you've got of alternative skirmishing or defensive frontages for your crossbowmen though! Would you do similar with your abundance of archers you've mentioned before?

Though ooof, that must've been a task and half to do!

Yes, the longbowmen will be done mostly 'close order' style, though I might do a few 'open order' ones too.

It wasn't too bad a task actually, got it done over a weekend. Hurriedly clipping off the existing plastic bases (easy with the metal models which if you're lucky can 'ping' off with one well-placed bite of the clippers , a bit more tricky with the plastics which are fixed to the plastic bases with poly cement), then taking the chance to touch up the paintjobs here and there if need be.... I repainted a lot of the sword scabbards which were previously all black, now some of them are dark red/brown (just a base coat and a wash, very quick).... Then the fun of re-positioning them and committing to sticking them back down! The actual base texturing process is a bit tedious as there are several stages that need 6+ hours of drying.

But it also meant I now have room to apply some tufts - these really a great invention for wargamers, aren't they???

[Charlie_]

I re-based some light cavalry, going for 2 models per 50x100mm bases. I've seen this basing done before on other blogs I follow, and really think it works well for open order cavalry. Looks better than having them on individual bases. Also leaves room for more tufts!

I've got some more light cav to be based like this, but I ran out of the actual bases.








I've also "finished" my heavy cavalry. There are now enough for 4 units (3 of 16, 1 of 18). These will remain on individual bases so the size and layout of the units can be altered for each game where needed, and flags can be swapped out. Of course they have movement trays to keep them looking neat. I considered re-basing these in doubles, but decided there would be absolutely no gain in doing so.




Among the recently painted heavy cavalry, there is this new commander I'm rather pleased with - this is both my first white horse, and the first with barding.



And here's a new flag for him - I intentionally went for a quartered design with lots of colours. Also a new horse colour, which I think has worked well, and his head if from the new Steel Fist 16th century light cavalry.



And another one with a Steel Fist head, plus a sword from the Steel Fist Swiss front-rankers. The heads obviously work well with the Perry plastics, though they are somewhat larger, so perhaps work best on bodies with bulkier style armour - they might look a bit overlarge on more sender bodies.





And I now have a schedule for the rest of the year. For the next month I'm painting up some batches of random infantry to fill gaps, after which I'm going to re-base the front ranks of all my polearm units. Then I can hopefully get another pike unit and 10 mounted crossbowmen done by the end of the year.

[fred]

Looking good, like the light cavalry basing, and the mass of heavy cavalry.

the new additions are good too.

[HappyChappy439]

Looking good on the rebasing! And nicely done on the white horse, it's always a really tricky colour to get to work on horses!