Charlie's 15th century - Burgundian handgunners (Sep 23)

[Charlie_]

Looks superb Charlie, I was nosing through the web site tonight. Some great pieces, prices are not that bad, I'm just a bit concerned how much it would cost to ship them from the states.

Have a look at my thread about these buildings in the workbench board, I say how much it all cost me.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=111122.0

And also, interestingly, there is someone there claiming he's going to supply them in the UK!

[Peter d]

Those buildings look wonderful.  Love the polearms poking over the top.
Cheers
Peter

[Erik]

Lovely looking buildings. I like that they have bases so you kan mark out an area as build up. I havent gotten around to basing my own buildings yet, so I always have to put up fences and hedges to mark them out.

Erik

[Wellington Bonaparte]

Have a look at my thread about these buildings in the workbench board, I say how much it all cost me.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=111122.0

And also, interestingly, there is someone there claiming he's going to supply them in the UK!
[/equote]
Thanks Charlie will do

[Hu Rhu]

Lovely buildings and a great idea to combine them with the small garden and fences.  Definitely nicking 'borrowing' that idea. 

[bluewillow]

Fabulous brush work Charlie,

Particularly impressed with your faces, keep up the great work

Cheers

Matt

[Charlie_]

Thanks all.

Here's some more cavalry. First off, two 'straight out of the box'.





The next two have converted heads, which I explain how I did back on page 10 of this thread. One head has been given a bevor where previously it didn't have one, and another has in turn lost their bevor. I'm always looking for more heads, for more variety, and am very pleased with how these simple conversions worked out.





For the next three, I used some of the metal WOTR sculpts that come on metal horses. Two are from the 'WR11 mounted standard bearers' set, and another from 'WR18 scurrers, lances upright', giving three new heavy armour styles to mix in with the four familiar ones that come in plastic. Two of these also have head swaps, one of which is from a Foundry sculpt.

Also, rather than give them the metal lances they come with (which will bend too easily), I gave them plastic ones. The 'light' lance is just a cut down pike, the two 'heavy' lances are form the heavy cavalry set. For one of them, I cut down the plastic hand around it to leave just the lance itself, to put into the metal hand... Problem with this is the lance handle became way too narrow and fragile, and it broke whilst painting. I had to re-attach it, and had to drill it out for a VERY thin pin to give it enough strength. For the other one, I instead cut off the metal fore-arm and glued on a plastic forearm holding the lance, which has proved a more sensible solution.







I put them on the plastic horses rather than the metal ones they come with, which are just noticeably too small in comparison for my liking. This required a little saddle surgery - the metals have the rear part of the saddle on the rider rather than the horse, whilst with the plastics both front and back parts of the saddle are on the horse. So I  had to slice off the plastic rear saddle bit, attach the riders and then use a bit of green stuff to fill the gap. This meant I had to paint these ones attached to the horses, rather than separately like I normally do.





That's enough cavalry for now.... Here's some dismounted men-at-arms.

Some time back I switched the way I paint armour, and have been gradually repainting some of my older men-at-arms. Some of these ones are among the first minis I painted for this project. Repainting the armour on these with minimal damage to anything else was easy enough, as they are almost all armour!







I've actually got LOADS of dismounted men-at-arms, but don't really have much use for them. Just two or three in the front rank of each infantry block, and a few as bodyguards for commanders when they are on foot. I have loads which I don't have any use for, in particular the ones in wild poses that don't rank up easily. So I've narrowed it down to just a few (this isn't all of them), which are either in advancing poses for my front ranks (posed practically and easy to rank up) or are in standing poses for command retinues.

[DintheDin]

They look superb! I like the metal of your armour!

[painterman]

More impressive work Charlie - you have a pretty large collection now?
Simon.

[Charlie_]

More impressive work Charlie - you have a pretty large collection now?
Simon.

Yes it certainly is getting that way! I keep telling myself 'one more batch' before taking stock and having a big group photo, but it never happens.... But I really think after another batch of 4 cavalry and another of 8 miscellaneous infantry it will be that time. That will give me a total of 50 heavy cavalry and 18 light cavalry... And lots of infantry.

[ArisK]

Damn if the middle one isn't Robocop a few centuries early. :-)
Thanks for the details on the conversions, always a pleasure to see how these are done!

Aris K.

[Hu Rhu]

Great [ainting on those minis' Your armour is quite dark but I like that effect.

[Breazer]

Very nice work on the new additions Charlie!

[Anselm van Helsing]

Very nice work indeed. Very inspirational. Great painting on the armour!

[Charlie_]

The more I read about 15th century warfare, the more I hear about static battlefield defences, which seem to normally consist of wagons from the baggage train hastily pushed together to form rather effective barricades. They would certainly be great for stopping a cavalry charge in its tracks.

So I wanted to put together enough wagons to do this, for fun scenarios such as a smaller force behind a wagon fort having to hold off the attackers long enough for reinforcements to arrive, etc....

All the wagons are from Perry Miniatures.

I put four bases together, for a total of a 70cm of wagon-fort. Certainly enough for now! I decided to have them based as the I felt the wagon models would be too fragile to be frequently handled otherwise, and it also let me put little things like barrels and pavises in to fill the gaps (the three pavises here are actually from Front Rank rather than the plastic Perry ones).



They can be used to make one long line, or be placed individually to secure flanks or barricade roads between buildings, or be arranged in curves or angles, like so....



I also painted up a few handgunners and crossbowmen on smaller bases so they would fit into the wagons themselves. I considered having them permanently attached to the wagons, but decided against it in the end in favour of more flexibility.






I also have found a use for a number of models that had until now been sitting unused. As I've mentioned before, I'm very fussy with the posing of my units. I like my units to look consistent. All my infantry polearm/pike blocks are posed to be advancing with the front ranks weapons lowered. However I have lots of models in standing defensive poses, as if receiving a charge, both metals and some nice plastic builds - I didn't want these to go unused. Also I have a few polearm troops in standing poses (mostly Perrys, but a few of these are from Crusader Miniatures, which fit in very nicely). I've been pulling together appropriate models, repainting some older ones, into a small infantry unit in 'defence' mode. I plan to add to this, I have loads more front rank ones, and want to convert some appropriate middle rank ones too (the rear rank look strangely laid-back considering their comrades in front of them seem about to make contact with the enemy!).



This unit will be used just in scenarios where one side is defending, and they work great behind the wagon-fort, both as a unit and as individual models.





And finally here's some fun action shots! Notice that artillery fit in nicely between the wagons - I think I'll paint up a fifth cannon sometime on a bigger base with mantlets and pavises for just this purpose.