Captain Blood's Perry Mounted Men at Arms. P.156 Scots pike block painted

[Ray Rivers]

Well, definitely no painting for a few days yet, but the shoulder is recovered enough to manage a bit more modelling 

Well... that didn't take long.

Bet your on some sort of leave from work as well. 

[painterman]

Glad to see you're back in the saddle...speaking of which I love the crossbowman conversion.

Crossbows were most certainly fired from horseback and a cranequin would have to have been the way to load the bow.


The question is whether they were effective enough to use on the battlefield or just for hunting (which most images I'm aware of relate to), so good that you've also created the target!!

Marvellous...kepp 'em coming!
Simon.

[Arlequín]

Yes there were mounted crossbowmen and they used either the cranequin (or Cry) or the pied de biche, which was a lever and hook arrangement. Both hands were required to load the crossbow, but it didn't need to be braced against the foot. The Spanish used a belthook and an extended foot, or so I'm lead to believe.

Having said that....



Experienced riders/archers/crossbowmen would be capable of a number of things, however a distinction should be drawn between those guys who were skilled riders and those who were inexperienced... they tend to look alike.

[Poiter50]

You, crap at painting something? Never thought I would hear/read that?

Yeah, and we look hard, ain't that right Nick  

Superb work Richard, I'd like to have a go but I'm crap at painting armour 

[Marine0846]

Oh my, is the Captain doing medieval zombies?
Great figures, can't wait till they are painted.

[Marine0846]

Oh my, is the Captain doing medieval zombies?
Great figures, can't wait till they are painted.

OK guys, I was trying to be funny and messed up.
How do I delete this? (Egg on face)

[Dalauppror]

Impressive mounted crossbowmen, perfect for my Kalmar Union War armies.

Its told that the Danes and Swedes made good use of mounted crossbowmen in dence formation called "Skyttar" during the 15th century. I don´t know if they realy fired mounted or was more like dragoons? But they was quite armoured so they was also used to support the charges of the Knights and Svenner (Squires in english).

Keep up the good wokr Richard

Best regards Michael

[Arlequín]

Oh my, is the Captain doing medieval zombies?
Great figures, can't wait till they are painted.

OK guys, I was trying to be funny and messed up.
How do I delete this? (Egg on face)

Beg the moderator.... there's no escape from ill-considered comments here at LAF... Mwahahaha.. 

To be fair, I saw the picture before I read the text and thought he'd come over to the dark side, and was planning a lance & longbow & zombies sort of thing.

 

[Captain Blood]

Never! 
(Well, we'll see...  )

[Ray Rivers]

Hope I didn't scare off the good Captain!

Looking forward to an update! 

[Captain Blood]

Have stopped building and started doing a bit of painting... This thread will therefore be fairly dormant for a while... But it will be back 

Meanwhile, here is a failure...  Well, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette

I thought I would see if I could 'hybridise' a Perry mounted man at arms with a Fireforge horse in caparison or cloth barding.
I wanted to portray an older school character in his great bascinet and riding a charger with old style heraldic horse-cloths. I've used a Perry armoured horse's had on a Fireforge horse body.
Unfortunately though, seemingly no amount of surgery can make this work. I have cut up and sliced about two of the Fireforge horses to try to make them thinner, remove the saddles, reseat the rider, and so on - all to no avail. The rider's position is too far back, and the horse simply too broad to take the Perry rider in a convincing manner.
So this one doesn't make the grade I'm afraid... Recycle for parts 









Fireforge. What can I tell you?
Having bought a box of the Templar knights at Salute, I was going to run a separate build thread on those. But I'm afraid the comparisons will be odious... I built one and I may not build too many more.
Suffice to say I'm not loving them.
They are extremely Warhammer-ish in style, and curiously limited in conversion possibilities.
Ah well. You live and learn...

[Bugsda]

Ah well. You live and learn...

That's a shame  Crusader metals for me then 

[JollyBob]

Shame that hasn't worked out for you, as the concept was really nice. If only the rider sat a little more naturally.

Actually, seeing it like that reminds me very much of how the old GW Bretonnian cavalry went together. Lovely Perry sculpted HYW inspired figures, shocking fat-backed plastic horses that you had to cut into to seat the riders properly. Several of mine have very thick Miliput saddle cushions (must have been an outbreak of piles at court that year...). 

[huevans]

I'm looking forward to the Fireforge review, CB. I was admiring the photos on line and was seriously thinking about ordering a stack. It would help a lot to know how you feel the figures are disappointing.

[Captain Blood]

Well, since you ask...

It’s probably unfair but I can’t really avoid comparing the two sets. The Perry box is cheaper by the way, but I can't really see any dimension on which the Fireforge product compares favourably.

They’re not bad – certainly no worse than many metal figures out there. They're just slightly clunky-looking. But I'm guessing they'll take paint very well, which is a positive.

Also on the plus side...

Quality of casting is mostly good. There’s not too much in the way of mould lines, although quite a lot on the lances for some reason. But easily scraped away with a sharp blade.

The unbarded horse bodies are well done. Good musculature and great attention to the detail of the tack. I like the separate tails too – although not the weirdly jagged-looking fronds on the barded horses frame. The tails on the new un-barded horses frame are much better.

There’s a generous choice of shield shapes. Some have the arms moulded on, and then there are some separate shield arms, which makes for a bit more flexibility. I like several of the heads, although for Templars, I was hoping for a few great helms. Still, I suppose they did those with the Teutonic Knights...

On the minus side...

Because the riders are designed to wear cloaks, the separate heads have a very obvious join onto the neck. I don’t like the cloaks because they look implausibly rigid. But if I don’t use the cloak, the back of the head and neck looks weird. It's supposed to be a mail coif and look like one piece. It doesn't. I suppose I could fill it and remodel it, but given that the cloaks are optional, I shouldn't have to fill it. It's a design flaw.

There’s a wide choice of weapons arms in different poses. Unfortunately none of them look natural, and several look oddly stiff. Many of the weapons are outsized - GW fantasy style. They just don’t look real or proportionate. The morning star in particular is ludicrously huge – as big as the man wielding it. About the size of The Witch-King of Angmar's. 

The horses are let down by the way the head sits on the shoulder. Either the shoulders are too wide, or the neck is too narrow (I think the barded horses are indeed too wide and barrel-like in the chest) – but there’s a very definite and peculiar-looking ‘step’ around the base of the neck when you sit it on the shoulders. Looks wrong.

The horses’ heads and necks look very 'sculpted' - reminiscent of a knight chess piece. The musculature on the horse bodies is very natural and well done. The musculature on the neck looks fake. Pity.

Overall, a lot of the sculpted detail looks 'soft'. Where the detail on the Perry WOTR sets is sharp and well defined (perhaps slightly less so on the Mercenaries set), here there are areas which I can only describe as 'mushy'. There are also a few rogue  'undercuts' here and there (is that the right word?) where there is no moulding at all. Just a blank wall of plastic. Particularly noticeable on the caparisoned horses.

I really want to like these, and I waited for this set because I thought Fireforge would have learned from the Teutonic knights set, and come up with a refined product second time round. But my sense is they like the slightly cartoony, Warhammer look and they aren’t going to change it. The figures aren’t bad at all, and I will reserve final judgement until I’ve painted a couple. But where the Perry figures look like real little people, the Fireforge figures are caricatures.

I’ve looked to see what I can do creatively with them, and the answer is – not much. The components only really fit together in one way. It’s difficult to put my finger on it, but where the Perry set(s) offer almost endless potential for customisation, these Fireforge knights don’t. Fair enough I guess, because most people probably just want to build them as the makers intended. But to me, they great pleasure and opportunity of the new wave of 28mm plastic figure modelling is the chance to make up endlessly unique figures. And I'm struggling to see how you would do that with these.

Bear in mind though, that I'm probably an unusually tough critic. I'm sure many people will take these at face value and be very happy with them.