A Song of Ice and Fire in 25mm

[Captain Blood]

Glad to see you are back on this excellent project

Must confess I'm sticking to just the major houses - so far, I can't summon up much interest in lots of contingents from multiple minor houses. But that's probably because I haven't really built up my Starks, Lannisters and Boltons to a decent scale yet.

I think I will try Lion Rampant for GoT, or homemade rules.

I'm awaiting the imminent Perry French HYW set as the basis for building a load more Lannisters. I think they'll work for that.

[sukhe_bator]

I kinda like the mix of shield blazons that you get with larger historically based medieval armies. So many of the fantasy medievals look too uniform but that's usually because they are representing small retinues or bands for skirmish based games and the liveried troops do look awesome.
I've got the HYW English which I plan to build as extra archers and cull the bits for various conversions.

[LordOdo]

Great to see you back, had a quick read back in your thread, and I'm really curious to your Tyrion, Jaime and Bronn! Are those painted yet?

I'm myself going to do like 20 men for each of the major houses, and between 5 and 10 men for the smaller ones.

For rules I think I'll make some myself.

[sukhe_bator]

I'm thinking along the lines of about 8 per minor house and possibly 12-16 for the major houses, since they will have extra revenue and are liable to afford a personal retinue of MAA and Mercs like crossbowmen.
The average faction will comprise about 4 houses, 3 minor and 1 major. Larger Battles will comprise anything up to 4 such factions per side.
Most of my troops have a lick of paint on them, but as I build more I tend to chop and change. Since I don't yet have a gaming system and am assembling/collecting forces, I want to focus on building up  a single faction first. With so much conversion work too, I find you tend to need several boxes of stuff to mash up/convert.
The Lannisters being the richest house and in one of the more densely populated areas of Westeros can afford to field lots of troops so I'm leaving them until last. Otherwise there is a tendency to make them uberpowerful. Needless to say Jaime, Bronn and Tyrion are amongst the ranks of unfinished.

[Charlie_]

Have any of you other GoT'ers out there had similar ideas/thoughts?

Yes. I have 

My thread is over here on the medieval forum - http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=81825.0
The thread itself is a bit dormant right now, but that's just because I've stopped posting up every single model I paint. I'm still hard at work painting, I plan the next post to be a big one with a whole army and scenery!

I'm raising forces exclusively from the Riverlands, so that's Tully and many vassal houses such as Bracken, Blackwood, Mallister, Vance, Frey, Goodbrook, Charlton, Piper, Mooton.... This serves a dual purpose. It can be displayed as one big united Riverlands army.... or the different factions can be set against each other during times when the Riverlords warred against eachother. For example, during Robert's Rebellion many of the Riverlords chose to stay loyal to the crown, and Hoster Tully had to defeat these houses in battle before he could join the proper war.
In the distant future I plan to bring in houses from the Westerlands, Vale, Crownlands, Stormlands, Reach and the North... But that is far in the future.

Anyway, how to represent all these different houses in miniature? I'm doing it basically through flags. Most of my models I am painting in 'neutral' colours, browns and greys, with flashes of random red, blue, green and other colours.... And each house gets a a few standard bearers and some models in livery colours. So for example, right now I have a large unit of Bracken billmen. But just by swapping out the standard bearer and a few others, it becomes a unit of Goodbrook billmen!
The important houses will have more liveried troops. So I have a big unit of Tully archers and bills, all in blue and red. Obviously these units can't really be re-aligned to another house, but as its obviously the most important house it will see a lot of action.

My current plan of action is to paint up masses of 'neutral' troops, mostly archers and bills, and once I've got a real horde of them, I can have fun painting up more flags and liveried command groups. I have lots of great commander figures patiently awaiting the paintbrush, I'm particularly pleased with my Jason Mallister.....

Do you use paper flags? If so, I've put together a few I'm very pleased with. If you want to use the them let me know, I can send them to you to print out!

[Philhelm]

I'm looking forward to the paint brushes finding Dragonstone, and a King who still cared.

[sukhe_bator]

In order to field as many factions as I'd like I'm having to make a shedload of standard bearers and Foot Captains, hence the Fireforge troops. All my flags are paper and hand painted, largely using the ASOIAF Wiki as a reference, rather than taking cues from the GoT shows. Having second thoughts though about adopting the more rigid buckram reinforced banners of the WoTR period rather than the more archaic versions I'm using. It seems to suit the Northerners better though. This is about as close as I've come so far. Some w.i.p. Stark and Karstark bannermen converted from GW Rohirrim;

I've just noticed the axeman in the background will need his wrist repositioning to be anatomically accurate
And some recently converted Perry WoTR and Gripping Beast conversions under the Bolton banner

And a new host comes off the production line with a Tully flag to try out the new standard bearer figures made from adapting the Perry Mercenaries with GB arms and Warlord hands

[TikiCoast]

Nice.

[Silent Invader]

Looking great: The hand painted banners are especially impressive!  

[sukhe_bator]

I had a rummage thru my w.i.p. boxes and amongst the 2 boxes worth of unpainted WoTRs still to do   I did come across some standard bearers and commanders I'd made a start on. I have a fair representation of the major Northern bannermen. I'm going to have to seriously select suitable candidates for standard bearers among the many pike I've already assembled in order to achieve the degree of flexibility both Charlie and I are looking for in our Westerosi war hosts.
This seriously bad photo gives a taste of progress to date as well as highlighting how s**te my camera is...

[LordOdo]

Sweet! I recognise them all, but the one inbetween the Karstark and Stark guys

[sukhe_bator]

That would be the giant in chains - aka Umber. I created a part yeti/part wildman to blend in with my own giant...

Apologies once again for the crappy photo guys. Just when I think my camera can't get worse it raises naffness to a whole new level. I think next time I'll get out my sketch book instead!

[Captain Blood]

I do sometimes wonder a little at some of the representation of banners, heralry and 'sigils' of the minor houses.
I think there are a lot out there which are not based on any description in GRRM's books, but pure invention by people putting content on ASOIAF resource sites like the 'A wiki of Ice and Fire'.
Are these ones (pictured above) your own invention, sukhe_bator, or are they drawn from other sources? (Not criticising - just wondering! )

[Mr.J]

I've just spent my lunch break refreshing my memory by looking back through this thread and I have to say it is bloody brilliant!

I know you are working on your warriors at the moment but have you any more images of your buildings and terrain?

[sukhe_bator]

I've been out of it for so long Mr J and my mojo has taken a thorough hammering this last year.
With so much of my father's stuff in the house to sort through I'm really pushed for space. No further building progress has been made. I have made a conscious design choice that ASOIAF scenery should be reusable in my LoTR gaming.
I have made a start on designing some Westerosi stone and timber houses based on European chalet style bastles with a Russian timber look after scanning the 'art of' books of the Hobbit films. The conceptual art by John Howe et al is seriously good and they do their homework. I'm tinkering with wooden shingles and roofs with a view to doing a C15 inspired Inn with stables.

ATM though I'm doing a serious overhaul of my GoT figures with a view to knuckling down and painting... maybe soon