A Song of Ice and Fire in 25mm

[sukhe_bator]

I tend to do batches of figures and when I have sufficient figures to make up 'units' sort out how I want to paint them. I do divorce the assembly/sculpting side from the painting and basing, largely because I have more opportunity to tinker at work in lunchtimes, but less opportunity to sit down for longer painting sessions. I have a large number part painted as I experiment on liveries to give some sense of how they are going to be organised. The remainder are sorted into 'jobs' - extra sculpting with green-stuff needed, basing to do, that sort of thing. If I do paint I tend to batch paint the basic colours, flesh tones, metal armour etc. on large numbers of figures to start them off.
ATM though GOT is on hold while I'm approx 80 figures into my 150 figure EM4 orcs challenge which for the large part is a converting/assembly/sculpting job...

[sukhe_bator]

I have started to revisit this project after a lengthy pause -

I've been planning who is going to be what in the grand scheme of things. I'm hoping to field 4-6 factions per side with each main house represented by 6 archers, 6 swd/shd or bill, 6 pike and a standard bearer, musician and one or two leaders/characters. In addition the Lannisters have 6 crossbowmen. Important garrison troops will also have some crossbowmen.
I'm trying to establish which factions participated (on one side or another!) in the various battles and campaigns during the War of the Five Kings. I want ideally Northern bannermen who fight both Ironborn and Lannisters. The Northerners have a higher proportion of pike and spear to bill, and have more fur, and I am trying to establish which minor houses are likely to field specialist contingents - Reed for example will provide a small unit of archers only...

So far, Lannisters, Freys and Tullys are starting to show their true colours...
It is tricky though, since the vast majority of the Perry WOTR figures do not have the appropriate heater shields to sport the heraldry. Heraldry is mostly confined to some sort of livery colour, simplified badges/sigils for household troops and the main banners themselves.

[Captain Blood]

I have started to revisit this project after a lengthy pause -

Hurrah! 

[Chris Spicer]

So glad you are revisiting.  I'm about to start a similar project and have found this thread very informative.

Here's a nice reference of the various sigils of Westeros.

http://johnjennetteart.tumblr.com/post/64126951627/houses-of-westeros-after-long-last-and-206

Cheers,
Chris

[LordOdo]

This thread really inspired me! Just bought some old Brettonians from sites like E-bay, going to make a Lannister army..
Anyother guys are buisy at the moment with projects like this?

[Silent bob]

This thread really inspired me! Just bought some old Brettonians from sites like E-bay, going to make a Lannister army..
Anyother guys are buisy at the moment with projects like this?

I'm still plugging on with my GoT collection

So far it consists of:-

Lannisters - 55 figures (inc the Mountain & retainers)
Bloody Mummers -23 figures
Northern 'alliance' - 44 figures (inc a Tully scorpion)
Brotherhood without banners - 23 figures
'Others' - 28 figures (the Hound & some sellswords, Lord Bolton, Ramsey Snow & retainers, The Kingsguard and finally a group called 'Kingslanding - Cersei, Sansa, Ilyn Payne, Ser Robert Strong and a couple of Lannister guards)

I've got to complete the basing on some figures.

[LordOdo]

I'm still plugging on with my GoT collection

So far it consists of:-

Lannisters - 55 figures (inc the Mountain & retainers)
Bloody Mummers -23 figures
Northern 'alliance' - 44 figures (inc a Tully scorpion)
Brotherhood without banners - 23 figures
'Others' - 28 figures (the Hound & some sellswords, Lord Bolton, Ramsey Snow & retainers, The Kingsguard and finally a group called 'Kingslanding - Cersei, Sansa, Ilyn Payne, Ser Robert Strong and a couple of Lannister guards)

I've got to complete the basing on some figures.

Coool! You got some pictures?

EDIT: Saw the pics on your Fb.. Yours are really great! Hope I'll get mine as cool as yours!

[commissarmoody]

Good to see that the project yet still lives. Looking forward to seeing more of your work

[Silent bob]

Coool! You got some pictures?

EDIT: Saw the pics on your Fb.. Yours are really great! Hope I'll get mine as cool as yours!

Thanks!!!

I've got to finish the basing before getting out my 'Box Brownie' - the project has moved on since I put the photos on Facebook......strange as it sounds in this age of digital cameras - i find photographing figures really time consuming and difficult

Hopefully I'll get the basing finished and photos done over Christmas.

[sukhe_bator]

I'm gradually converting bare plastic to paint, so far nearing completion are;-
1 Giant
6 Others
20 White Walkers
12 Night's Watch
12 Thenn
12 Wildlings
30 Unsullied
12 Astapori archers
40 Ironborn
28 Lannisters, including Tyrion, Bronn, Jaime and a foot knight/Captain
20 Frey
20 Starks
20 Tullys
20 Boltons
12 Karstarks

And looking like some strange Antony Gormley sculpture approx 90 more Perry WOTR torsos awaiting heads and arms etc. I'm going to use these 'out of the box' with minimal conversions to represent troops from the Riverlands and the Westerlands.

In the New Year am considering converting some Gripping Beast Dark Ages plastics into more Wildlings, Hill tribes and Northern Bannermen...

[LordOdo]

Great! I'm currently working on a small Lannister Army; 17 bowmen, and a knight on horse.
After that I'll try Vargo Hoat and the bloody mummers, and Beric Dondarrion and his men.. and all the direwolves

[sukhe_bator]

I'm with you Silent bob - my latest digital camera is either s**te or I'm getting so long in the tooth that I'm getting camera shake without realising it! I can't seem to get a decent image in focus! aaarrrggghhh!

[Hupp n at em]

A bit late to the party but Vargo looks great!

[sukhe_bator]

After a very, very lengthy interregnum imposed by the need to clear my late father's house, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.

Since the Perry WoTR and other figures I've used are Post heater shield, the opportunities to show house affiliation are somewhat limited in 25mm. I'd opted to create a pool of generic infantry types, in common colours, based along the generally agreed principles i.e. Northern bannermen had more pike, longer hair and thicker clothing, more boring colurs choices etc. while the richer south and specific houses like the Lannisters could afford the best and latest kit. etc.

Before the break I had started to convert suitable foot captains with heater shields which sported the house sigils. I now have boxes of Fireforge Teutonic, Templar and Foot Sergeants that I'd planned to convert into foot captains leading the various contingents, with the residue drafted into the Night's Watch all of whom seem to sport more shields.

I'm trying to field a number of smaller sub-groups that I can combine to represent the various factions from the War of the Five Kings, the Ironborn invasion and potential set-to Battles like the Battle of the Fords etc. using a simple mini campaign system along the lines of DBA/DBM.

e.g. House Tully, with Bracken, Vance and Mallister;
House Frey, with Haigh, Erenford and Charlton;
House Stark, with Cassel, Cerwyn and Mullen;
House Lannister, with Clegane, Marbrand and Crakehall;
as well as a number of other affiliated houses that feature in the books

Have any of you other GoT'ers out there had similar ideas/thoughts? This is a familiar conundrum to representing multi company formations in other periods like Medieval and ECW using a limited number of models.
I'm having great trouble squaring up my desire to represent a number of minor houses within factions along feudal lines, while still ending up with functional units that work on the battlefield. I want to game large skirmish/small battles, but as yet don't have a system in mind. I see other gamers using unit sizes around 8 strong, but I don't want to generate dozens of such units...

I'm currently working on the premise that each minor house fields 1 mounted and 1 Foot captain, 2 MAA and 4 Archers. The Major house might field as part of its levy a CO on horseback, mounted squire, banner, musician and small units of Mercs/specialists. Some minor houses (e.g. like Reed) may provide a single unit entirely of archers. Lannister may also for example have a unit of paid mercenary crossbowmen.
I'm struggling with whether to include the captains and banners in the 'levy' of simply add them for command and control purposes and visual effect. This also only achieves a 1:1 MAA : archer ratio.

My aim is that an alliance of 3 or 4 such factions should combine to generate a couple of 'battles' of archers, a 'battle' of MAA and a 'battle' of mounted knights along traditional medieval lines.

I see some of you creating excellent Houses with entire units of figures, but I also find myself very taken with the smaller groups along skirmish lines as used by some of you WoTRers out there.

Any suggestions/ideas before I start kit-bashing?

[Mr.J]

That sounds very cool. I'm glad to see this thread is back again as I followed it avidly before.

Have you looked at Lion / Dragon Rampant as rules? They work really well for simple and fun skirmish and large scale skirmish games. The units are usually between 6-12 figures and using Dragon Rampant you can add heroes and creatures (White Walkers, giants, dragons etc.) should you wish. As it's a unit based game you could always paint the separate units with the various House colours and sigils and use them in the same army. Most people base the minis individually but multi-basing works well too.

If you are doing generic colours for the infantry you could also use bannerman with changeable standards too to add more flexibility.