Steppe Nomads (Half) Cantabrian Circle

Not to blow my own trumpet but I am amazed at my output at present! Admittedly it is partially the result of the varnish queue that had accrued over the weeks but I do think that there is some acceleration with the old brush too. Perhaps it is a result of the (hopefully short) hiatus I will be undertaking very soon?

The first six out of 6 of the rank and file (if they could be described as such?) of the Steppe Nomads in a (half) Cantabrian Circle are happily based, painted and nicely "tufted". Hopefully I will be able to juggle things around to get the next six glossed, matted down then based within the next week or two. Fingers crossed; I'm not a big fan of half finished units lying around, they have a nasty habit of getting chipped no matter how careful I am.

And a more loose picture of the unit with the edges of the background popping out!

I think/hope(!) I have the models positioned in the right place to give the feel of the Cantabrian Circle  whilst also maintaining a sort of frontage that most wargames rules demand? I would love to hear your thoughts.

As usual, all the images are "clickable" both of the half unit above and the single bases below.

Single Bases 1:

Single Bases 2:

Single Bases 3:

Steppe Nomads II

The second batch of Steppe Nomads to complete the fist unit of 12 is now done and dusted. OK, all complete bar the varnishing process; stage one, the gloss, which is about to take place tomorrow. I'm not sure when I will get around to matting the miniatures down again as the builders will be firmly ensconced and (hopefully!) working very hard to complete their work.

It is worth mentioning again that unless very wealthy and able to afford more exotic types of horse/pony most of the ponies 5-6th Century Steppe Nomads would have had access too would not have had such a variation of colour and patterns on their mounts. Again, artistic license has been taken on that point.

The first batch of 6 are now based and will be ready to photograph tomorrow once the sand etc has dried and I can get some paint on the bases followed by the ubiquitous grass tufts of various proportions and colours. 

Spanish Arquebusiers

The first unit of what will be the army of Gonzalo de Cordoba for my Italian Wars project. I aim to do both sides for the Battle of Cerignola 1503, in my opinion one of the most pivotal battles during the series of conflicts we call The Italian Wars. After his defeat at the hands of the French and Swiss at the Battle of Seminara 1503 Gonzalo put into place plans to employ his smaller force more efficiently in a defensive manner. He significantly lengthened the pike, equipped his men with more arquebus' and enlarged his artillery train and set his army firmly on the defensive. The addition of mercenary Landsknechts to further bolster his forces. It was in this way that Gonzalo was to send the forces of Louis de Armagnac, Duc de Nemour's overwhelming numbers of a mix of French and Swiss reeling and into eventual retreat. If not annihilation in the case of the Swiss.

The miniatures are based up for as many rules systems as I can possibly fit in as I am done with rebasing. I'm in my early 50's now and the days spent plying miniatures off one base, gluing, adding filler then sanding before re-pianting the bases (again!) are long over! 

As an aside, I have been watching on Twitter excitement tantalising glimpses of an Italian Wars playtest set of rules by the Too Fat Lardies. A medium sized game, along the lines of Infamy, Infamy! and Sharpe Practice. This will be a great set of rules to slowly bring together both sides for Cerignola without painting up thousands of miniatures and will allow me to actually get some games in! Assuming the Covid situation improves for me personally .Even if that is not the case re: Covid, I aim at doing some serious solo gaming in the future which will include AAR's etc. Obviously, the full "thousands of 'em" game for Cerignola will still be on the cards.

One last thing. There are some major and minor structural changes that need to be made to my property and given that I cannot be in the same indoor area as the workmen I am going to be taking an enforced break form painting for a while. I'm not sure when I will be back as it is not clear how long the work will take. Still, I have more then enough reading to catch up on! 

More pics of the single bases to follow.

Map of Medieval Europe 1444

There's a fascinating map of Medieval Europe 1444 from the Visual Capitalist website. For a very large version please visit their site HERE.

First Goth Unit

It seems like I have been working on this unit of Footsore miniatures Goths a while. It certainly took more time than the more uniform but more highly detailed Aventine Early Byzantines. Not that I'm knocking Bill's sculpts; far from it, they are excellent and I am very pleased with how they have come out. I do miss Bill's work!

The back ranks are finally complete so it was time to take some snaps of the unit as a whole. But first the back ranks. I dispensed with the idea of using LBMS transfers on the back ranks of the unit as they would have been made up of Freemen who by enlarge would not have had the wealth to lavish designs on their shields let alone afford armour. Of course, this is a generalisation but one that seems fitting for the unit. as it will help distinguish the professional warriors from the "volunteers" and will minimise any confusion with my opponent on the table top. I have toned down the colours on the tunics and trousers too to give them a poorer overall look.

A word on the choice of miniatures. The Goth army I am building is primarily based of the army of the Ostrogoths who faced Narses at the Battle of Taginae 552 CE which would have generally looked more Romanised in appearance than that of the Footsore Goths. The problem I had, certainly when I purchased many of the miniatures, was that no one does 28mm Goths for that time period. There are some in the pipeline, but until then, I will be continuing to use the Footsore Miniatures as they are the nearest thing available for my purposes.

As usual all the images are "clickable" so please feel free to check out the larger files.

A Few Snaps of the Back Ranks:

And the Unit as a Whole: