Coming Soon, North Star Hussite Wars Knights

                                                                                       

I was very please to hear the announcement yesterday and reveal today from North Star Miniatures about the up and coming release a range of plastic miniatures suitable for the Hussite Wars, and that this range would include, not just the Hussites but the forces of the armies of the Catholics who fought them and by extension Eastern armours and fashions. By this I'm hoping for, not just Hussites and Wagons but for Mounted and Foot Knights, Men at Arms (on foot and mounted), artillery, Hungarian/Balkan looking archers and crossbowmen. at least that is my initial "wish list"! to my mind, the range could extend into Hungary, into Moldavia and even into the realms of Medieval Ottoman Empire! What an absolute treat that would be!

due to my excitement at the announcement, I could not stop myself from making these initial comments here! Bearing in mind that this is a very early look I'd like to compare the Eastern/German/Bohemian Foot Knights to that of the more Western European Perry Miniatures Foot Knights, based at what little info we have thus far.. What grabbed me immediately was that a distinction between the general look of the armours and fashions of Western vs Eastern Foot Knights had not been overlooked which is a huge tick in the box for me. In the interests of completely honesty I must also point out that the dynamism and elegance in the Perry sculpts (far below) is lacking a wee bit in the North Star sculpts (below), which to my mind look a little more more clunky. hopefully I will be gladly proven to be incorrect in this matter. As I have already pointed out, this is a very early look at the range and I certainly do not want to be counting my chickens. I will be investing in this range. 

The Announcement from the North Star Newsletter:

And finally, a look at the sprue for the Foot Knights. They do seem to have a lot of parts, which is always a great thing as kit bashing with plastics to get a certain result is always preferable to converting metal! I'm now wondering how well the Perry foot Knights would kit bash with thet of the new north Star range? Only time will tell! 

Clubbing it! Games at the Club 11-06-2026

It's time I dropped some images from last week's games at the club. 

Chain of Command, Cold War

Gaslands

This game fills me with nostalgia and memories of playing Dark Future. Hint hint!

Scourge of Princes

Ye olde players of WRG 6th should be quaking in their boots at the sight of the Polish Winged Lancers!

WAB V.2, Arab Conquest vs Sassanids

Cheers for now

AD Miniatures- Third Century Imperial Romans/Middle Imperial Romans

From the highly skilled hands of Adam Smith come a fantastic range of Third Century Imperial Romans/Middle Imperial Romans (link to be added on release)! I've been lucky enough to be in contact with Adam as the range began and has developed and I have to say, not since the Aventine Miniatures, Early Byzantines range have I seen such crisp, detailed and attractive sculpts. 

To some extent the new AD Miniatures MIR range is a slight redux of his A&A miniatures Third century Middle Imperial Romans but I would leave Adam to comment upon that as he is much more knowledgeable about the subject than my good self.

I was given permission by Mark Farr (owner and director of Footsore Miniatures & Games) who will be putting the range into production and Adam to show off some of what we can expect from AD Miniatures in the future and was of course more than happy to 

Influential Miniature Painters and Why- Darren Harding, Gripping Beast

It must have been at Claymore, perhaps in the year 2001, maybe 2002 that I first encountered the Gripping Beast display stand in all it's (old school) glory, all beautifully painted vignettes of new and older released miniatures from the hand of Darren Harding. Each vignette inspiring, each element so absorbing; leaving me with a wonder of how such detailed work was possible.

Until about 2001/2002 I hadn't really paid that much attention to my painting. It was a case of paint, plonk and play for me! It was good enough but I have to say, and I really do not mean to blow my own trumpet here, nowhere near the standard I can reach with a little effort today. This is the crux of the article, like the Influential Miniature Painters and Why - Jock Ramage on this blog, these scribblings are about miniature painters that have really had an impact on me and perhaps how they effected my own painting. 

The immediate impact at looking at Darren's work was the attention to detail, the extremely tight, crisp brushstrokes. The depth of imagination and historical knowledge. Just take a look at any of the images presented here and you will see such sharp work; the clothing, the shields the armours, the basing of the vignettes. It is hard to believe, even now, the shields are not transfers and are in fact freehand work from many years ago. The banners wonderfully hand painted too boot.

Having the delightful experience of encountering the Griping Beast stand at many shows in the early 2000's, being able to get up close and personal to the vignettes, something new always on display gave me the impetus to give the precision freehand a go, and whilst I might never not have reached the same standard, to get all arty farty about it, as Anselm Kiefer said, "You cannot achieve the impossible. You can only dream of it and try it." I think Darren came very close with his meticulous tight brushwork.